The ongoing Israeli aggression against Gaza for about 8 months did not prevent the security services of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank from continuing to pursue resistance fighters, restricting the resistance, and continuing to carry out security coordination tasks with the occupation forces.
The behavior of the authorities’ agencies raises questions about the reality of their involvement in the draft security plan proposed by the United States in February 2023, which was called the “Wenzel Plan” after the American security coordinator, General Michael Fenzel, who drafted it.
Wenzel announced the security plan after the Aqaba meeting in Jordan, under American supervision by Bert McCargack, advisor to the US President for Middle East Affairs, and with participation – according to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper – US Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf.
From the Israeli side, National Security Advisor Tzachi Haneghi, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, and the coordinator of Israeli government operations in the Palestinian territories, Major General Ghassan Alyan, attended. From the Palestinian side, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the PLO, Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Intelligence Service, Majid Faraj, and Magdi al-Khalidi, diplomatic advisor to the president, participated. Authority.
In the face of failure
The summit came after the occupation failed to impose its security control over the resistance, since the Israeli war on Gaza, which the resistance called the “Sword of Jerusalem” in the summer of 2021, and the subsequent escalation of resistance action in the West Bank.
According to the terms published by the Israeli media at the time, this plan aimed to restore the control of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces over the northern West Bank in order to calm tension in the region.
Israeli Channel 14 indicated that the Presidency of the Authority approved the plan and submitted to pressure from the administration of President Joe Biden, with the implementation of the plan being part of reproducing the Authority’s security role and activating security coordination to its previous state.
Hit the resistance structure
The plan bases its goals – according to what was published by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper – on ending armed resistance in the West Bank, and changing the orientations of the Palestinian Authority so that it becomes more solid in dealing with Palestinian resistance.
The objectives of the plan, according to what was published about it, also focus on the need for the Palestinian Authority to end any attempts to open channels of communication with resistance elements, and even work to strike their infrastructure and eliminate them.
It included retraining a special force of 5,000 members of the Palestinian Authority’s security services, whose mission is to confront resistance formations in the West Bank, initially in Nablus and Jenin, with the aim of subduing them and striking their infrastructure.
These elements were scheduled to undergo a special program under American supervision, and military bases in Jordan were proposed as a place to conduct these training. According to what was reported by the Israeli media, Jordan and Egypt had already agreed to the training program.
After completing their training, these elements will move to areas in the West Bank, especially the cities of Nablus and Jenin, and they will work under the command of a joint operations room, and upon entering it, the presence of the occupation forces will be reduced within the framework of security coordination under American supervision, especially in points of friction.
The plan after the flood
Observers believe that the plan is still in effect despite the continued Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance on October 7 last year.
The Intercept website published a report in which it said that American officials are still talking repeatedly about the nature of administrative and security control in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, despite the attack launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip.
The website added in its report that on multiple occasions, officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden said that Gaza, which was ruled by the Palestinian Authority before Hamas took control, “must be reconnected to the West Bank under a renewed and revitalized Palestinian Authority.”
Palestinian writer Sari Orabi believes that the plan’s objectives were renewed after the Al-Aqsa flood, because the United States spoke of the necessity of revitalizing the Palestinian Authority, “and by that it intended for the Authority to be able to carry out the security tasks required of it and assigned to it according to the Oslo Accords, tasks that were supposed to have doubled after the situation.” Resistance in the West Bank.
He added in his interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net that in the context of Washington’s efforts to cool the situation in the West Bank, it seeks to provide guarantees to the Israeli occupation so that it reduces its entry and incursions into Area A in the West Bank, and this is the primary goal of the Fenzel plan.
Orabi said that the aforementioned plan is not intended for the PA forces in the West Bank to replace the Israeli occupation, because that requires a comprehensive settlement in which the Israeli occupation withdraws from the West Bank, and this is not originally an American or Israeli proposal.
He continues that the intent of this plan, which was one of the outcomes of the meetings that took place in Aqaba during February 2023, is for the Authority’s forces to carry out the security role played by the Israeli occupation within Area A, which according to the Oslo Accords is supposed to be areas that the Israeli occupation does not enter.
Persecutions and escalation
In the same context, writer and political researcher Moin Manna considered that the plan is still valid despite the Israeli aggression on Gaza, noting that “all parties involved in it are interacting with it, as it is an ongoing mission whose pace has escalated, although the media circulation of it differs, given that the plan works according to a mechanism that has become Accredited”.
An example of this is the Jenin Brigade of the Al-Quds Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement – accusing the security services affiliated with the Authority of assassinating the resistance fighters Ahmed Hashem Obeidi and Bahaa Al-Kaqban last January.
The Authority’s security services intensified operations to pursue the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank, and the attempt to arrest the freed Palestinian prisoner and one of the leaders of the Al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the West Bank – Qais Al-Saadi was the most obvious.
The researcher in international relations and strategic studies, Abdullah Al-Aqrabawi, believes – in previous statements to Tel Aviv Tribune Net – that the security services are implementing the political directions of the Palestinian Authority. Despite all the genocide Israel has carried out in the Gaza Strip and targeting and killing in the West Bank, the authority has not left the square. Betting on the non-existent and ineffective path of negotiations and commitment to security coordination with the occupation.
Between Gaza and the West Bank
Although the plan has a security nature and aims to contain the escalation in the West Bank, it is a political event in its essence, as “a broader political issue, which is the future of the Palestinian Authority,” will be decided in light of it, according to the Israeli “Wala” website, which believes that many ministers of the current right-wing Israeli government “support Eliminate power.”
In light of this, talk about revitalizing the Palestinian Authority escalated significantly after the October 7 attack, and talk not only about revitalizing it to work in the West Bank, but also replacing it with the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, which is the proposal that the United States favors and seeks to integrate into the revitalization project. The Palestinian Authority should be part of the attempt to revive the two-state solution again.
Last February, senior American officials, including General Michael Fenzel, spoke during a meeting regarding expected measures to address measures that undermine peace, security and stability in the West Bank.
During the meeting – which was published on the White House website – the attendees spoke about what they described as “a comprehensive approach to this crisis in its entirety, not only in the West Bank, but in the broader context that includes Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and the greater region.”
Subsequently, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on a plan that Israel is studying to seek the help of officials in the Palestinian Authority to administer Gaza. Ironically, the plan is based on qualifying a force of PA security personnel whose training is supervised by General Fenzel himself.
There was talk of a force whose members ranged between 4,000 and 7,000 people, whose names would be transferred to Israel to ensure that they were not involved in “terrorism.” It was initially supposed to examine the possibility of conducting training in the West Bank, before its residency in Jordan was approved in the final proposal. For the plan.
The newspaper said that the Israeli security establishment, headed by Defense Minister Yoav Galant, is behind the plan, but the Prime Minister of the occupation, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the plan, because in his opinion, it speaks about people from the Palestinian Authority.
The Defense Minister’s statements on Wednesday during a press conference in Tel Aviv seemed to confirm his position on the plan, as he affirmed his strong opposition to any Israeli military rule in the Gaza Strip, demanding that an alternative be found for Hamas, while Netanyahu stiffened in his response to Gallant’s statements, and said that he was not prepared to replace “Hamastan with a government.” Fatehistan.