December 28, 2024
The U.S., Israel, and the Palestinian Authority’s Plan to Destroy Resistance in the West Bank
On December 14, the Palestinian Authority launched an offensive on Jenin Refugee Camp, with the aim of dismantling resistance strongholds in the West Bank. The PA’s attack has killed at least three Palestinians and injured many more. Videos of the PA torturing its own people have sparked outrage. As part of this attack, the PA imposed a siege which has threatened the already low levels of access to water, electricity and freedom of movement in the camp.
This most recent offensive reflects the PA’s ongoing role as a force that acts in the interests of its overseers and funders: namely the United States and Israel. In particular, the PA seeks to safeguard its governance of the West Bank: a role that it secured through collaboration with the U.S. and Israel. Dating back to the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PA’s leadership is conditional on participation in security coordination with the Zionist entity.
The U.S. is central not only to the founding of the PA, but to maintaining its control of the West Bank. Over the past few years, intensifying resistance in key cities like Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nablus has directly challenged both the PA and Zionist colonial violence: posing a crisis for the U.S. and Israel.
In February 2023, Michael Fenzel—US army general and security coordinator between the PA and Israel—convened PA, IOF, Egyptian and Jordanian officials. This meeting sought to develop a plan to reestablish PA control over Jenin and Nablus through U.S. training of Palestinian special forces consisting of 5,000 personnel, and joint operations under American supervision. Fenzel coordinated for Israel to provide PA forces with ammunition, helmets, protective vests, and night vision gear, in order to allow them, with direct assistance from the IOF, to conduct the most recent raids on Jenin.
The plan for American training of PA security forces is not confined to the West Bank. In Netanyahu’s “Day After” plan for Gaza: Fenzel is proposed to assume the responsibility of training PA security forces to govern parts of Gaza following the end of the war. These plans point toward a continuation of the U.S. strategy of using the PA as the middleman through which Palestinian resistance is thwarted. The PA’s operation in Jenin demonstrates its eagerness to continue to play this role: even amidst the horrors of a 15 month long genocide in Gaza.
But the PA has a big problem, and that problem is the people over whom it governs: Palestinians. Today, the PA’s popularity is at an all time low among Palestinians in the West Bank. Traditionally, PA support has been in key areas, and among Palestinians who are reliant on their government salaries. However, the genocide in Gaza and continued PA repression in the West Bank have stretched this loyalty to its limits.
While the PA attempts to convince Israel and the U.S. that it can effectively rule over and silence the Palestinian people, it faces opposition not only in Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nablus, but from Palestinians across the globe, and even from within its own ranks. Its recent killings of Palestinian youth in Jenin and Nablus have sparked outrage and resignations from PA officials.
Ultimately, two facts remain clear:
That the U.S. and Israel continue to drive the colonization of Palestine, in part through funding and arming the Palestinian Authority to quell Palestinian resistance;
And that no amount of bribery or repression will lead the Palestinian people to abandon their national liberation struggle.