The Palestinian Authority has a duty, under the Oslo Accords, to engage in security coordination with Israel, including joint efforts to prevent terrorist attacks on Israelis, and helping Israel to track down terrorists who have already carried out attacks. But the PA has not been fulfilling its solemn commitments, and both Israel and the U.S. are now pressuring the PA to get with the program. More on their pressure, and how the PA has reacted so far, can be found here: “PA faces pressure from Israel, US to rein in West Bank terror groups,” by Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, June 27, 2023:
The PA is facing increased pressure from Israel, the US, and other parties to take tough measures against armed groups and gunmen in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian official in Ramallah said on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, is also facing pressure and threats from many Palestinians to end the security coordination between the Palestinian security forces and the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, the official told The Jerusalem Post.
The PA, in addition, has come under attack for failing to order its security forces to engage IDF soldiers and settlers.
The PA has to worry about the increased popularity of both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Judea and Samaria, as well as the popularity, among younger Palestinians, of brand-new groups that have sprung recently in Jenin and Nablus, such as the Lions’ Den. If it were to try to put down its rivals violently, it is not at all clear that the PA would prevail. It’s certainly not going to yield to pressure from those who want it to “engage” with – that is, violently oppose — the IDF and settlers. Though the PA has often failed to coordinate security matters with the IDF, as it is obligated to do, it has never actually fought the IDF, which would leave the Palestinians badly bloodied. Furthermore, were the PA fighters to take on the IDF, the Americans would certainly halt their aid to the PA, which since April 2021 has amounted to half a billion dollars. Nothing to sneeze at. Something to hold onto.
In the past few days, two senior Palestinian security officers, Muhanad Marzouk and Faleh Arar, were the targets of shooting attacks. No one was hurt.
The PA believes gunmen belonging to the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were behind the attempted assassinations.
The PIJ is apparently ready to kill the PA’s security officers, a new threat which should terrify the PA. Or it may mean that the PIJ gunmen meant to deliberately miss, as a way to warn the PA not to oppose the PIJ’s efforts to gain new fighters in the West Bank — mainly in Nablus and Jenin — because if it does, the next time, those PIJ gunmen will shoot to kill.
The official denied claims that the PA has lost control of the northern West Bank, specifically Nablus and Jenin, where several armed groups have popped up over the past 18 months.
“Our [PA] security forces are in control of the situation,” the official argued. “If anyone has lost control of the situation it’s Israel. We’ve seen how the Israeli army and police are incapable of reining in the extremist settlers in the West Bank.”
Utter nonsense. Of course the PA has lost control of both Jenin and Nablus, where the PIJ, Hamas, the Lions’ Den, and smaller groups compete for members and power. The PA’s security officers don’t dare to interfere.
According to the official, contrary to what is being reported in the Israeli media, the PA security forces have been putting heavy pressure on some of the armed groups and gunmen to lay down their weapons.
Should we believe the PA, that claims to “be putting heavy pressure” on the armed groups? How exactly are they doing this? Have they killed a single member of Hamas or the PIJ? The only such “heavy pressure”on the terror groups any of us have seen consists of the relentless IDF raids deep into Jenin and Nablus.
“We worked very hard to convince scores of gunmen to hand themselves over to the Palestinian security forces,” he said. “In Nablus, more than 36 gunmen have turned themselves into the security forces. Others agreed to hand over their rifles.”
Thirty-six gunmen in Nablus turned themselves in to the PA. So what? That’s a risible number, given that the population of Nablus is 170,000. How many of those 170,000 are gunmen? Five thousand? Ten? Will those thirty-six who have turned themselves in to the PA now be made part of the PA’s security services and receive salaries? If they don’t receive a tangible benefit, aren’t they likely to backslide, and return to being fighters for those who will pay them well – that is, Hamas and PIJ, both of which receive large sums from Iran?
Last week, PA security officers arrested Falah Sawalmeh, a resident of the Far’a refugee camp northwest of Nablus who is also wanted by Israel for his role in terrorism. Sawalmeh was one of the commanders of a new armed group in his camp. The PA security forces have refused to release him until he hands over his M-16 rifle.
That’s one less gun-toting terrorist off the streets near Nablus, but now what? Will he be imprisoned indefinitely by the PA? What happens if his armed group kidnaps a PA fighter and holds him for a swap, to gain Sawalmeh’s freedom? And how is he to “hand over his M-16 rifle” if he is being held prisoner? Is the handover the rifle meant to have symbolic significance, a kind of surrender? Even if Sawalmeh does have a fellow fighter bring in the rifle and hand it over to the PA, and he is let loose, what is to prevent him from immediately rearming with another M-16 rifle, or some more powerful weapon, like an Uzi submachine gun, and being more determined than ever to oppose the PA? His temporary arrest seems to be intended to impress the Americans and Israelis that the PA is doing something significant.. But they chose not to go after anyone from the major terror groups, instead selecting someone who heads a brand-new, small groupuscule of fighters.
In Jenin, PA officers have been exerting pressure on some families to persuade their sons, who are members of armed groups, to hand themselves over to the Palestinian security forces. One of them is the Abu al-Haija family, whose members are known to be affiliated with PIJ.
In Jenin, the PA’s preferred method of undermining its rivals Hamas and PIJ.is not to take them on directly, which necessarily means violently, but instead to pressure Palestinian families, by threatening to dismiss its members from government jobs, or to withhold housing and food subsidies, into convincing their sons who are members of armed groups to hand themselves in to the PA.
According to the official, the Lions’ Den armed group, which operated in Nablus over the past few months, has ceased to exist “largely thanks to the efforts of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service and the Protective Security Service.”
No one else – not journalists reporting from Nablus, and not the IDF that has been conducting raids into Nablus — believe that the Lions’ Den has “ceased to exist.” Again, this is part of the blague that the PA routinely engages in to convince the Israelis and, especially, their generous donors, the Americans, that they are doing something significant to stop terrorism. To the extent that the Lions’ Den members may be on the run, it is not the Palestinian General Intelligence Service that is responsible, but the IDF, with its relentless series of raids.
Several members of the group agreed to hand over their weapons to the Palestinian security forces and are currently staying inside security installations in Nablus. The group was responsible for a series of shooting attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the Nablus area over the past few months.
Getting “several members” – three? five? – of the Lions’ Den to hand over weapons is not much of an accomplishment when the group has many hundreds of members. This handful are apparently being held “inside security installations,” possibly to protect them from other members of the Lions’ Den, or from Hamas or PIJ members, who would now see them as having betrayed the cause by handing over their weapons to the PA, the hated rival of all these groups.
Mosab Shtayyeh, one of the founders and leaders of the Lions’ Den, has been in PA custody since September 2022. His arrest triggered a wave of violent clashes between gunmen and PA security forces in Nablus. Shtayyeh is said to be affiliated with Hamas.
Mosab Shtayyeh, a Lions’ Den founder and leader, is also affiliated with Hamas. The PA figures that while it doesn’t dare to take on Hamas, it can arrest junior-grade affiliates of the group. They’ve held him in custody since last September. Hamas and PIJ gunmen, enraged at Shtayyeh’s seizure, have fired on PA security men in Nablus – the casualties on both sides are unknown — but so far the PA has refused to release him.
“The Americans and other parties are fully aware of the efforts our security forces are making to enforce law and order in the areas under our control in the West Bank,” the official said. “In the past five months, we arrested several gunmen and confiscated 13 rifles.”…
Again, what the P.A. claims – even if it may be true – is not exactly impressive. Those “efforts” over five months have led to the arrest of “several” — which likely means three or four – gunmen, or less than one a month. Should the Americans be impressed? Should the IDF high command? And just as unimpressive is the seizure of “13 rifles.” And though the PA has in the past defended itself when attacked, it remains reluctant these days to go on the attack itself, worried about the growing power of both Hamas and PIJ. That’s a task that is left to the IDF, that relentlessly make such raids, with fewer than a hundred soldiers in any one raid, into Nablus (pop. 170,000) and Jenin (pop. 45.000).
The PA goes after not the armed terrorists, but rather, the political opponents of Abbas and his corrupt regime, people like the late Nizar Banat, who was beaten to death by Abbas’ goons because his criticisms of the PA. President on social media had become dangerously effective. And the PA continues this no-nonsense approach to crushing Abbas’ political opponents. But that’s not going to win it any points in Washington or Jerusalem. The PA’s security services have to do more than arrest “several gunmen” and confiscate a grand total of 13 rifles. They need to seek out, and arrest or kill, members of Hamas and the PIJ.
Mahmoud Abbas is a deeply unpopular despot. In a recent poll, 80% of the Palestinians responded that they wanted Abbas to resign. He has no intention of doing so, and he comes down hard on political opponents. He had his goons beat to death Nizar Banat, his most effective critic on social media. But the critics, albeit in less inflammatory ways than Banat, continue to complain about corruption and mismanagement at the PA. He doesn’t want to risk his security services possibly losing a battle to Hamas or PIJ; that might be enough to topple him from power.
The P.A. acts more vigorously against perceived political threats to the rais in Ramallah than against the gun-toting terrorists whom the security services are afraid of confronting. Universities that have become hotbeds of anti-regime activity are particularly worrisome. An undisclosed number of students, linked to Hamas, have recently been arrested by the PA at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, and at An-Najah University in Nablus. Two of those arrested, who are now prisoners in the infamous Jericho Prison, are the past and present chairmen of the student council at Bir Zeit, Majid Hassan and Omar Kiswani. Both of them are affiliated with, though not members of, Hamas, through a student group, Islamic Bloc.
The PA’s security services have to screw their courage to the sticking point, and do a much better job fighting – with plenty of help from the IDF – members of Hamas and the PIJ in Judea and Samaria. So far their efforts have been pathetic: A handful of members of the minor-league Lions’ Den have turned themselves in, and are now in custody; a leader of the group, Mosab Shtayyeh, has been in prison since last September; during the past five months, the P.A. has managed to arrest “several gunmen” and to confiscate 13 rifles.”
The PA will have to do much better, to arrest, wound, or kill, members of Hamas and the PIJ, if it wants the Americans to keep sending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to support it, and if it expects Israel to continue to coordinate security matters with what, at this point, appears to be a hapless, hopeless, helpless “security partner.”
Kenneth Johnson says
Never happen Look at the state department today. KEN
Deodata says
I thought Biden was funding the terrorist?