MERIP Primer on the UPRISING IN PALESTINE

Who Controls the Palestinian Street?

Since 1994, portions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been administered by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA is not a fully sovereign state like Israel or the United States, but it does provide municipal services and attempts to maintain order in the areas under its control. The PA's top ranks, including Arafat, mostly belong to Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). But Fatah is independent of the PA, and Arafat does not control the entire organization. The current uprising in the Occupied Territories has pushed militant local leaders of Fatah to the forefront, and Fatah units known in the press as the tanzim have coordinated much of the street fighting. Since at least November 2000, the IDF has been carrying out what Israeli Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh admitted is a conscious policy of assassinating high-profile Fatah activists, in tacit recognition of their independence from the PA. Most recently, Fatah is leading the opposition to the Clinton "bridging proposals," urging Arafat not to accept them.

Above all, the ongoing intifada expresses cumulative popular anger at both the violence of the Israeli occupation and the compromises Arafat seems willing to make on basic Palestinian national rights -- such as the establishment of a viable sovereign state, the right of return for Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 and 1967 and Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem. Fatah has, to a limited extent, been able to channel this anger in street protests. When Ariel Sharon visited the Haram al-Sharif on September 28, the ensuing Palestinian protests were spearheaded by Islamists and students -- the sectors of the population that are most militant in their criticisms of the Oslo process, and among whom Arafat enjoys little influence. Since the initial protests, Arafat's moves to contain the violence have been unpopular on the Palestinian street. Huge crowds in the West Bank and Gaza demonstrated against Arafat's presence at the October 17 Sharm al-Sheikh summit, and the failure of Arab leaders to agree on concrete action against the Israeli occupation at the October 21-22 Cairo summit.

The PA security forces whom Arafat does control directly have only rarely intervened in armed clashes. Arafat does not control the armed Fatah cadres, who have increasingly "militarized" the uprising with armed attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlements, nor does he control the stone-throwing students and youths who constitute a disproportionate number of the dead and wounded. He could crack down on the uprising, but to do so would strengthen the voices that describe the PA as a proxy police force for the Israeli occupation, and endanger his status as leader of the Palestinian cause.

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