Related Post
Introduction to translation
The sword has preceded the cruelty in the Palestinian cause, or so says Daniel Byman, a professor of political science at Georgetown University, who specializes in Middle East affairs and counter-terrorism. The legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority has been irreversibly eroded, and armed resistance has become the most popular option among Palestinians, especially since the issue of Mahmoud Abbas’s succession is ambiguous and unresolved. Despite his advice to Washington to try to revive a real peace agreement, and to Tel Aviv to curb the settlers, neither capital seems willing to implement any of this. Therefore, the ongoing war in Gaza opens the doors to the Third Intifada in the West Bank, which means turning the Palestinian issue upside down again.
Translation text
Israel is now preoccupied with its war on the Gaza Strip, and its forces are launching raids and air strikes that have left more than 7,300 martyrs, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. But as the conflict with Hamas intensifies, the occupying state is facing a dangerous dilemma: the fighting in Gaza has begun to spread to the West Bank, and may spark what could turn into a third intifada.
Following the bombing of the Baptist Hospital, violent demonstrations broke out in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Tubas and other major cities in the West Bank, and the Palestinians announced a labor strike throughout the region, while extremist settlers began launching revenge attacks. More than a hundred Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority is under pressure to control the situation, and its efforts to maintain security will be another nail in the coffin of the legitimacy of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
For Washington, the tension in the West Bank compounds the challenges created by the Gaza war, and demonstrates that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains without a solution in sight. The importance of the conflict has declined in recent years for many observers and decision-makers in the United States, who have concluded that there is a new balance in the region thanks to a series of regional “normalization” agreements, a word that has become increasingly widespread after Israel signed peace agreements with Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. .
However, the reality on the ground was clearly contrary to that dreamy American vision. Last February, I myself wrote in the American magazine “Foreign Affairs” that “dangerous developments on the Palestinian and Israeli sides combine and portend ominous things for this year (2023).” Although no one felt the foreboding of the coming danger in Israel or the United States, the evidence clearly pointed to “an inevitable conclusion, which is that the probability of a third intifada erupting is at its highest level in many years,” and the Hamas attack on October 7 exacerbated the response. Israeli action from that possibility.
Between resistance and appeasement
Mahmoud Abbas came to the head of the Palestinian Authority after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 2004. The transfer of power occurred during the second intifada, which broke out between 2000-2005 until it lost its momentum. Arafat saw the Hamas movement as a weapon that could be used against Israel, so he allowed the movement some space in the Palestinian public sphere to put pressure on the occupying state at times, then restrained it at other times when he wanted to calm the situation, believing that he could contain it if he wanted.
However, Hamas quickly became too powerful to control. The movement gained great credibility due to its repeated attacks on Israel during the Second Intifada, while the Palestinian Authority was mired in corruption and infighting. Abbas lacked Arafat’s charisma and revolutionary legitimacy, and thus his rise led to a further erosion of the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, while Hamas became a strong rival to Abbas’s rule.
As the balance of Palestinian politics began to change, hopes for peace vanished. The Israelis emerged from the Second Intifada believing that concessions and the search for peace would only bring more violence, while the Palestinians believed that Israel had become intent on occupying and slowly taking over the West Bank. When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it did so without consulting Mahmoud Abbas or other Palestinian leaders, in what was considered contempt for them. As a result, Hamas was able to gain credibility at the time, as it indicated that its threat of endless violence (referring to the option of armed resistance)* was what prompted Israel to withdraw its forces, not the negotiations, and the credibility of its attacks and its reputation as an organization less corrupt than the Palestinian Authority helped it win. With the Gaza elections in 2006. After a clash with the authorities, Hamas took over the rule of the Strip in 2007.
Since that time, Hamas has ruled Gaza, although Israel, the United States, and other countries do not recognize its authority over the Strip. The authorities viewed Hamas as its adversary, and Israel viewed it as its enemy, and therefore we cooperated in combating the movement. But Hamas has proven its mettle, and given its deep roots in Gaza, neither Israeli economic pressure nor repeated military campaigns have shaken its grip on power in the Strip. A status quo prevailed throughout that time: the Palestinian Authority ruled the West Bank and Hamas ruled Gaza, and each side looked at the other with suspicion, but neither succeeded in removing the other.
Palestinian Authority leaders are concerned about Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians, especially in times of crisis such as now, when the movement becomes the center of attention of the Palestinian people. Human rights organizations claim that the Palestinian Authority uses torture, beatings, and random arrests to suppress Hamas supporters. According to the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, the Authority threatens the families of its political opponents, who are many, as many Palestinians see the Authority today as merely an extension of the Israeli occupation. As for those who live under the yoke of occupation in the West Bank, in their view, the choice between Hamas’s valor or the complicity of the Palestinian Authority does not require long thought.
The succession of Mahmoud Abbas
The situation in the West Bank was volatile even before the Hamas attack on October 7, with anger spreading among Palestinians at the Israeli occupation with no end in sight, expanding settlement construction, and increasing campaigns to evict people from their homes by Israeli settlers. This year was more bloody than the previous year (2022), taking into account that the previous year itself was the bloodiest in years before it. As more Palestinians are killed during Israeli military campaigns in Gaza, unrest in the West Bank is likely to escalate, meaning more retaliatory Israeli violence, and the result will be a dangerous, never-ending cycle.
Such a cycle strengthens Hamas, as did the October 7 attacks. Israelis were stunned by the scope and scale of the attacks, and there was no doubt that it was a blow to the image of the Israeli state and its reputation as invincible. Many Palestinians feel proud that Israel is also suffering, and that it can no longer ignore the Palestinian issue. Resistance has a long tradition among the Palestinians, and Hamas carries its banner and the legacy of those who preceded it in this regard. Just as Hamas prided itself on the effectiveness of armed resistance in forcing Israel to withdraw in 2005, the success of its attacks today appears to be a clear contradiction of what Palestinians see as the complicity of the Palestinian Authority.
In order to bolster his legitimacy and calm Palestinian anger, Mahmoud Abbas unleashed infallible rhetoric and took diplomatic measures against Israel. After the bombing of the Baptist Hospital, Abbas accused Israel of committing a “war crime that cannot be tolerated,” and canceled a scheduled meeting with US President Joe Biden, in order to distance himself from appearing alongside the head of state that many Palestinians blame for enabling Israeli violence. It is likely that Abbas will increase the pace of his anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric in the coming days, and will unleash diplomatic efforts to isolate Israel, with symbolic measures to cut off public cooperation between the Authority and the occupying state. For example, the Palestinian President could suspend the Authority’s involvement in the committees that manage Gaza’s water and energy supplies, and he could also announce the suspension of security cooperation with Israel inside the West Bank (although he would not be able to end it completely).
However, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority ultimately face a transition crisis, as the man is 87 years old, a heavy smoker, and there is no clear successor yet. The man has stifled his opponents within power by depriving them of almost any political visibility, let alone opportunities to develop a base of supporters or political networks of their own. But when Abbas dies, political horizons may open up. It is indeed possible that leaders will emerge vying for power, each with a bureaucratic or geographic center of power, and many of the candidates are part of the old guard that ran power alongside Abbas. But it is also possible that young leadership with a new perspective will emerge.
The current violence in the West Bank is an opportunity for these leaders to try to establish their political presence as Abbas’s star declines. These new leaders will seek to gain national credibility by permitting attacks on Israeli settlers or soldiers, and perhaps even by inciting people themselves. In order to undermine their opponents who cooperate with Israel, the new leaders may try to inflame popular sentiment in the face of settler violence, Israeli restrictions on their lives, and the killing of civilians in Gaza. In the midst of this, the biggest concern will be that the unpopular Palestinian Authority will become weaker and more divided than before. For their part, the Israelis fear that Hamas will use the competition to succeed Abbas in order to consolidate its power, including by trying to seize control of the West Bank.
The Palestinian issue: the road of no return
For the United States, such a path is very worrying, but it may have some backup plans. When negotiations begin on how to end the war in Gaza and humanitarian aid flows into the Strip, Washington may increase the involvement of the Palestinian Authority in order to increase its credibility and viability on the scene. As for Israel, I advise it to suppress the arrogance of its settler community by directing law enforcement and intelligence personnel to uncover plans to kill and harass Palestinians in the West Bank. In other words, Israel must view the settlers as terrorists, just like any other terrorist threat, and it must also arrest settlers who practice violence and protect the Palestinians from their attacks. Settler violence threatens to ignite a crisis in the West Bank at a moment when Israel needs to reduce the front lines as much as possible to focus on Gaza and Hezbollah.
But even if Israel succeeds in curbing settler violence and helps strengthen the position of the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian anger has already reached its peak, and the number of civilian deaths that a ground incursion into Gaza would cause will inevitably inflame their anger even more. In the long run, trying to minimize the consequences of the Gaza war will not help restore Abbas and the Authority’s credibility. As long as a real peace process, or any attempt at a negotiated settlement, is absent, Palestinians will view groups calling for armed resistance (such as Hamas) as more worthy of leadership, even at the cost of destruction they suffer as a result.
___________________________
translation: Magda Maarouf
This report is translated from Foreign Affairs It does not necessarily reflect the location of Maidan.
