Ramalah. Special Envoy
General Jibril Rajub believes that this war will change Israel, Palestine and possibly the Middle East like no other. The chances are very high that, moreover, this change will be for the worse. For this reason, after a life chaining defeats without giving up, this pioneer of the struggle for the liberation of Palestine senses that hope is about to escape from his hands forever.
He believes it is possible that once Hamas is defeated, an even more fanatical movement will take its place and ruin forever the possibility of a Palestinian state. He also fears that Iran will go to war and that Netanyahu will do what is necessary to make it so. “The more serious and extensive this conflict is, the better for Bibi”, he assured me on Thursday in his office in Ramallah.
Jibril Rajub is the general secretary of the central committee of Fatah, main partner of the OAP OLP, the organization founded in 1964 to liberate Palestine and which today seems out of date. Fatah governs the little West Bank left to it by Israel, a dwindling and unviable territory as a state, and Rajub tries to make it still relevant to a youth that turns its back on him.
We’ve known each other for a decade, and Thursday afternoon was the first time I’d seen him really, really worried. He believes that Hamas and Netanyahu have broken the balance of interests and does not see how to restore pragmatism.
Rajub is 70 years old. He is tall and thin, with little hair, a moustache, small and lively eyes, a body that remains in shape even though he no longer walks from Ramallah to Jericho because there are too many military checkpoints and armed settlers. “When you pick up the pace, they make you stop.”
We sat down on leather couches and Rajub kept his eyes on the television, which was broadcasting live both the war and the politics that underpin it. Gaza occupied one half of the big screen and the Israeli Parliament the other. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was giving a speech and next to him the explosions were flashing over the sunset in Gaza.
Rajub speaks Hebrew. He learned it in prison. He was 17 in 1970 when Israeli military justice sentenced him to life in prison for throwing a grenade at an army bus. There were no victims, but the sentence could not have been harsher. Then Fatah, a socialist movement, believed in violence as the best anti-colonial strategy.
As a prisoner, he led protests and hunger strikes and, thanks to a change, was released in 1985. Freedom returned him to the struggle, further arrests and imprisonments, until he was deported to Lebanon in 1988. D ‘there he went to Tunisia Tunis where Yassir Arafat had set up the headquarters of the OAP OLP, and became one of his main advisers. The Oslo accords (1995) allowed him to return to Palestine. Arafat asked him to take care of security and he protected him from his enemies, especially the Islamists, whom he imprisoned without mercy.
For years, he was the man Israelis called upon to appease violence and build confidence, but the Oslo commitments did not withstand the onslaughts of Hamas and Israeli colonial radicalism.
Rajub was revealed and took refuge in sport. Today he chairs the Palestinian Football Federation and the Palestinian Olympic Committee, positions that allow him to continue building bridges and maintain his great political influence.
“Bibi was a fool and now he’s dead”, he says with the coldness of a veteran who doesn’t make mistakes.
“I believed that Hamas would make it invincible and that history would remember it as the savior of Israel. On the one hand, it did him the favor of governing Gaza and, on the other, it represented a threat that allowed him to justify very harsh policies against the Palestinians, especially in the West Bank, with the sole purpose of expanding settlements and appeasing the fanatics who keep him in power, those who will approve the judicial reform that will prevent him from prison despite being corrupt. He ruled for personal interest, he trusted the strength of his army and look now, Hamas has brought him to his knees. It would have been much better for him if, instead of condemning us to irrelevance, he had supported us.”
Rajub refers to the Palestinian Authority, the administration that emerged from the Oslo Accords and controls the West Bank. It also ruled Gaza, but was shot out by Hamas in 2007. That year, Israel imposed a blockade on the strip that is still in place.
Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics since Oslo, agreements he did not sign. Rajub and his men dealing with the Islamists was more of a problem than a solution. He added arguments to his hawkish strategy and strengthened the Palestinian Authority, the body most able to oppose the proliferation of settlements.
They brought us hot tea. The television summarized the images of the day: explosions, ruins, dead and wounded. Rajub continued with his reflection.
“Any war can be avoided if the channels of communication are kept open and the right people are at each end, but Bibi broke them long ago. He wasn’t talking to Hamas and he wasn’t talking to us either. How could he be so arrogant?”
No prime minister has suffered such a huge defeat. Not only because of the 1,300 dead, but because it is the first time that the Palestinians occupy a territory that has been Israel since the foundation of the State in 1948. “It didn’t happen in any of the previous wars – explains Rajub – and this feeling of vulnerability is much stronger than the pain they feel for the dead. That’s why Bibi is finished and that’s why he’s so dangerous.”
I ask him if he fears that Netanyahu will provoke Iran or Hizbullah to go to war. “Surely he tries – he answers -. It’s another thing for the Americans to leave him. Now they are the ones sending orders and they don’t trust him. It is clear that Netanyahu does not trust them either and will wait for his opportunity. He’s an old dog.”
Netanyahu has been an ally of Donald Trump and an adversary of the Democratic administrations, both that of Obama and that of Biden, both very critical of the expansion of the colonies. A regional conflict benefits him because it will be long and could bring him closer to a new Trump presidency.
“Do you think he has thought about the atomic bomb?”, he asks without waiting for an answer. “I do not think so. He has not thought that Iran can have it. I doubt he knows he doesn’t have it. His intelligence isn’t that good, but do you think he’d be able to provoke it to see if he has it? I think so. It would be his salvation.”
The threat of nuclear conflict also hangs over Ukraine, but the United States and Russia have long experience in containment. You can’t shoot first if you know your enemy will fire back. This balance of terror, however, does not exist in the Middle East, where the only army with an atomic bomb is the Israeli one.
“Do you think Bibi will provoke Iran to show its cards?” insists the general.
Iran basically supports Hamas, as well as Hezbollah and other militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. American intelligence, however, has no evidence that it knew of Hamas’ plans this time.
The general believes that Hamas will not survive, but not because the Israeli army will crush it, but because it will not be able to live alone from Iran. Qatar, Turkey and Egypt will stop supporting him because the US will ask them to. Rajub claims that until now “Qatar has done it to gain influence, Turkey for ideology and Egypt for convenience, so that it could control Gaza, the same thing that Israel wanted, and none of this will be possible now”.
The television broadcasts a report praising the bravery of its guerrillas. I ask the general if he recognizes himself in the struggle of these young people and he says no. “We renounce we renounced the violence in Oslo. It’s not the way. But I understand the courage that drives them. They have lived subjugated all their lives. They seek with arms the dignity that Israel denies them”.
He does not agree that they are terrorists, “and if they are – he says – so are the Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians who do not present any threat”.
The Palestinians have endured the Israeli military occupation for 56 years and, before the war, this 2023 was already one of the most violent. The Government encourages the religious festivals of the Messianic minorities in the West Bank and sends the army to protect them. The settlers are armed and between them have killed more than 230 Palestinians, who, in turn, have killed around thirty Israelis.
Shootings are almost daily in the West Bank. In the last week, 52 Palestinians have died in clashes with the army and settlers. “Young people allow themselves to be seduced by the guerrillas of Hamas – affirms Rajub -, by the shameless courage they demonstrated when they broke the Gaza fence, to commit crimes that they feel their people have suffered for decades”.
Rajub knows that he cannot compete with them in terms of popularity, “but we are the grandfathers of the movement and we deserve respect. I understand that Hamas, in whatever form it survives, will continue to be a political force, but I also believe that after this war there will be no other alternative than the old OAP PLO. We are the only ones who can maintain stability, the only ones who can talk to Washington and Tel Aviv. The Palestinian Authority has made many mistakes, it is true, but Israel has put us in an impossible situation.”
No war has improved the Middle East. Not even that of 1967. It is tempting to see in that Israeli victory the foundations for peace with Egypt and Jordan, but the truth is that the region has continued to burn. The Palestinian conflict fuels them like no other and even if the embers seem cold, they always take.
“If they do the right thing, at the end of this war they will give us the hope of a state,” says Rajub, taking his last chance, but when I ask him who will be at the forefront of this effort, who Ramallah, Washington and Tel-Aviv will have enough leadership to push for an agreement, no name can be found.
We say goodbye on the steps of his office and I leave him trying to accommodate the thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza that Israel has expelled and who cannot return to the strip. “Somewhere they have to sleep and eat,” he tells me before turning around and going back to his office.
Ramallah was buzzing Thursday night. Cafes and restaurants full, women in high heels and short skirts, men in tight shirts and gold necklaces. At noon on Friday, the mosques were filled and the leading imams spoke about dignity. In the afternoon there were isolated riots and the tension returned, the cadence that makes everything worse.
General Jibril Rajub believes that this war will change Israel, Palestine and possibly the Middle East like no other has. The chances are very high that, moreover, this change will be for the worse. For this reason, after a life chaining defeats without giving up, this pioneer of the struggle for the liberation of Palestine senses that hope is about to escape from his hands forever.
He believes it is possible that once Hamas is defeated, an even more fanatical movement will take its place and ruin forever the possibility of a Palestinian state. He also fears that Iran will go to war and that Netanyahu will do whatever it takes to make that happen. “The more serious and extensive this conflict is, the better for Bibi,” he assured me on Thursday in his office in Ramallah.
Jibril Rajub is the general secretary of the central committee of Al-Fatah, the main partner of the OAP, the organization founded in 1964 to liberate Palestine and which today seems out of time. Al-Fatah governs the little West Bank left to it by Israel, a dwindling territory that is unviable as a state, and Rajub tries to keep it relevant to a youth that turns its back on him.
We have known each other for a decade and Thursday afternoon was the first time I saw him truly worried: he believes that Hamas and Netanyahu have broken the balance of interests and he does not see how to restore pragmatism.
Rajub is 70 years old. He is tall and thin, with little hair, a mustache, small, lively eyes, a body that remains in shape. We sat on leather couches and Rajub kept his eyes on the television, which was broadcasting live both the war and the politics that underpin it. Gaza occupied one half of the big screen and the Israeli Parliament, the other. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was giving a speech and next to him the explosions were flashing over the sunset in Gaza.
Rajub speaks Hebrew. He learned it in prison. He was 17 in 1970 when Israeli military justice sentenced him to life in prison for throwing a grenade at a bus. There were no casualties. Then Al-Fatah, a socialist movement, believed in violence as an anti-colonial strategy.
As a prisoner, he led protests and hunger strikes and, thanks to a change, was released in 1985. Further arrests and imprisonments, until he was deported to Lebanon in 1988. From there he went to Tunisia, where Yassir Arafat had set up the headquarters of the OAP, and became one of his main advisers. The Oslo accords (1995) allowed him to return to Palestine. Arafat asked him to take care of security and he protected him from his enemies, especially the Islamists, whom he imprisoned indiscriminately. Today, Rajub chairs the Palestinian Football Federation and the Palestinian Olympic Committee.
“Bibi was a fool and now he’s dead”, he says with the coldness of a veteran who doesn’t make mistakes.
“He believed that Hamas would make him invincible and that history would remember him as the savior of Israel. On the one hand, it did him the favor of governing Gaza and, on the other hand, it posed a threat that allowed him to justify very harsh policies against the Palestinians, especially in the West Bank, with the sole purpose of expanding settlements and appeasing the fanatics who keep him in power, who will approve the judicial reform that will spare him prison despite the fact that he is corrupt. He ruled for personal interest, he relied on the strength of his army and, look now, Hamas has brought him to his knees. It would have been much better for him if, instead of condemning us to irrelevance, he had supported us.” Rajub refers to the Palestinian Authority, the administration that emerged from the Oslo Accords and controls the West Bank. It also ruled Gaza, but was shot out by Hamas in 2007. That year, Israel imposed a blockade on the strip that still lasts.
Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics since Oslo, agreements he did not sign. Having Rajub and his men deal with the Islamists was more of a problem than a solution. It added arguments to its hawkish strategy and strengthened the Palestinian Authority, the body most able to oppose the proliferation of settlements.
They brought us hot tea. The television summed up the images of the day: explosions, ruins, dead and wounded. “Any war can be avoided if the channels of communication are kept open and the right people are at each end, but Bibi broke them long ago. He wasn’t talking to Hamas and he wasn’t talking to us either. How could he be so arrogant?”
No prime minister has suffered such a huge defeat. Not only because of the 1,300 dead, but because it is the first time that the Palestinians occupy a territory that has been Israel since the foundation of the State in 1948. “It did not happen in any of the previous wars – explains Rajub – and this feeling of vulnerability is much stronger than the pain they feel for the dead. That’s why Bibi is finished and so dangerous.”
I ask him if he is afraid that Netanyahu will provoke Iran or Hizbullah to go to war. “Sure he tries. It’s another thing for the Americans to leave him. Now they are the ones in charge and they don’t trust him. It is clear that Netanyahu does not trust them either and will wait for his opportunity. He’s an old dog.”
Netanyahu has been an ally of Donald Trump and an adversary of the Democratic administrations, both that of Obama and that of Biden, both very critical of the expansion of the colonies. A regional conflict benefits him because it will be long and could bring him closer to a new Trump presidency.
“Do you think he has thought about the atomic bomb?”, he asks without waiting for an answer. “I do not think so. He has not thought that Iran can have it. I doubt he knows he doesn’t have it. His intelligence isn’t that good, but do you think he’d be able to provoke it to see if he has it? I think so. It would be his salvation.” The threat of nuclear conflict also hangs over Ukraine, but the United States and Russia have long experience in containment. You can’t shoot first if you know your enemy will fire back. This balance of terror, however, does not exist in the Middle East, where the only army with an atomic bomb is the Israeli one.
“Do you think that Bibi will provoke Iran to the right extent so that it shows its cards?”, insists the general. Iran supports Hamas, as well as Hezbollah and other militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. American intelligence, however, has no evidence that it knew of Hamas’ plans this time. The general believes that Hamas will not survive, but not because the Israeli army will crush it, but because it will not be able to live off Iran alone. Qatar, Turkey and Egypt will withdraw their support because the US will ask them to. Rajub states that until now “Qatar has done it to gain influence, Turkey for ideology and Egypt for convenience, so that it could control Gaza, the same thing that Israel wanted, and none of this will be possible now”.
The television broadcasts a report praising the bravery of its guerrillas. I ask the general if he recognizes himself in the struggle of these young people and he says no. “We renounced violence in Oslo. It’s not the way. But I understand the courage that drives them. They have lived subjugated all their lives. They seek with arms the dignity that Israel denies them”.
He does not agree that they are terrorists, “and if they are – he says -, so are the Israeli soldiers who kill Palestinians who do not present any threat”.
The Palestinians have endured the Israeli military occupation for 56 years and, before the war, this 2023 was already one of the most violent. The Government encourages the religious festivals of the Messianic minorities in the West Bank and sends the army to protect them. The settlers are armed and between them have killed more than 230 Palestinians who, in turn, have killed around thirty Israelis.
Shootings are almost daily in the West Bank. “Young people allow themselves to be seduced by the guerrillas of Hamas – affirms Rajub -, by the courage they demonstrated when they broke the Gaza fence, to commit crimes that they feel their people have suffered for decades”.
Rajub knows that he cannot compete with them in terms of popularity, “but we are the grandfathers of the movement and we deserve respect. I understand that Hamas, in whatever way it survives, will remain a political force, but I also believe that after this war there will be no alternative to the old PLO. We are the only ones who can maintain stability, the only ones who can talk to Washington and Tel Aviv. The Palestinian Authority has made many mistakes, it’s true, but Israel has put us in an impossible situation.”
No war has improved the Middle East. Not even that of 1967. It is tempting to see in this Israeli victory the foundations for peace with Egypt and Jordan, but the truth is that the region has continued to burn. The Palestinian conflict fuels them like no other and even if the embers seem cold, they always burn.
“If they do the right thing, at the end of this war they will give us the hope of a state,” says Rajub, taking his last chance, but when I ask him who will be at the forefront of this effort, who in Ramal ·lah, Washington and Tel-Aviv will have enough leadership to push for an agreement, he does not name any.
We say goodbye and I leave him trying to accommodate the thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza that Israel has expelled. “They have to sleep and eat somewhere”.
Ramallah was buzzing Thursday night. Cafes and restaurants full, women in high heels and short skirts, men in tight shirts and gold necklaces. At noon on Friday, the mosques were filled and the imams spoke about dignity. In the afternoon there were isolated riots and the tension returned, the cadence that makes everything worse.
