Palestinians Are Furious With PA Decision To Attend Aqaba Summit With Israel

The one-day meeting under the auspices of the United States is a bid to halt a surge in deadly violence in the occupied West Bank, especially ahead of the holy month of Ramadan

Two helicopters from Jordan landed in the Muqata compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, on Saturday morning to transport the Palestinian delegation to the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba for a controversial meeting meant to tamp down violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

The small, yet highly influential group included Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization Hussein al-Sheikh; the head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, Majed Faraj; and the diplomatic advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas, Majdi Al-Khalidi.

Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Shin Bet intelligence service chief Ronen Bar were expected to attend on the Israeli side. Jordan and Egypt will be represented by their heads of intelligence.

The one-day summit beginning Sunday morning is taking place under the auspices of the United States. Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf and coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa in the Biden administration, Brett McGurk, are expected to participate.

The meeting is a bid to halt a surge in deadly violence in the occupied West Bank. It comes ahead of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, when tensions and violence between Israeli security services and Palestinians increases even further.

Palestinians are outraged at the decision by the PA leadership to attend a summit that includes Israel.

“Repetition of meetings every time takes away from the authority and offers it nothing but crumbs and increases the gap for the rift between it and the general Palestinian street; a meeting after all this blood, is tasteless and meaningless,” Emad Abu Awad, a political analyst based in the West Bank, told The Media Line.

“In general, the street is not surprised, and the conviction is that these ‘anesthesia’ meetings will fail, as those which preceded them failed,” Abu Awad concluded.

The gathering, dubbed a “political-security” meeting, between Israel and the Palestinians is meant to try to restore calm to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after an uptick in deadly violence. Jordanian officials say the talks in Red Sea port of Aqaba are part of an effort to halt a security breakdown that could fuel even more violence.

Ahmad Rafiq Awad, president of the Center for Jerusalem Studies at Al-Quds University, told The Media Line that “perhaps the PA will participate in the meeting because of political and financial pressures on it, as if it was an extortion process.”

“The PA still believes that meetings, agreements, negotiations and mediations should take place. It is clear that the Palestinian Authority is exerting great and real pressure on it,” according to Awad.

“I believe that the authority will not get anything, even if it gets something, it will be without guarantees,” Awad said.

The talks come after 11 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded when Israeli forces raided the city of Nablus in the West Bank last week.

Since the start of this year, at least 60 Palestinian adults and children, including fighters and civilians, have been killed by Israeli forces. Nine Israeli civilians, including three children, one Ukrainian civilian and a police officer, have been killed over the same period.

The United Nations described last year as the deadliest period for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2006, with Israeli forces killing 171 Palestinians, including 30 children, in that period.

Lieutenant General Michael R. Fenzel, US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is overseeing the training of 5,000 members of the PA security service by the Jordanians in Amman, to help strengthen the PA presence mainly in the northern West Bank.

A Palestinian official familiar with the matter told The Media Line that the goal of the summit is to boost Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation and solidify understandings that already have been reached regarding the steps that the two sides would take in order to de-escalate tensions.

Al-Sheikh has met in secret with Hanegbi, despite Abbas suspending security cooperation with Israel last month.

The aim of Sunday’s meeting, according to the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, is to implement the understanding reached a week ago by Hanegbi and al-Sheikh, within which the PA stopped its efforts to bring forward a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council condemning Israel’s decision to build and legalize more settlements.

Many Palestinians say the meeting in Aqaba has nothing to do with the Palestinian issue politically, but rather has to do with the issue of security coordination and “it aims to bring points of view closer and to reach joint plans to calm the situation in the northern West Bank, especially in Jenin and Nablus, which is witnessing escalation that it has not witnessed for several years.”

Ramzi Rabah, a member of the Political Bureau of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told The Media Line, that “The Palestinian factions have no knowledge of this meeting, and the decision was taken behind the back of the PLO factions.”

Rabah urged the Palestinian leadership not to attend, saying that “this meeting is nothing but an attempt to skip the essence of the conflict represented by occupation, settlements and Israel’s lack of commitment to applying international legitimacy. It’s covering up the crimes committed by Israel.”

Rabah says attending the meeting in Aqaba is “dangerous because it could lead to civil war.”

In the eyes of many, the PA has lost control, its influence has faded and its grip on power had been eroded. It is on the brink of political and economic collapse, and its popularity is at rock bottom.

There is a significant increase in support for armed groups such as the Lions’ Den, which has found a popular incubator not only in Nablus and Jenin, but in all Palestinian areas.

Several Palestinian factions refuse to go to such a meeting.

Many Palestinians call the meeting a trap. Different factions in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank confirmed their rejection of the Aqaba meeting, describing it as “defeatist and serving the Israeli occupation gratuitously.”

Political and social activist from Hebron, Issa Amro, told The Media Line, that he does not oppose direct talks with Israel, as long as they are attended by elected Palestinian officials.

“These negotiations and understandings are through elected bodies and people who are authorized by their people and held accountable by them, and their goal is the public interest and the interest of the Palestinian citizen, and their abstract goal is to preserve the Palestinian cause,” Amro said, adding, “as for those who are going to Aqaba for the security summit to obtain personal privileges for themselves and their group, they do not represent us and refuse to participate.”