A Palestinian writer residing in the United States criticized the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, for launching a security campaign to disarm Palestinian fighters in the Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank, which is under its control within Area A under the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Jamal Kang, in his article published on the American “Counter Punch” website, compared this campaign, which the Palestinian Authority called “Protecting the Homeland,” to the attacks and massacres carried out by the occupation army against Palestinians and raids on their homes.
He said, “It is difficult not to view this security campaign in Jenin as an extension of Israel’s operations that have failed to crush the resistance since 2002.”
He added that the Israeli army moves completely freely, raiding homes and arresting Palestinians in any city, town or refugee camp throughout the West Bank, even though it falls within the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
Kang elaborated on incidents of attacks by Israeli security forces and settlers, warning that what makes these acts “terrorist and terrible” is the blatant complicity of the occupation army.
Ethnic cleansing
He said it must be understood that the systematic and racist violence practiced by Israeli Jewish fanatics is part of a deliberate Zionist strategy to instill fear in the souls of the Palestinians and achieve “deliberate” ethnic cleansing.
He criticized the duality of the legal system that allows settlers impunity while Palestinians suffer from unjust military rule, embodying apartheid practices documented by leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
The future of the Palestinian Authority
He went on to consider that the Palestinian Authority’s “voluntary” cooperation with Israel raises a fundamental question about the future of the Palestinian Authority, in light of the growing state of frustration with the current situation and popular demands for a new strategy that gives priority to resistance and self-determination over settlement and gives it momentum.
As Kang put it, these demands reflect a popular desire for a leadership that is “more accountable” to the Palestinian people and “less subservient to Israel and international donors.”
The writer concluded his article by drawing attention to the fact that the path the Palestinian Authority is currently taking not only undermines the aspirations of its citizens to establish their state, but also risks transforming the “homeland” that it claims to protect into “Bantustans” run by Zionism, using the term that was given to areas in South Africa that were Blacks constitute the vast majority of the population in both South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia).