Two British newspapers published reports on the role of the Palestinian Authority during the current tensions in the West Bank. One described the Authority as having lost its compass, while the other reported views describing it as impotent or complicit with the occupier.
The Middle East Eye newspaper said that Palestinian resistance groups are confronting Israel in the West Bank and bypassing the Palestinian Authority, which analysts say has become powerless, divided and unstable.
She added that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his administration often condemn Israeli raids in the West Bank, but they have done nothing to confront them.
Israel detains those it wants
The newspaper quoted Jamal Juma, a prominent Palestinian activist and analyst, as describing the Authority’s actions as completely negative, as it responded to Israel’s actions and repression of the Palestinians by detaining young men wanted by the Israeli authorities.
“I imagine that some of the anger currently directed at the occupation will be directed towards the Palestinian Authority,” Jumaa said.
He added that the administration is “aggressive toward the Palestinian people and is seen as complicit in attacks, including providing intelligence to Israel.”
The Palestinian Authority, dominated by the Fatah movement, employs 21% of the Palestinian workforce, the Middle East Eye reported. However, it has struggled to pay salaries in recent years due to Israel’s withholding of tax revenues.
You want her helpless
A senior Fatah member, who requested anonymity, was quoted as saying that Israel seeks to reduce the role of the Authority to something resembling municipalities rather than a larger political body, adding that Israel does not want to dismantle the Authority entirely but rather aims to render it powerless.
The prominent member added that the Israelis want to keep the Palestinian Authority helpless and dysfunctional, and they portray it as not outdated, but the Israeli approach makes its collapse inevitable.
They despise her
The Guardian newspaper published a report in which it said that, after the bloody Israeli strikes there, Palestinians in the West Bank have come to despise the Palestinian Authority, and that they only disagree if this authority is inefficient or works actively with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Palestinian citizen Abu Asaad (54 years old) from Qalandia was quoted as saying that what is happening these days in the West Bank is not the end of the resistance, but rather the beginning, adding that these events will attract the entire region. He described the Authority as weak, and as giving the green light to the occupation army to eliminate its opponents whom it could not defeat.
We are a defenseless people
The Guardian quoted a young man from Qalandia, a 25-year-old vegetable seller called Marwan, as saying that resistance is still more of an idea than a military reality. “We talk about resistance, but we are a defenceless people. We don’t have the basic tools for resistance, but Israel treats us as if we were an enemy state with a huge army.”
One shopper, a Palestinian war veteran named Ahmed Ghneim, a local leader of the dominant Fatah faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the result of the repeated attacks on the largely defenseless population would eventually be a mass uprising, a third intifada.
“We are facing a very critical situation,” Ghanem added. “I think the intifada is knocking on the door in the West Bank. We are civilians who do not have any capabilities to confront the heavy Israeli military machine, and the only way we can resist is through the power and capabilities of the people.”