The sudden resignation of the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh stirred up a wave of rumors and analyses regarding the reasons behind this move, as well as its implications and repercussions.
While some claimed that the resignation was made as a concession to US pressure as part of an attempt to “revitalize” the Palestinian Authority, others speculated that it came to as a means to prepare the ground for the re-introduction of Hamas into the officially recognized Palestinian governing body at some point in the future.
The Jerusalem Post spoke to three Israeli experts in the fields of academy, military, and media – in an attempt to gain a better perspective of this event and its significance.
‘A cosmetic event’
Dr. Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum in Dayan Center Tel Aviv University and former head of the Palestinian department at the IDF intelligence corps, referred to this move as merely a “cosmetic event of no real importance, which also happened many times in the past.” He holds that the resignation came as a result of external pressure, mainly from the US, to promote reform, and that “the result will be replacing something broken with something else (that’s broken).”
Milshtein also explains that no change should be expected in the Palestinian arena since the resignation is “obviously artificial and forced.” According to him, the move reassures the fact that Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, cannot promote real change, since, he is “part of the problem – and not part of the solution – of a rotten, corrupt authority that hates its people.”
As for the apparent successor of Shtayeh, Mohammad Mostafa, Milshtein argues that he is “a high-ranking clerk, rather than anyone worthy of serving as prime minister.” He describes him as both devoid of charisma and known to be involved in corruption, with no public support whatsoever.
“It is also clear that this kind of change does not allow the Palestinian Authority to be qualified to return to Gaza,” he adds. “Right now, the PA barely controls the West Bank; and Gaza, even with the new composition of the government, would prove too difficult a task for Abbas.”
Finally, Milshtein reminds us that the term “professional technocrat government” echoes the words of Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk, who announced that Hamas, too, would strive to establish such a governing body. However, Milsthein adds “In practice, these are empty words. There is no potential for mediation between the positions of the Palestinian fractions, and as far as Hamas is concerned this is a term designed to soften external and internal tension, nothing more.”
An attempt to re-introducing the Palestinian Authority to Gaza
Lt. Colonel (res.) Alon Eviatar, an expert on the Palestinian arena, holds that the resignation came as part of an American-led strategy to re-integrate the Palestinian Authority back into governing the Gaza Strip, to legitimize the Authority’s governance there. For this, he believes, some changes must be made in the composition of the Palestinian leadership to secure U.S. support and Israeli consent, though the essence of the Palestinian Authority will not change, according to Eviatar.
“I cannot find another alternative to the Palestinian Authority running the Gaza Strip. Maybe with Egyptian support, but for the long run, only Palestinians can rule there if Israel doesn’t plan to,” he warns. “I believe that the pilot projects that Israel leads with local governing groups are important and that the understanding that Gaza must be divided and not treated as a whole is significant. But at the end of the day, local rule needs power, and power can mean only weapons.
“These local governing authorities will face the need to base their relations with Hamas since Hamas will undoubtedly strive to thwart any attempt to rule that doesn’t include them.”
Eviatar points at current Palestinian Prime Minister Shtayeh as a confrontational one when it comes to the issue of security coordination with Israel, as well as part of the old corrupt and inoperative political system. “Mohammad Mustafa, Eshtaye’s expected successor, is a professor of economy, much like Salam Fayyad, who was ousted in the end,” he says. “This sort of technocrat government will need to have a stamp of approval from the U.S., Qatar, Israel – and even Hamas. The latter won’t oppose this idea because that’s how they will end up making their way back into the PLO,” he elaborates.
“There was already an experiment with a technocratic government in 2007,” Eviatar says. “Yet Hamas still managed to pull the strings behind the scenes. It’s like a showcase window – others may look at the government and see leaders not related to terror allegedly controlling the money and building infrastructure, but Hamas will still be there.
“No civil action will ever succeed in Gaza without the consent of Hamas,” he affirms, adding that the videos circulating on social media featuring Gazans showing disdain toward Hamas are still very sporadic and local, and don’t garner much momentum.
As for the issue of de-radicalization of the new Palestinian government, Eviatar believes that it’s a “far-off conspiracy.” “I don’t see a change in the educational system any time soon,” he adds. “The Americans might try to push in that direction, and perhaps some cosmetic, superficial corrections will be made; but this requires long-term processes which must also trickle down to the public. The relative success we see in the Gulf in this issue cannot be emulated in the Palestinian case, as we still are in an active conflict with them,” he explains.
A Palestinian plot
Itamar Marcus, Director of Palestinian Media Watch, begs to differ. He believes that the government’s resignation came on the backdrop of conflicting goals regarding the question of who should rule the Gaza Strip in the “day after,” as a sort of scheme to isolate Israel and put a foot in the door of Gaza.
“The West wants a revitalized Palestinian Authority because they support terror and educate for terror. There are currently talks about outside forces who would contribute to ruling Gaza, or of an Israeli test case of local rulers with financial support from Western countries or Abraham accords countries, a sort of local community administration.”
However, according to Marcus, by this move, the Palestinian Authority plans to undermine Israel’s stance by creating a new government, which would allow them to claim that they have indeed created a revitalized Palestinian Authority through a new, technocratic government, and seek international recognition – in an attempt to isolate Israel politically.
This shows, in Marcus’s view, a “fatal mistake of the international plan,” namely the fact that it only deals with the issue of what he names “administrative revitalization,” ignoring the need for a “revitalized essence” – that of changing the school books, canceling the “pay for slay” policy, and the renaming of schools to exclude names of terrorists.
“Making the Palestinian Authority different is not about new personnel but rather changing how they relate to terror. All of this must change so that we can have a PA which coexists peacefully with Israel.”
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