Why did the West Bank not join the events of October 7th?

On December 18 of last year, 2023, the US State Department issued an interesting statement.

In it, she said, “We saw the Palestinian Authority playing a constructive role in maintaining stability in the West Bank after the events of October 7.”

On the 6th of the previous month, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken thanked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the “extremely important” role played by the Authority in controlling the West Bank and preventing it from becoming another front of flames in light of the Al-Aqsa flood battle.

These statements answer very briefly a fair share of the question: Where is the West Bank? Who is going on?

Although anyone who follows the developments of the scene in the West Bank (more than 412 martyrs in the West Bank since the beginning of the flood), specifically in the northern cities, knows that it is boiling in a covered pot, and also knows that this cover may quickly fly off as a result of the pressure.

This is something the occupation is well aware of, as last January it sent Duvdovan's unit from the battles in the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, perhaps in response to estimates by the Israeli internal security service "Shin Bet" that the West Bank was about to explode.

Many factors, both subjective and objective, help in understanding the scene in the West Bank, but none of them can explain more than the role of the Palestinian Authority can do.

So the question this article attempts to answer is:

What role did the authorities play in controlling the state of resistance and trying to prevent its development?

How did you work and work during the flood to control the scene and prevent it from exploding?

The policy with which the authority dealt with West Bank society during the flood was gradual and varied, starting from its orbit and containing the anger of the street before venting it, then excessive repression of those who tried to express their anger peacefully and did not respond to the first policy, all the way to seeking to dismantle and strike the structures of armed groups that are active in several areas. Areas in the West Bank.

First: containment and relief policies

After more than four months after about 200,000 workers from the West Bank were unable to work in the occupation’s settlements and cities, and after about 4 and a half months’ salaries had accumulated for more than 140,000 public employees in the Palestinian Authority, he met secretly on February 7 with the Secretary of the Executive Committee. To the Palestine Liberation Organization and Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein Al-Sheikh, to the head of the Israeli National Security Service, the head of the Shin Bet, and the Israeli government coordinator in the West Bank.

As usual, and as is clear from the Israeli ranks present, there was no political discussion under the President of the Palestinian Authority. Rather, the Israelis clearly requested a security mission from the Authority that required preventing escalation in the West Bank before the month of Ramadan.

The month before which Israeli policies are confused.

As for Hussein Al-Sheikh, in return, he requested an economic “expansion”, the main focus of which is allowing the return of West Bank workers to the occupied territories, as an answer to the question of the explosion of the situation in the West Bank, which is what the Israelis promised to deal with.

Thus, the compressed area called the West Bank, the Authority, and behind it, “Israel,” will work to relieve it a little, with solutions in the form of economic “facilitations.”

This is after the resignation of Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh’s call for the workers of the occupied interior to head towards the land was of no use, after the “Palestine TV” broadcaster asked him on December 22, 2023 whether the Authority had plans to absorb these workers in the Palestinian market, and he answered. “The workers who were working in Israel are returning to cultivate the land... We all go to the land to cultivate, because this is a historic opportunity to eat what we produce.”

However, according to Shtayyeh, this “historic opportunity” was not seen by the workers as well, as they know that the largest percentage of lands in the West Bank (61% = Area C) are being stolen on a daily basis, ordeals are carried out on them, and those who work there are threatened by the settlers, and the occupation also prevents any Development carried out by its people, including agriculture, without the authority doing anything about it.

According to the Israeli "Peace Now" organization, from 2009 to 2018, the occupation approved only 98 permits for the purposes of housing, industry, agriculture, and infrastructure services.

According to the Israeli organization Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights, between 2016 and 2020 only 24 permits were approved.

According to the Israeli organization "B'Tselem", the Israeli pretexts for preventing a Palestinian from using his land vary between the following arguments: "state land" - about 35% of Area C, military training areas (firing zones) - about 30% of Area C ), natural reserves and national parks - about 14% of Area (C), or areas of influence belonging to settlements - about 16% of Area (C).”

This reality, which “Israel” is following in full swing, is being tried by the authorities to contain it with populist speeches that cannot be implemented, or with requests for “economic facilitation” that increase dependency on the occupation, in the context of preventing the West Bank from joining the flood war.

However, in order to avoid a clash as much as possible, the winds of power did not come in the opposite direction to the people’s ship supporting the flood, but rather they moved in their direction before working to direct the direction.

For example;

The Authority’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs did not prevent speech about Gaza and the war taking place against it, but it tried to control and direct it.

It generalized the topics of the Friday sermons to ensure that the war and its horrors were addressed without mentioning the duty of action. It even prevented a number of imams from performing the Friday sermon because of the rhetoric of motivation in their sermons to the worshippers. At the beginning of the flood, it was content and focused on collecting donations, praying for Gaza, and praying for the souls of the martyrs.

The authorities not only abolished the effectiveness of the mosque and its role in revolutionizing people, but it also abolished the effectiveness of the strike tool.

After every martyr’s rise in one of the governorates of the West Bank, the authority was quick to announce a strike, which meant closing shops and people sitting in their homes. These strikes were not accompanied by the slightest kind of public national activities and programmes, in what seemed like a distraction and venting of the people’s energy and anger. .

It was also able to contain the paralysis of university life.

These are the factories of confrontation with the occupation, by converting them to the e-learning system.

As for the remaining space for people to demonstrate, the authority worked under the name “National Forces” to contain popular anger by organizing periodic demonstrations that included various factions in the various governorates of the West Bank, thereby ensuring unified speech and slogans and that the demonstration remained within the acceptable limits of the authority.

When she did so, she turned the demonstration into a routine act devoid of content, closer to a folkloric festival than anything else.

In the end, the authority in general did not enter into a clash with the residents of the West Bank, but rather used soft policies of containment and relief, through which it presented itself as a guardian of the people’s hopes and aspirations, and at the same time ensured that they did not revolt and deviate from the regime towards igniting a new front that occupied “Israel.”

Second: The day of the greatest tears

On the evening of last October 17, the eleventh day of the genocidal war, the skies of West Bank cities were filled with tear gas.

People, families and youth, went out in demonstrations in large numbers that spread across the cities of the West Bank, denouncing the Israeli occupation massacre in the Baptist Hospital, which claimed the lives of about 500 martyrs.

Feelings of anger and sadness were evident in the faces of the people who flocked to the city centers, and only the members of the Palestinian security services were standing in line preparing for repression.

At this time when oxygen was running out for the demonstrators in the streets of the West Bank, as a result of the back-and-forth operations from live bullets, sound bombs, and gas bombs fired by the security services, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his men were in the Jordanian capital in a meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, arranging a quadripartite summit. However, he stopped his visit and immediately returned to the district headquarters in Ramallah because of the massacre, and he addressed his group for only seven minutes and twenty seconds!

The Baptist demonstrations continued in the West Bank for several days, and the security services did not provide any methods of excessive repression.

According to the Independent Commission for Human Rights, within less than two weeks, the authority had killed 4 Palestinians in a precedent that did not receive serious protest.

The first was a 12-year-old girl who was hit by bullets from bullets during a peaceful demonstration in Jenin, and the second was also in Jenin.

A 20 year old young man.

As for the third, an 18-year-old young man, he was run over by an armored security vehicle during a peaceful demonstration in Ramallah.

The fourth, a 19-year-old young man, was hit by security bullets during a peaceful demonstration in Tubas.

Within about a week, the Authority's security services had arrested more than 100 demonstrators in Ramallah alone.

Lawyer Muhannad Karaja, director of “Lawyers for Justice,” said in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that only about 50 of them were referred for trial, while all were later released on financial bail, and some of them continue to be tried until now.

It was observed that detainees were subjected to torture and ill-treatment, and the arrest charges varied between “assaulting public property,” “inciting sectarian strife,” and “slandering the authority.”

Karaja points out that the arrests against the backdrop of the demonstrations spread throughout the various governorates of the West Bank, but were concentrated in Ramallah, where, for example, the security services directly opened fire on the student Diaa Zaloum during an attempt to arrest him in one of the demonstrations denouncing the aggression on Gaza.

Karaja also points out the concentration of arrests in Nablus against the backdrop of political activity and expression of opinion, specifically among university students, which is consistent with the report of the “Committee of Families of Political Prisoners in the West Bank,” which mentioned the continued detention of three from “Asira al-Shamaliyya” in the Nablus district ( Hamza, Adham, and Imad Al-Shuli) in the authority’s prisons, and the continued detention of two from the same city (Muhammad Al-Azizi and Montaser Saqf Al-Hait) for more than four months, despite the issuance of three judicial decisions to release them, and the continued detention of the young man (Nizar Mona) in Al-Junaid prison for about four months. months, despite the fact that he also obtained a judicial decision to release him.

In addition, the security services affiliated with the authority, according to testimony from Al Jazeera Net, used pressure on families and threatened them with a fine and the destruction of homes, in order to force their children to delete written publications supporting the resistance after last October 7.

This repression was not the result of the flood, as the year 2023 was full of attacks by the authority’s security services against the residents of the West Bank.

According to the annual report of the “Committee of Families of Political Prisoners - West Bank,” the authority committed 3,062 violations during this year, which in part meant: 5 cases of murder, 900 cases of arrest, more than 500 cases of suppression of freedoms, and 277 cases of persecution and repression. Demonstrations and other violations.

This affected all active social segments in the West Bank, even school students, 17 of whom were assaulted by the authorities.

Thus, in the absence of any social and political organization of people in the West Bank, the authority eliminated early on the possibility of the development of popular protest, which would have constituted a type of pressure on the occupation, which feared that the West Bank would ignite and get out of control.

Thus, it did not require much effort, as the Israeli army took upon itself the task of arresting activists and those affiliated with the resistance factions. From the first day of the flood until February 6, the occupation arrested 6,870 Palestinians from the West Bank, according to the “Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.”

Third: The package requires an authority to dismantle it

In 2016, the head of the Palestinian Intelligence Service, Majed Faraj, stated in a press interview with the “Defense News” website that the Palestinian security services had thwarted, in less than four months, 200 potential attacks against “Israel” and arrested more than 100 Palestinians.

These devices, which Faraj is proud of, have about 65,000 members, meaning there is a security person for approximately every 49 Palestinians.

This rare statement by a man in authority constitutes a key to understanding American and European interest in the Palestinian Authority and its role in what they call “the day after the war.”

Less than a month before the flood, and in the context of the expansion of the activity of armed groups in the West Bank, the Americans sent the Palestinian Authority a group of armored vehicles and weapons, which according to Israeli media amounted to no less than 1,500 weapons, including laser-guided M16 weapons, a Kalashnikov, and 10 armored vehicles. To break up the demonstrations.

Not only the international level, the statements of Israeli politicians also express the security need of the Palestinian Authority.

Defense Minister in the war emergency government, Yoav Galant, said in the context of assessing the security situation in the West Bank during the “Al-Aqsa Flood” that the presence of “a strong Palestinian authority is an Israeli security interest.”

Earlier in the flood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated: “We need the Palestinian Authority... We cannot let it collapse,” and Benny Gantz stated: “We need to maintain the relationship with the Authority for the sake of our security.”

In this context, the Authority launched its campaign against what most threatened the security of the occupation army when it stormed Palestinian cities and camps.

Explosive devices.

During the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle, it was observed that IEDs were dismantled more than once in the city of Jenin and the town of Azzun, east of the city of Qalqilya. For example;

On December 24, the security services dismantled 3 large explosive devices in the town of Azzun, while confiscating a group of homemade bombs, which are devices and bombs prepared by the resistance fighters to confront incursions by the occupation army.

Dismantling bombs is not a new matter for the authority. On August 30, 2023, the security services removed bombs and barricades that the “Tulkarm Brigade” had placed in the camp to confront the occupation forces, which led to confrontations erupting between the camp’s youth and the security services, which resulted in the death of a young man by bullets from the authority.

In 2018, the authority discovered a field of explosive devices that were planted on the “Alar” road in the city of Tulkarm, apparently prepared to explode against occupation army patrols.

At the beginning of 2024, the Jenin Brigade also accused the authority’s security services of assassinating Ahmed Hashem Obaidi, a fighter from the “Burqin Brigade.”

In addition, the authority continues to arrest a number of armed group fighters, as stated in previous statements by armed groups such as the “Tulkarm (Rapid Reaction) Brigade” and the “Tulkarm Brigade - Saraya al-Quds.”

According to the “Committee of Families of Political Prisoners,” the authority had assaulted 30 persecuted by the occupation during the year 2023.

Perhaps the most prominent detainee today in the Authority’s prisons is Musab Shtayyeh, from the “Lions’ Den” group that the Authority worked to dismantle. He has been detained for more than a year, and according to the Quds News Network, he was transferred at the end of last month to intensive care due to the deterioration of his health condition.

As a continuation of these efforts to pursue military activity, on February 8, the security services arrested three people pursuing the occupation from the Jenin camp, namely: Aboud Al-Natour, Muhammad Abu Abed, and Qais Al-Bitawi, while they were outside the camp, and transferred them to Al-Junaid prison in the city of Nablus after confiscating Their weapons.

A few days later, the persecuted Uday al-Tarush and Sharif Abu Muhammad were also arrested from Jenin after confiscating their weapons.

Also, the persecuted Yousef Al-Tayeh was arrested from Al-Faraa camp.

Then, specifically on February 14 of the same month, the authorities pursued the youth of the Tubas Battalion and the Fara’a camp and opened fire on them, which led to the outbreak of confrontations.

Conclusion: The deficit industry

During the past twenty years, the Palestinian Authority, led by the godfathers of the period, President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, has worked to re-engineer Palestinian society, as a result of American and Israeli conclusions, to ensure that the second intifada is not repeated.

This was expressed when, after the second intifada (i.e. from 2007-2011), the United States allocated more than half a billion dollars to arm, equip, and train 29,000 members of the security services. American General Keith Dayton was appointed to carry out this mission of “reforming the security services.” .

The stated aim was to “confront and dismantle the terrorist (resistance) infrastructure”, including military, social and economic aspects.

As early as August 12, 2007, Abbas issued a decree stating: “The Executive Force and the armed militias affiliated with the Hamas movement (the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades) are prohibited and considered outlaws.” Their funds are confiscated, and anyone who aids, arms, or hides any of them is punished.

This meant at the political and security levels;

Pursuing the resistance factions, confiscating their weapons, exposing their military cells and attacking them, either by liquidating the pursuers, such as the Qassamists Muhammad al-Samman and Muhammad Yassin in Qalqilya in 2009, and even liquidating those who were sheltering them, or by arresting them, such as: Amin al-Quqa from Nablus (detained since 2007 and affiliated with Hamas), and Jad Humaidan from Nablus (detained since 2008 from the Popular Front), Alaa Zyoud from Jenin (detained since 2010 from Islamic Jihad), and Hadi Daadara from Bethlehem (detained since 2011 from the Fatah movement).

On the social level, for example, more than 90 zakat committees were dissolved in the West Bank, and more than 130 charitable organizations were dismantled, including sports and social committees and clubs, all of which constituted an important charitable source.

Socially and economically, to support people and enhance their steadfastness, on charges of “terrorism” and “money laundering.”

As happened during the same period, and during the era of Ministers of Endowments Jamal Bawatna (2007-2009) and Mahmoud Al-Habbash (2009-2014), the mosque in the West Bank was controlled as a social and political space, in which people carried out their activities and launched their demonstrations.

As for the economic level, Salam Fayyad’s policies in what was called “economic reform” left room for banks to flood people with loans, creating a kind of illusory economic well-being.

According to the Palestinian Monetary Authority, the lending rate increased between 2007 and 2017 to more than 460%.

The bulk of them were loans for consumer purposes.

The book “Shortly Before the Crisis: Policies of Flooding the West Bank with Debt” points out the features of this. For example, the value of loans to finance cars in 2008 amounted to about 40 million dollars, but by the end of 2013 this number reached more than 130 million dollars, and the percentage of cars Registered for the first time in 2018 and mortgaged to banks, 22%.

As for artificial prosperity, according to the Ministry of Transport, in 2023, about 3,000 luxury cars (of the types: Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, and Porsche) that had never been licensed entered the West Bank market. In the West Bank before, that is, 10% of the total number of cars licensed for the first time this year.

According to the Association of Banks in Palestine, the value of credit facilities until November 2023 amounted to more than $11 billion, a growth rate of 5% over the previous year.

In order to meet these great needs created for people in credit facilities and lending, the number of branches and ATMs providing banking services in Palestine increased, reaching 378 branches and 724 ATMs affiliated with 13 banks.

In the end, work on these three levels during these years led to the creation of deficits in the West Bank, the roots of which went deep into the earth.

On the one hand, people’s right to organize within effective social frameworks that strengthen their social fabric was confiscated, so they were left defenseless in the face of occupation and settlement policies. On the other hand, their right to political expression was confiscated by blackmailing them with matters of living, so they were left defenseless in the face of the brutality of the banks, as they were tied to the debt guillotine. On the third hand, work was done. To dismantle the armed resistance by striking it and its social incubator.

While this is happening to an entire generational segment, upon which the policies of the post-second intifada were tried, there was a generation growing up that did not submit to these policies. It was not restricted by a loan or restrained by oppression, and did not drive itself into stakes of deficit in the land.

These are some of the characteristics of the youth of the armed brigades in the West Bank today, who did not burden themselves to the ground in order for the West Bank to join...

Source: Al Jazeera