Governing Gaza: It can't be Dahlan

The most fantastical of the theories put forward about Gaza's future and how it will be governed appears to have been put back into circulation these days: "Muhammad Dahlan, once one of the most powerful actors behind the scenes in Palestine, will return from his exile in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) the moment the 90-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dies, and seize power. Dahlan will govern Gaza along with the West Bank." In the details of the news spreading through whispers, it is stated that Dahlan is in contact with various power centers in Europe and the US, and that they enthusiastically support the plan.

Muhammad Dahlan (65) is a name that even those who have only briefly passed through the corridors of Palestinian and Middle Eastern politics immediately encounter. Born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza, Dahlan began to rise in the ranks of the Fatah organization under the leadership of Yasser Arafat after being imprisoned several times by Israel in his youth. Appointed as security chief in Gaza immediately after the Oslo Accords, Dahlan developed close relations with Israeli intelligence during this process. Over time, Dahlan established a terrible mafia order in Gaza and, with more than 20,000 men under his command and in coordination with Israel, focused on the goal of crushing Hamas. The civil war in Gaza in 2006-2007 was a plot staged by Israel and Dahlan hand in hand to effectively destroy Hamas, which had won the elections, from within. However, Hamas proved to be a tough nut to crack; Dahlan and his men suffered a heavy defeat and were expelled from Gaza.

Afterward, Muhammad Dahlan began an actual struggle against the Mahmoud Abbas administration. Dahlan, who set out to establish his own parallel state in the West Bank, benefited from the unlimited support Israel offered him while intimidating rival Palestinian individuals and groups. Finally, Mahmoud Abbas decided to get rid of this dangerous man. In 2011, Dahlan was deported, a hefty file was prepared against him, and he was tried in absentia and sentenced to death. Dahlan has since been the chief advisor to UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. Dahlan, the key figure in the contact between the UAE administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is interestingly active even in the Balkans. Dahlan has been a Serbian citizen since 2014. How and why he received this title is unknown. Just as how he attained his influence in the UAE palace is unknown.

For someone with this background to be considered among the candidates for Palestinian leadership is an absurd situation beyond absurdity, both because of his dark personal baggage and because of intra-regional balances. At least the following five points are very clear:

It can't be Dahlan, because he is inherently a cruel and ruthless man. The pressure he would apply to the civilian population if he took over governance in Palestine would not fall short of Israel. The past experience in Gaza is the most vivid example of this.

It can't be Dahlan, because there is serious resistance and opposition to him within the Palestinian political scene. There are not a few who believe that Dahlan poisoned Yasser Arafat. Even Mahmoud Abbas voiced this claim at the highest level.

It can't be Dahlan, because armed resistance is legitimate against a brutal occupation and is the only option at many points. An occupation with tanks and artillery cannot be defended by politics alone. Those who think Hamas can be destroyed by Dahlan's hand would be laughed at by the crows.

It can't be Dahlan, because there is countless concrete and proven evidence that he acts directly together with Israel. Palestine cannot be handed over to such a person. If this scenario were to materialize, a social explosion beyond all prediction could occur.

It can't be Dahlan, because the current tension between the UAE and Saudi Arabia does not permit it. If we could go back a few years, perhaps. Riyadh sees Dahlan as an unprincipled actor with no red lines, working for many countries at once.

Despite all this, the goal of those trying to promote the figure of Muhammad Dahlan is clear: to completely remove the option of armed struggle against the Israeli occupation from the agenda and to try to close the deep wound opened in Palestine with corrupt and deviant politics. It is quite clear that they do not deem Palestine worthy of anything more than a Baathist dictatorship of the old Syrian or Iraqi type. Will they really try to make this impossible path possible? We will see. What we will also see then, without a doubt, is the defeat they will suffer.