David Hearst
Middle East Eye / July 28, 2024
Sources tell MEE that the national committee of Palestinian leaders would be largely composed of members loyal to exiled Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan.
The United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates are working towards the creation of a national committee of Palestinian leaders and business figures that will administer Gaza once the war ends, sources have told Middle East Eye.
According to several sources who spoke to MEE on condition of anonymity, the national committee would function as the main representative of all Palestinian factions, but in reality, all of its members would be loyal to exiled former Fatah leader and Palestinian strongman Mohammed Dahlan, who could eventually be installed as successor to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.
The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic, said international and regional states, including neighbouring Egypt and Jordan, were piling pressure on the 88-year-old Abbas to accept the plan.
The states reportedly expect Qatar, one of the mediators in ceasefire talks and host of the groups’ exiled political leadership, to exert pressure on Hamas to accept the proposal. However it’s currently unclear whether Doha will agree to be a part of the plan.
Currently residing in the UAE, Dahlan, a multi-millionaire with far-flung business interests in the region, is no stranger to Palestinians in the beleaguered enclave, and previously worked as a security advisor to the PA when it lost control of the strip to Hamas in 2007.
Later, he faced fierce opposition from the inner circle of Abbas, and was forced into exile in 2011 after being accused of embezzlement and plotting an internal coup, charges he has since vehemently denied.
The sources told MEE that in recent weeks representatives from the UAE and Dahlan had been meeting prospective candidates, most of them businessmen with ties to the US embassies in the region and international organizations, with Dahlan himself shuttling from Abu Dhabi to Cairo on a monthly basis.
MEE reached out to Dahlan for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.
According to one of the sources, one of the committee’s first tasks after a permanent ceasefire is brokered, would be to approve the entry of a force composed of Arab and other international troops, a proposal publicly laid out by Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s former ambassador to the United Nations, now an assistant Minister for Political Affairs in the UAE, some 10 days ago.
A source familiar with the plan told MEE that the force would be invited into Gaza “in response to a Palestinian request by this national committee approved by all factions.”
“What’s being proposed in the meetings is that Dahlan would be introduced as the future option and the ideal solution that is agreed upon by international and Arab parties to administer the future Palestinian scene post Mahmoud Abbas, starting from Gaza then progressing toward the West Bank. This is the dream he has long been working for,” the source said.
Dahlan, however, has denied he is seeking any involvement in post-war arrangements for Gaza after a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week claimed he could serve as a temporary solution to issues surrounding governance in the enclave.
Writing on X, Dahlan said that “various scenarios are frequently presented or leaked to the media regarding the outcomes and arrangements for the day after the ongoing devastating war initiated by the Israeli occupation.”
Sometimes, he noted, “his name is thrown in to create some excitement… I have repeatedly refused to accept any security, governmental or executive role.”
The same source told MEE that Dahlan rushed with “uncharacteristic haste” to deny the report in the Journal because he was concerned about Hamas’ reaction.
“Hamas considers that this plan is intended to serve Israel’s war objective through political deception and a conspiracy by Arab and Palestinian parties, such as Dahlan following the Israeli failure to achieve those objectives by military pressure,” the source said.
Days after Nusseibeh floated the idea of an international force in Gaza, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara would be willing to join if there was an agreement on a two state solution.
But a source with knowledge of government policy told MEE that talks of the international force was “premature and distracting.”
“Israel has yet to sign a ceasefire deal, although Hamas has already agreed to one,” said the source. “This would only divert public attention and buy time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
MEE reached out to the US State Department, UAE Foreign Ministry and the UAE Embassy in London for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.
Hamas derides media leaks
According to another source, pressure has also been placed on Abbas to shake up the Authority, which would position Dahlan to govern the occupied West Bank in the future.
The latest plan is the second attempt to install a Dahlan-led government in the occupied territories. The first involved attempting to bring back Salam Fayyad, a visiting scholar at Princeton University and close associate of Dahlan, as prime minister in the PA.
Fayyad, who previously served as PA prime minister between 2007 until 2013, fiercely repressed all forms of Palestinian resistance to Israel whilst in office and was infamously dubbed by Israel’s late President Shimon Peres as “the Palestinians’ first Ben-Gurionist.”
But in March of this year, Abbas appeared to have caught wind of the plan and hastily appointed loyalist Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister.
One source told MEE that Abbas successfully “aborted” the plan, and shifted the political calculus in his favour as now the formation of any new entity would require “his legitimacy in order to endorse it.”
When asked to comment over reports of his involvement in post-war governance in Gaza, Fayyad told MEE that the reports were “baseless.”
MEE reached out to the PA for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.
MEE was also informed that despite Hamas working to smooth relations with other Palestinians factions and groups in recent months, most notably seen in the form of the national unity deal which was signed in Beijing last week, relations between the group and representatives of Dahlan had “cooled.”
Hamas is understood to have intercepted documents from Dahlan’s supporters in Gaza detailing the plans and naming the individuals involved.
Dahlan’s initial reaction to the 7 October attacks supported Hamas’ position. He described the Hamas operation as “a professional military action that surprised Israel and paralyzed their awareness, military capabilities, and the entire military establishment.”
At the time, Mohammad Deif, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, said the attack was launched in response to Israel’s continued aggression on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“On the path to revenge you must dig two graves, one for your enemy and one for yourself, and what happened in October is a result and not a general goal,” Dahlan said.
“Everyone must be held accountable for October, however, now is not the time for accountability. We hope that this will be a lesson for the Israeli people and the Israeli government, as the occupation cannot bring security to the Palestinian people,” he added.
These comments led to the creation of warm relations with Hamas, one of the sources said.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza last October, at least 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, and tens of thousands more have been injured.
Amid the relentless Israeli bombardment, hundreds of thousands of homes have been damaged or destroyed, and most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced.
The source said that Hamas viewed the blitz of leaks about post-war governance as an attempt to exert pressure on its war-shattered base.
Dahlan has poured money through aid relief operations in Gaza, in what critics have said is an attempt to curry favour with the local population, whilst the UAE has been accused of using state-owned media platforms to propagate the narrative that this is the best way out.
The source said that “there have also been leaks about the communications taking place in this regard. This is what imposed major challenges on the project leaders, who rely in expediting the accomplishment of this issue on the media and psychological pressure on the people of Gaza, especially on the Hamas support base, so as to succumb to the new arrangements.”
“What Al-Arabiya and Sky News [Arabia] channels propagate is the clearest evidence of this,” the source added.
David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye
