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Saturday, May 14, 2005

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International

Palestinians turn against Fatah

Chris McGreal

QALQILYA: The freshly-elected members of Qalqilya town council are not sure whether their new Mayor knows he is about to take office. Wajia Nazal has spent the past three years in Israeli military detention without trial for membership of Hamas. But next week he will be appointed, in absentia, as Qalqilya's Mayor after his party swept aside the once dominant Fatah and won all 15 seats on the town council in Palestinian local elections.

``We always intended for Wajia to be Mayor as an act of compassion because he is in prison,'' said one of the new Hamas councillors, Yasser Hammad. ``But then he came top in the poll so we had no doubt.

Message

``People have taken the opportunity to vote as revenge against Fatah. Even some from Fatah have voted for us because they were depressed by their own movement. They want to send a message by electing us to show that their own leadership has failed. The future is Hamas.''

Qalqilya represented the most sweeping success for Hamas in any major West Bank town in last week's ballots. This can be attributed in part to local factors, including divisions in Qalqilya's Fatah faction and the unpopularity of the outgoing mayor, accused of dictatorial tendencies.

But the victory also reflected a deepening disenchantment with Fatah, which was founded by Yasser Arafat. Hamas won more than a third of the vote, alarming Palestinian and Israeli leaders because the Islamists are likely to repeat their success in forthcoming elections to the Palestinian Parliament.

One Israeli Cabinet Minister warned that Hamas's success could scupper the ``disengagement plan'' to pull Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip. Hamas's popularity has prompted some Fatah leaders to propose delaying the parliamentary elections.

But in Qalqilya, a town of about 40,000 persons that has suffered greatly from being almost entirely surrounded by the West Bank wall and fence, such views only confirm support for Hamas.

Longstanding disgruntlement with Fatah over corruption, cronyism and mismanagement while people grew poorer and hungrier is compounded by a growing sense among ordinary Palestinians that their new President, Mahmoud Abbas, is being taken for a ride by the Israelis.

Mr. Abbas has won small concessions since a summit with Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, in February at which a ceasefire was declared. A few weeks later, access to Qalqilya eased with the removal of an Israeli army checkpoint at the entrance to the town.

But on the big issues — political negotiations, Mr. Sharon's stated intent for Israel to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the continuing grind of life under occupation — confidence in Mr. Abbas is waning.

No competition

Samir Nassar, a 30-year-old Qalqilya resident who has spent nearly half of his life in Israeli jails, said: ``All of my life I voted for Fatah but this time I voted for Hamas and it won the election because there is no competition. The people who ran things before were corrupt. Fatah is getting nowhere with Sharon. We will try the new people and judge how they do.''

Fatah's general secretary in Qalqilya, Ahmed Hazaah, who has spent 22 years in Israeli prisons, does not disagree. ``There was anger in the streets and ultimately we were punished by the people on the streets. It's a slap in the face for us to wake up. We totally realise it's our own fault,'' he said. ``But Hamas is not everything and it is not the majority in Palestine. We are prepared to cooperate with Hamas in relation to its support.'' Mr. Hammad said his party's support would strengthen further when people saw that its leaders did not misuse funds, as the previous council is widely believed to have done when construction projects failed to materialise.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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