A security official in the Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Interior revealed details on 4 March regarding a recent Palestinian Authority-led (PA) incursion into the enclave.
The incursion took place less than a week ago and was thwarted by authorities in the strip, according to a statement from Gaza’s Home Front late last month.
The Gaza Security official revealed to Al-Jazeera on Thursday “the results of the investigation with the leaders of a security force formed by Major General Majid Faraj and arrested in the Gaza Strip,” adding that Faraj “developed a security plan to manage the situation in Gaza, based on three stages.”
“The first stage is food security under the cover of the Palestinian Red Crescent, the second targets the tribes, and the third is comprehensive security. The plan designated the Red Crescent headquarters in Al-Quds Hospital as the headquarters of the security force, with Israeli air protection. Majid Faraj assigned a team of Palestinian intelligence officers to follow up on the implementation of the plan,” the official added.
The officers deployed by Faraj were identified as Nasser Adawi, Sami Nasman, Shaaban al-Gharabawi, and Fayez Abu al-Hindud.
“Members of the force were assigned to collect information from Al-Shifa for Majid Faraj two weeks before the last raid.”
According to a report by Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom, the incursion was part of an Israeli-approved plan for Fatah affiliates in Gaza to secure the entry of aid into the strip and prevent “diversion” by Hamas.
On Saturday, 30 March, the Fatah-linked elements secured the entry of aid trucks into Gaza, the newspaper wrote.
“The personnel were armed only with batons and no firearms,” it cites security sources as saying, adding that some of them were killed by Hamas.
Gaza’s Home Front said in a statement at the time that it thwarted an incursion by members of the PA General Intelligence Service, based in Ramallah, into the strip. The plan reportedly called to “create a state of confusion and chaos among the ranks of the [Gaza] home front” in an arrangement reached between Tel Aviv and Ramallah “in their meeting in one of the Arab capitals” recently, the Home Front said.
Gaza security forces managed to detain 10 of the operatives and were on the hunt for an unknown number of others who evaded capture. Officials also said Cairo informed the border crossing authority that it was “unaware” of the covert force.
The incursion related to US-sponsored efforts to establish a local governing authority to assume control over post-war Gaza.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled in late February a plan for the “day after” in Gaza, which was more or less in line with the US-backed initiative to reform and strengthen the PA and have it take governorship of Gaza after the war.
This is despite previous statements by the prime minister rejecting the idea of the PA or its Fatah party from ruling Gaza in the future.
“Netanyahu opposes the entry of Fatah on the day after, but not now when the IDF is inside the Strip. It is preferable to position local elements at the forefront to secure the convoys,” one security official told Israel Hayom.
The PA intelligence incursion could also be linked to an alleged plan aimed at “cutting out” Hamas from aid distribution efforts in Gaza, as reported by the Wall Street Journal(WSJ) on 20 March.
Seats reserved for the Israeli delegation attending the UNESCO Extended 45th session of the World Heritage Committee at the al-Murabba Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, September 11, 2023 (AFP)
The Israeli occupation minister will head a senior delegation to take part in the Universal Postal Union conference.
Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi landed in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on Sunday to take part in the fourth extraordinary congress of the Universal Postal Union UPU amid a busy week for Saud-Israeli relations.
According to Israeli i24News, Karhi headed a delegation of senior Israeli officials, including the ministry’s director of the International Relations Department, its deputy, and assistant, the Chair of the Economic Affairs Committee David Bitan, along with other officials from the communications ministry.
Representatives from the Israeli Postal Company will also participate in some of the sessions through video calls.
UPU is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates postal policies among member nations, which includes the Israeli occupation entity, in addition to the worldwide postal system.
The congress meets every four years and sees participation from representatives of members’ postal companies, as well as communications and foreign ministries.
Recently, there has been a series of official visits by Israeli ministers and officials to Saudi Arabia.
Last week, Israeli Tourism Minister Haim Katz made a trip to Riyadh accompanied by a large delegation to participate in the United Nations’ tourism organization conference held in the Saudi capital.
Katz commented on his visit, noting that the Israeli officials “were received very beautifully” by the Saudi authorities.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Saudi officials led by Nayef bin Bandar al-Sudairi, the newly appointed non-resident ambassador to the Palestinian Authority and the and consul general in Al-Quds, made a trip to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and met with President Mahmoud Abbas.
According to Israeli media, al-Sudairi and Abbas discussed the topic of normalization between Riyadh and “Tel Aviv” while the Saudi foreign ministry official presented his credentials to the Palestinian president.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman admitted last week that Saudi Arabia was getting closer to normalizing ties with the entity. “Every day we get closer,” he told Fox News in an interview.
Furthermore, US President Joe Biden is pushing to make a breakthrough on the matter as the 2024 presidential campaign draws closer.
Related Videos
The occupation attacks continue in light of the announcement of the imminent normalization between Tel Aviv and Riyadh
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has primarily been a demonstration of a world that has turned its back on Palestine and is determined to allow the wholesale killing of Palestinians to go on uninterrupted. Sadly, there was no one to represent the Palestinian people. Tragically, Mahmoud Abbas, a man who stands at the head of an organization that enables the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people, was introduced as the “President of the State of Palestine.”
Abbas’ performance was a farce. He resorted to language that was outdated and irrelevant. His remarks constituted little more than begging for an international “peace conference” and the implementation of the Two State Solution. He said, “Our people are defending their homeland and their legitimate rights,” big words from the head of an organization that collaborates with Israel to silence Palestinians who lead the resistance. Had his actions not been so clearly motivated by self-preservation and greed, one might have thought he was sincere in his call for liberty and independence.
What was sorely missing from the General Assembly was a call to end all relations with Israel. The call for the Two State Solution is an admittance that Israel is a legitimate entity that deserves a seat at the table rather than a rogue, terrorist entity that should be defeated. Israel is the problem, but no one dares to say this out loud. It is not “the occupation,” a term that has become increasingly vague with time, but the existence of the apartheid state known as Israel. That statement was missing, and until it is made clear by leaders of the international community, there will be no progress.
THE SAUDI INITIATIVE
The Saudi initiative – if implemented – will not only provide the Saudi regime a strategic alliance with the United States but – and this is a big but – if the normalization with Israel materializes, it will give further, unprecedented legitimacy to Israel within the Arab and Muslim world. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu correctly stated that once this deal is completed, the rest of the Arab and Muslim world will follow through with normalizing relations with Israel. Netanyahu specifically mentioned Indonesia and Malaysia – two countries that Israel has been courting for many years and where the Palestinian Authority representative has already expressed full support for normalization.
The Saudi Deal will be the final nail in the coffin of the Palestinians in the international arena, and the Israelis know this. A warning call needs to be made about the dangers of this deal and the enormous consequences it will surely have for Palestine and the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian Authority has made it clear that they support the deal as long as they receive the funding they asked for. Representatives of the Palestinian Authority around the world have made it clear that they do not oppose normalization with Israel, thus lending their hand to strengthening Israel and eliminating Palestine from the world stage.
Without a clear message from government and non-governmental organizations who understand the dangers of this deal and the normalization process, we will witness the total collapse of any initiatives in the international arena that speak about the Palestinian issue. Countries like Algeria, Cuba, Malaysia, Pakistan and other countries that still maintain a moral stance regarding Palestine must organize a front to oppose the efforts to normalize, an effort in which the Saudi Deal is the flagship.
NORMALIZATION
Israel’s Tourism Minister Haim Katz is visiting Saudi Arabia as these words are being written for a United Nations conference. He is the first Israeli minister to lead a delegation to the Kingdom. Following Israel’s Minister of Tourism visit, several other Israeli officials plan to visit the country. According to the “Times of Israel,” Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi will be in Saudi Arabia to attend the Universal Postal Union’s 2023 Extraordinary Congress in Riyadh.
The fact that these two senior government officials are allowed to participate in international conferences in Saudi Arabia sends a dangerous signal to countries trying to keep Israeli teams and delegations out. If the ‘great’ Saudi Arabia is normalizing, and the Palestinian Authority supports it, why should Indonesia and Bangladesh stand on the sidelines?
If anything was made clear during the UNGA, it is that breaking the Israeli stronghold on the discourse is more challenging than ever. What may perhaps be Israel’s greatest achievement is the existence of the Palestinian Authority representatives to do its work. It keeps the Palestinian issue within the boundaries of the Two State Solution. Since Israel claims that the Palestinian Authority is an extremist element, it follows that the Two State Solution that the PA promotes is also extreme. Where does that leave those who challenge the legitimacy of Israel? Beyond the pale of the conversation on this issue.
When governments that do stand with Palestine take a position, as some heads of state did in their speeches at the UNGA, their position is defined by the Palestinian Authority, which works with Israel to ensure no progress is made toward the liberation of Palestine. The magic of the Two State Solution is that it allows countries to support Palestine, and at the same time, it gives legitimacy to Israel. This means that countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, among others, can continue to do business with Israel while maintaining the facade of support for Palestine.
This is why Israel maintains a presence in Arab and Muslim countries, albeit in some cases that presence is covert, and it has over forty missions in Africa, a continent that historically suffered greatly from Israel and where support for Palestine was strong. Israeli presence in Africa has been strengthened over the years, and support for the Palestinian cause has been weakened considerably.
It will be up to governments and non-governmental organizations to take up the mantle of challenging the Palestinian Authority – something that Palestinians have been trying to do for years – and to replace the conversation about the Two State Solution with that of a free, democratic Palestine from the River to the Sea.
According to a poll carried out by Palestinian news outlet Maanbetween 6 September and 9 September, a majority of Palestinians believe that the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords – which resulted in the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) – was a mistake.
“The vast majority still believes that it was a mistake to sign that agreement. The poll found that the majority wants the Palestinian Authority to abandon that agreement and that slightly more than two-thirds believe that the agreement has harmed the Palestinian interest,” Maan wrote on 14 September.
“More than three-quarters of the public said that Israel does not implement this agreement all or most of the time,” it added.
The US-sponsored agreement was signed in 1993 between the late Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. The accords established the PA and its security forces and gave the Palestinians limited autonomy in some parts of the occupied West Bank. This was said to be in preparation for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
However, the accords did not end Israel’s military occupation and gave the Israeli government time to confiscate more Palestinian land and continue illegally expanding West Bank settlements.
The agreement resulted in the splitting of the West Bank into areas A, B, and C. Area A gave the PA authority over civil and security matters, while Area B gave it control only over civil matters. In Area C, Israel was granted full control.
Nonetheless, Israel has since maintained its military occupation over the majority of the West Bank and has continued to launch brutal raids into West Bank cities in coordination with the PA.
As part of the deal, Israel recognized the PLO on the condition that it give up armed resistance entirely and acknowledge Israel’s sovereignty over the territories ethnically cleansed and occupied in 1948. The PLO now maintains its existence as the PA’s Fatah party.
The poll “indicates an increase in the percentage of support for resorting to unarmed popular resistance, and indicates a similar increase in the percentage of support for a return to confrontations and armed intifada,” Maan said.
“A percentage approaching half of the population of the West Bank believes that forming armed groups from residents of towns and villages attacked by settlers is the most effective solution,” it added.
A poll carried out in March by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) also produced similar results, particularly highlighting the increase in enmity towards the PA.
As a result of continued Israeli occupation, oppression, and settler violence, several armed resistance groups have expanded significantly across the West Bank and have become highly active against the Israeli army.
The majority of these groups are associated with the Gaza-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement.
Ain Al-Hilweh is known as the “Capital of Palestinian Shatat.”
The term might not stir many emotions among those who do not fully understand, let alone experience the harrowing existence of ethnic cleansing and perpetual exile – and the tremendous violence which followed.
‘Shatat‘ is roughly translated into “exile” or “Diaspora.” However, the meaning is much more complex. It can only be understood through lived experience. Even then, it is still not easy to communicate. Perhaps, the Kafkaesque blocks of concrete, zinc and rubble towered one on top of another and served as ‘temporary shelters’ for tens of thousands of people tell a small part of the story.
On July 30, violence in the extremely crowded Palestinian camp resumed, interrupted briefly after the intervention of the Palestinian Joint Action Authority, then resumed, harvesting the lives of 13 people and counting. Scores more were injured, and thousands have fled.
Yet, the majority of the refugees stayed because several generations of Palestinians in Ain Al-Hilweh understand that there is a point where running away serves no purpose, for it neither guarantees life nor even a dignified death. The massacres of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in September 1982 were a testament to this collective realization.
Before writing this, I spoke to several people in South Lebanon and sorted through many articles and reports describing what is taking place in the camp now. Yet the truth is still blurry or, at best, selective.
Destruction caused by heavy clashes between Palestinian factions leave a street in Ain al Hilweh in ruin, August 2, 2023. STR | AP
Many in Arabic media have largely relegated Ain Al-Hilweh to a symbolic representation of a rooted Palestinian pain.
Mainstream Western media was hardly concerned about Palestinian pain but focused mostly on the ‘lawlessness’ of the camp, the fact that it exists outside the legal jurisdiction of the Lebanese army, and the proliferation of weapons among Palestinian and other factions, who are engaged in seemingly endless, and supposedly inexplicable infighting.
But Ain Al-Hilweh, like the 11 other Palestinian refugee encampments in Lebanon, is a story of something else entirely, more urgent than mere symbolism and more rational than being the outcome of lawless refugees.
It is essentially the story of Palestine, or rather, the destruction of Palestine at the hands of Zionist militias in 1947-48. It is a story of contradictions, pride, shame, hope, despair, and, ultimately, betrayal.
A Palestinian refugee runs past burning tires during a 2019 protest in Ain al-Hilweh against a decision by Lebanon to impose work restrictions on Palestinians. STR | AP
It is not easy to follow the timeline prior to the latest round of violence. Some suggest that the fighting began when an assassination attempt – blamed on Fatah fighters in the camp – was carried out against a leader of a rival Islamist group.
The attempt failed and was followed by an ambush carried out by alleged Islamists who killed a top Fatah commander and several of his bodyguards.
Others suggest that the assassination of the General of the Palestinian National Security, Abu Ashraf Al-Armoushi, was completely unprovoked.
Yet others, including Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, blamed outside forces and their “repeated attempts to use Lebanon as a battleground for the settling of scores.”
But who are these entities, and what is the point of such meddling?
It gets murkier. Though impoverished and overcrowded, Ain Al-Hilweh, like other Palestinian camps, is a greatly contested political space. In theory, these camps are meant to solidify and protect the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. In practice, they are also used to undermine this internationally enshrined right.
A general view of Ain al-Hilweh in the Lebanese southern port city of Sidon. Marwan Naamani | AP
The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, for example, wants to ensure Fatah loyalists dominate the camp, hence laboring to deny Palestinian rivals any role in South Lebanon.
Fatah is the largest Palestinian group within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It dominates both the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. In the past, the group lost its dominance over Ain Al-Hilweh and other camps. For Fatah in Lebanon, it is a constant struggle for relevance.
Ain Al-Hilweh is important for the PA even though the PLO under Abbas’ leadership has largely disowned the refugees of South Lebanon and their Right of Return; it has focused mostly on governing specific regions in the West Bank under the auspices of the Israeli occupation.
Yet, Lebanon’s refugees remain important for the PA for two main reasons: one, as a source of validation for Fatah and, two, to stave off any criticism of, let alone resistance to, the Western-backed Palestinian camp, in Lebanon and everywhere else.
Throughout the years, hundreds of Ain Al-Hilweh refugees were killed in Israeli bombings, but also Palestinian-Lebanese and Palestinian-Palestinian infighting.
Israel did much of the killings to ensure Palestinian resistance in Lebanon is eliminated at the source.
The rest of the violence was carried out by groups that sought dominance and power, sometimes for their own sake, but often as proxy militias for outside powers.
Trapped in the middle are 120 thousand people, the estimated population of Ain Al-Hilweh – and, by extension, all of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees.
Not all Ain Al-Hilweh’s inhabitants are registered Palestinian refugees. The latter is estimated by the UN refugee agency, UNRWA, at approximately 63,000. The rest fled there following the Syrian war, which swelled the population of the Lebanon camps and heightened existing tensions.
The entrapments of refugees, however, are manifold: the actual physical confinement dictated by the lack of opportunities and acceptance in mainstream Lebanese society; the great risks of leaving Lebanon as undocumented refugees smuggled across the Mediterranean, and the feeling, especially among the older generations, that leaving the camps is tantamount to the betrayal of the Right of Return.
All of this is happening in a political context, where the Palestinian leadership has completely removed the refugees from its calculations, where the PA only sees the refugees as pawns in a power play between Fatah and its rivals.
For decades, Israel has sought to dismiss the discussion on Palestinian refugees and their Right of Return. Its constant attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Palestine itself and its interest in what is taking place in the Shatat is part of its quest to shake the very foundation of the Palestinian cause.
Infighting in Ain Al-Hilweh, if not brought under total and lasting control, might eventually get Israel exactly what it wants: presenting Palestinian refugees as a liability to host countries and, ultimately, destroying the ‘Capital of Shatat,’ along with the hope of four generations of Palestinian refugees to, someday, go back home.
Khalifa, a resident of ‘Ein Beit El Ma Camp, west of the Nablus, was transferred to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A young Palestinian man was killed by Israeli gunfire on Thursday, during a military raid in the area of Zawata, near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
According to WAFA, Israeli forces raided the Zawata area, sparking confrontations with local residents.
A young Palestinian man, identified as Ameer Khalifa, 27, was hit with a bullet to the head.
Khalifa, a resident of ‘Ein Beit El Ma Camp, west of Nablus, was transferred to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Watch: Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces open fire towards Palestinian mourners who take part in the funeral procession of 27-year-old Palestinian Ameer Khalifa who was fatally shot by Israeli forces during a military raid into Zawata town, northwest of Nablus in the… pic.twitter.com/T2fN2n7XDC
Mourners Attacked In a video published by Quds News Network and circulated on social media, Palestinian Authority security forces are seen attacking mourners who took part in Khalifa’s funeral procession in Zawata. Over 200 Palestinians, including 38 children, have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year, according to numbers provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. (PC, WAFA, Social Media)
Fatah official Abbas Zaki and PFLP official Maher Al-Taher comment on the meeting of leaders of the Palestinian factions in Egypt.
Commenting on the meeting of the leaders of the Palestinian factions in the Egyptian city of El Alamein, Abbas Zaki, a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement, pointed out that the Israeli occupation did not leave any justification for preserving any agreement with it.
In an interview for Al Mayadeen, Abbas stressed that there are some sides that benefit from the Palestinian division and financed it and do not want to overcome the differences.
He stressed that Palestinian factions “must give ourselves some hope, especially since this stage requires overcoming all differences and the past to start a new beginning.”
On his part, Maher Al-Taher, the head of international relations in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), told Al Mayadeen that the goal of the Egypt meeting is to create a form of procrastination, with the continuation of the current situation, making reference to the Palestinian Authority in particular.
Al-Taher considered that the latest meeting did not yield any results, adding, “Why did the Palestinian Authority not implement what was previously agreed upon?”
The PFLP official accused the Palestinian Authority of pursuing a policy of “procrastination and indecisiveness,” claiming that the latter does not seek to implement the discussed files.
He said there are developments at all levels, whether at the international, regional, or Palestinian level, underlining that the Palestinian people “shall never surrender.”
Earlier on Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas thanked Egypt and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for hosting the meeting of Palestinian factions in the Egyptian city of El Alamein.
In the concluding statement of the meeting, Abbas considered the event a first and important step to complete the Palestinian dialogue, hoping that it would achieve the desired goals as soon as possible.
On his part, the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, said during the meeting that the Palestinian people “are facing an exceptional stage in the course of the struggle with the enemy, which requires us to think collectively and take exceptional decisions in the face of Zionist policies.”
In his speech, Haniyeh stressed the importance of continuing such meetings until the completion of the comprehensive national formula, noting that the Israeli occupation government “wants to put an end to the struggle by all means possible, which is evident in its terrorist attacks on the Palestinian people.”
It is noteworthy that the Egypt meeting was boycotted by three Palestinian factions, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, in protest of the continuation of political detention in the occupied West Bank.
في خضم معركة مخيَّم جنين الأخيرة في 3 تموز 2023، وبينما كان مجاهدو “كتيبة جنين” يخوضون معركة صمودٍ بطوليةٍ، كتفًا إلى كتفٍ مع باقي فصائل المقاومة في الضفَّة في مواجهة عدوانٍ واسعٍ على المخيَّم، وبينما كانت تقف في الأثناء قوات أمن السلطة الفلسطينية، والسلطة بصورةٍ عامةٍ، موقف المتفرِّج مما يجري في المخيَّم، وجَّه رئيس السلطة، محمود عباس، دعوةً لأمناء الفصائل الفلسطينية لأجل عقد اجتماعٍ طارئٍ “للاتفاق على رؤيةٍ وطنيةٍ شاملةٍ وتوحيد الصف لمواجهة العدوان الإسرائيلي والتصدي له” كما ورد في البيان الصادر عن رئاسة السلطة.
قرأ البعض في هذه الدعوة محاولةً لامتصاص غضب الشارع الفلسطيني بسبب مواقف السلطة المشينة أثناء العدوان على المخيَّم، لكن هل بالفعل أحاطت تلك القراءة بجميع أهداف هذه الدعوة وأبعادها؟
لم يكن اختباء حمَلة السلاح من منتسبي أجهزة السلطة الأمنية في بيوتهم وداخل مقراتهم الأمنية خلال العدوان بالأمر الجديد، ولا كان اختفاؤهم كليًا من ساحة القتال أمرًا خارج السياق، فإن مشروع السلطة العلني يقوم برمته على قمع أي حراكٍ مقاومٍ جديٍ في الضفَّة، وعلى حماية الاحتلال ومستوطناته من جميع أعمال المقاومة ذات الجدوى، فيما تسميه السلطة “حفظ الأمن والاستقرار”، ولقد سخَّرت لأجل ذلك جل طاقاتها في إنجاح “التنسيق الأمني” مع الاحتلال دون استحياءٍ، اللهم خلا تصريحاتٍ كلاميةٍ بين الحين والآخر عن وقف “التنسيق الأمني” دون تطبيق شيءٍ منها على أرض الواقع، إذ ترى السلطة في “العنف الثوري” والمقاومة المسلَّحة ضد الاحتلال تهديدًا على اصل فكرة وجودها ودورها الوظيفي، أو بصيغةٍ أخرى، خطرًا على سرابٍ اسمه “مشروع السلام” الذي لازالت تحلم به.
لذلك يمكن الجزم بأن هدف إنهاء حالة المقاومة النامية في الضفَّة واجتثاثها من جذورها، قد بات مشروعًا موحَّدًا للسلطة والاحتلال معًا.
لعل محاولة قراءة دعوة عباس أمناء الفصائل للاجتماع من هذه الزاوية يعد اكثر انسجامًا مع واقع الحال، إذ إن “توحيد الصف لمواجهة العدوان الإسرائيلي والتصدي له”، كما ذَكَر بيان رئاسة السلطة، لم يكن يلزمه اجتماعاتٍ فصائلية، لا سيما في أثناء ذروة اشتعال المعارك على الأرض، فسبيل ذلك معروفٌ إن صدقت النوايا، بل الأرجح أن ما جاء في الشطر الأول من البيان، الذي قال “الاتفاق على رؤيةٍ وطنيةٍ شاملةٍ”، كان الدافع الحقيقي من وراء دعوة السلطة تلك في هذا التوقيت.
لقد قال عباس في كلمته التي ألقاها خلال زيارته للمخيَّم عقب العدوان، بأن السلطة الفلسطينية “سلطةٌ واحدةٌ ودولةٌ واحدةٌ، قانونٌ واحدٌ وأمنٌ واستقرارٌ وأمانٌ واحدٌ”، ليضيف بعد ذلك بأنه سيقص اليد التي تمتد إلى وحدة الشعب وأمنه واستقراره من ضلوعِها، ملمحًا بهذا الكلام إلى الفصائل المسلَّحة في المخيَّم، التي تعدها السلطة خارجةً على القانون.
يدعم هذا الفهم لفحوى كلام عباس ما قامت به السلطة من حملة اعتقالاتٍ جديدةٍ، استهدفت بها كوادر “سرايا القدس” و”كتيبة جنين” وباقي فصائل المقاومة في الضفَّة، ولقد بدأت تلك الحملة أثناء العدوان الأخير على المخيَّم واستمرت لما بعده، بما يجعل ما كشفته القناة “14” العبرية أمرًا غير مستغرَبٍ، إذ قالت إن مسؤولين إسرائيليين وفلسطينيين التقوا في أعقاب العدوان الإسرائيلي الأخير على جنين، واتفقوا على منح أجهزة الأمن الفلسطينية الفرصة لمواجهة مجموعات المقاومة هناك.
تشير هذه المعطيات، بالإضافة إلى تاريخ تعامل السلطة المعروف مع المقاومة عمومًا، إلى طبيعة “الرؤية الوطنية الشاملة” التي كانت تأمل السلطة بالتوصل إليها، حينما دعت إلى اجتماع الأمناء العامين أثناء العدوان.
فهل كانت تراهن السلطة ضمنًا على الاحتلال كي يُنجِز بالقوة الخشنة في المخيَّم ما عجزت هي عن تحقيقه بالقوة الناعمة؟ وهل كانت تأمل بأن يحضر أمناء الفصائل الاجتماع على وقع إنهاء حالة المقاومة في جنين وهزيمتها؟ كي تفرض على فصائل المقاومة رؤيتها “الوطنية الشاملة” القائمة على “التنسيق الأمني” والقبول بشروط “الرباعية”؟
يبدو أن هذا ما قد التقطته حركة “الجهاد الإسلامي” وبنت عليه موقفها من قبول دعوة السلطة لاجتماع الأمناء، فاشتراطها اطلاق صراح كوادر “سرايا القدس”، الذين اعتقلتهم أجهزة أمن السلطة، يعد اضعف الإيمان كي يظهر بأن هناك أي جدوى مرجوَّةٍ – مهما كانت ضئيلةً – من الحضور، وبأن السلطة مستعدةٌ للتراجع عن جريمتيّ “التنسيق الأمني” ولعب دور حارس المستوطنات.
لقد كان حريًا بباقي الفصائل الفلسطينية اتخاذ موقفٍ مماثلٍ من هذا الاجتماع، لا سيما أن القاهرة اكتفت بتأمين استضافة الاجتماع ولم تكن الداعية إليه، مما يرفع الحرج عن الفصائل الفلسطينية في مسألة رفض دعوةٍ وجهتها دولةٌ عربيةٌ لحضور اجتماعٍ على أرضها.
يظهر أن الفصائل الفلسطينية لاتزال تدور في نفس الساقية، وتتعامى عن التحولات الهامة في ساحة الضفَّة، وعما تقتضيه هذه المرحلة من مواقف سياسيةٍ أكثر وضوحًا وصرامةً اتجاه السلطة وأجهزتها الأمنية، وليس الحديث هنا عن خطواتٍ ميدانيةٍ اتجاه السلطة، لكن المواقف السياسية الضبابية في ظِل تصاعد الفعل المقاوم في الضفَّة على الأرجح أن يكون لها مردودٌ سلبيٌ في هذه المرحلة.
Mohammad Al-Hindi, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) speaks during an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen TV, Beirut, Lebanon, July 25, 2023.
n an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen deputy chief of the PIJ, highlights the firm stance of the movement on the case of Palestinian Resistance fighters detained by the Palestinian Authority.
The Deputy Secretary General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Mohammad, Al-Hindi, in an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen, affirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to assert an image of a victory through which he could make a show of Israeli deterrence, but his plan failed in Jenin and its camp, achieving nothing.
PIJ Deputy Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Hindi to #AlMayadeen: " Netanyahu wanted the image of a victory through which he could affirm Israeli deterrence, but his plan failed in #Jenin and its camp, and achieved nothing."#Palestinehttps://t.co/tbBp1pBSQU
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 25, 2023
He emphasized “the unity of the Palestinian people and their factions” as “the foundation of Resistance,” as proven in the Battle of the Fury of Jenin, in which various factions in the city cooperated to defend Jenin from the Israeli occupation’s = incursion. Al-Hindi confirmed that during this battle, the Al-Quds Brigades – Jenin Brigade shared weapons and funds with fighters of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and other factions.
He also stated that “the Palestinian people currently possess good military capabilities, manufacturing their weapons in Gaza and the West Bank.”
PIJ Deputy Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Hindi to #AlMayadeen: "The #Palestinian people are currently equipped with good military capabilities, and are manufacturing their weapons in #Gaza and the #WestBank, as they did before." https://t.co/fgZBysAqzc
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 25, 2023
In his interview with Al Mayadeen, Al-Hindi asserted that the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, “proved that it can deter and confront the occupation,” adding that its military capabilities in Gaza and the West Bank have vastly improved.
Al-Hindi believed that “resistance in Palestine has become an individual, collective, and factional decision,” adding that “Al-Quds Brigades are at the forefront of the confrontation.” He further noted that “the battle [to free Palestine] is long and ongoing, and we realize that the price for ending the occupation in the West Bank is high, but we also believe that victory is on our side.”
PIJ will not attend the meeting of Secretaries-General in Cario
Regarding the Palestinian Authority, the Deputy Secretary-General stressed that the project of the [Palestinian ] Authority is based on compromise and negotiations [with the occupation] has failed, and the rise in settlement activity bears testament to this.”
PIJ Deputy Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Hindi to #AlMayadeen: "The PA's project, which is based on compromise and negotiations, has failed, and the increase in Israeli settlements is evidence of that."#Palestinehttps://t.co/2yBldimxEv
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 25, 2023
Al-Hindi added that the PA, headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has no role to play on the political level, but rather its role is limited to security matters.
Moreover, the official criticized the security apparatuses of the Palestinian Authority arrested Resistance fighters simply because they resist the occupation, without any legal charges raised against them.
PIJ Deputy Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Hindi to #AlMayadeen: "The PIJ will not participate in the meeting of Resistance Secretaries-General in Cairo if the #Palestinian Authority does not liberate detained #Resistance fighters." https://t.co/w5bdSJIxrw
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 25, 2023
Al-Hindi, in his exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen, referred to a promise made by officials in the Palestinian Authority to release detained Resistance fighters in preparation for Abbas’s visit to the Jenin camp. However, this promise, he said, was not fulfilled.
He announced that the PIJ will not participate in the meeting of the secretaries-general in Cairo unless the PA releases the detained resistance fighters, adding that “Palestinian factions are making efforts to bring the points of views of [the Palestinian] Islamic Jihad and the [Palestinian] Authority closer together to ensure the success [of a possible] meeting”
PIJ Deputy Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Hindi to #AlMayadeen: "The #Palestinian factions are making efforts to bridge the points of view between the PIJ and the Palestinian Authority in order to make the #Cairo meeting a success."#Palestinehttps://t.co/lVEVVsmzPF
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 25, 2023
Moreover, the Deputy Secretary-General that the PIJ continues to communicate with its counterparts in the Fatah movement in hopes securing a release of the detainees.
He also revealed that the head of the General Intelligence Service of the PA, Major General Majid Faraj, called the Secretary-General of the PIJ, Ziyad Al-Nakhalah, but they did not meet in person.
Al-Hindi pointed out that the PIJ “has made various efforts to bring Fatah and Hamas closer, further stating that the movement welcomes any rapprochement between them.
Internal Israeli crisis to the benefit of Palestine
Regarding the ongoing political crisis in “Israel,” Al-Hindi said that the occupation is facing significant division between the Easterner and WesternerJews [Mizrahi and Ashkenazi jews], which concerns the United States.
PIJ Deputy Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Hindi to #AlMayadeen: "Israel faces a real crisis amid a great split between Easterners and Westerners, and this upsets the #UnitedStates." https://t.co/FKSzvGd2YL
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 25, 2023
Al-Hindi predicted that the phenomenon of reverse migration in “Israel” is bound to increase due to the turbulent situation in the occupation’s society. This turbulence and changes on the administrative levels, along with other developments in the region, especially the Iran-Saudi reconciliation, come in favor of the Palestinian people, according to Al-Hindi.
PIJ Deputy Secretary-General Mohammad Al-Hindi to #AlMayadeen: "The successive rounds of fighting in #Gaza and the #WestBank are a prelude to a major battle in which all battlefields will unite." https://t.co/rdZ52DEpdn
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 25, 2023
The Deputy Secreatry-General asserted that reunifying political opponents in “Israel” is difficult, and if Netanyahu considers launching an aggression on Palestinian cities to divert attention from the internal Israeli crisis, the Resistance in Gaza and the West Bank will respond and deter the occupation.
قَبْل أسبوعين بالتمام على بدء العدوان العسكري الواسع الأحدث على مخيَّم جنين في 3 تموز 2023، حصل تطورٌ نوعيٌّ في المخيّم حمل في طياته مؤشراتٍ على طبيعة المرحلة القادمة في الضفَّة، إذ في 19 حزيران 2023، حاولت قوةٌ مدرَّعةٌ صهيونيةٌ الدخول إلى المخيَّم، إلَّا أنَّ مقاتلي “كتيبة جنين” تمكنوا من استدراج أحد المدرَّعات إلى كمينِ عبواتٍ ناسفةٍ شديدة الانفجار يتم تفجيرها عن بُعدٍ، مما أدى إلى إخراج المدرَّعة من الخدمة، وإفشال عملية الاقتحام برمَّتها، وقد استخدم مقاتلو “كتيبة جنين” في عملية الاستدراج تكتيكاتٍ قتاليةٍ مدروسةٍ لم تظهر سابقًا في المخيَّم.
لقد أظهرت تلك الواقعة انتقال “كتيبة جنين” إلى مستوىً جديدٍ من العمل الميداني، سواءً من جهة تحسُّن قدراتها التصنيعية للمتفجرات والعبوات الناسفة الموجهة، أم من جهة توظيف المناورات القتالية المناسِبة في ساحة المعركة، وقد بشَّر ذلك بافتتاح الضفَّة لمرحلةٍ جديدةٍ من العمل المقاوم، تختلف نوعيًا عن مرحلة عمليات “السكاكين” ومرحلة عمليات الاشتباك المسلَّح الفردي التي تلتها، كما أظهرت تلك الواقعة حجم الدعم اللوجستي الذي تلقاه المقاومون خلال الفترة الماضية، والذي أثمر إنجازًا في “معركة جنين” الأحدث في 3 تموز 2023.
لكن من أبرز ما أظهرته تلك الواقعة أيضًا، كان فشَل أساليب الاختراق والاحتواء بالقوة الناعمة في المخيَّم، التي مارستها السلطة خلال الفترة الماضية بهدف كبح تنامي المقاومة، علمًا بأن تلك الأساليب كانت قد أعطت نتائج مقبولةٍ – من وجهة نظر العدو ولو جزئيًا – في مناطق أخرى من الضفَّة، والتي كانت حصيلة “الاجتماع الخماسي” في مدينة العقبة في 26 شباط 2023، واجتماع شرم الشيخ اللاحق في 19 آذار 2023، بين ممثِّلين عن كلٍ من حكومة الاحتلال والسلطة الفلسطينية برعايةٍ أميركيةٍ، إذ تعهد الجانبان “خفض التصعيد على الأرض ومنع المزيد من العنف” على ما جاء في نتائج اجتماع العقبة سيِّء الصيت، ويأتي العدوان العسكري الواسع الأحدث على المخيَّم في 3 تموز 2023 ضمن هذا السياق.
لقد وضَع إخفاق أجهزة السلطة الأمنية في “خفض التصعيد على الأرض ومنع المزيد من العنف” الاحتلال أمام اختبارٍ جديٍّ في مخيَّم جنين، فإما الاستمرار بالسياسات السابقة دون طائل، وإما اللجوء إلى العمليات العسكرية الواسعة، في محاولةٍ لإعادة عقارب الساعة في المخيَّم إلى الوراء، بغرض وقف المسار الجديد الذي افتتحه “كتيبة جنين” وباقي الفصائل مع حلول شهر حزيران الماضي.
يعد إحباط تنامي قدرات المقاومة في المخيَّم مصلحةً أساسيةً للاحتلال، إذ تمثِّل الضفَّة ساحة الاشتباك الإستراتيجي بينه وبين قوى المقاومة في هذه المرحلة، لكن بالتوازي أيضًا، توجد مصلحةٌ للسلطة في تحجيم ظاهرة المقاومة وحالة “كتيبة جنين” في المخيَّم أو القضاء عليهما نهائيًا، إذ تدرك السلطة أنَّ تعاظم قوة المقاومة في الضفَّة واستمرارها يؤدي إلى زيادة ضعف قبضتها الأمنية، التي تراجعت بالفعل في الضفَّة كما يقر الجميع، وتشعر السلطة إزاء ذلك بفقدانها لدورها الوظيفي، أو كما تسميه الالتزام “بجميع الاتفاقات السابقة” بينها وبين الاحتلال، أو بصورةٍ أوضح “التنسيق الأمني”، وقد نجحت “كتيبة جنين” والمقاومة في تجاوز الاختبار العملي الأول للمستوى القتالي الجديد الذي وصلت إليه، إذ تمكنت من إفشال أهداف عدوان 3 تموز 2023، فقد خرجت منه بأقل الخسائر البشرية في عديد المقاتلين والقيادات الميدانية، برغم حجم الدمار الكبير الذي أصاب البنية التحتية المدنية للمخيَّم، وقد بدى هذا النجاح في تعريض جيش الاحتلال لكمائن العبوات الناسفة أثناء انسحابه، واستمرار الاشتباكات المسلَّحة حتى خروجه تمامًا من المخيَّم.
لقد شكَّل هذا النجاح نكسةً لجيش الاحتلال، لكنَّه شكَّل ضربةً لمشروع السلطة القائم على “التنسيق الأمني” كذلك، لا يعني هذا أنَّ قيادات السلطة كانت فرحةً بسقوط الشهداء من المدنيين، لكنها على الأرجح كانت تتطلع إلى إنهاء حالة المقاومة في المخيَّم، فمشروعها العلني مبنيٌ على أساس إنهاء كل أشكال المقاومة المسلَّحة في الضفَّة.
من هنا لم يكن مستغرَبًا وقوفها في اجتياح المخيَّم موقف المترقِّب، بل على العكس، فإنَّ أي موقفٍ آخرٍ منها كان سيكون المستغرَب، إلَّا إذا كانت ستخرج من مهزلة “أوسلو”، وتتراجع بصورةٍ فعليةٍ ونهائيةٍ عن جريمة “التنسيق الأمني” مع الاحتلال لحماية أمن المستوطنات، وهذان أمران يبدوان عصيّان على الوقوع.
لقد كان طرد رموز “التنسيق الأمني” من مراسيم تشيع شهداء مخيَّم جنين تعبيرًا عن سخط الشارع الفلسطيني من الحال المخزي الذي وصلت إليه السلطة بكل المعايير الوطنية، إلَّا أنَّ البيان الهستيري الذي صدر عن السلطة عقب ذلك باسم حركة “فتح”، والذي قالت فيه “نعلنها علنيةً، ومنذ هذه اللحظة، بأنَّ حركة الشر الحمساوية هي حركةٌ محظورةٌ على هذه الأرض الطاهرة، بالإضافة إلى كل من يتساوق معها من قريبٍ أو بعيدٍ”، لم يكن ردة فعلٍ على تلك الحادثة فقط، إنما كان في العمق تعبيرًا عن مدى التخبط الذي وصلت إليه السلطة بعد إخفاق الاحتلال في اجتثاث الحالة المقاوِمة في المخيَّم، بما يعنيه ذلك من تهديدٍ مباشرٍ لاستمرارها الذي بات مرتبطًا بوجود الاحتلال ذاته، بعدما أسقطت من يدها كل أوراق القوة في مواجهته، وذلك حينما ارتضت لعب دور الحارس لدى الاحتلال بحربها الأمنية على سائر فصائل المقاومة الفلسطينية والعربية.
يمكن القول بعد فشَل العدوان الأحدث على مخيَّم جنين، بأنَّ الضفَّة قد أسَّست قاعدةً صلبةً لمرحلة جديدة من العمل المقاوم، تصلح للبناء عليها وتطويرها، لكن في ذات الوقت، يشير ذلك إلى انتقال الضفَّة لمرحلةٍ أكثر سخونةً، يرتفع معها منسوب القلق من إقدام السلطة وأجهزتها الأمنية، بسبب حالتيّ الهستيريا والتخبُّط اللتين تعيشهما بعد التطورات الأخيرة، على خطواتٍ مجنونةٍ بالذهاب إلى الاصطدام المباشر والخشن مع كتائب المقاومة في الضفَّة، بدلًا من أساليب الاحتواء والعمل الأمني اللذين اتبعتهما في مواجهة تلك الكتائب خلال المراحل الماضية.
The Israeli deterrence power is really at stake! This is the conclusion that can be drawn in light of the outcomes of the new battle between the Zionist occupation forces and the Palestinian resistance in Jenin City and its camp.
This image was portrayed over two days of fierce clashes between the Palestinian fighters and the enemy’s troops who invaded the West Bank City on Monday in order to eradicate the resistance power.
However, the high-spirited resistance prevented the monstrous enemy from reaching the central part of Jenin and its camp, expelling its occupation troops out of the steadfast city.
Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the chief of staff Herzi Halevi indicated that there would be more attacks on Jenin, indirectly acknowledging the failure of this operation which was not even given a nickname for the Zionist fear of its fruitlessness.
The Islamic Jihad commander Dawood Shehab stressed that the Palestinian resistance is always capable of defeating the Zionist enemy, underlining the importance of the cooperation among all the states and groups of the axis of resistance in the overall confrontation with the Zionist enemy.
The Lebanese expert on the Zionist affairs, Dr. Abbas Esmail, told Al-Manar TV that the Zionist failure in Jenin was caused by the lack of a strategic framework within which the Israeli officials move.
The Palestinian writer, Tayseer Al-Khatib indicated that Jenin battle would unify all the Palestinians against the “peace process” in favor of the resistance path, knowing that some Zionist circles called for reinforcing the Palestinian authority in order to face the resistance fighters.
All military doctrines agree that lack of spirit nullifies all the military capabilities. This notion has been personified by the Zionist occupation army which has lost numerous battles for the absence of the moral incentives.
Briefly, the Zionist occupation forces withdrew from Jenin after a two-day battle with the courageous Palestinian fighters who resorted to locally-made explosives in addition to traditional rifles in order to repel the Israeli attack.
Former chief of Zionist military intelligence Amos Yadlin warned the Israeli command against any involvement in an all-out battle with the axis of resistance on various fronts simultaneously. This consideration has also contributed to the humiliating failure of the recent Israeli invasion of Jenin.
In light of the Palestinian martyrdom attack in Tel Aviv carried out during the Zionist aggression on Jenin, the Zionist analysts stressed that the operation in Jenin failed to achieve its goals, adding that the Palestinian resistance will reshuffle its cards and become stronger.
Ozi Raby, Arab affairs expert, indicated that Jenin operation shows the gap between the strategy and tactics used by the Israeli command, adding that the negative effects of such operations are much more than the positive ones.
Secret files reveal the names of British agents who influenced the Palestinian Authority.
A cache of leaked documents obtained by The Electronic Intifada reveals the extent of British intelligence penetration of Palestinian Authority forces, including “daily direction” from a UK military officer.
The documents detail how shadowy British contractor Adam Smith International (ASI) has influenced the Palestinian Authority for almost 15 years.
They expose several military intelligence trainers, naming names for the first time.
Two of the British agents, including a likely MI6 officer, worked closely with Israeli spies.
Some ASI personnel who worked with the Palestinian Authority are named in the files as also working with the contractor’s controversial “Free Syrian Police” project.
The program used British government funds to support al-Qaida-linked groups fighting the Syrian government – inadvertently, ASI claims.
ASI training to the Palestinian Authority is done in Ramallah, Jericho and Jordan, under the ultimate command of a US general, and in coordination with Israel.
The Electronic Intifada used the same document cache to reveal in February that the contractor had carried out a secret British government project to spy on Palestinian refugee camps, with the aim of monitoring “criticism of Western and Israeli foreign policy.”
No comment
You can read extracts from the files on this page and some of the full documents at the end of this article. The cache has been publicly available from a file sharing site since October last year. The Electronic Intifada has chosen to publish only files it has reviewed and determined to be in the public interest.
ASI declined to comment, directing us to the Foreign Office for queries “regarding any particular project.” A spokesperson for the UK’s foreign ministry declined to comment.
The Electronic Intifada understands that ASI has been ordering those named in the leaked documents not to speak to this publication.
“It is important that you do not respond to these requests for information, and that you let us know if you are contacted,” ASI director Daniel Pimlott wrote in one internal email seen by The Electronic Intifada
“The Electronic Intifada is not a credible media organization and has a pro-Russian slant,” he claimed.
“Remember the confidentiality clauses you signed up to and your obligations to the UK government,” he added in an implicit warning to anyone who might consider speaking out.
In 2021 there were weeks of protests after Abbas’ goons beat to death Nizar Banat, one of his most prominent critics, whose influential Facebook videos often denounced collaboration.
One of the main US goals in the region is to preserve the Palestinian Authority.
In 2007, Dayton was instrumental in a CIA-backed coup against the elected Palestinian Authority leadership. Hamas’ political wing had won the 2006 legislative elections, much to the anger of Israel and the US.
The coup failed in the Gaza Strip, but was successful in the West Bank, resulting in a bitter and sometimes violent split between Hamas and Abbas’ faction Fatah.
British trainers
The leaked files are ASI bids for British government contracts, mostly in countries other than Palestine.
In the bids ASI often cites its training of Palestinian Authority armed forces as evidence of its suitability for other lucrative contracts, in the process revealing previously unknown names and details.
ASI’s training of the Palestinian Authority falls under the auspices of the “British Support Team,” which is funded by the Ministry of Defence and run by ASI under the auspices of the US Security Coordinator.
One of the leaked documents, part of a 2019 bid on a project in Tunisia, describes ASI’s work as “assisting the UK Government in building the capacity of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces” for “over 10 years.”
An obscure post published on LinkedIn by one of ASI’s military contractors confirms these details.
Claiming Arabic fluency, Malkin describes how, from 2013, he established a Palestinian Authority training academy and designed courses for its officers.
While Malkin’s post does not name ASI – alluding only to “an international development company” – his LinkedIn profile does list the firm as one of his employers.
The LinkedIn post aligns well with the descriptions in the ASI files – although the files do not name Malkin.
But one file dating to 2015 does seem to refer to him, describing “a specialist military technical advisor” who is “a former head of leadership training at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst” and who was then “the only international consultant embedded at this high level within” the Palestinian Authority armed forces. A photo apparently taken by Anthony Malkin shows PA, US and UK troops on a training exercise. (LinkedIn)
The adviser “developed a nine-month practical leadership curriculum with over 1,700 lesson plans in English and Arabic,” according to the file.
Malkin’s LinkedIn post seems to tally with that, describing how he set up an “officers’ leadership course … for nine months” with a “live-firing four week culminating exercise in Jordan based on Sandhurst.”
What are the priorities of this course?
According to Malkin’s LinkedIn post, he made sure Palestinian Authority forces were trained in conducting “raids into Palestinian refugee camps,” which he claims are “lawless sanctuaries for criminals and armed political activists.”
Palestine is described in another ASI document as one of several “priority countries” for the “Conflict, Security and Stability Fund,” a $1.6-billion-dollar British government pool for global interference projects, which often finances ASI projects.
It has been described by one parliamentary committee as a potential “slush fund” that doesn’t meet the needs of UK national security.
One ASI document written as part of a 2019 bid on a “police reform” contract in Jordan says that almost $7 million in British government funds have been spent on the British Support Team since 2012. According to the document, the funds came from the Ministry of Defence.
However, according to Malkin’s blog post, the project was – at least initially – also funded by the US military.
Another ASI document from 2019 shows the extent of British government penetration of the Palestinian Authority under the auspices of US imperialism.
It says that the ASI runs Palestinian-Authority-embedded “advisers … reporting frequently” to British government officials, “in the case of the [occupied Palestinian territories], taking daily direction from a serving UK senior officer.”
Although the leaked documents seem to refer to Malkin only obliquely, other British overseers are explicitly named.
A 2016 bid for ASI’s “Free Syrian Police” project names former British army intelligence officer David Robson as a senior director of the UK’s “support to security sector reform in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
The document boasts tantalizingly of Robson’s “distinguished military career” during which he “operated at the highest political and strategic levels.”
There it says he was a colonel of “info superiority” as an intelligence adviser to the head of the British army between 2007 and 2010. He was subsequently the commander of the 1st Signal Brigade, a UK-NATO army unit. Former British military intelligence officer David Robson trained Palestinian Authority forces and went on to lead a program in Syria that aided al-Qaida.
He went on to become senior British officer for the United States Security Coordinator in Ramallah, working with Palestinian Authority forces between 2012 and 2015.
Robson was later hired by ASI to lead its Syria program, “tracking and managing the risks affecting AJACS” – the so-called “Access to Justice and Community Security” program which directed the Free Syrian Police.
British funding to the project was halted after a 2017 BBC documentary exposed evidence that ASI was aiding al-Qaida.
Despite the scandal, Robson went on to work with Palestinian Authority armed forces again, and even as military expert for UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees in Jerusalem, his LinkedIn page states.
Others are named in the ASI files as also working with Israeli intelligence. Michael Frayne worked with Israel’s notorious torture agency the Shin Bet.Michael Frayne, a former close protection officer in London’s Metropolitan Police and Northern Ireland’s Royal Ulster Constabulary, is named as a prospective security manager in a 2016 ASI bid on a Foreign Office-funded project in South Sudan.
Listing his experience, the document names him as a collaborator with Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, “against Islamic-based terrorist organizations.”A more senior figure named John Deverell is exposed in an ASI bid on security “reform” in Tunisia.A former British army brigadier, the Arabic-speaking Sandhurst graduate once “reported personally to Foreign Secretary David Miliband,” a Labour Party politician in office between 2007 and 2010. Former army officer John Deverell allegedly helped Israel improve its checkpoint security. YouTube
Deverell’s ASI resumé states that in 2007 he began overseeing the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, as another United States Security Coordinator adviser.
The resumé also describes Deverell as having been “deputy commander” of “operational intelligence” in Iraq.
Asked to comment, Deverell told The Electronic Intifada he had never been a military intelligence officer and that “at no stage during my time in the West Bank did I report to, or prepare any reports for, British military intelligence.”
Deverell’s ASI resumé boasts a glowing recommendation from Dayton himself: “the finest senior strategic mind I have ever encountered.”
For two years, the files claim, Deverell “was the first British government servant living and working full time in the Palestinian Territories [sic] since the end of the British Mandate” in 1948.
In office, Deverell’s priority was to support Salam Fayyad, then the unelected, US-imposed “prime minister” of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. According to the ASI files, Deverell worked on “the improvement of border security operations on the crossing points between Israel and Gaza.”
ASI claims Deverell “helped improve life for the Palestinians,” but only “within the strategic objectives of encouraging their moderates [read: Fatah against Hamas] and giving confidence to the Israelis.”
In his response to The Electronic Intifada, Deverell confirmed briefing David Miliband “at times” but denied involvement in the US-backed coup: “I started to work and live in the West Bank in 2007, after Hamas took over in Gaza, not during the lead up to that point.”
He also denied involvement “in any aspect of border security operations between Israel and Gaza, nor did I ever advise on them.” Asked in a followup email to explain the resumé stating otherwise, he wrote: “I stand by what I said. It is not for me to comment on what ASI said about me.”
ASI declined to comment on whether it had misled the government. The Foreign Office also declined to comment.
While Deverell’s resumé gives the impression of being involved in military intelligence, another figure named in ASI’s Tunisia bid looks like an outright MI6 officer – a spy for Britain’s overseas intelligence agency.
The very nature of such a post makes it almost impossible to prove for certain. But if the ASI files are to be believed, David Haines must at minimum be an asset for MI6 within the British diplomatic service.
Haines is described in the Tunisia bid as “a former senior diplomat” who has decades of experience in “counter-terrorism.” Countries including the US and UK have a long history of disguising their spies under diplomatic cover. British “diplomat” David Haines has a top secret security clearance to the level of an MI6 officer. He worked with the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s.
According to the ASI bid, Haines led the British government’s “capacity building program for the Omani intelligence services,” and is a fluent Arabic speaker. On Haines’ LinkedIn page, this is described in slightly more euphemistic terms as “managing elements of the UK’s relations with Oman in the security and international relations spheres.”
It seems highly likely that a diplomat charged with such a sensitive intelligence task would at the very least have very close ties to British intelligence, if not be a member of such an agency himself.
The most telling line in Haines’s ASI resumé specifies that he is “security cleared to DV level.”
Haines is put forward in ASI’s Tunisia bid as an intelligence adviser.
According to the bid, he led teams managing cooperation on “counter-terror” investigations “between security services in Oman, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria and Israel/OPT and their [British government] counterparts.”
In other words he managed cooperation between British and Israeli spies.
His LinkedIn profile says he was based in the British consulate in Jerusalem in the mid-1990s, helping the Palestinian Authority establish itself “with particular focus on capacity building” – similar language to his later work building up Omani intelligence.
The money
Some of the ASI bids contain detailed budgets, giving an indication of the kind of fees commanded by the organization’s consultants.
The files show that David Robson was allocated $285,000 for leading ASI’s “AJACS” program in Syria between 2015 and 2016.
The Tunisia bid is missing a detailed budget breakdown, meaning we do not know how much John Deverell and David Haines were paid. But the project as a whole was allocated almost $500,000 of UK government funds.
It is unclear if the Tunisia bid was successful.
David Haines was allocated almost $43,000 for 52 days work on another ASI intelligence role in Jordan in 2018, which was funded by the Foreign Office.
Michael Frayne was allocated $23,000 for 40 days work in South Sudan in 2017 and 2018.
Junior imperialist partners
Anthony Malkin, Michael Frayne and David Robson did not respond to requests for comment.
David Haines did not respond to a request for comment sent via the Foreign Office news desk.
The ASI files give important new insights into the role that the UK plays as a junior partner in the US empire.
The documents make clear the subservient role that British military and intelligence forces play in the West Bank, under overall US control.
And ultimately, all three entities – the US, the UK and the PA – are in bed with Israel and its occupation of Palestine.
Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist and associate editor with The Electronic Intifada. Kit Klarenbergis an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
Leaks reveal that the increasingly violent and repressive Palestinian Authority security forces have been trained by British government-affiliated contractors with US money.
Since 2015, Britain has pumped vast sums annually into a “Middle East Peace Process Program.”
In an official summary of the effort, lofty rhetoric about protecting the vulnerable, upholding humanitarian law, and working for peace abounds. Yet its core – if not sole – objective is made very clear from the start. Namely, constructing institutions within the Palestinian Authority (PA) that are “ready for statehood, [and] supportive of UK values and interests.”
Leaked files reviewed by The Cradle show these British initiatives have a “particular emphasis on the security sector,” which is understandable. After all, it is arguably only through maintaining a powerful and repressive security apparatus that the corrupt, unelected, Israeli-directed PA can remain in power.
These documents show that London plays an intimate role in shaping, managing, and staffing the PA’s Security Forces and its methods of repression – by way of Adam Smith International, a controversial British government contractor.
Since 2012, the company has reaped millions “building the capacity of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces,” and “discrete areas of the Ministry of Interior,” in order to “professionalize” the Authority’s other “security institutions.”
Conducted primarily in the context of the United States Security Coordinator (USSC) mission to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, through a nexus of “embedded mentors,” the British firm provides “technical assistance, training, and on-the-job guidance” to different Security Force departments, including the Palestinian civil police, intelligence agencies, and “civil protection” units.
“Strategic advice” is also provided directly to the US Security Coordinator “on the institutional development of the police sector,” while the PA’s Media Centre receives assistance in “strategic communications” campaigns to “support their programme for achieving statehood by maintaining public support” – in other words information warfare operations, designed to manipulate and pacify Palestinians.
‘Not the easiest of tasks’
Other leaked files demonstrate that the training and services provided by Adam Smith International to the PA Security Forces are distinctly British in character.
A self-professed “highlight” of this support has been the establishment of a “Palestinian Officers Academy” styled on Sandhurst military school, where the British Army’s elite class are trained. Adam Smith International boasts that it drafted the “business case” for the Academy, cleared “design and development plans” with the Security Forces and Interior Ministry, and secured “a multi-million-pound budget” for its launch and operation.
Students at the Academy receive a nine-month-long “practical leadership curriculum” with “over 1,700 lesson plans” in English and Arabic, overseen by 12 international and 30 Palestinian staffers. Adam Smith International also advised the PA’s military training director “on how to strengthen the design and delivery of training” across the Security Forces, advising on “course design, delivery methodology, organizational structure, as well various training-related operational matters, such as resourcing, course coordination and management of training infrastructure.”
Adam Smith International guaranteed access to “discrete areas” of the PA Interior Ministry, and “buy-in” to its training operations from senior Security Forces staff, by embedding a “specialist military technical advisor” within the latter’s ranks. While unnamed in the files, the company refers to Anthony Malkin, former head of leadership training at Sandhurst.
From 2000 – 2005, he was Britain’s defense attache in the United Arab Emirates – in his own words serving as “the interface between the UK Ministry of Defence and the UAE General Headquarters,” and “[developing] policy lines at ambassadorial and ministerial level whilst supporting defense sales.”
For Adam Smith International, Malkin worked to “improve operational capability” of the Palestinian Authority’s civil police, armed forces, and intelligence services, “training, mentoring and advising leaders and staff.” Along the way, he “[showed] he can operate well in a culture of ambiguity, and has been flexible in adapting as the job has evolved to reflect wider political and military influences.”
“He is the only international consultant embedded at this high level within the [Security Forces]; his deep contextual understanding and Arabic language skills have gained him the respect of key interlocutors,” Adam Smith International approvingly noted. “Our advisor has ensured the buy-in of senior personnel, and thus the long term success of the [Palestinian Officers Academy]…through exercising well-apportioned patience, tact and diplomacy which has built strong and trusting relationships.”
Malkin left the post in 2016, after three years. In December of that year, he published a LinkedIn blog outlining his experience building the Officers Academy. It is rife with extraordinary insights, such as there being “considerable intelligence liaison between the Israeli and Palestinian Security Forces,” both in regards to alleged threats posed by the West Bank’s “immediate neighbors” but also “internal threats to safety and security.”
Malkin explained that he encountered numerous obstacles in getting the Academy off the ground, “the most taxing” of which was ensuring “Israeli acceptance of the project and their tacit approval,” given it would necessitate training Palestinians in using rifles and pistols, and Israel bans Palestinians from owning or possessing “any heavy weapons.” Approval was eventually given, “provided that no sniper training was involved!”
Securing US Security Coordinator mission backing for the endeavor was likewise “not the easiest of tasks,” as it was “an essentially British-centric project based on UK’s leadership doctrine, but with a US budget.” Nonetheless, “despite considerable initial misgivings and protestations, a multimillion-dollar budget was released.”
Calling the tune
Subsequently, Malkin conducted “battlefield tour presentations regarding Israel’s military history” on behalf of Adam Smith International and the US Security Coordinator mission. He also self-published a book, The Tortuous Birth of a Nation, “for the enthusiast wanting to explore and discover more about Israel’s military history,” and moonlights in “cross-cultural consultancy” between Israel and the UAE.
Such exploits are instructive as to where Malkin’s affiliations and sympathies truly lie. So too, does his account of the project expose the bleak reality of the unelected Palestinian Authority. It is a foreign-created and controlled entity that does not govern or exert power in the interests and service of residents of the Occupied Territories, but rather in the interests of western governments and Israeli apartheid.
From the UK Foreign Office’s perspective, steering the PA’s activities and composition ensures it not only remains “supportive of UK values and interests,” but also allows London’s domestic and foreign security and intelligence services to train an unblinking eye on residents of Gaza and the West Bank. As a result, potential threats of retaliatory violence arising from Tel Aviv’s brutal assaults in the Occupied Territories – both to Israel and Britain – can be neutralized via local actors.
British infiltration of the Palestinian Authority is a long-running story, and its security infrastructure has always been a primary target. In 2004, the government of Tony Blair dispatched veteran senior British police officer Jonathan McIvor to assist the body.
The next year, he was employed by the European Union to establish the Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (COPPS), Brussels’ first “security” mission in Palestine – which increases cooperation between the PA’s military, security, policing, and intelligence wings, and Israeli occupation forces – in advance of its formal launch in early 2006, and served for some time as its first chief.
Questions can only abound as to whether McIvor’s high-level stint within the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a police force in Northern Ireland notorious for vicious discrimination against the province’s Catholic minority, and intensive collusion with loyalist terrorist groups, informed tactics employed today by the Palestinian Authority.
It was in Northern Ireland that Britain perfected “five techniques” of psychological and physical torment, which formed the basis of modern torture worldwide, along with a strategy of “internment without trial” for terror suspects.
In 1976, a secret directive gave the Royal Ulster Constabulary free rein to employ these techniques whenever its officers wished, which endured well into the 1990s, concurrent with McIvor’s tenure with the force. The Palestinian Authority has been confirmed to widely engage in arbitrary arrests and torture of detainees, typically at Israel’s behest.
Now that the PA is proving increasingly ineffective at quelling peaceful and armed resistance to both its brutal rule and Israeli ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Territories, the ‘expert’ guidance of Adam Smith International and other British government contractors has perhaps never been so urgently in need.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
يواصل الشيخ خضر عدنان، القيادي في حركة «الجهاد الإسلامي» في الضفة الغربية المحتلّة، إضرابه المفتوح عن الطعام لليوم الـ68 على التوالي. الرجل الذي بدأ تلك السُنّة على الصعيد الفلسطيني حينما اعتُقل إدارياً للمرّة الأولى عام 2011، واستطاع انتزاع حريته خمس مرّات آخرها في عام 2021، يدرك أن هذه المرّة مغايرة لسابقاتها. «هو لا يحتجّ على نوعية الاعتقال، إدارياً كان أم أمنياً أو غيره، إنما على فكرة الاعتقال التعسّفي بذاتها»، تقول زوجته رندة موسى. وتضيف في حديثها إلى «الأخبار»: «على رغم كلّ الظروف المحيطة، من وجود حكومة يمينية تضرب بعرض الحائط سمعة الكيان على الصعيد الدولي، وتكافح لتنغيص حياة الأسرى في أبسط حقوقهم الإنسانية، بل وتحاول إقرار قانون يشرّع إعدامهم، إلّا أن الشيخ خضر لا ينطلق في حساباته من معادلات الربح والخسارة، الحكاية عنده ليست 1+1 يساوي 2».
تُواصل زوجة الشيخ، التي كان قد وصفها في حديث سابق له، بأنها «جيشه الأول ودرعه المنيع»: «إذا كانت الأمور تُحسب بالنتائج الآنية والسريعة، فإن فكرة مقاومتنا للاحتلال كلّها مغلوطة. الشيخ يُسمع بإضرابه عن الطعام صوت الأسرى، ويحمل بجوعه قضية فلسطين إلى مساحات وفضاءات جديدة». على أن المعنويات المرتفعة التي أبدتها والدة الأبناء التسعة، لم تمنعها من التحذير من حساسية وضع زوجها الصحي، إذ اعتُقل عدنان وهو يعاني من نزيف في المعدة وارتفاع في ضغط الدم وتضخّم في الغدة الدرقية، واليوم، بعد شهرين وثمانية أيام من الإضراب، تنقل زوجته ما قاله لها محاميها بالنص: «الشيخ خضر يحتضر، وضعه الصحّي سيّئ جدّاً، حاولوا اعملوا اشي». يُذكر أن قوات الاحتلال اعتقلت عدنان في مركز توقيف الجلمة لـ38 يوماً، ثمّ نقلته إلى مستشفى سجن الرملة. وفيما تزداد المطالب والضغوط لنقله إلى سجن مدني، تربط سلطات العدو تلك الخطوة بموافقته على إجراء الفحوصات الطبية، وهو ما يرفضه الأخير إلّا بشروط عدّة وضعها سلفاً، أهمّها أن تتمّ الفحوص بوجود طرف ثالث أو جهة دولية مثلاً.
سلطات الاحتلال التي واجهت عدنان بـ25 اعترافاً من اعترافات الغير عليه، تهدف، وفق ما أكده محامي الشيخ، إلى تثبيت تهمتَي قيادة حركة «الجهاد الإسلامي»، والتحريض على مقاومة الاحتلال عبر المشاركة في جنازات الشهداء والفعاليات الوطنية، وهما ما ستقودان إلى محاكمته وسجنه بشكل نظامي. وأمام ذلك، تؤكد زوجته أن «فلسفة الشيخ في خوض المعركة، لم تنطلق أساساً من قياس حجم الربح والخسارة، فهو يدرك أنه لن يُعتقل هذه المرّة بشكل إداري، وهو يدرك أيضاً أن الاحتلال أوهن وأضعف من أن نحسب له كثيراً من الحسابات قبل أن نفكّر في ممارسة السلوك الفطري تجاهه المتمثّل في مقاومته».
وكان نشطاء ومتضامنون فلسطينيون في البرازيل، نظّموا مطلع نيسان الجاري مسيرات واحتجاجات نجحوا من خلالها في إلغاء «مهرجان الجامعات الإسرائيلية» المزمع عقده في جامعة «يوني كامب». وفي خلال تلك الفعاليات، رفع المشاركون صوراً للشيخ خضر، وهو ما يعلّق عليه المحلّل السياسي، محمد فارس جردات، بقوله: «قد تختلف مع عدنان في نجاعة إضرابه من الناحية الحسابية أو التأثير الميداني في ظلّ كلفته العالية مقابل ناتجه في حال نجاحه، لكن عندما تشاهد رمزيته الكفاحية في العالم، وهنا نتحدث عن أميركا اللاتينية، في مواجهة اللوبي الصهيوني، فإن خضر في عناده المستحيل وزنزانته الصدئة المعزولة، يصنع أثراً في آخر المعمورة، بما يوجب على الجميع تجاوز الاختلاف معه». ويعتقد جردات أن على «السفارات الفلسطينية تجاوز عملية التحريض الداخلي المغرض ضد خضر، لتنظيم وقفات تضامنية معه قبالة كلّ سفارات الكيان العبري في العالم (…) أعرف أن طلبي معجز في ظلّ ما ران على هذه السفارات من الفساد والارتهان لأجندات شخصية وحزبية، لكن واجبنا أن نقرع الجرس في عتمة الليل البهيم». جدير بالذكر أنه تربط عدنان بالسلطة الفلسطينية علاقة شائكة، بسبب مواقفه المتقدمة على الصعيد الداخلي، لا سيما في قضايا الاعتقال السياسي، واغتيال الناشط نزار بنات.
Bibi is by nature cautious – even timid. His radical ministers, however, are not, Alastair Crooke writes.
Michael Omer-Man writes: Almost exactly 10 years ago, a young star rising in the Likud party, spoke to an audience committed to the outright annexation of the occupied Palestinian territories, laying out his blueprint. A year later, this same speaker set out certain prerequisites to full annexation: Firstly, a shift in the way the Israeli public thinks about a ‘two-state solution’ for Palestine; and secondly, a radical recast of the legal system “that will allow us to take those steps on the ground … that advance sovereignty”.
What was reflected in this statement is the structural dichotomy inherent within the ‘idea’ of ‘Israel’: What then is ‘Israel’? One side holds that Israel was founded as a ‘balance’ between Jewishness and Democracy. The other says ‘nonsense’; it was always the establishment of Israel on the “Land of Israel”.
Ami Pedahzur, a political scientist studying the Israeli Right, explains that the religious Right “has always considered the Israeli Supreme Court to be an abomination”. He points out that the extremist Meir Kahane “once wrote extensively about the tension between Judaism and democracy and the need for a Sanhedrin [a biblical system of judges] instead of the extant Israeli judicial system”.
In Israel’s attempt to balance these opposing visions and interpretations of history, the Israeli Right sees the judiciary as deliberately having been tilted toward democracy (by one part of the Israeli élite). This simmering tension finally exploded with the 1995 Supreme Court claim that it possessed power of judicial review over Knesset (parliamentary) legislation deemed to be in conflict with Israel’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws. (An Israeli constitution has been considered since 1949, but never actuated.)
Well, that ‘young star’ of 10 years ago – who asserted so forcefully “We cannot accept … a judicial system that is controlled by a radical leftist, post-Zionist minority that elects itself behind closed doors – dictating to us its own values – today is Israel’s Justice Minister, Yariv Levin.
And with time, Netanyahu has indeed already brought about that first prerequisite (outlined by Levin almost a decade ago): The Israeli public perspective on the two-state Olso formula is radically changed. Political support for that project hovers close to zero in the political sphere.
More than that, today’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu, explicitly shares the same ideology as Levin and his colleagues – namely that Jews have a right to settle in any, and all, parts of the ‘Land of Israel’; he also believes that the very survival of the Jewish people is dependent on the actuation of that divine obligation into practice.
Many on the Israeli Right, Omer-Man suggests, therefore see the Supreme Court as “the central impediment to their ability to fulfil their annexationist dreams, which for them are a combination of messianic and ideological commandments”.
They saw the 1995 Supreme Court ruling as ‘a coup’ that ushered in the judiciary’s supremacy over law and politics. This is a view that is hotly contested – to the point of near civil war – by those who advocate for democracy versus a strict Judaic vision of religious law.
From the perspective of the Right, Ariel Kahana notes that although
“they have continued to win time and again – but they have never held power in the true sense of the word. Through the judiciary, the bureaucracy, the defence establishment, academia, cultural elites, the media, and some of the economic wheelers and dealers, the Left’s doctrine continued to dominate Israel’s power foci. In fact, regardless of who the cabinet ministers were, the old guard has continued with its obstructionist insurgency”.
Today, however, the numbers are with the Right – and we are witnessing the Israeli Right’s counter-coup: a judicial ‘reform’ which would centralize power in the Knesset – precisely by dismantling the legal system’s current checks and balances.
Ostensibly this schism constitutes the crisis bringing hundreds of thousand Israelis on to the street. Prima Facie, in much of the media, at issue is who has the final word: the Knesset or the Supreme Court.
Or, is it? For, beneath the surface, unacknowledged and mostly unsaid, is something deeper: It is the conflict between Realpolitik versus Completion of the Zionist project. Put starkly, the Right says it’s clear: Without Judaism we have no identity; and no reason to be in this land.
The ‘less said’ fact is that much of the electorate actually agrees with the Right in principle, yet opposes the full annexation of the West Bank on pragmatic grounds: “They believe that the status quo of a “temporary” 55-plus-year military occupation is the more strategically prudent”.
“Formally [annexing West Bank] would make it too difficult to convince the world that Israel is not an apartheid regime in which half of the population — Palestinians — are denied basic democratic, civil, and human rights”.
That other unresolved contradiction (that of continuing occupation within ‘democracy’) is also submerged by the prevalent mantra of ‘Right wing Orbánism versus democracy’. Ahmad Tibi, an Palestinian member of the Knesset earlier has wryly noted: “Israel indeed is ‘Jewish and democratic’: It is democratic toward Jews – and Jewish toward Arabs”.
The mass of protestors gathered in Tel Aviv carefully choose to avoid this oxymoron (other than around the kitchen table) – as a Haaretz editorial a few days ago made clear: “Israel’s opposition is for Jews only”.
Thus, the crisis that some are warning could lead to civil war at its crux is that between one group – which is no longer content to wait for the right conditions to arrive to fulfil the Zionist dream of Jewish sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel – versus an outraged opposition that prefers sticking to the political tradition of buying time by “deciding not to decide”, Omer-Man underlines.
And although there are ‘moderates’ amongst the Likud lawmakers, their concerns are eclipsed by the exultant mood at their party’s base:
“Senior Likud officials, led by Netanyahu, have incited Likud voters against the legal system for years, and now the tiger is out of control. It has its trainer in its jaws and threatens to crush him if he makes concessions”.
The flames lick around Netanyahu’s feet. The U.S. wants quiet; It does not want a war with Iran. It does not want a new Palestinian Intifada – and will hold Netanyahu’s feet to the flames until he ‘controls’ his coalition allies and returns to an Hebraic ‘quietism’.
But he can’t. It’s not possible. Netanyahu is held limp in the tiger’s jaws. Events are out of his control.
A prominent member of Likud’s central committee told Haaretz this week:
“I don’t care if I have nothing to eat, if the army falls apart, if everything here is destroyed … The main thing is that they not humiliate us once again, and appoint Ashkenazi judges over us”.
The ‘second Israel’ genres have wailed against ‘the ten Ashkenazai judges’ who discredited their leader (Arye Dery), whilst breaking into a song of praise for the ‘only Sephardic judge’ who was sympathetic to Dery. Yes, the ethnic and tribal schisms form a further part of this crisis. (A bill that effectively would reverse the Supreme Court decision barring Dery from his ministerial position over previous corruption charges is currently making its way through the Knesset).
The appeal of Religious Zionism is often attributed to its growing strength amongst the young – particularly ultra-Orthodox men and traditional Mizrahi voters. What became abundantly clear and unexpected in recent weeks, however, is that the appeal of a racist such as Ben-Gvir, is spreading to the young secular left in Israel. Among young Israelis (ages 18 – 24), more than 70% identify today as Right.
Just to be clear: The Mizrahi ‘underclass’, together with the Settler Right, have ousted the ‘old’ Ashkenazi élite from their hold on power. They have waited many years for this moment; their numbers are there. Power has been rotated. The fuse to today’s particular crisis was lit long ago, not by Netanyahu, but by Ariel Sharon in 2001, with his entry to the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif).
Sharon had earlier perceived that a moment would arrive – with a weakened U.S. – when it might prove propitious for Israel to complete the Zionist project and seize all the ‘Land of Israel’. The plans for this venture have been incubating over two decades. Sharon lit the fuse – and Netanyahu duly took on the task of curating a constituency towards despising Oslo and the judicial system.
The project’s content is explicitly acknowledged: To annex the West Bank and to transfer any political rights of Palestinians remaining there to a new national state to the east of the River Jordan, on the site of what now is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In the confusion and violence which would accompany such a move, Palestinians would be ‘persuaded’ to migrate to the ‘other bank’. As Hussein Ibish warned two weeks ago:
“We’re getting awfully close to the point where the Israeli government, and even Israeli society, could countenance a big annexation – and even expulsion [of Palestinians] – done in the middle of an outbreak of violence, and it would be framed as a painful necessity,” Ibish said. Such a move, he added, would be justified “as the government saying ‘We’ve got to protect Israeli settlers – they are citizens too – and we can’t let this go on anymore. Therefore we have to annex and even expel Palestinians.’”
To be fair, the unspoken fear of many secular protesters in Israel today, is not just that of being politically deposed, and their secular lifestyle circumscribed by religious zealots (though that is a major driver to sentiment), but rather, by the unspoken fear that to implement such a radical project against the Palestinians would lead to Regional war.
And ‘that’ is far from an unreasonable fear.
So there are two existential fears: One, that survival of the Jewish people is contingent on fulfilling the obligation to establish ‘Israel’ as ordained; and two, that to implement the consequent exodus of the Palestinians would likely result in the demise of the Israeli State (through war).
Suddenly and unexpectedly, into this fraught situation – with Netanyahu buffeted by a whirlwind of external and internal pressures – arrived a bombshell: Netanyahu was stripped of his ace card – Iran. In Beijing, China had secretly orchestrated not just the resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but laid down the framework for a regional security architecture.
This represents a nightmare for Washington and Netanyahu – particularly for the latter, however.
Since the early 1990s, Iran has served both these parties as the ‘bogey man’, by which to divert attention from Israel and the situation of the Palestinians. It has worked well, with the Europeans acting as enthusiastic collaborators in facilitating (or ‘mitigating’ – as they would see it), Israel’s ‘temporary’, 55-year occupation of the West Bank. The EU even financed it.
But now, that is blown away. Netanyahu may ‘huff and puff’ about Iran, but absent a Saudi and Gulf willingness to lend Arab legitimacy to any military action against Iran (with all the risks that entails), Netanyahu’ s ability to distract from the domestic crisis is severely limited. Any call to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities is an obvious non-starter in the light of the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement.
Netanyahu may not want a show-down with Team Biden, but that’s what is coming. Bibi is by nature cautious – even timid. His radical Ministers, however, are not.
They need a crisis (but only when the ‘prerequisites’ are all lined up). It is clear that the wholesale stripping of Palestinian rights, in tandem with the emasculation of the Supreme Court, is not a project that can be expected to quietly proceed in normal circumstances – especially in the present emotive state across the global sphere.
No doubt, the Israeli Right has been watching how the Lockdown ‘Emergency-crisis fear’ in Europe was used to mobilise a people to accept a compulsion and restrictions to life that in any other circumstance they would never rationally accept.
It won’t be a new pandemic emergency, of course, in the Israeli case. But the new Palestinian Authority-led ‘SWAT-squads’ arresting Palestinian resistance fighters in broad daylight is bringing the West Bank ‘pressure-cooker’ close to blow-out.
Ben Gvir may simply decide to follow in Sharon’s footsteps – to allow and participate in the Passover ceremony of sacrificing a lamb on Al-Aqsa (the Temple Mount) – as a symbol of the commitment to rebuild the ‘Third Temple’, permission for which, hitherto has always been denied.
So what happens next? It is impossible to predict. Will the Israeli military intervene? Will the U.S. intervene? Will one side back-down (unlikely says ex-Head of Israel’s National Security Council, Giora Eiland)? Yet even if the ‘Judicial reform’ is somehow halted, as one exasperated Israeli forecast, “Even if this time the attempt does not succeed, it’s likely that they [the Right] will try again in another two years, another five years, another 10 years. The struggle will be long and difficult, and no one can guarantee what the result will be.”
Despite being in conflict with armed resistance factions in the West Bank, Palestinian Authority forces have also collaborated with them, posing a challenge to those who seek to divide Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has reportedly agreed to implement a controversial US proposal aimed at restoring its control over northern West Bank areas that are currently dominated by newly formed Palestinian resistance groups. However, the plan, lacking an understanding of the realities on the ground, may have unintended consequences.
During US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel in late January, reports allege that PA President Mahmoud Abbas was pressured to accept a new security plan drafted by US security coordinator Michael Fenzel. According to Israeli and American sources, the proposal involves the formation of a special PA force tasked with combatting armed groups in restive areas like Nablus and Jenin.
The PA is losing control
Since 2021, the formation of new resistance factions, including the Jenin Brigades and Lions’ Den, has challenged the authority of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) on the ground in the West Bank. These armed groups have gained public support and power, making it difficult for the PASF to maintain security control in the latter’s strongholds.
On 31 March, 2022, the Israeli government launched ‘Operation Break the Wave’, which led to frequent Israeli night raids on West Bank villages and communities. Despite the high death tolls among Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel has failed to curb the rising rate of resistance attacks and operations against its soldiers and illegal settlers. In fact, the armed struggle is only growing in size and scope.
In February, CIA director Bill Burns expressed concern that the situation in the West Bank today is beginning to resemble the climate of the Second Intifada of the early-to-mid 2000s. The loss of security control by the PA is a cause for concern for Washington, and the CIA has been working with both the PA and Israel in order to stabilize the situation.
While the PA has not officially commented on the plans for forming a special task force to deal with the armed movements, reports suggest that they have accepted the US’s “Fenzel Plan.” Although not publicly disclosed at the time, an official from the PA’s ruling Fatah party, Abbas Zaki, referenced a private security summit scheduled to take place in Aqaba, Jordan.
At this summit, delegations from Jordan, the US, Egypt, and Israel signed an agreement on implementing the Fenzel Plan and improving security ties between Israel and the PA. The Fatah official told Saudi media outlet Asharq that a recent violent raid on Nablus, resulting in the murder of 11 Palestinians, was “a stab in the back for the mediation efforts to reach calm and sign an agreement of de-escalation.”
The Aqaba meeting was highly controversial given that PA President Abbas had previously ordered an end to his security forces’ collaboration with Israeli military and intelligence, known as “security coordination.” This decision was made in response to the killing of 10 Palestinians in the Jenin Refugee camp in late January.
The decision by the PA to accept US assistance in combating armed resistance groups in the West bank is seen as a betrayal by many Palestinians, who expressed their support for these fighters in recent polls.
In fact, demonstrations condemning the PA’s attendance at the Aqaba security summit took place throughout the West Bank, with the Jenin Brigades armed group even calling a press briefing and urging the public to protest.
Ongoing attempts to contain the armed struggle
A source from within the PA’s Preventative Security Force (PSF) spoke to The Cradle under the condition of anonymity. According to the source, the PASF is already actively pursuing members of the Lions’ Den armed group, and any support from the US would only add to their efforts:
“We are doing our job and following orders to protect them [the Palestinian fighters] from being killed by the Israelis, we know that if the occupation army comes for them they won’t let them live and so it is better for us to capture them alive or to bargain with them to hand over their weapons.”
“There have been cases where our forces pursued fighters but failed to arrest them, and after this, the Israeli military murdered them. Our goal is not to harm them, just to capture them,” the source added.
Another source, who has detailed knowledge of the relationship between the PA’s security forces and the armed groups in both Jenin and Nablus, shed light on the complexities of the situation. According to the source, a significant number of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces’ (PASF) cadres are currently active in the Jenin Brigades, with some of them coming from families of high-ranking PASF members.
The Lions’ Den has reportedly received firearms training from Khaled Tbilah, a second lieutenant in the PA’s security forces, which video evidence appears to corroborate. The same source claimed that Oday al-Azizi, known to the Israeli intelligence as a member of the Lions’ Den, is actually one of the leaders of the group while currently serving as a PASF officer.
Azizi was arrested by the PA, but was allegedly allowed to leave their custody at any time, unlike other detainees held in PA detention, such as Musab Shtayyeh, who is a Hamas party member and is held against his will. This suggests that the PA is administering preferential treatment to Lions’ Den members based on political affiliation.
Azizi, the source claims, is married to a woman from a prominent family that is loyal to President Abbas and is affiliated with a group called the Fatah Tanzeem. The Tanzeem, although also connected to the Fatah Party, holds a completely different outlook than the more active Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which makes up the ranks of a number of the armed groups in the northern West Bank.
Popular resistance challenging the PA
Although multiple sources clarify that the PASF does not directly control the armed groups, it still maintains connections with them. The concern from the PA is that if the resistance factions gain too much power in an area like Nablus, it could spread to other cities like Ramallah.
The military parade in Jenin on 3 March showcased the strength of the resistance with hundreds of fighters present. Surprisingly, Mohammed Jabareen, a PA security force colonel, was seen posing for photos with fighters at the parade.
Additionally, a central and unifying figure who has voiced public support for the armed struggle in Jenin is Fathi Khazem, who held a position with the PA security forces during the Second Intifada. Khazem has urged members of the PASF to fight against the Israeli army – his commands carry an oversized authority that others making similar calls simply do not have.
On the flip side, the formation of a new Palestinian resistance group called the Tulkarem Battalion has led to direct intervention by the PASF in an attempt to stem its growth, which in turn has provoked further anti-PA demonstrations.
This highlights the fact that the PA is employing varying strategies in different areas to deter the rise of armed groups. Geography matters: Nablus city, for instance, is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements that provide constant fodder for clashes, whereas in Jenin, a more isolated area, the groups pose less of an immediate threat.
An informed source from Nablus, who has contacts inside the armed groups, tells The Cradle that there is no real solution in sight for the PA:
“Other than convincing the armed groups to lay down their weapons through bribes of different kinds, there is no way to deal with the groups. Maybe they can try to make the groups look like criminals so that they lose some popular support.”
The Fenzel Plan seeks to train thousands of PASF members in US-owned facilities in Jordan to combat the Palestinian resistance. If implemented in a poorly-informed or ill-calculated manner, the project could lead to massive bloodshed in the West Bank and further inflame popular sentiments against the PA.
‘Peace Bands’ 2.0?
Israel has historically used a variety of local collaborator forces in order to maintain its dominance over the populations it occupies. Preceding Israel’s existence, however, during the 1930’s, the British mandate authorities also employed a strategy of using local collaborator forces in order to suppress the Palestinian resistance bands during the Arab Revolt (1936-9). This strategy is somewhat more relevant to today’s Fenzel Plan.
The Fasa’il al-Salam, or “Peace Bands” were formed with the aid of Britain’s Palestine mandate authorities; receiving arms, funds, and training in order to combat Palestinian militias that were largely under the command of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini.
During the latter stages of the Arab Revolt against British rule in Palestine – and despite having taken control over much of the country from the Palestinian resistance – the British military was unable to secure many of the mountainous and rural areas where the rebel leaders reigned. Like today, Jenin and Nablus were also strongholds for the Palestinian revolt back then.
As one of the many strategies employed by British authorities to crush the revolt, the establishment of pro-British bands did have its successes. In Mathew Hughes’ book Britain’s Pacification of Palestine, he writes:
“While the peace bands would never have grown as they did without British help, they never would have happened in the first place had Palestinians been united.”
During this period, when the strategy of dividing Palestinians to fight each other was employed, the divide between the Nashashibi family faction and those loyal to Hajj Amin al-Husseini was heavily utilized by the British to create its collaborator forces.
While the peace bands of the late 1930s were rooted in Palestinian societal-family structures, those kinds of familial rivalries do not exist for a PASF force to be based on today. The Jenin Brigades are instead rooted in the urban working class and refugee communities that were displaced to West Bank refugee camps during the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
The US-envisioned special tactical force PA units will have no roots inside Jenin or the Old City of Nablus, where Palestinian resistance fighters reside. Another advantage that the peace bands had in their formation was positive press; in 1938, Raghib Nashashibi requested a loan from the Jewish Agency to pay newspapers to provide favorable coverage that would gain them adherents. No such media environment exists in the occupied Palestinian territories today.
A crisis within the PA
The issues facing the PA go beyond its lack of control in the northern West Bank. Today, the much-weakened governing body faces a comprehensive crisis on the security, legitimacy, and economic fronts. At 88 years of age, Abbas is amongst the oldest leaders in the world, and many are anticipating his resignation or death in the near future.
Palestinian author and journalist Ramzy Baroud argues that “the Palestinian Authority has suffered a division crisis from the very beginning,” despite Abbas’ ability to somehow keep the PA together:
“Under Abbas, the disunity took on multiple dimensions, unlike under Yasser Arafat, who was able to maintain a nominal level of unity amongst Palestinians,” Baroud explains. He also demonstrates that Abbas widened divisions between the PA and Hamas, the socialist parties, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
“Even worse, he invested into the division of Fatah itself, with the party breaking into three main branches; there is the Marwan Barghouti branch, which is the more revolutionary branch and is more or less consistent with the ideas of Yasser Arafat; then you have the Mohammed Dahlan branch, which is the branch that is more clan-based and is the branch that more or less represented Gaza; there are also a number of sub-branches within the dominant Mahmoud Abbas branch.”
When Mahmoud Abbas’ reign ends, potential successors include Majid Farraj (head of PPS) and Hussein al-Sheikh (secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization).
However, the transition of power will pose an immense challenge given the chaos and indecision facing the PA, and Fatah’s internal divisions could cause further issues. Now, this crisis becomes even more complicated by the massive rise of armed resistance groups and attempts to crack down on them.
Two anonymous sources have claimed that following the late January Israeli army raid on Jenin camp, which killed 10 Palestinians, a high-ranking PASF official intervened to order a halt to any PA pursuit of resistance fighters in the area.
If true, this suggests that there may be more than a few PA officials frustrated with the current approach towards the armed movements and that this issue is one that the PA cannot afford to miscalculate, especially as calls for a Third Intifada intensify.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle
Confrontations between Palestinian youth and Palestinian Authority’s ‘security forces’ in Nablus. (File Photo: via QNN)
The Palestinian Authority security forces on Tuesday suppressed a protest in Nablus to demand the release of political prisoners held by the PA, Quds Press news site reported.
Dozens of masked members of the PA security forces attacked the participants, including the families of political detainees, and fired gas canisters at them, suffocating a number.
The PA forces also assaulted journalists covering the event and prevented them from filming, confiscating their mobile devices.
Palestinian Authority Security Forces attacked a recent protest in Nablus calling for the release of Palestinian political prisoners.
The participants demanded the release of Musab Shtayyeh and other political detainees currently held by the Palestinian Authority, who are being pursued by the Israeli occupation.
Lawyers and human rights organizations confirmed earlier that 2022 witnessed a significant rise in the campaigns of prosecution, arrests, and summons orders issued by the Palestinian Authority security services against politicians, activists, freed prisoners, and university students.
تشير مجريات الأحداث إلى أنّ العام الجديد حول ماذا ينتظر الفلسطيني سيكون عاماً صعباً، على الإقليم عموماً، وعلى فلسطين خصوصاً، فالتوجهات المتطرفة وإنْ كانت متماثلة في كلّ حكومات الاحتلال، بغضّ النظر عن يمينها ويسارها، إلا أنّ الأمور سوف تأخذ أشكالاً أكثر حدة مع تسلم الحكومة الجديده مهامها، وهي الأكثر تطرفاً وتلمودية في تاريخ (إسرائيل) القصير، وبما تحوي داخلها من مكونات دينية وعنصرية ذات نهج صريح أعلنته في برامجها وأدائها.
منذ فجر اليوم الأول مطلع العام الحالي، شنّت الحكومة وجيشها حملة اعتقالات واسعة على طول الضفة الغربية وعرضها، واجتاحت مدينة نابلس لاعتقال مقاومين، وفي ثاني أيام السنة اجتاحت جنين وقراها، بهدف هدم بيوت مقاومين، وقتلت أثناء ذلك شابّين وجرحت آخرين، منهم ما زال في العناية الطبية المكثّفة لخطورة إصابته. وزارة الأمن الداخلي أصبحت بعد أن تسلّمها المتطرف بن غفير وزارة الأمن القومي، التي ستكون مسؤولة عن الأمن والشرطة، وعن مناطق الضفة الغربية، ومسؤولة عن إدارة العلاقة مع السلطة الفلسطينية وإدارة الاشتباك مع غزة، وذلك بعد أن بقيت إدارة هذه الملفات منذ عام 1967، بيد وزارة الدفاع والجيش التي لديهما قدر من الحرفية يفتقد إليها الوزير الجديد.
ما تقدّم يذهب إلى أنّ ملفات عديدة ستكون على قدر كبير من السخونة، أوّلها ملف القدس والأماكن الدينية المقدسة. وهذا الملف كان له دور رئيس في حشد الأصوات الانتخابية لصالح بن غفير، الذي رفع شعار تهويد المدينة والاستيلاء على المسجد الأقصى وباحته، باعتباره جبل الهيكل المزعوم الذي يسعى بن غفير وعدد من الجمعيات التلمودية لإعادة بنائه، حيث أعلن بن غفير مساء الإثنين الماضي عن أنه سيدخل المسجد الأقصى للصلاة ومعه جموع غفيرة من جمهوره المتطرف، وبحماية الشرطة التي أصبحت تأتمر بأمره، لكنه ما لبث أن ادّعى أنه تراجع في اليوم التالي، وأجّل دخوله لفترة يقول إنها قصيرة، وذلك استجابة لضرورات سياسية أقنعه بها رئيس الحكومة، وذات علاقة بإعلان التطبيع مع السعودية في القريب.
برنامج بن غفير يقضي بالاستيلاء أولاً على جزء من الحوض المقدس، الذي يشمل المسجد الأقصى ومسجد قبة الصخرة والباحة المحيطة بهما، وتقسيم السيادة مكانياً وزمانياً بين الفلسطينيين واليهود، أما في المرحلة الثانية فهو يريد كامل المكان، الجزء الأول من مخططه يفترض به أنه سوف يدفع الأوضاع نحو تأزم على أكثر من صعيد، بدءاً من الأردن الذي تحدث بلهجة حادة لم يسمعها أحد منذ ثلاثة عقود ومن الملك مباشرة، كما تهديدات حماس من غزة بردود قاسية، وهي التي أقامت مصداقيتها على قاعدة الدفاع عن القدس والمسجد الأقصى منذ حرب سيف القدس. زيارة بن غفير تثير مشاعر المسلمين عبر العالم، ويفترض بها أن تحرك جموعاً كالتي رأيناها في البحرين مؤخراً، وما ورد على ألسنة من تحدّثوا للإعلام من عامة الناس في قطر أثناء مونديال كرة القدم، والأخطر هو تحرك الشارع الفلسطيني ككتلة واحدة من الجليل إلى النقب، والزحف كما في رمضان قبل الماضي للقدس وللمرابطة في المسجد الأقصى لحمايته، مع الاستعداد للاشتباك مع المعتدين، سواء كانوا من المستوطنين أو من أجهزة الدولة التي سوف تتحرك لتنفيذ قرارات حكومية.
ظنّ الناس أنّ هذه الزيارة قد أصبحت مؤجلة، لكن بن غفير غافل الجميع بقيامه بالدخول للمسجد الأقصى صبيحة الثلاثاء، وأخذ الصور مبتسماً مزهواً، مكتب رئيس الحكومة علق على الزيارة بأنها طبيعية وشرعية ولا يوجد فيها ما هو استثنائي، فمن حق بن غفير أن يزور المكان الذي طالما زاره الوزراء في حكومات (إسرائيل) المتعاقبة والزيارة كانت قصيرة لثلاث عشرة دقيقه فقط ولم يقم بن غفير اية صلوات او شعائر دينية، وبشكل موارب غامزاً أشار في التعليق إلى أنّ الزيارة رداً على تهديدات لا تخيف الحكومة، الأمر الذي أوضحه صحافيون ورجال رأي مقرّبون من الحكومة: أنّ الزيارة ليست رداً على تهديدات حماس فقط، وإنما الملك عبد الله الثاني أيضاً، وأن على عمان ورام الله أن تدركا بأن الوضع السابق (ستاتيكو) ليس مقدساً.
أراد بن غفير من دخوله للمسجد الأقصى أولاً أن يؤكد تهديداته وأنه يطبّق بالفعل ما يقول وثانياً إجراء اختبار (pilot) لفحص ردود الفعل الفلسطينية على مواقعها في الضفة وغزة ومناطق 1948 ثم العربية وتحديداً الأردنية في خطوة أولى لطرد الأوقاف الأردنية من المكان تمهيداً لنزع الوصاية الهاشمية على المكان المقدس.
أصدرت حكومات العرب والمسلمين من مشارق الأرض ومغاربها بيانات الإدانة والاستنكار، فيما ابتلعت الأطراف التي أطلقت التهديدات ألسنتها، ولعلّ من أكثر الردود جدية على الزيارة، هي رسالة التأنيب التي أرسلها الحاخام السفاردي الأكبر، والذي يعتبر المرجعية الدينية لبن غفير ويطالبه بعدم تكرارها، بالطبع بانتظار ظهور المسيح المخلص، قد يكون من المبكر الحكم على ردود الأفعال وجديتها، ولكن المتوقع أن تكون أكثرها جدية هي الردود الشعبية الفلسطينية غير المرتبطة بجهات سياسية وإقليمية.
عام 1969 أحرق متطرّف يهودي المسجد الأقصى وأتت النار على بعض معالمه منها منبر صلاح الدين الأيوبي، تقول غولدا مئير رئيسة الوزراء في حينه: لم أنم تلك الليلة وكنت اعتقد أن من أحرق المسجد الأقصى سيتسبب في إحراق (إسرائيل)، وكنت افترض أننا سنجد في صباح اليوم التالي الملايين يزحفون علينا من عالم العرب والمسلمين. في الصباح عرفت كم كنت مبالغة فالردود اقتصرت على البيانات.
خمس مسائل تمّ ترحيل بحثها في اتفاق أوسلو 1993، وهي القدس والمستوطنات واللاجئون والحدود والمياه، هذا العام سيكون حاسماً لجهة فرض الرؤيا الإسرائيلية التلمودية على القدس، وربما على المسائل الأربع الأخرى، تعتمد (إسرائيل) على قوّتها على الأرض وعلى تخاذل من يكتفون بإصدار بيانات التنديد والإدانة، والذين يطالبون المجتمع الدولي بأن يقف عند مسؤولياته، فيما لا يقفون هم عند واجباتهم ومسؤولياتهم. *كاتب وسياسي فلسطيني الكفير ـ جنين ـ فلسطين المحتلة.
فيديوات متعلقة
عام التحولات : حسم في اوكرانيا و تسوية تركية سورية وانفجار فلسطين
تغطية خاصة | عميد الأسرى كريم يونس إلى الحرية 1
كريم يونس حراً بعد 40 عاماً في سجون الاحتلال!
تغطية خاصة | عميد الأسرى كريم يونس إلى الحرية 3
تغطية خاصة | عميد الأسرى كريم يونس إلى الحرية 4
كيف يتوزع الأسرى الفلسطينيون في سجون الاحتلال الإسرائيلي؟
الرئاسة اللبنانية فشل التسويات.. وبن غفير يلعب بالنار/ بانوراما اليوم
File image. Maryam Banat, mother of Palestinian Authority (PA) outspoken critic Nizar Banat holds a poster with his picture while attending a rally protesting his death in the custody of PA security forces on 24 June 2021.(AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
The legal team of the family of the late Palestinian activist Nizar Banat filed on 16 December a complaint against the Palestinian Authority (PA) at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for alleged war crimes and torture.
Hakan Camuz, head of International Law at Stoke White, filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office regarding the murder of Palestinian activist Nizar Banat, who was beaten to death by PA security forces on 24 June, 2021.
The aim of the complaint is to investigate the “brutal death” of the activist, whose autopsy revealed that he had received blows, some of them to the head and neck. From the beginning, his family insisted that he was abused during his arrest.
“Nizar Banat was illegally arrested and tortured by the Palestinian Authority on eight different occasions. During the months preceding his murder, Nizar and his family were subjected to more and more threats and attacks. His house was attacked with bullets and grenades a few weeks before his assassination,” the legal team said in an statement reported by The News International.
In his outspoken social media videos, Banat was well-known for accusing the PA of corruption and criticizing its security cooperation with the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank.
“The trial began in the military court in Ramallah in September 2021, which is a violation of international law, which indicates that cases of human rights violations should be tried in civilian courts,” the lawyers have denounced.
Meanwhile, the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) determined that the PA is responsible for the torture and ill-treatment of civilians.
The CAT conducted several hearings during the investigation, discovering that the Palestinian National Security Forces frequently use lethal weapons when detaining or interrogating civilians.
CAT began its investigation on 12 July, concluding two weeks later with an official report. They urged the PA to conduct prompt and effective investigations into complaints involving public officials, and to prosecute and punish them with the appropriate penalties.
A poll conducted three months ago showed that only 26 percent of Palestinians are content with the management of Mahmoud Abbas as president of the PA, while 71 percent are not.
Canada’s Green Party Leader, Elizabeth May. (Photo: Karen Fox, via Wikimedia Commons)
– Yves Engler is the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and a number of other books. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit his website: yvesengler.com.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ recent attack against Elizabeth May is farcical. Canada’s leading mouthpiece for Israel criticized the Green Party leader for saying she takes her direction from the representative of the Palestinian Authority, which actually serves as the subcontractor for Israel’s occupation.
At an event marking International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People May said, “I take my marching orders from the permanent representative of Palestine to Canada.” CIJA clipped this short bit of a much longer speech and tweeted, “particularly at a time when Canadians are increasingly concerned about foreign interference in Canadian politics, no Canadian elected official should get their ‘marching orders’ from a foreign government and its official representatives.”
While it is interesting that CIJA has acknowledged the PA as a “foreign government” when many fanatic Israeli nationalists condemn the CBC for even saying there is such a place as Palestine, the video has been viewed 220,000 times. Apparently, Zionist Twitter and May’s detractors are smitten with it.
This is an extreme example of the pot making racist comments at the kettle. In case the apartheid lobbyists forgot, the first three words in CIJA’s name are “Centre for Israel”. CIJA justifies Israel’s apartheid and violence against Palestinians while celebrating Israel’s friends and demonizing its enemies.
Framing May’s comment as a sign of foreign interference is way beyond silly and headed into fantasyland. Are we to believe the Palestinians, without control over any territory, are even trying to dictate to a member of the G7?
CIJA’s post is absurd for other reasons. As CIJA knows, May orchestrated a stunningly anti-democratic move to protect Israel from censure. After Green members voted to back boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) measures targeting sectors of the Israeli economy profiting from the occupation of the West Bank, May demanded a special general membership meeting be held to discuss a Palestine policy endorsed prior to the August 2016 convention, at the convention and in a follow-up online poll. She forced the party to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to hold a special convention four months later to discuss that single resolution.
Yes, since then, May’s position on Palestinian rights has improved. On November 29 she tweeted, “Today, I stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people living under conditions worse than apartheid. Alongside my friend, Mona Abuamara, Chief representative of the Palestinian Delegation to Canada, I call for an end to the occupation. Let Palestinians live in peace.”
Still, May’s hyper-focus on the PA representative is a political weakness. The PA is highly deferential to the apartheid state and there have been major demonstrations in the West Bank calling for the fall of the PA due to its role in repressing the Palestinian liberation struggle. The US/Canada-financed and armed PA acts as a subcontractor of Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and internationally it has undercut Palestinian civil society’s call to boycott Israel. In Canada, the PA has failed to raise its voice against the outrageous sums raised for Israeli-focused registered charities, which include groups that support racist organizations, West Bank settlements and the Israeli military.
Irrespective of her limitations, May should be applauded for marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. She should also be defended from CIJA’s attacks and the apartheid lobby group should be constantly denounced.
According to the document, the funds came from the Ministry of Defence.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 