Mohammed Dahlan, a Gaza-based businessman and former Fatah leader, is under the protection of the United Arab Emirates, where he has been in exile for more than a decade, and remains an influential financial figure in the region and the Palestinian enclave.
Former Fatah strongman in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, spent more than a decade in exile in the United Arab Emirates, where he now advises Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. However, the name of this former Palestinian Authority security chief in the enclave is often mentioned as a possible future leader of the Palestinians in Gaza if Hamas is ousted by Israel.
“Mohammed Dahlan is originally from Gaza, he is one of the heroes of the first Intifada (1987-1993). He enjoys the support of the Israelis and the Americans,” explains Stéphane Amar, France 24 correspondent in Israel. “But the question is whether it will be able to assert its power. “In the event that Israel succeeds in dethroning Hamas in the Gaza Strip, several options are on the table,” the journalist added.
“Dahlan is compatible with Israel,” continues Frédéric Encel, doctor of geopolitics and Middle East specialist. “He is one of the first [dirigeants palestiniens] for adopting a two-state solution and stopping the armed voice.”
However, not all Palestinians like the dialogue he once had with the Jewish state. The former Palestinian leader, who was involved in all negotiations with the Israelis in a security capacity, does not have the aura of Marwan Barghouti, nicknamed the “Mandela of Palestine,” explains Frédéric Encel. The former leader of Tanzim – the armed wing of Fatah founded by Yasser Arafat in 1995 – is currently imprisoned in Israel, where he has already spent more than 20 years behind bars.
Also read: Can Marwan Barghouti, the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela,” be the peacemaker in Gaza?
Relationships on all sides
Mohammad Dahlan also spent much of the 1980s in Israeli prisons and learned to speak Hebrew fluently there, writes The Economist newspaper, which spoke to the businessman at the end of October.
Although he does not have the overall legitimacy of Marwan Barghouti, the native son born in Khan Younes in the southern Gaza Strip has significant tactical advantages. He grew up alongside much of Hamas’s current leadership; He has connections in all camps, but also enemies, particularly within the Islamist group he fought against during the 2007 civil war. After all, he was Palestinian national security adviser when the Palestinian Authority lost control of Gaza this year.
But Mohammad Dahlan also has enemies within Fatah, particularly in the inner circle of Mahmoud Abbas, the aging president of the Palestinian Authority. It was the latter who forced him into exile in 2011 after expelling him from the Palestinian faction and initiating embezzlement proceedings against him. Mohammad Dahlan was also convicted in absentia of corruption in 2016.
A spectacular network of influence
Far from being unemployed during these years of exile, Mohammed Dahlan became a businessman under the leadership of the United Arab Emirates. He has made many high-ranking friends from the Nile to Belgrade to Khartoum and now has a spectacular international network of influence that he spent years building together with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, whose protégé he is. The latter comes from the same generation as Mohammed Dahlan, whom he has known since 1993, and publicly presents him as his “brother”.
The Palestinian also maintains close ties with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, with whom he shares hostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood – whose lineage is Hamas.
“The Emirates have made Dahlan their subcontractor in the fight against the Muslim Brotherhood (…) Of all the second-generation Palestinian leaders, he is the one with the most contacts in the region. He has become a real octopus,” a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah confided to Le Monde on condition of anonymity in 2017.
In its article, the French daily, which investigated Mohammed Dahlan, revealed that the businessman holds a Serbian passport, which Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbia had offered him as a “good service” after the Emirates won lucrative contracts in the Balkans. Mohammed Dahlan could have played a more obscure role in the possible supply of Emirati weapons purchased in the Balkans to Marshal Haftar’s camp in Libya, according to Le Monde’s investigation.
“$50 million a year to Gaza”
Thanks to support from the United Arab Emirates, Mohammad Dahlan also has a large budget to distribute aid to Gaza. In recent years, “he claims to have funneled around $50 million a year from the United Arab Emirates to Gaza. He has also built a support network in refugee camps in the West Bank,” reveals The Economist.
His friendships in Cairo undoubtedly contributed to the opening of the Rafah terminal more than once. Like in 2015, when the Egyptian authorities allowed his wife Jalila to return to the Gaza Strip with suitcases full of cash to finance a wedding for 400 Gazans.
In recent years, Mohammed Dahlan has used Emirati funds to distribute food to the most disadvantaged people, distribute money to the unemployed, provide scholarships to students, but also to provide thousands of vaccines to Gazans during the coronavirus pandemic to deliver. Covid in 2021.
“Abu Dhabi has one of the keys”
Despite being based abroad, the Abu Dhabi protégé, who single-handedly managed to deliver more anti-Covid vaccines to Gaza than Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, remains an influential figure in the enclave.
However, Frédéric Encel points out that the United Arab Emirates must play a role in rebuilding this territory, which has been largely destroyed by Israeli bombing. “If Hamas is defeated, it is not Qatar – which is close to the Islamist group – that will rebuild Gaza. Abu Dhabi holds one of the keys. If Hamas is destroyed, it will decide its successor,” the Seeker concludes.
Also read: Israel-Hamas war: What role can the Palestinian Authority play?
Mohammed Dahlan, for his part, denied any desire to become head of a future post-Hamas Palestinian power. In the Oct. 30 interview with The Economist, he instead called for the formation of a “government composed of technocrats from Gaza and the West Bank for two years.” At the end of this transition period, parliamentary elections could be held without excluding Hamas, “which will not disappear,” he said.
“Even after this war, it would be impossible to govern Gaza without his consent,” he says. Mohammed Dahlan also believes that Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could support the Palestinian transition organization. But, he reminds, “this Palestinian state should then be internationally recognized, including by Israel.”
A solution that runs counter to Benjamin Netanyahu’s wishes and opposes a political process that could lead to a Palestinian state. The prime minister of the Hebrew state laid out his own scenario on Monday, November 6: Israel, he said an interview with the American broadcaster ABCOnce its objectives are achieved, it must assume “overall responsibility for security” in the Gaza Strip indefinitely.