For policymakers in the US, the Arab world, and Europe, a reformed Palestinian Authority is the obvious institution to fill the political vacuum in Gaza as they seek to bring about a two-state solution, but among PA Arabs, faith in the Palestinian Authority – which was created in the 1990s as a stepping stone toward a Palestinian state – has withered, reports James Shotter in The Financial Times Thursday morning.
Shotter quotes Ghassan Khatib, a lecturer at Birzeit University, north of Ramallah in Samaria, who told him, “Israel today is not the Israel we negotiated and reached agreements with 30 years ago. It is not really interested in a political entity on our side. That’s why they put this huge pressure on the PA. By closing any political horizon, by the incredible increase in settlement expansion, settler attacks, and incursions, they have made the PA something irrelevant in the eyes of the Palestinian public.”
Even supporters of the Palestinian Authority acknowledge that some of its challenges stem from internal issues. Its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who at 88 could teach both Joe Biden and Donald Trump about gerontocracy (Google it), having held office since his first and only election in 2005. The PA hasn’t conducted parliamentary or presidential elections since 2006, when Abbas’s Fatah party, which controls the PA, was defeated by Hamas. As a result, many PA Arabs view the PA as an autocratic, disconnected, and dishonest institution.
A recent survey revealed that, for the first time, a majority of PA Arabs believed dissolving the PA would benefit them. The PA’s situation has further deteriorated since Hamas’s catastrophic October 7 assault on Israel. During much of the ensuing conflict, Abbas has been notably absent from the public eye. He faces a challenging balancing act: addressing widespread anger over Israel’s intense bombardment of Gaza while also working (very part-time, we must add) to prevent unrest in Jude4a and Samaria. Other recent polls indicate that the war has significantly boosted Hamas’s popularity in Judea and Samaria, far surpassing support for Abbas’s Fatah faction.
A former PA official told Shotter: “The world understands it can’t ignore the Palestinian issue, but we don’t have a Palestinian side with the legitimacy or the vision to take advantage.”
The same official also said, “The only point on the Israeli agenda is to prevent a Palestinian state.”
Shotter peppers his report with the usual complaints about the IDF and the Jewish settlers repressing innocent villagers, blocking roads, and generally insisting on not getting murdered by their peaceful neighbors. He then cited MK Simcha Rothman, “a settler and MP from Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party,” who told him settler violence was a “non-issue. It does not exist. It’s a myth. It’s a blood libel.”
In conclusion, Shotter offers the data: “Israeli officials say the raids are to stop safe havens for militants emerging in areas where the PA no longer functions. But the Palestinian death toll has hit levels unseen for 20 years. According to the UN, the Israeli military has killed 536 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7. Settlers have killed 11 Palestinians, and settlers or the military have killed another six. In the same period, Palestinians have killed 14 Israelis in the territory, including five settlers and nine soldiers, and eight Israelis in Israel.”
But there’s also the economic aspect of the new Israeli policy that could bring down the PA soon enough. Following Hamas’s attack, Israel barred approximately 160,000 PA Arabs who previously worked in Israel from entering the country. Israeli officials say this measure was essential for preventing potential new attacks. But this decision, coupled with movement restrictions in Judea and Samaria––also to prevent terrorist attacks––has severely impacted the PA’s economy. Economic output in the first quarter of 2024 dropped by 25% compared to the previous year.
In the aftermath of October 7, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich imposed a 60% increase in deductions from funds that Israel is supposed to transfer to the Palestinian Authority. Smotrich justified this action by claiming that the withheld amount would have been used to pay salaries and pensions for PA officials in Gaza, as well as provide financial support to imprisoned terrorists and the families of deceased terrorists.
In May, Smotrich escalated his policy by completely halting the fund transfers. This decision came after several European nations recognized Palestine and the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor pursued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Recently, Smotrich permitted a partial payment to be made. However, he has urged Netanyahu to annex the entire Judea and Samaria area if the PA continued to back the ICC case and pursue international recognition of Palestine.
Diana Buttu, a former Abbas adviser, told Shotter, “You can bring the best governors to Palestine and they’re going to fail. And the reason is the PA’s structure is a failure. They have no sovereignty. They don’t have their own currency. They don’t control their airspace. They don’t control their natural resources. They don’t control imports and exports . . . It’s never going to work.”
Thank God!
