Published in the Jerusalem Post, 5 May 2025
For more
than a decade one name keeps surfacing as a possible future
Palestinian leader that could be acceptable not only to the Arab world but also
to the US and Israel – Mohammed Yusuf Shakir Dahlan.
Dahlan’s career to date is best described as
checkered. There have been ups and downs in his relations with the
Palestinian world and also with the West and Israel. Because his standing
with both has varied from friend to foe and back again, he has, curiously
enough, acquired a sort of across-the-board status and a certain credence.
His credibility as a player on the contemporary
Israel-Palestine scene is boosted by the fact that he is a native Gazan, born in
1961 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp. As a teenager Dahlan helped set up
the Fatah Youth Movement, known as the Fatah Hawks. In his twenties he was
arrested more than once by the Israeli authorities for political activism, but
never for terrorist activities. He put his time in Israeli prisons to good use
by learning Hebrew, which he speaks fluently.
In the early 1990s Dahlan was reliably reported to have helped in the negotiations leading to the Oslo Accords. The first Accord, signed in 1993, was violently opposed by Hamas, which severed relations with Yasser Arafat as a result. Arafat chose Dahlan to head the Preventive Security Force in Gaza, while Israel and the US supported and closely cooperated with him in his new role - particularly in countering Hamas.
In fact, his name has been bandied
about in recent years for a much more important role – a possible
successor to Palestinian Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Dahlan first made political
waves in 2001, when he began denouncing corruption in the PA and calling
for reform. A year later he resigned and, portraying himself as an
outspoken critic of Arafat, campaigned on an anti-corruption and reform
ticket. As a result Dahlan and his followers won over most of the Fatah
sections in Gaza.
The 2006 Palestinian elections saw
Hamas gain a majority in Gaza. Dahlan called their election victory a
disaster, and in January 2007 held the biggest-ever rally of Fatah supporters
in the Gaza Strip, where he denounced Hamas as “a bunch of murderers and
thieves”. His instinct was vindicated six months later when Hamas staged a
bloody coup in Gaza, seized power and expelled those Fatah officials it had not
murdered. Years later it was revealed that Dahlan played a key role in an
abortive US plot to remove Hamas from power.
Yet, Palestinian politics being
what they are, more recently there have been signs of a limited reconciliation
between Hamas and Dahlan – a situation better described, perhaps, as tactical
cooperation. Around 2017, reports emerged of Egypt-brokered talks
between Hamas and Dahlan’s representatives, supported by the United Arab
Emirates (UAE).
It was to the UAE that Dahlan exiled himself when in 2011 he was expelled from Fatah. Ever since October 2007, when the Bush administration reportedly pressured Abbas to appoint Dahlan as his deputy, Abbas regarded him as a dangerous rival.
Biding
his time, Abbas finally charged Dahlan in June 2011 with financial corruption
and murder, going so far as to accuse him of killing the late leader, Yasser
Arafat – an accusation that has led to no legal proceedings or
formal charges. French investigators in 2015 concluded that Arafat died
of natural causes.
While settling in the UAE, Dahlan became a close advisor to Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), then Crown Prince, now UAE president Though never officially acknowledged, Dahlan is believed to have played a behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel, resulting in the Abraham Accords in September 2020.
Dahlan’s close relationship
with the UAE has given him financial and political leverage, which he has used
to support his political allies within Palestinian society.
In January 2025 the media reported
that Hamas and Fatah had reached a draft deal to form a “community support
committee” to administer post-war Gaza. The concept was put to the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and rejected, but potential leaders of
a post-war Gaza began to be mooted.
Acceptability to the US, the Arab
world and Israel is the hurdle contenders would have to overcome, and few are
better placed than Mohammed Dahlan. Palestinian writer Fathi al-Sabah has
said: “Dahlan does not aspire to assume leadership of the Gaza Strip in the
post-war phase. Rather, he sees himself as a candidate to lead the
entire Palestinian people, looking forward to the position of president of
the Palestinian Authority.”
This not unworthy aspiration, if
indeed Dahlan holds it, is far from inconsistent with accepting the
prestigious, if onerous, task of leading his native Gaza out of war and into
peace. Success in that role would place Dahlan in pole position to
succeed the 90-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, currently in the twentieth year of his
4-year term of office.
For the present Dahlan is content to play the well-known political game –
whatever high office you are aiming for, swear that nothing is further from
your thoughts.
On July 24, 2024, Dahlan posted this on his X account, referring to himself in
the plural as the royal “we”:
“Various scenarios have been repeatedly presented or leaked to the media
regarding the arrangements for the “day after” Israel’s devastating war on
Gaza. Sometimes our name is used to thrill audiences. Therefore and once again,
we reiterate that… our highest priority now is to end the war. We will not
support any choice that has not been reached based on Palestinian national
understandings [achieved] through a transparent democratic process…I have repeatedly
refused to accept any security, governmental or executive role.”
Rumors
were obviously already rife. Two days after his post, they were given
substance in a long article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
“The question of who will govern
Gaza,” it began, “has plagued efforts to end Israel’s nine-month war to
destroy Hamas…Some negotiators are increasingly drawn to Mohammed
Dahlan as a temporary solution to a dilemma facing postwar Gaza.”
Dahlan’s name is out there as a
potential future Palestinian leader, one way or another. He no doubt has
in mind the ancient Greek saying: “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the
lip.”
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