Internal Tensions Rise in West Bank After PA Security Forces Arrest Islamic Jihad Fighters

Israeli security forces have reportedly yielded to the PA in the northern West Bank in an attempt to allow the PA to regain control over the area, but PA President Abbas is struggling to assert legitimacy

Demonstrations were held in the West Bank on Monday night after a faction called on Palestinians to protest against the Palestinian Authority (PA) policy of politically motivated arrests.

Large crowds of protesters gathered in response to the Jenin Brigades’ call, chanting slogans that revealed their disillusionment with the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

In a statement released Monday night, the PA Interior Ministry denied the existence of political arrests and vowed to uphold law and order throughout the West Bank. The ministry warned of harsh punishment for “anyone who seeks to harm the security of Palestine and its people,” vowing to “cut off the hand of anyone who tries to tamper with the security and stability” of the PA.

Jenin Governor Akram Rajoub also rejected the accusation of political arrests.

PA security forces were put on high alert leading up to the protests. The presence of PA security at the demonstrations served to further highlight the tensions between many Palestinians and the PA.

A resident of the Jenin refugee camp addressed the PA security forces directly during a protest on Monday. “Leave us alone,” he said. “We can defend ourselves and can resist Israel. We can’t fire at our brothers in the security services.”

“The purpose of the demonstration is to reject political arrests,” another protester told The Media Line.

These guns get their legitimacy from the Palestinian people, who stand wholeheartedly behind the resistance. These guns protect us, unlike the ones hiding in the security buildings.

Referring to armed factions not associated with the PA, he said, “These guns get their legitimacy from the Palestinian people, who stand wholeheartedly behind the resistance. These guns protect us, unlike the ones hiding in the security buildings.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), one of the leading factions in the Jenin camp, accused the PA of arresting several of its members on Sunday night in the town of Jaba, 16 miles south of the city of Jenin. PIJ’s armed wing, al-Quds Brigades, described the arrests as a “morally unacceptable crime” and a “real threat to our struggle and the blood of our martyrs.”

The group also claimed that they had agreed to allow Abbas to visit the Jenin camp last week after receiving assurances that the PA would free members of the faction who had been arrested.

Among the five PIJ members arrested on Sunday were a commander and a former commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, an armed group linked to the PA’s ruling Fatah party.

Jenin has long been a stronghold of armed Palestinian groups, most notably during the Second Intifada of 2000-2005.

Israeli political analyst Eli Nissan attributed the rise of armed factions in Jenin and the rest of the northern West Bank to the power vacuum that resulted when PA security services lost control over the area. “The same happened in the Gaza Strip,” he told The Media Line.

Inside and outside of Jenin, Palestinian frustration with the PA is increasing, with the PA seen as corrupt and ineffectual in its response to Israeli occupation. Dissatisfaction with the PA reached an apex during the Israeli raid on the Jenin camp earlier this month, when PA security forces abandoned their positions and ignored calls to support the camp’s armed factions. PA security forces also arrested two PIJ members who were on their way to the Jenin camp during the two-day clashes.

Twelve Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed during the raid on Jenin in early July. Israel employed drones, helicopters, bulldozers, and more than 1,000 troops in the raid, inflicting extensive damage on the camp. The raid was largely a response to recent terror attacks carried out by the Jenin Brigades and other armed groups.

Abbas’ visit to Jenin last week was seen by some as an attempt to assert PA control in an area where he is deeply unpopular. Before visiting last Wednesday, Abbas had not been to Jenin in more than a decade.

Last week, Israeli media reported that the Israeli military would suspend its activities in the northern West Bank to give PA security forces an opportunity to reclaim control. Neither Israel nor the PA publicly commented on the report, but many point to the increase in PA arrests in the area as a sign of the report’s veracity.

Nissan said that the PA would have an easier time retaking control of the northern West Bank in the aftermath of the raid and the retreat of Israeli security forces. “Israel paved the way for the PA, and this is an opportunity for the PA to reestablish control there,” he said.

This step will not produce results at all. In my opinion, this understanding is wrong, and this is a wrong way around the real and correct solution, which is to open a real political window for the Palestinians and help to change the current conditions, not only at the security level. More importantly, it is an unconvincing solution for the Palestinians.

Ahmad Rafiq Awad, president of the Center for Jerusalem Studies at Al-Quds University, on the other hand, criticized Israel’s policy of conditionally increasing the PA’s “security capability” as ineffective.

“This step will not produce results at all,” Awad said. “In my opinion, this understanding is wrong, and this is a wrong way around the real and correct solution, which is to open a real political window for the Palestinians and help to change the current conditions, not only at the security level. More importantly, it is an unconvincing solution for the Palestinians.”

He pointed to the demonstrations on Monday night as a sign that increasing the PA’s role in security affairs will not have the desired effect.

“It will lead to a deterioration of the situation and things very quickly,” he said. “Many Palestinians say that such an agreement is a trap for the PA and will lead to internal fighting.”

Palestinians will see the PA as an agent contracted by Israel to carry out security-related tasks, decreasing the body’s legitimacy, he said.

Ghassan Khatib, vice president of advancement and professor of cultural studies and contemporary Arab studies at Birzeit University in the West Bank, told The Media Line that Israel needs to take more serious steps if it intends to maintain the legitimacy of the PA.

“They have to put an end to settlement expansion and allow for political prospects and to stop playing these games inside Area A,” Khatib said, referring to the 18% of the West Bank, including Jenin, where the PA has full civil and security control.

The issue of settlement expansion has been in the news following a European Parliament report published last week that criticized Israel’s policy of expanding settlements. The report also described a two-state solution as “the only viable solution to the conflict.”

Hani Al-Masri, director general of Masarat, the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies, told The Media Line that the report was important, but that the European Union ought to take action and not just issue reports.

“To criticize the settlements while the settlements are expanding on a daily basis is of no value,” he said.

The EU report also harshly criticized the PA for its lack of parliamentary oversight and refusal to hold elections. The PA has “adopted increasingly repressive practices, including cracking down on peaceful protests with unlawful force, targeting journalists, civil society activists, and lawyers with arbitrary arrests and torturing detainees,” the report found.

Al-Masri said that the importance of critiquing the PA paled in comparison to the importance of changing Israeli policy in the West Bank.

“For the authority among us to criticize political arrests, corruption, and the failure to hold elections is worthless,” he said. “Serious pressure must be exerted on the occupation first, because it is the root of all evils, and on the authority second, so that these policies turn into measures.”

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative party, told The Media Line that the call for the PA to hold elections is “totally justified.” “We are also calling for bringing back Palestinian democracy and to have free democratic elections because we think that would strengthen our struggle and our ability to achieve liberation from occupation,” he said.

Barghouti said that the EU ought to impose sanctions on “settlements and on any company that works with settlements.”

“The Israelis will not stop settlement expansion because of one statement. They would if there are sanctions exercised against them,” he said.