Institute for Contemporary Affairs
founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation
Vol. 5, No. 6 – 10 October 2005
- Israeli assessments have pointed to both Fatah and Hamas as responsible for the murder of Gen. Musa Arafat - security advisor to PA Chairman Mahmud Abbas and former head of Military Intelligence and the National Security forces in Gaza - on September 7, 2005. However, ongoing Palestinian investigations have led some senior officials to assign responsibility to Mohammed Dahlan, the PA Minister of Civil Affairs and former head of PA Preventative Security in Gaza.
- Dahlan's Preventative Security force established local racketeering networks that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly in protection money and from suppliers of gasoline and cigarettes. Dahlan was also accused of receiving kickbacks for issuing licenses and for charging illegal fees for VIP border crossings into Israel.
- Beginning in 1997, taxes collected at the Karni cargo crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip were transferred to a new account controlled personally by Dahlan. Documents captured by the IDF show how Dahlan's Preventative Security force was involved in joint investments in the Gaza construction business, from cement production and gravel import to resort development.
- An unprecedented competition among local Gaza warlords and crime families has broken out over control of Gaza real estate, as well as for hundreds of millions of dollars in international financial investment and aid earmarked for infrastructure development. According to Palestinian assessments, the market price of Gaza land adjacent to the evacuated Jewish settlements has risen from approximately $52,000 dollars per acre just six months ago to $300,000 per acre near the Gaza coast.
- At present, all international investment activities in Gaza are subject to the ultimate control of local warlords and terror groups. The current instability in Gaza and the West Bank makes it virtually impossible for foreign investment and, to a degree, foreign aid to be managed transparently and distributed properly. The security problems in Gaza do not emanate from the Hamas-Fatah rivalry alone, but also from an internal crisis within Fatah that pits one Palestinian security organization against another.
Who Did It?
The gangland-style assassination of General Musa Arafat - security advisor to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmud Abbas and former head of PA Military Intelligence and the PA's National Security forces in Gaza - on September 7, 2005, was another sign of the PA's inability to impose law and order in the Palestinian areas since Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. In a pre-dawn raid, 100 heavily armed men from the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees opened fire on Musa Arafat's Gaza home. Following a fierce thirty-minute shootout, the attackers overcame Arafat's personal bodyguards, dragged him into the street, and shot him in the head. The Arafat attack was apparently not an isolated incident. On October 5, 2005, Fatah gunmen seriously wounded Bassam Azam, a senior PA Military Intelligence officer in Gaza and a close associate of Musa Arafat.
Musa Arafat's murder did not shock or even surprise most Palestinians, and failed to elicit concern from the Israeli government, security officials, or Western leaders. Musa, Yasser Arafat's cousin, was widely known to be highly corrupt and was a hated figure to many in the Palestinian Authority as well as among leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Musa Arafat had also angered U.S. officials after admitting that he knew the identities of the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the murder of three American security officials in a 2003 Gaza attack, but "could not divulge their names while the conflict with Israel continued."
Israeli assessments have pointed to both Fatah and Hamas as responsible for Arafat's murder. However, ongoing Palestinian investigations have led some senior officials to assign responsibility for the murder to Mohammed Dahlan, the PA Minister of Civil Affairs and former head of PA Preventative Security in Gaza. Dahlan, who is from Khan Yunis, had been involved in a number of earlier power struggles with Musa Arafat, Police Chief Razi Jibali, Interior Minister Nasser Yusuf, and other PA officials in the Gaza Strip.
While the exact address for Arafat's murder is still a subject of debate in Palestinian circles, it served as a clear warning to Mahmud Abbas and Nasser Yusuf not to obstruct the efforts of local militias and Gaza warlords from dividing up the spoils after the Israeli withdrawal. To be sure, the assassination may be seen as an indicator of an ongoing political and economic battle among various Palestinian groups for control of Gaza, particularly the former Gush Katif settlement bloc. An unprecedented competition among local Gaza warlords and crime families has broken out over control of Gaza real estate, as well as for hundreds of millions of dollars in international financial investment and aid earmarked for infrastructure development. The resulting anarchy has further discredited the PA, which faces a growing challenge from the radical Islamic Hamas in the run-up to legislative elections scheduled for January 2006.
In addition, the reigning state of lawlessness and anarchy in "post-disengagement Gaza" must be taken into account by international aid and investment groups that are seeking to help Mahmud Abbas in his efforts to rehabilitate Gaza.
Abbas has declared illegal independent attempts to purchase and register land in Gush Katif by private individuals. However, the lure of massive international investments and aid donations has raised the stakes for local militias, terror elements, and crime families. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for the dismantling of Fatah militias, which she called a threat to the PA's authority and its ability to carry out democratic reforms.
Musa Arafat's assassination took place just prior to the Israeli Army's final withdrawal from Gaza on September 11, 2005. The Popular Resistance Committees that claimed responsibility are no more than a patchwork of operatives from Preventative Security, Hamas, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, and local warlords, as well as the widely feared Dagmush and Abu Samhadna crime families. While former Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Avi Dichter and certain Palestinian affairs analysts placed the blame squarely on Hamas, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, head of the Israel Defense Ministry's Political and Strategic Desk, asserted that Fatah and Hamas coordinated the deadly assault on Arafat. However, other Palestinian assessments are more confident of Dahlan's specific involvement.
Most Fatah websites also pointed to the Preventative Security forces, formerly headed by Dahlan, as responsible for Arafat's assassination, a charge later repeated by certain PA leaders and security officials. Indeed, Dahlan had been accused of backing an attempted assassination of Musa Arafat on October 12, 2004. The week before Arafat's murder, Dahlan suddenly left Gaza for emergency medical treatment in Jordan for a herniated disc, but the fact that his entire family accompanied him to Amman raised eyebrows among PA officials.
Dahlan-Yusuf Rivalry Undermines Palestinian Security Reform
Dahlan's security and business interests have also collided with efforts by Interior Minister Nasser Yusuf, who was appointed by Abbas to unify and reform the Palestinian National Security forces while bringing calm to the Palestinian public and preventing terror attacks against Israel.
Dahlan, who had headed the local Fatah Hawks terror group in Khan Yunis, built the Palestinian Preventative Security force in Gaza from previously competing local militias after the Oslo agreement. Dahlan's Preventative Security force also established local racketeering networks that generated hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly in protection money and from suppliers of gasoline and cigarettes. Dahlan was also accused of receiving kickbacks for issuing licenses and for charging illegal fees for VIP border crossings into Israel.
Dahlan is not usually at the top of the list in Western circles when PA corruption is discussed. Yet he purchased the luxurious estate of former Gaza mayor Rashad Shawwa for a reported $600,000. Moreover, beginning in 1997, taxes collected at the Karni cargo crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip were transferred to a new account controlled personally by Dahlan, following a pattern in which the various Palestinian security forces increasingly ran areas of PA territory as private fiefdoms. Sakher Habash, an old pro-Arafat Fatah ideologue, after making implicit references to Dahlan, in October 2004 called on the Palestinians to rise up against the "new major tribal leaders." Documents captured by the IDF in 2002 show how Dahlan's Preventative Security force was involved in joint investments in the Gaza construction business, from cement production and gravel import to resort development. According to the IDF, Dahlan and Sami Abu Samhadna are partners in a Gaza contracting firm that owns cement plants.
At a May 2005 hearing before the Palestinian Legislative Council, Nasser Yusuf emphasized that "the direct contact of certain Palestinian security organizations with foreign intelligence services, that have also provided financial support, has undermined the Palestinian Interior Ministry and has weakened the official Palestinian security apparatuses." He added that "the ongoing foreign financial support for various Palestinian security organs has also torpedoed Palestinian reform efforts."
The rivalry between Dahlan and Nasser Yusuf reached a peak in Ramallah on September 25, 2005, when Dahlan loyalists in the Palestinian Legislative Council filed a no-confidence motion to topple the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie. They planned to nominate Salam Fayyad for prime minister and Dahlan for interior minister.
Who Owns Gush Katif?
Aside from the political tensions between the PA and Hamas, within Fatah, and among local Gaza warlords, there is an underlying and equally important economic struggle over Gaza. According to Palestinian assessments, the market price of Gaza land adjacent to the evacuated Jewish settlements has risen from approximately $52,000 dollars per acre just six months ago to $300,000 per acre near the Gaza coast. Hani al-Masri, an official in the PA Ministry of Information, noted that Dahlan would have "much to gain" by Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.
The PA had announced that a special ministerial committee would decide how the PA would develop the areas evacuated by Israel: which land tracts would be approved for real estate development and which others for agricultural cultivation. However, on August 5, 2005, Qurei Abu Middein, director of the Palestinian land registry in Gaza, told the London-based Al Hayat newspaper that 80 percent of Gaza lands were being usurped by certain senior PA officials who, he feared, would also lead the land grab in Gush Katif.
Moreover, on several occasions since January 2005, gun-toting militiamen representing "official and private Palestinian interests" raided the PA land registry office and stole blueprints and other details of the Gush Katif lands. In view of the break-ins and the flurry of land transactions in recent months, the Palestinian Authority has published notices warning the public to refrain from engaging in private land sales and purchases that would be considered null and void.
International Investors and Warlords
At present, all international investment activities in Gaza are subject to the ultimate control of local warlords and terror groups. The current instability in Gaza and the West Bank makes it virtually impossible for foreign investment and, to a degree, foreign aid to be managed transparently and distributed properly. This fact creates further resentment among the Palestinian public.
It must be emphasized that the security problems in Gaza do not emanate from the Hamas-Fatah rivalry alone, but also from an internal crisis within Fatah that pits one Palestinian security organization against another. Many of the local warlords are intimately tied to PA corruption. International investment funds and aid groups, therefore, must show greater diligence in learning who their Palestinian business partners are and what practices are being employed to govern multimillion dollar international investments in PA-controlled areas.
The lack of economic dividends and social benefits for most Palestinians, in turn, continues to fuel a groundswell of popular support for the radical Islamic Hamas, which identifies with the public and is now determined to offer Palestinians an alternative political horizon. This is not a future that bodes well for the peaceful, democratic Palestinian state that the international community envisions.
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Pinchas Inbari is a veteran Palestinian affairs correspondent who formerly reported for Israel Radio and Al Hamishmar newspaper, and currently reports for several foreign media outlets. He is the author of a number of books on the Palestinians including The Palestinians: Between Terror and Statehood.
Dan Diker is a senior policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and heads its Defensible Borders Initiative. He also serves as Knesset correspondent and analyst for the Israel Broadcasting Authority's English News.
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