From Exile With Love

"Abbas will leave only ruins and who would be interested to be a president or vice-president on these ruins? What I am interested in is a way out of our political situation, not a political position"
Mohammed Dahlan, former Fatah Gaza security chief

"Dahlan has created an alliance with Hamas. [Dahlan loyalists in Gaza] have distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars without having the movement's permission."
Nabil Shaath, Abbas aide

Mohammed Dahlan, once the security chief in Gaza, was banished in 2010 following a falling out with Palestinian leader Mamoud Abbas -- Majdi Mohammed/The Associated Press Files

The man whom Fatah once entrusted to secure Gaza and whose failure to organize an effective response to the Hamas faction's 2007 decision to take over Gaza under its firm control, and in the process waging a no-holds-barred battle with its Palestinian Authority counterpart -- a vicious assault that succeeded in killing many Fatah security operatives and chasing the remainder out of the territory -- was once a valued aid to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Mahmoud Abbas is considered by the international community to be a moderate. His doctoral thesis while at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow was a Holocaust-denial tract, and his long-term presidency of the Palestinian Authority following the death of his mentor Yasser Arafat, includes incitement to violence against Israelis in the grand tradition of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, honouring Yasser Arafat's own conventions of neighbourly relations.

Throughout peace negotiations brokered over the years by various U.S. presidents between Israel and the Palestinians, each time Israel accepted a Palestinian demand in the hope that certain sacrifices would result in a final agreement for peace, the demands simply increased. One agreement after another seemed to hover on success but failed. And each time a succeeding round of negotiations took place additional demands were launched.

But Mr. Dahlan, living in exile, currently in London, and extremely well funded by Gulf dollars to distribute and use as he sees fit, finds huge fault with the propensity as he sees it, of Mahmoud Abbas to give away the house in acceding to Israel's demands. He would do far, far better. And he speaks of his important supportive contacts in Egypt with the new military leader, preparing to return to his old haunts and using his impressive contacts to advantage.

Believing the current Kerry-led talks "will bring nothing for the Palestinian people", because Abbas continues to make concessions that Yasser Arafat never would have, he is prepared to return. Not to the West Bank where his falling out with Mr. Abbas makes that inconvenient, but to Gaza, to join Hamas which once busied itself butchering his Fatah operatives, but with whom Mr. Dahlan has reached a reasonable detente.

Mr. Dahlan is tired of spending time in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Although he had the reputation of corruption among other senior Palestinian politicians and Arafat himself, he denies ever having gained materially from his work on behalf of the Palestinian cause. And in the interval of his absence from the West Bank he has been busy, nurturing political and business ties elsewhere in the Arab world.

Raising millions from business and charities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere for Palestinians in need. The rapprochement between Dahlan and the Islamist militant Hamas is linked to his friendship with Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Ever since the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power in Egypt, Hamas has been sidelined, where previously it was championed by Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi.

Hamas is in dire financial straits, cut off by Iran because of disagreements over Syria, and cut loose from Egypt, now regarding it in the same vein as it does the Brotherhood. With Dahlan on their side, they figure they may have a friend in court, who can speak for them and soften the new Egyptian mood regarding Hamas as an unstable, troublesome gang of Islamists conspiring with the Brotherhood and the Bedouin Salafists in Sinai.

Hamas permitted three Fatah leaders with loyalty to Dahlan to return, and the returnees and Hamas officials formed a committee. That committee to oversee construction of a new Gaza town, funded by the UAE. And the Fatah officials in the PA now accuse Dahlan once again of splitting the government. They are without doubt concerned about succession in light of the age of Abbas, at 79 on the feeble end of authority.

Another alternative is Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned in Israel as a violent offender, someone responsible for the deaths of Israelis. That reputation giving him the credentials he would most certainly require for consideration as a new leader. The fly in that ointment being, of course, persuading Israeli authorities to release from prison a man serving multiple life sentences.

Onward Mohammed Dahlan...