In a conversation with Jeffrey Gedmin, MBN’s President and CEO, Abdalrahim Abdallah, MBN Executive Editor, says Gaza’s reconstruction will depend more on sustained American pressure than on Arab pledges. He warns that Israel’s expanding control in the Strip could turn temporary lines into lasting realities, and describes a Palestinian landscape marked by a diminished Hamas, a Fatah increasingly tied to the Palestinian Authority’s security structure, and a West Bank that remains calm only on the surface.
Question: Last week, the Board of Peace warned that efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip will be in jeopardy if countries do not follow through on financial pledges made to the U.S.-led body. The UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were among those that have pledged $1 billion or more. Roughly one percent of the $17 billion promised has been transferred. Is wind coming out of the sails?
Abed: Setting aside the embellished rhetoric about Arab solidarity, Arab Gulf donors will only write checks if doing so strengthens their ties with the U.S.
Reporting from Ramallah, I heard countless times that only with American pressure would Gulf countries open their coffers to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian government. It is an old story that has persisted for 30 years, and I do not believe it will be any different regarding Gaza’s transitional government.
American leadership of the Gaza project is irreplaceable. What Gazans fear most is another frozen front, where “temporary arrangements” persist. It won’t be the first time this happens to Palestinians, and it has never ended well. So, Gaza’s administration committee seems to be looking at creative solutions to keep things moving.
Rebuilding Gaza will cost $70 billion. But Gaza has immediate needs. One proposal is the transfer of a portion of the $5 billion tax dollars Israel is withholding from the Palestinian Authority to Gaza’s transitional government. This seed money has the potential to change the internal political dynamics and jumpstart reconstruction.
Question: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged recently that Israel has been expanding the territory it controls in the Gaza Strip beyond lines that were agreed upon in the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. “We are tightening our grip on Hamas,” says the Israeli leader. The view of ordinary Palestinians?
Abed: Palestinians rarely agree on anything, but on this they do. They deeply distrust Israel’s intentions. The “yellow line” is supposed to be a temporary security line, but Palestinians have always seen borders move and change. They are worried about losing more land. But above all else, they are exhausted. Nobody realistically expects an end to the conflict, but they want a sense of “normalcy” back in their lives. Arguments about borders and lasting security arrangements don’t mean much when you are in constant struggle to ensure basic needs.
Question: There are indications that Hamas has been working to rebuild its forces. Is the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran having any effect on Hamas and its military capacities?
Abed: There is no way of assessing the accuracy of these reports. What we know for certain is that Hamas is a shadow of its former self. Unlike Hezbollah, Hamas has no clear routes to get arms in. Israel is still operating inside of the strip. The tunnels on the Egyptian borders are all but gone. Hamas can recruit new members, but it would be very hard to retrain a fighting force. What Hamas recently showed is an attempt to reclaim authority over Gazans in some areas of the Gaza strip. Priority for them would be to preserve what they have in anticipation of an internal conflict (if a Palestinian police force tries to take control).
Moreover, Hamas seems to be going through a leadership crisis. For months, it has been trying to choose a new leadership (read our analysis here). The latest round of voting seems to fail because many wanted neither Khalil al-Hayya nor Khaled Meshal as a leader. As a rare sign of protest, a recent report claims voters left ballots blank.
Question: Elections were held as part of the recent Fatah conference. Fifty-nine candidates competed for 18 seats on the central committee. I was struck by the inclusion on the central committee of Zakaria Zubeidi, a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — Fatah’s armed wing — in Jenin refugee camp, freed last year under a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas. Israel considers Zubeidi responsible for dozens of terrorist attacks. Can you offer insight and comment on Fatah’s future?
Abed: Fatah is now under the full control of the 91-year-old Mahmoud Abbas. His son Yasser came from nowhere to win a seat in the central committee. The real winners are Abbas’s allies, namely his deputy Hussein al-Sheikh and the head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service Majed Faraj.
Fatah is now a mere political extension to the administrative and security services of the Palestinian Authority- Similar to what you find in other Arab republics but with less actual authority over land and people in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Now, to understand the inclusion of Zubeidi — and more importantly Marwan Barghouti in the central committee — one must understand that in Palestinian politics, there are two sources of legitimacy: Electoral and nationalistic. Abbas has no electoral legitimacy. His term as a president ended in 2009. The other source of political legitimacy for Palestinians is one’s contribution to the national struggle for independence. Abbas needed this legitimacy, but he is no fan of Zubeidi.
Zubeidi is a complicated character (Watch Arna’s Children for a glimpse of his personal story). He is seen as a representative of the Second Intifada. Barghouti, the most popular Palestinian politician, led the Second Intifada, but he is from an older generation. If a grand deal is ever struck with Israel, Barghouti is widely expected to lead. However, without such a deal to free him from Israeli prison, Fatah will probably grow even weaker and stay as a political arm to the West Bank security forces.
Question: Violence targeting Israelis in the West Bank has fallen off by more than eighty percent over the last five years, while attacks on Palestinians by extremist settlers have doubled. A word about Palestinian mood, public opinion, and priorities?
Abed: The West Bank is eerily calm despite the mounting pressure. If you visit certain neighborhoods in Ramallah, you can easily conclude things are great. But Ramallah is deceiving.
Settlers are aggressively taking control of the countryside. Farming is collapsing. Teachers and civil servants work for very little to no pay. The thousands who used to work in Israel are not allowed to cross to Israel. Prices are very high. A gallon of gasoline is $11.
No sense of safety on the streets. Armed settlers can attack anywhere- even inside of the villages. Talking to people, you get a sense of desperation and bitterness. They feel they are left alone. You hear a lot of accusations that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and is working for the Israelis.
Palestinian civil society has never been weaker. People are less active. Political groups and factions are seen as obsolete. It feels like the end of an era. What comes next? It is everybody’s guess.
Question: You volunteered to me recently why MBN is important in our region. Some of what you said surprised me. Your perspective on our role?
Abed: On the surface, Arabic media are thriving. State and non-state actors spend billions in content creation. MBN is a relatively smaller player. But it is an essential voice. It is the player that keeps many on their toes. How? By holding the bigger players accountable, influencing their standards, and in many cases indirectly shaping their agendas.
This “indirect” impact generally goes unnoticed because it is harder to measure. But it is lasting and cost-effective. By influencing the standards and the agendas of your competitors, you get them to amplify your message! And I have seen the difference over time. On some crucial topics, most of the Arabic media is closer to MBN’s editorial line than it has ever been.
Question: An additional on how MBN influences Arabic media?
Abed. MBN’s biggest contribution has been its commitment to innovation and American journalism values. Translate this commitment to actual Arabic products, and you set the standards for the whole language.
The first thing to understand about the Arabic media ecosystem is how fragile it is. In the Arab World, no real civil society, market, or legal protections exist to guard the practice of journalism.
Unless pressured from the margins (as MBN does,) Arab media shrinks and falls to old habits (parroting propagandistic narratives). By being free and truthful, MBN keeps the big players accountable- protecting the fragile local journalistic practices.
Second, the Arabic media ecosystem is hollow. A lot of bells and whistles on screens, but look deeper and you will find a weak journalistic tradition. No serious attention is paid to standardization, as one example. Standardization is essential in an age where technology is rapidly changing the profession and innovation is a must to survive.
Compared to other media, MBN is good at innovation. We pioneered Spoken Standard Arabic in our podcasts and videos. Others followed. Our terminology choices greatly influence others, especially on issues related to the U.S. And a new standard we are creating in real time is newsletters. Designing, reporting, and writing a good newsletter for MENA audiences require hundreds of micro choices that together are becoming the industry standard in our region.
Question: Can MBN play a bigger role as agenda setter?
Abed. Our journalism has become more original and intentional. We don’t recycle the news agenda set by news wires and services. What we are trying to do is to break the news and report scoops nobody else is paying attention to.
Take our recent “explosive” exclusives from Lebanon and Iraq as examples. For weeks, we helped force the topic of militias’ disarmament on the local and regional news agendas. Local media cannot ignore the exclusive information we report. And, in fact, we are being increasingly quoted and republished.
But that is not the complete story. Most of our impact as agenda setters goes unnoticed. AI chatbots, WhatsApp groups, and many other “dark channels” copy our content. Even some websites and YouTube channels carry our content without attribution. More importantly, we force our topics of choice on competitors by putting them in the center of the online conversation.
Question: How can we ensure responsible stewardship of the roles you describe?
Abed: We are committed to the traditions of American journalism: Accuracy, balance, and fairness. We are telling our Arab audiences the truth NOT despite being American BUT because of it. We are unapologetically American, and we report the news as seen from the USA. But we ultimately serve our Arab audiences by presenting them with truthful information, but also indirectly by playing crucial roles in keeping their own media accountable, innovative, and free.
