Word: barghouti
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...committed to continuing the intifadah. While Abbas publicly denounces the intifadah as a catastrophic strategic error that has set back hopes of Palestinian statehood, and insists that the Palestinians best hopes lie in doing whatever it takes to restore their relationship with Washington and pursuing a new diplomatic solution, Barghouti advocates a two-state solution but proclaims armed struggle and the intifadah, rather than simply seeking the good offices of the U.S. (which the Palestinians have viewed as hopelessly biased in favor of Israel, even under the Clinton administration), as the more effective and reliable leverage available to the Palestinians...
...Those who have implored Barghouti to run want him in the race precisely because they fear Abbas will close down the intifadah and negotiate a peace deal with Israel that they would deem tantamount to a Palestinian surrender in exchange for very little. Many of those urging him to drop out believe splitting the Palestinian national movement now would be a victory for its enemies, and hold that their best hopes lie in backing Abbas at the same time as restraining him by virtue of his dependence on their support...
...split in Fatah embodied in the Abbas vs. Barghouti race is not simply a debate over strategic direction; it's also a product of the grassroots backlash against the corruption and cronyism created by Yasser Arafat in his reliance on the politics of patronage to run the Palestinian Authority. It was the first intifadah, which raged from 1987 to 1991, that did more than anything else to ensure Arafat's triumphant return to the West Bank under the Oslo agreements, but the local leadership of Fatah in the West Bank and Gaza, who had risked and sacrificed the most...
...enjoy no such immunity, and widespread resentment over corruption and cronyism in the West Bank and Gaza tends to play to the political advantage of the militants - and even of Hamas, which is viewed as more incorruptible than the PA leadership - and against Abbas and his backers. Indeed, a Barghouti candidacy, had it been announced earlier, may have tempted Hamas to support him rather than boycott the presidential poll. The organization's Damascus-based leader Abu Marzouk sounded almost apologetic last week when he said the organization is committed to a boycott and won't be able to change...
...good offices of Barghouti, and those who share his standing among the hard men of the West Bank and Gaza, remain essential to Abbas's own ability to restart peace talks with Israel. Negotiations are a non-starter unless Abbas can rein in terror attacks - and to do that, he requires the consent of the militant rank and file committed to the intifada, since it's unlikely that he has the political standing even among Palestinian security personnel to prevail in a violent confrontation with the militias. Abbas's preferred method has been to negotiate cease-fire agreements with Hamas...