Al Hamatzav

A commentator asked me in a previous post why I didn’t consider Fatah a democratic party. In writing my reply I realized that it was getting rather long, so I decided to post it as a short essay instead.

I’m very sorry to see Hamas in power, which anyone who has bothered to read their covenant should be as well, but sadly they are the legal governing body. (It is quite interesting reading, by the way. Did you know that the Jews started the French revolution “and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there” (sic)? And that they control the Rotary club, Lion’s club and the Freemasons? Crafty, those darn Jews.)
Out of curiosity, I took a gander at the Palestinian Constitution (draft of 2003). To begin with, the constitution in itself states that the basic law it defines “is based on the premise that the Palestine Liberation Organization is the sole and legitimate representative of the Arab Palestinian people”. As far as I know Hamas has never bothered joining the PLO, which puts either the authority of document or of the parliament in question, depending on whether your prefer accurate representation or legality.

The Judicial Branch (Articles 2, 97 through 104)
To its credit, this basic law states the formation of a judicial branch of government. Worth noting is that this branch considers itself secular and non martial (article 100.1).
The supreme court seems to exist in theory, if not in practice. Through Google I’ve seen references to it in less or lesser reliable sources, so I honestly have no idea of how many members it contains, when they were appointed and what actual power this court actually wields. If nothing else, I’m stunned about it’s silence regarding the current political strife in the territories. I have to declare my ignorance in this case, anybody out there who can clarify?

The President (Articles 34 through 46)
Of interest are article 39 stating that Abbas is “the Commander-in-Chief of the Palestinian Forces” and article 45 stating that “[t]he President of the National Authority shall select the Prime Minister, and task him to form his government. The President shall have the right to remove him, and to accept his resignation, as well as ask him to invite the Council of Members to convene”. Hamas has in other words no legal authority in controlling any “security forces”, and should legally submit control of them to Abbas. You know as well as I do that this isn’t going to happen any time soon, thus an impasse. From what I’ve understood of article 113, the president doesn’t have the authority to dissolve the parliament (as he has threatened), though he can dissolve the government and attempt to appoint a new prime minister. For some reason I don’t quite see that happening either.

The Executive Branch (Articles 63 through 83)
As stated in article 63, the executive branch controls all executive powers denied the president. What is important to note is article 75.1 which states that the prime minister is “responsible before the President of the National Authority about his actions and the actions of his government”.

The Legislative Branch (Articles 47 through 62)
The Palestinian parliament’s duties as defined by the constitution are as expected plainly of a legislative and overseeing nature. In other words, the Hamas led parliament has today the power to legislate towards Israel’s destruction, but has no power to act upon it.

From this I gather that Hamas is at fault for not submitting all military power to the proper branch of government. Even though they wield legislative and executive power, their armed factions are an extrajudicial group within the PA, while Fatah’s forces are at least under presidential control. The prime minister has power over the government, but has to submit to the authority of the president, who has the power to both appoint or recall him.
Legally Abbas is on the other hand at fault for assuming the executive branch’s power in administering the funds now released by Israel’s government. Though one may question the legality and morality of Israel circumventing the legal authority of the executive branch in releasing the funds to Abbas’ control, it’s difficult wanting to blame Israel for not releasing funds which Hamas have pledged will be used to kill Israeli civilians. One may also question Israel for moving to strengthen Fatah’s military position within the territories, though legally they are giving support (if passive) to the lawful authority.

In conclusion, the Palestinians have a huge problem to solve before you can safely call them a democracy, and it’s not Israel. There has to be an absolute legal authority, and not only does it have to have a singular force to enforce that authority but there has to be a multilateral will to abide by it.
Though one might blame Israel for not allowing the PA the former (like there is any shortage of guns in GSWB?), the Palestinians have no excuse for lack of the latter, and neither does anybody short of Rudyard Kipling have any reason to demand anything less of them.

Confused some terms, edited, redrafted.