The Palestinian Authority Is Trying to Have It Both Ways, But It Can’t

Israel is doing its best to help the Palestinians economically. It recently raised the number of permits allowing Palestinians to work in Israel, to 100,000 for those living in the West Bank and 20,000 for those living in Gaza. Those jobs pay more than twice what Palestinians earn at home. And when relative calm is restored, Israel could raise that number still further. But Israel will continue to withhold, from the taxes and tariffs it collects for the PA and transfers to it, an amount equal to what the PA spends on its “Pay-For-Slay” program. The minute the PA gives up that program, which rewards past, and incentivizes future, terrorism, Israel will willingly transfer the full amount of what it has been withholding. More on the PA’s refusal to accept the challenge can be found here.

In the previous regional summit last month in Aqaba, Israel urged the PA to do more to regain control over the northern West Bank, telling participants that the more Ramallah acts against armed groups in the region, the less the IDF will have to enter Area A for raids that have become particularly lethal in recent months, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel at the time.

The PA has countered that the IDF raids further harm its legitimacy. While the clamping down on armed groups is in Ramallah’s interest as many of them[especially Hamas and PIJ] oppose its rule, the PA has argued that cooperating with Israel on this front without parallel steps by Jerusalem to boost Palestinian sovereignty only further weakens it in the eyes of the Palestinian public, which has been highly critical of Sunday’s summit with the hardline government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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The Palestinian Authority cannot have it both ways. It complains about Israeli raids on terror groups in the West Bank, yet it will not take on those groups itself, because that would weaken it in the eyes of the Palestinians. That’s a risk it should be prepared to take, but clearly isn’t. It cannot expect Israel to stop its raids on people who have killed, or are plotting to kill, its citizens, if the Palestinian Authority won’t go after them itself.

Over the past year, Palestinian gunmen have repeatedly targeted military posts, troops operating along the West Bank security barrier, Israeli settlements, and civilians on the roads.

In separate arrest raids early Thursday, the IDF said troops detained eight Palestinians suspected of involvement in terror activities.

Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank in recent months have left 15 people dead — almost all of them Israelis [one was a foreign national] — and several more seriously hurt.

At least 86 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the year, most of them while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces, though some were uninvolved civilians and others were killed under circumstances that are being investigated.

Of the 14 Israelis (and one foreign national) who were killed by Palestinians, all but one have been civilians. Of the 86 Palestinians who have been killed since January 1, close to 70 have been confirmed as members of jihad terror groups (and several belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the military wing of Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority),with the rest having been civilians caught in the crossfire.

Now the Palestinian Authority has been put to the test. Israel, with the agreement of Jordan, has asked the PA to take over a Palestinian city in Area A, and show that it can assume the responsibilities of rule by cracking down on terrorism, without the IDF having to raid the city to arrest or neutralize terrorists. And what did the PA do? It refused even this pilot program, designed to let the PA show it can enforce security on a very small scale. In so doing, it has admitted that it is both incapable, and unwilling, of bringing security even to a small city. How then can the PA be entrusted with the task of running a whole country – the “two-state solution” that the Bidenites still put their hopes on – and maintaining security sufficient to obviate the necessity for raids by the IDF? Offered a chance to be put to the test, the PA picked up its marbles, and walked away.

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Zeus

11 months ago

The “palestinians” are all disposable. They exist to advance Islam at any expense to themselves, whether they know it or not and whether they like it or not. The leadership is fork tongued because their blueprint is fork tongued. They create their own misery so they can play victim.

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Snowedin

11 months ago

The only solution is total anihilation of the fakestinians.

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[email protected]

11 months ago

My only change in this would be there is no such thing as the West Bank it is called Judea and Samaria

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