This Monday, Palestinians across various cities inside the occupied West Bank took to the streets in protest of the Palestinian Authority’s arrest campaign of resistance fighters wanted by the Israeli military. In the wake of Israel’s failed invasion of Jenin, which fell short of dealing a blow to the newly formed armed groups in the area, they now turn to a Palestinian collaborator force to do their dirty work.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which is based out of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, was created as the product of the Oslo Accords — signed between 1993 to 1995 — between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The PA was intended to be the precursor to the future government of an independent Palestinian State. However, the Israelis heavily violated the terms of the accords, which were supposed to lead to an Israeli withdrawal from its position as an occupying force in the West Bank and Gaza after a 5 year period. Over time, as the so-called peace talks broke down, the Israeli Prime Minister who signed the accords was assassinated by an Israeli extremist for betraying the Zionist cause and illegal settlement expansion took off like never before — the hope of a “two-State solution” slowly died.
The Palestinian Authority, which once stood tall as a symbol of hope for a decent portion of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, over time began to show its true colors and prove that it had betrayed the original charter of the PLO. When the first PA President died in 2004, any hope of a Palestinian State forming inside the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank died with him. The US government, during what was known as the Second Palestinian Intifada [Uprising], worked with the PA leadership to set up a number of mechanisms to transform the PA into a security force that would serve the interests of a few elitist Palestinians, but chiefly the Israeli occupation. The PA collaborated with the US government to launch an armed coup against the democratically elected government in Gaza, but this failed when it began to come to fruition in 2007.
Mahmoud Abbas, the current PA President, replaced Yasser Arafat but was last elected in 2005 and his term expired in 2008. Abbas, or Abu Mazen, is 87 years old, making him the oldest head of State on earth. Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly postponed all Palestinian national elections and has completely consolidated the PLO and PA’s power into his hands. Abu Mazen has now lied 6 times in recent years about cancelling what is known as “Security Coordination” between the PA’s security forces and the Israeli occupation regime, which he announces after major massacres or decisions by Israel’s government that severely impact the Palestinian people. According to all recent polls, at least 80% of Palestinian respondents call on him to resign.
When Israel invaded the Jenin Refugee Camp, launched upwards of 50 airstrikes and attempted to destroy the Jenin Brigades armed group, while devastating civilian infrastructure in the process, the PA’s forces barricaded themselves in their headquarters and hid like mice. PA President Abu Mazen did not order them to protect the city and refugee camp where his men technically have security control (like Yasser Arafat did during the early 2000’s) instead he set them out to arrest Palestinians who were fighting to repel the Israeli invasion and hide from the occupation soldiers. At the end of the Jenin invasion, after groups that are comprised of largely untrained young men, between 17 to 24 primarily, the residents of Jenin came under attack by PA security forces while they celebrated the victory of their protectors, the Jenin Brigades. Palestinians in Jenin protested in their thousands outside the PA’s headquarters in Jenin, shooting fireworks and throwing stones, chanting that the PA were traitors, cowards and collaborators. This was largely ignored by international media.
In reality, the PA is a security force for hire that operates with one sole purpose, to protect Israeli soldiers and settlers as they steal more Palestinian land. The PA’s Security Force (PASF), estimated to be around 50,000-70,000 men strong, is funded by the EU and US, with Israel also controlling its finances through its decision to hand it its own taxes. The PASF operates to spy on, arrest, torture, and even kill Palestinians who dare to resist Israel’s brutal military occupation. The PASF is tasked with protecting illegal settlers and soldiers, while endangering Palestinians. The PA is not a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. According to the PLO charter, all of those who are involved with it are traitors to the Palestinian cause and would be dealt the death penalty. The PA is headed by a corrupt dictator, run by a pool of intelligence ghouls and business men, and exists only to serve Israel.
After the invasion of Jenin, the PA had come to an agreement with the Jenin Brigades; a number of Palestinian fighters were to be released from PA custody — who were arrested while on the way to help fight the Israeli invasion of the refugee camp — in return for securing PA President Abbas’s visit to the refugee camp last week. The Jenin Brigades upheld their side of the deal, making sure that Abu Mazen could enter the refugee camp for his desired PR stunt and then leave, yet the PA has still refused to release the political prisoners who have not broken any Palestinian law to justify their detainment.
Instead of releasing the Palestinian fighters, the most notable of which were from the Jaba’ Battalion, the PA decided to launch a large-scale arrest campaign against Palestinian fighters throughout the West Bank. This prompted the Jenin Brigades to call upon Palestinians to demonstrate against the betrayal of the fighters on Monday night, with demonstrations beginning at 9:00 PM (local time). Although the protests were controlled and non-violent, especially in Jenin where the Jenin Brigades chose to limit the demonstrations to the refugee camp alone to avoid clashes, the PASF were deployed in massive numbers throughout the West Bank, the same forces that were notably absent during the invasion of Jenin.
In late June, Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, openly told members of the Knesset that Israel “needs the PA” and that it must invest financially in keeping the PA alive, saying the quiet part out loud, he allegedly said that Israel “has an interest in seeing that the PA continues to function”. When extremist members of Netanyahu’s coalition have suggested demolishing the PA, the Israeli PM has repeatedly dismissed this as ridiculous and there is a good reason why. If the PA is gone, then Israel has to manage the security situation inside the West Bank alone and will face constant resistance. By having the PA there as its proxy force, it takes the economic burden off of Israel and also takes the security burden as well.
The Palestinian people are growing tired of the PA’s lies, its criminal behavior, and its inability to perform some of its basic domestic functions correctly. Yet, the PA is now being tasked by the Israeli military with disbanding and weakening the real representative Palestinian armed forces in the West Bank, all at a time of weakness. The PA’s corrupted representatives constantly lie, spread rumors, and curse anyone that stands up for the Palestinian people, then demand respect and proclaim to represent the people they oppress. The more the PA launches its political arrests and opens fire on its own people, in addition to taking funding from the Israelis, the more likely a full-scale revolt will occur. If such a revolt happens, the Palestinian people will stand against the PA en-masse, however, at this point there are too many West Bankers who are economically dependent on the PA itself for work, or Israeli businesses. Yet, this situation could change quickly and it just takes one major event for people to stand up, deciding that enough is enough.
The PA’s corrupt elitist clique, aided by a class of privileged and disconnected Palestinians, have destroyed one of the most respectable causes on earth, reducing the organization (the PLO) that represented that cause on the international level, to become a failed and corrupted Arab dictatorship that licks the shoes of the region’s most despised enemy.
