For more than a decade, one name keeps surfacing as a possible future Palestinian leader who could be acceptable not only to the Arab world but also to the US and Israel – Mohammed Yusuf Dahlan.
Dahlan’s career, to date, is best described as checkered. There have been ups and downs in his relations with the Palestinian world and also with the West and Israel. Because his standing with both has varied from friend to foe and back again, he has, curiously enough, acquired a sort of across-the-board status and a certain credence.
His credibility as a player on the contemporary Israel-Palestine scene is boosted by the fact that he is a native Gazan, born in 1961 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp. As a teenager, Dahlan helped set up the Fatah Youth Movement, known as the Fatah Hawks.
In his twenties, he was arrested more than once by the Israeli authorities for political activism, but never for terrorist activities. He put his time in Israeli prisons to good use by learning Hebrew, which he speaks fluently.
In the early 1990s, Dahlan was reliably reported to have helped in the negotiations leading to the Oslo Accords. The first accord, signed in 1993, was violently opposed by Hamas, which severed relations with Yasser Arafat as a result. Arafat chose Dahlan to head the Preventive Security Force in Gaza, while Israel and the US supported and closely cooperated with him in his new role – particularly in countering Hamas.
Gaza's next leader in waiting?
Building up a force of 20,000 men, he became so powerful that the Gaza Strip was nicknamed “Dahlanistan.” Now, a quarter of a century later, is the wheel coming full circle, and could Dahlan find himself once again governing Gaza?
In fact, his name has been bandied about in recent years for a much more important role: a possible successor to Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Dahlan first made political waves in 2001, when he began denouncing corruption in the PA and calling for reform. A year later, he resigned and, portraying himself as an outspoken critic of Arafat, campaigned on an anti-corruption and reform ticket. As a result, Dahlan and his followers won over most of the Fatah sections in Gaza.
The 2006 Palestinian elections saw Hamas gain a majority in Gaza. Dahlan called their election victory a disaster, and in January 2007, held the biggest-ever rally of Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip, where he denounced Hamas as “a bunch of murderers and thieves.”
His instinct was vindicated six months later when Hamas staged a bloody coup in Gaza, seized power, and expelled the Fatah officials it had not already murdered. Years later, it was revealed that Dahlan played a key role in an abortive US plot to remove Hamas from power.
Yet, Palestinian politics being what they are, more recently there have been signs of a limited reconciliation between Hamas and Dahlan – a situation better described as tactical cooperation. Around 2017, reports emerged of Egypt-brokered talks between Hamas and Dahlan’s representatives, supported by the United Arab Emirates.
In 2011, when he was expelled from Fatah, Dahlan exiled himself to the UAE. Ever since October 2007, when the Bush administration reportedly pressured Abbas to appoint Dahlan as his deputy, Abbas has regarded him as a dangerous rival.
Biding his time, Abbas finally charged Dahlan in June 2011 with financial corruption and murder, going so far as to accuse him of killing the late PLO leader, Yasser Arafat – an accusation that has led to no legal proceedings or formal charges. French investigators in 2015 concluded that Arafat died of natural causes.
While settling in the UAE, Dahlan became a close adviser to Mohammed bin Zayed, then crown prince, now the UAE president. Though never officially acknowledged, Dahlan is believed to have played a behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel, resulting in the Abraham Accords in September 2020.
Dahlan’s close relationship with the UAE has given him financial and political leverage, which he has used to support his political allies within Palestinian society.
In January 2025, the media reported that Hamas and Fatah had reached a draft deal to form a “community support committee” to administer post-war Gaza. The concept was put to the Palestine Liberation Organization and rejected, but potential leaders of a post-war Gaza began to be mooted.
Acceptability to the US, the Arab world, and Israel is the hurdle contenders would have to overcome, and few are better placed than Dahlan. Palestinian writer Fathi al-Sabah has said: “Dahlan does not aspire to assume leadership of the Gaza Strip in the post-war phase. Rather, he sees himself as a candidate to lead the entire Palestinian people, looking forward to the position of president of the Palestinian Authority.”
This not unworthy aspiration, if indeed Dahlan holds it, is far from inconsistent with accepting the prestigious, if onerous, task of leading his native Gaza out of war and into peace. Success in that role would place Dahlan in a position to succeed the 90-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, currently in the 20th year of his four-year term of office.
For the present, Dahlan is content to play the well-known political game – whatever high office you are aiming for, swear that nothing is further from your thoughts.
On July 24, 2024, Dahlan posted this on his X account, referring to himself in the plural as the royal “we”:
“Various scenarios have been repeatedly presented or leaked to the media regarding the arrangements for the ‘day after’ Israel’s devastating war on Gaza. Sometimes our name is used to thrill audiences. Therefore, and once again, we reiterate that… our highest priority now is to end the war.
“We will not support any choice that has not been reached based on Palestinian national understandings [achieved] through a transparent democratic process… I have repeatedly refused to accept any security, governmental or executive role.”
Rumors were obviously already rife. Two days after his post, they were given substance in a long article in The Wall Street Journal.
“The question of who will govern Gaza,” it began, “has plagued efforts to end Israel’s nine-month war to destroy Hamas… Some negotiators are increasingly drawn to Mohammed Dahlan as a temporary solution to a dilemma facing postwar Gaza.”
Dahlan’s name is out there as a potential future Palestinian leader, one way or another. He no doubt has in mind the ancient Greek saying: “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.”
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com
