British Middle East Eye website said that the cessation of security coordination with the Israeli side, which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened again after US President Donald Trump announced what Abbas described as a "slap of the century", seemed impossible for the Palestinian Authority.

On Saturday, President Mahmoud Abbas’s statement could not have been more clear. In the face of the imminent Israeli annexation and the humiliating “deal of the century” concluded by the United States, the Palestinian Authority announces the severing of its security relations with the two countries.

However, close security cooperation continued the next day as usual, as liaison offices operate as if nothing had happened.

The American peace plan opens the door for Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and illegal Israeli settlements, that is, more than a third of the West Bank, and left the Palestinian Authority scrambling to confront this threat.

However, despite the strong words that Abbas said at the recent Arab Foreign Ministers meeting at the League of Arab States in Cairo two days ago, the immediate severing of ties was never part of Abbas’s thinking, according to a senior official in the Palestinian government.

The Palestinian official said the announcement was just a "hint" that he would use an "important card" to pressure the United States and Israel.

He added, "Abbas uses all his cards to confront the American-Israeli project and its implications, especially security cooperation."

For Israel, attributing a large part of intelligence gathering and security implementation in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority is very useful and helps reduce attacks on its forces and citizens.

At the same time, the Palestinian Authority uses the information delivered to it by Israel to maintain its hegemony and undermine the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

And the Palestinian government official said that Washington also gets benefits from this arrangement, explaining that "the Palestinian Authority is part of the West's war on terror and President Abbas wanted to remind the Americans and Israelis that this role has a political price, and without this price it cannot continue."

6129143611001 9d063b5e-7b24-40a7-892d-a003232be1f0 a6ff38a8-c46f-46c2-8056-e163915e46de
video

Change the rules of the game
After Trump announced his peace plan last week, Palestinian Authority Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein Sheikh met with Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and informed him of the decision to stop coordination if Israel were to annex parts of the West Bank.

But this threat was repeated in 2015 and 2017, and the authority has never implemented it.

An official in the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) told Middle East Eye that such a strategic move (stopping coordination) could be implemented if the rules of the relationship between the Authority and Israel changed.

The official adds that stopping the coordination may lead to an armed clash between the occupation soldiers who storm the occupied areas every night and the Palestinian police, and will lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, noting that stopping the coordination between the two sides mainly affects the stability of the authority that administers the West Bank areas daily.

Stopping coordination also harms the Palestinian Authority, as it adopts the Israeli license for many of its basic powers, including the Palestinian passport, where the Authority tried to issue passports written on it "issued by the State of Palestine" in place of the Palestinian Authority, but retreated after Israel threatened to refuse any document Bear this profile.

Although the public demand to stop coordination is high, officials close to Abbas say that such measures will only be taken if they are absolutely necessary, as they may witness the end of the Palestinian Authority.

Middle East Eye concludes that in light of the declining international interest in the Palestinian issue, the internal division (Fatah and Hamas) and Israel’s possession of the keys to Palestinian movement, stopping security coordination may seem impossible for the Palestinian Authority.