A casual observer might look at the Palestinian Authority today and believe it has reformed by cracking down on terror groups that seek to attack Israel, but experts who spoke with JNS warned against being taken in by appearances.
“Everything the P.A. is doing right now is part of the Trump effect. The P.A. remembers [President-elect Donald] Trump’s steps against them in the previous term and wants to show that they are capable of change,” said Shaul Bartal of the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Research at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan.
“In practice, this is a big show,” he added. “To the extent that there is change, it needs to be tested in action, and right now it is not visible,” Bartal said.
Even the Palestinians don't believe the P.A. has changed, he added. “The majority of the Palestinian public in the West Bank is not satisfied with the P.A. and there is almost no Palestinian factor that believes that this is a real change within the P.A.”
The race to succeed Abbas
Case in point: Jibril Rajoub, secretary-general of the Fatah Central Committee, called for continued terrorism in an interview on the official P.A. TV channel earlier this month.
During the interview, as reported by the Israeli NGO Regavim, Rajoub called on Palestinian armed factions to coordinate their efforts with Fatah and not to undermine the P.A.
“From the first moment, what we need is a meeting of factions to affirm the conformity of the Authority, the conformity and legitimacy of weapons, and also the legitimacy of the resistance,” he said.
Rajoub, the former head of the P.A.’s preventive security forces and current president of the Palestinian Football Association, directly encouraged terrorism, adding, “The battle in the 1967 occupied lands is open in all means ... but not at the expense of the Palestinian Authority.”
In response, Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar called on FIFA to dismiss Rajoub, citing his support for the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and incitement to terrorism.
According to Bartal, at the moment the entire P.A. is engaged in a “succession battle” over who will replace P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas, 89.
He noted that in the '90s, Rajoub “was one of the factors who helped Israel the most to suppress Hamas.”
According to Bartal, “Hassan Salama from Khan Yunis, [the late Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar’s good friend who was responsible for the revenge attacks in 1996 after the death of [Hamas bomb mastermind] Yahya Ayyash, explicitly writes in his book that Rajoub handed him over to Israeli intelligence.”
For this reason, in Bartal’s view Rajoub’s statements “are intended for a Palestinian audience that remembers the Oslo period in his role as head of Preventive Security in the West Bank.”
Amid the war against Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian public opinion strongly supports terrorist activity against Israel, according to Bartal. In light of this, Rajoub seems to believe that the way to stand out from his current role as the P.A.’s Sports Minister “is only if he highlights a stubborn stance and support for the Palestinian armed resistance,” he said.
The other candidates to replace Abbas are Mahmoud al-Aloul, vice chairman of Fatah, who also expresses tough positions against Israel, although he is less well-known to the general public; Majed Faraj, the head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, and several others.
“Unfortunately, in Palestinian society, the way to achieve recognition and a very important status is through extremist statements and support for terrorist attacks,” said Bartal.
The P.A. is losing control
There is another reason the P.A. appears to be taking action against armed groups in the areas it controls.
Bartal told JNS that in northern Samaria and especially in the Jenin area, “the P.A. has begun to lose control.” It “wants to show Israel, and especially Trump, that it is capable of enforcing government order and dealing with militants,” he explained.
“If it succeeds in the operation that has been going on for over a month, it will first of all prove its relevance in Judea and Samaria, also in Israeli eyes, and secondly, its ability to impose future order in the Gaza Strip and perhaps deal with militants from Hamas there,” he said.
Yet there is still more to the story.
"Outlaws" vs "legitimate resistance"
Khaled Abu Toameh, an award winning Arab and Palestinian Affairs journalist and a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS that the P.A. is more worried about its honor than it is about actually fighting terror groups.
“This is not a strategic decision by Abbas or the Palestinian leadership to dismantle all the Iran-backed battalion groups. This is just something specific that is taking place,” he told JNS.
“We’ve seen clashes like this in the past,” he noted, adding that this time it appears to be on a larger scale since the armed groups have “never before challenged the P.A. in such a way.”
He warned against misinterpreting what the P.A. is doing and why.
First, Abu Toameh said, “They could be presenting it as ‘Yes, we are combating terrorism.’” But if so, “where were you all these years?” he said.
Second, Abu Toameh asked, “Why can’t the P.A. say openly in Arabic, ‘No more battalions, no more armed groups and no such thing as resistance’? Why don’t we hear that message? I don’t hear it in Arabic.”
Instead, Abu Toameh said he hears Palestinian officials saying that while some armed men “‘are outlaws,’ they also say ‘we are not against the weapons of the resistance.’”
According to Abu Toameh, the P.A. presents these outlaws as contrasting against the armed groups that engage in the real resistance against Israel.
For the P.A., the weapons of “the resistance” are honorable, he said. “They don’t come out against the whole idea of resistance against Israel.”
Furthermore, he added, “We know there is no strategic decision to dismantle these groups because we don’t see it in other places like Tulkarem and Nablus.”
With Trump’s inauguration just days away, the timing for the P.A. is perfect, according to Abu Toameh.
“If you hear the messaging of the P.A. in English and Arabic, it is different,” he said. “In English they are saying the right things.” Unfortunately, foreign diplomats keep falling for it, he added.
"But in Arabic, the P.A. says, 'We are not against the resistance. We understand the weapons of the resistance are honorable weapons.'"
The P.A. uses the term "sharif," he explained, “which in Arabic means ‘honorable.’"
“We have seen this in the past when the Palestinians put on a show. They are very good at manipulation,” he said.
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