Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Saturday October 19, 2002
The Guardian

Muhammad Dahlan, who resigned last week as Mr Arafat's national security adviser and returned to his base in Gaza, was quoted by the London-published Arabic daily Al-Hayat condemning the leadership for causing Palestinians to suffer for no perceivable gain.

It reported that Mr Dahlan spoke to a group of journalists on Sunday who were told not to take notes. Nevertheless, it said it had a written record of the conversation.

"The Palestinian leadership missed no opportunity to make mistakes," it quotes Mr Dahlan saying.

"There were two streams in the [Palestinian Authority]: those who say the people can suffer and [are] steadfast, and those who say the people has collapsed. Both are wrong. The people can suffer if its sacrifice will be politically rewarded."

Mr Dahlan describes the suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli civilians as a political disaster for the Palestinian cause, particularly after September 11. He is quoted as telling journalists that he opposed the "military strategy" and favoured popular resistance modelled on the first intifada, but Mr Arafat failed to act on the advice.

Al-Hayat quoted a document in its possession as saying: "[Dahlan] revealed that following the events of September 11, he sent a report to President Arafat suggesting that 'We leave the intifada behind us. The intifada is the means, not the purpose ... We should have turned it into a popular intifada and stopped the armed activity, but we didn't, because we don't have the courage, as a leadership, to do so.' "

The mainstream Palestinian leadership has come round to the view that popular resistance will put the spotlight back on to Israel's conduct and win back the sympathy overseas lost by the suicide bombings.

Mr Dahlan compared the Palestinians' handling of the opportunity to establish an independent state with the methods used by David Ben-Gurion, who oversaw the birth of Israel despite objections from some Zionists, who demanded more land.

"The Palestinian leadership must force its decisions on the people, in some issue, even if it has to use a stick," it quoted from the document.

"[Dahlan] said that Ben-Gurion, 'the most important statesman in the history of the Israeli state', agreed to the establishment of a state without Jerusalem, just in order to establish a [political] entity and then to strengthen it.

"He agreed to resolution 181, made the decision, and announced the establishment of Israel, even though many Israelis objected to that."

Mr Dahlan has denied making the comments.

Last week Abu Mazen, a founding member of Fatah, was quoted in the Israeli press as telling a senior official in the Russian foreign ministry that Mr Arafat had made a grave error in his handling of the intifada.

Palestinian sceptics accuse Mr Dahlan of manoeuvring for power by distancing himself from the failed policies of the Palestinian Authority, even though he is considered one of the "old guard" responsible .