Abbas faces fury over war crimes shift

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- President Mahmoud Abbas has come under furious condemnation by moderate and radical Palestinians alike, as well as the entire Arab world, over his decision, apparently under U.S. pressure, not to pursue war crimes charges against Israel.

This has probably doomed the 74-year-old Abbas' presidency, leaving him open to serious challenge by younger rivals, while stoking political tensions at a time when new clashes with Israel are erupting over holy sites in Jerusalem.

The political demise of the late Yasser Arafat's successor could also damage the prospects of movement on the peace issue that U.S. President Barack Obama is pursuing and which, to the chagrin of many in the Middle East, helped win him this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

To what extent Obama's plans might be harmed is not yet clear. But the disarray in the always fractious Palestinian camp suits Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu down to the ground -- particularly if the potentially damaging war crimes issue goes away, or at least recedes.

The Palestinians are due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections no later than June 2010. On current standings, Abbas, who was never all that popular anyway but who rode in on Arafat's coattails in 2004, would not be hard to beat.

"The cold-hearted capacity of the president to throw away an opportunity to subject Israeli war crimes accusations to serious international scrutiny revealed the almost totals and absolute gap between himself and his Palestinian people," Jordanian commentator Rami Khouri wrote Oct. 7 in The Daily Star, Lebanon's English language newspaper.

"Abbas is a spent force … a tragic shell of a man, hollow, politically impotent, backed by and respected by nobody," the Palestinian-born Khouri inveighed. "Mahmoud Abbas has failed his people."

Abbas' fall would immensely strengthen the fundamentalist Hamas movement, Abbas' main rival that opposes any peace dealings. Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since driving out Abbas' mainstream Fatah organization and the Palestinian Authority in June 2007.

"If Abbas falls and Hamas wins the election, no American envoy could succeed in reviving the peace process," The Jerusalem Post commented.

Netanyahu and his right-wing hawks do not want to negotiate anyway and have defied Obama's demand that Israel halt all settlement building in the West Bank.

Without that and a commitment to evacuate some 400,000 Jewish settlers there can be no peace agreement with the Palestinians -- and Israel gets to stay in the West Bank, thus dooming any prospect of an independent Palestinian state.

Abbas' decision, seen as a craven surrender to Washington and, by default, to Israel as well, also wrecked any hope of reconciliation with Hamas.

That, too, suits the Israelis' purpose. Reconciliation would have legitimized the fundamentalist movement and brought it into the peace process. The right wing does not want a united Palestinian front.

The investigation into the Gaza fighting was conducted by the U.N. Human Rights Council and headed by a renowned Jewish jurist, Richard Goldstone of South Africa.

His report accused both sides of atrocities during the 22-day Gaza war that ended Jan. 18, but it came down hardest on Israel, the first time that a U.N.-mandated body has done so with such strength and authority.

Why Abbas agreed to suspend U.N. efforts to go after Israel on the war crimes allegation that had been presented to him on a silver platter by the controversial Oct. 2 report is still not clear.

But it was widely perceived as a response to heavy pressure from the Obama administration, which favored letting sleeping dogs lie as it struggled to push the creaking peace process forward.

In the complex and labyrinthine world of Middle Eastern politics, where contradictions abound, Israel is also seen as having had a hand in prodding Abbas not to cash in on the Goldstone Report.

The uproar among the Palestinians and in the Arab states continues amid concerns that Jewish inroads into the Muslim shrines around the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem could trigger a "third intifada," or uprising, against Israel.

Violent clashes have already occurred, fueled by militants on both sides, and have spread to the West Bank. Mohammed Dahlan, a leading Fatah figure who has presidential ambitions, warned that Netanyahu has opened "the battle of Jerusalem."