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The US Wants To Train A Proxy Force To Fight Palestinians — CIA Intervenes Again

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, requested that the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) accept Washington’s proposal to form a special Palestinian task force, trained by the US, that would hunt down Palestinian resistance fighters in the West Bank. The proposal follows a long history of anti-democratic intervention by the US government into Palestinian affairs and would serve to cause chaos inside the occupied territory.

Last week, the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, Bill Burns, warned that the “explosions of violence” between Palestinians and Israelis bears great resemblance to much of what he saw during the Second Intifada, warning that another Palestinian uprising, a Third Intifada, could break out at any time. Burns made these remarks in an interview at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Washington and claimed that the CIA is working with both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli security services, in order to find a way to de-escalate tensions.

The comments of the CIA director follow a visit, late last month, by a US delegation that was headed by secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that had reportedly requested that both Israel and the PA follow a new roadmap in order to de-escalate violence. What we know of the US government proposal was that Tel Aviv had been urged to stop settlement expansion plans and to minimize their violent raid activity, which has been intensifying since the beginning of the year and has resulted in a number of Palestinian retaliatory attacks that have killed Israelis.  Israel’s violent raids have resulted in a number of massacres against Palestinians inside the West Bank, bringing the Palestinian death toll to around 50 so far this year. In addition to this, the hardline administration of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has pledged to construct thousands of new settlement units inside the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.

The Israeli government has openly rejected calls to stop settlement expansion, going forth on a number of illegal plans to expand their settlements and just recognized 9 settler outposts, deeming them legitimate under Israeli law, despite them being strictly forbidden under international law. In addition to this, almost immediately after the US delegation completely departed from the Holy Land, the Israeli military launched a number of violent raids against the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp in Ariha (Jericho), besieging the area for 10 days before murdering 5 Palestinians in a violent raid. Israel then announced that it would be deploying three additional battalions to the West Bank in order to launch harsher raids, anticipating an escalation during the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan. This meant an intensification of Israel’s ‘Operation Break the Wave’ which was initiated on March 31, 2022. All of this is to say that the Israeli government has completely ignored the US proposal to slow down their aggressive activity, which has also included house demolitions that aim to leave thousands of Palestinians homeless.

For the Palestinian Authority, a semi-autonomous entity based in the city of Ramallah under occupation, it too was requested to take its own measures, including opening up security coordination with the Israeli military, again, after having announced that it had cut the agreement off temporarily. This after Israeli forces brutally murdered 10 Palestinians in Jenin refugee camp last month. The decision by the PA to cut off security coordination seems to have largely been a public relations move, decided upon in order to try and save face in front of a disgruntled Palestinian population that overwhelmingly call for the leadership to resign. Yet, it is important to focus on what ‘Security Coordination’ is in order to understand the new outrageous proposal that the US government urged the PA to accept.

A Long History of CIA Intervention

The Palestinian Authority was formed out of the Oslo Accords, signed between the Palestinian representative body known as the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Israel, between 1993-1995. The PA was originally designed as a precursor to an autonomous Palestinian government that would rule over the State of Palestine, however, due to Israel’s refusal to follow through on its commitments under the Oslo agreements, combined with dead-end “peace talks” that were supposed to find a final status settlement to the issue based upon a “two-state solution” model, the purpose of the PA changed. In late 2000, what is known as the ‘Second Intifada’ [Palestinian mass uprising] broke out, ushering in at least 5 years of all out conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

The PA was formed, like was mentioned above, to serve as a government to be and so it was allowed to have its own security forces, the PASF. The PASF were like a dream come true for Israel at first, serving as a force that took the burden off their own occupying military, policing the majority of the Palestinian population in the major city areas. The PA’s security forces eventually began doing their jobs and served as a police force to ensure the safety of Palestinians, however, they also served to protect Israelis by cooperating with the Israeli army. During the Second Intifada, the PA’s President, Yasser Arafat, decided to use his security forces in a way that inflicted a blow against the occupier, utilizing them to defend Palestinians from the Israeli military’s incursions into the areas where the PA had been given powers to operate.

Israel, in coordination with the US government, decided on a plan to counter this offensive play by the PA. Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, storming the strongholds of both the PA and Palestinian militia groups that had formed to fight the occupying military. Their military operation was a success and killed hundreds of Palestinians, most prominently turning the Jenin refugee camp into a bloodbath. Around this time the CIA began its mission to overhaul and then restructure the Palestinian security services, re-purposing them to protect Israeli interests. A 2003 ‘Road Map’ was put forth by the US Bush Jr. administration, which sought to restructure the PA and security forces. One of the elements of this “Road Map” was for then-PA President Yasser Arafat to create the position of Prime Minister, which was filled by the US-friendly Mahmoud Abbas and to coordinate with Israeli forces further, re-engineering the nature of the PASF, also placing a minister of treasury in place that was the pick of the World Bank.

Whilst the PA adopted the steps proposed by the US, Israel again failed to uphold it side of the bargain in halting settlement expansion. In 2004, then President Arafat died and Mahmoud Abbas then took over from his position and managed to win an election. The era of Mahmoud Abbas was completely different from his predecessor, as the new President completely bowed to the dictates of the US and Israel in turning the PA security services into a collaborator force that is trained by the US, Egypt, and Jordan. The European Union also got on board with broad financing measures and a direct line to communicate with Palestinian police services. As the PA sought to re-structure and repurpose, in addition to going after independent armed militias for the sake of protecting Israel, the Hamas party managed to win the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections in a landslide victory, temporarily hindering the advance towards implementing the goals of Mahmoud Abbas.

The PA Preventative Security Services, headed at the time by strongman Mohammed Dahlan, then collaborated with the CIA to organize a military coup in the Gaza Strip against the democratically elected Hamas government. The coup plot was foiled and PA forces loyal to the leadership in Ramallah were crushed violently in Gaza. Meanwhile, the US government and its Western allies all decided to administer sanctions against the Gaza Strip’s democratically elected government. The West currently considers every single Palestinian political organization, other than the mainstream branch of Fatah that runs the PA, as a terrorist organization and so elections have been consistently postponed by the PA President Mahmoud Abbas who knows that his party list would loose.

The PA has become a mini-dictatorship, surviving under occupation and only because of it, as Mahmoud Abbas has implemented a neo-liberal economic program, in tandem with centralizing the PA power structure so that it adheres to his demands. Instead of the US punishing the PA’s leadership for such actions, it encourages this, as do other Western nations, only giving occasional lip service to the idea of new democratic elections, as the US knows that Hamas would win in a landslide.

In 2021, the order in the West Bank began to change dramatically and the wrongdoings of the PA began to catch up to it. PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared that he was going to hold national presidential and legislative elections, but after his own party, Fatah, put forth a number of lists, revealing internal party divisions, and it seemed inevitable that Hamas was going to win with a majority of the vote, the elections were cancelled. In May of 2021, the Palestinian people rose up in a unity uprising for 11 days, whilst the Gaza Strip went to war with Israel, managing to pull off a strategic defeat against Tel Aviv. In September, the Jenin Brigades armed group announced its official launch and since then independent armed militias have emerged once again, starting in Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarem and spreading throughout the West Bank. In the West Bank’s north, the PA has lost control and wont dare launch arrest raids any longer, for fear of sparking an open conflict with the armed militia groups that enjoy support from the majority of the Palestinian population inside the occupied territory.

For Israel, the armed militias are creating an environment, as described by CIA director Bill Burns, that replicates the Second Intifada, during which around 1,000 Israelis were killed. Since the end of the Second Intifada, an environment of hopelessness has prevailed inside the West Bank, which has worked to make most Palestinians feel as if they have no options and that there are no paths to peace available. The younger generation, born around the early 2000’s and afterwards, have grown up in this hopeless and depressing environment, enduring horrific oppression their entire lives. The people have no faith in the PA and see the PASF for what it is; Palestinians know that the PA is collaborator force, however, the PA employs around 30% of the population of the West Bank and so they simply put up with it for fear of the backlash for rising up.

The new armed groups, which are openly speaking about dropping political party affiliation, inter-communal feuds, and unifying all Palestinian territories in order to fight for liberation, have finally delivered a glimmer of hope and the Palestinian people are beginning to have something to believe in again. It is at this time that US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, decides to pressure PA President Mahmoud Abbas to accept a proposal, drafted by U.S. security coordinator Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel, that seeks for the US to train a special PASF task force that would aim to re-establish PA control over the cities of Jenin and Nablus. This would mean deploying a Palestinian force to hunt down and kill, and/or arrest, members of the newly formed Palestinian militias, helping Israel to maintain its occupation cost free and taking the burden off of the Israelis for having to confront the resistance fighters.

Essentially, the US Biden administration wants to arm and train a Palestinian death squad to fight Palestinians who are battling for freedom from occupation. Yet, despite this openly being the case, nobody is wanting to talk about this and call it out for what it is. The reality is, the US has served as the biggest obstacle for democracy and a two-state solution and is now seeking to purge the occupied West Bank of the only source of hope that Palestinians have left. If this is to go ahead, it will likely mean revolution inside the West Bank and the overthrow of the PA altogether, which would be completely against the interests of both Tel Aviv and Washington. This is how out of touch and in opposition the US government is to Palestinian self-determination, to Palestinian democracy, freedom, and liberty — words that they themselves love to throw around as if they own, but are actively denying to those living under Israel’s apartheid rule.

Robert Inlakesh
Robert Inlakesh
Robert Inlakesh is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, writer, Middle-East analyst & news correspondent for The Last American Vagabond.
https://twitter.com/falasteen47

One Reply to “The US Wants To Train A Proxy Force To Fight Palestinians — CIA Intervenes Again

  1. A video Joe Truzman has on Twitter shows an IDF “drone” on a mission in a Palestine neighborhood slowly fly through an open door into a building that then appears to detonate inside. Drone warfare between governments and organizations has overtly and covertly been going on for some time now. Major military forces have more pilots operating drones than they do actually sitting in a seat piloting fighter aircraft. Artificial intelligence is increasingly piloting drones autonomously too. Decisions to kill a human are supposedly made by the operators of drones armed to kill humans, but some are claiming that artificial intelligence has made decisions to do so on their own. What an asylum we live in!

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