From Nabulsi to Shtayyeh: Which Side is the PA On?

By Ramzy Baroud

The arrest of a distinguished Palestinian activist, Musab Shtayyeh, and one other Palestinian activist, by Palestinian Authority police on September 20 was not the primary time that the infamous PA’s Preventive Safety Service (PSS) has arrested a Palestinian who is needed by Israel.

PSS is essentially linked to the routine arrests and torture of anti-Israeli occupation activists. A number of Palestinians have died up to now because of PSS violence, the newest being Nizar Banat who was tortured to dying on June 24, 2021. The killing of Banat ignited a well-liked revolt in opposition to the PA all through Palestine.

For years, numerous Palestinian and worldwide human rights teams have criticized the PA’s violent practices in opposition to dissenting Palestinian voices, very often throughout the similar human rights experiences essential of the Israeli army occupation of Palestine. The Hamas authorities in Gaza, too, has its justifiable share of blame.

In its January 2022 World Report, Human Rights Watch mentioned that “the Palestinian Authority (PA) manages affairs in elements of the West Financial institution, the place it systematically arrests arbitrarily and tortures dissidents.” This was neither the primary nor the final time {that a} human rights group made such an accusation.

The hyperlink between Israeli and Palestinian violence concentrating on political dissidents and activists is equally clear to most Palestinians.

Some Palestinians could have believed, at one level, that the PA’s function is to function a transition between their nationwide liberation undertaking and full independence and sovereignty on the bottom. Almost thirty years after the formation of the PA, such a notion has proved to be wishful considering. Not solely did the PA fail at attaining the coveted Palestinian State, but it surely has morphed right into a massively corrupt equipment whose existence largely serves a small class of Palestinian politicians and enterprise folks – and, within the case of Palestine, it’s all the time the identical group.

PA corruption and subsequent violence apart, what continues to irk most Palestinians is that the PA, with time, turned one other manifestation of the Israeli occupation, curbing Palestinian freedom of expression and finishing up arrests on behalf of the Israeli military. Sadly, lots of these arrested by the Israeli army within the West Financial institution have skilled arrest by PA goons, too.

Scenes of violent riots within the metropolis of Nablus following Shtayyeh’s arrest have been paying homage to the riots in opposition to Israeli occupation forces within the northern West Financial institution metropolis or elsewhere in occupied Palestine. In contrast to earlier confrontations between Palestinians and PA police – for instance, following the killing of Banat – this time, the violence was widespread, and concerned protesters from all Palestinian political teams, together with the ruling Fatah faction.

Maybe unaware of the huge collective psychological shift that befell in Palestine in recent times, the PA authorities was determined to include the violence.

Subsequently, a committee that represents united Palestinian factions in Nablus declared on September 21 that it has reached a ‘truce’ with PA safety forces within the metropolis. The committee, which incorporates distinguished Palestinian figures, instructed the Related Press and different media that the settlement restricts any future arrests of Palestinians in Nablus to the situation that the person should be implicated in breaking Palestinian, not Israeli, legislation. That provision alone implies a tacit admission by the PA that the arrest of Shtayyeh and Ameed Tbaileh was motivated by an Israeli, not a Palestinian agenda.

However why would the PA shortly concede to stress coming from the Palestinian avenue?

The reply lies within the altering political temper in Palestine.

First, it should be acknowledged that resentment of the PA has been brewing for years. One opinion ballot after one other has indicated the low regard that almost all Palestinians have of their management, of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and significantly of the ‘safety coordination’ with Israel.

Second, the torture and dying of political dissident Banat, final yr, has erased no matter persistence Palestinians had in the direction of their management, demonstrating to them that the PA is just not an ally however a menace.

Third, the Unity Intifada of Could 2021 has emboldened many segments of Palestinian society all through occupied Palestine. For the primary time in years, Palestinians have felt united round a single slogan and are now not hostage to the geography of politics and factions. A brand new era of younger Palestinians has superior the dialog past Abbas, the PA and their limitless and ineffectual political rhetoric.

Fourth, armed battle within the West Financial institution has been rising so quickly that the Israeli military Chief of Employees, Aviv Kochavi, claimed on September 6 that, since March, round 1,500 Palestinians have been arrested within the West Financial institution and that, allegedly, a whole bunch of assaults in opposition to the Israeli army have been thwarted.

The truth is, proof of an armed Intifada is rising within the Jenin and Nablus areas. What is especially attention-grabbing, and alarming, from the Israeli and PA viewpoint, in regards to the nature of the budding armed battle phenomenon, is that it’s largely led by the army wing of the ruling Fatah celebration, in direct cooperation with Hamas and different Islamic and nationwide army wings.

For instance, on August 9, the Israeli military assassinated Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a distinguished Fatah army commander, together with two others. Not solely, did the PA do little to cease the Israeli army machine from conducting extra such assassinations, six weeks later, it arrested Shtayyeh, an in depth comrade of Nabulsi.

Apparently, Shtayyeh is just not a member of Fatah, however a commander throughout the Hamas army wing, Al-Qassam. Although Fatah and Hamas are supposed to be intense political rivals, their political tussle appears to be of no relevance to army teams within the West Financial institution.

Sadly, extra violence is prone to comply with, for a number of causes: Israel’s willpower to crush any armed Intifada within the West Financial institution earlier than it’s widespread throughout the occupied territories, the looming management transition throughout the PA as a consequence of Abbas’s outdated age, and the rising unity amongst Palestinians across the concern of resistance.

Whereas the Israeli response to all of this will simply be gleaned from its legacy of violence, the PA’s future plan of action will doubtless decide its relationship with Israel and its western supporters, on the one hand, and with the Palestinian folks, on the opposite. Which aspect will the PA select?

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He’s the writer of six books. His newest e-book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Imaginative and prescient for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Converse out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Analysis Fellow on the Heart for Islam and International Affairs (CIGA). His web site is www.ramzybaroud.web