Time to disband the Palestinian Authority
Mahmoud Abbas
Asa Winstanley writes in Middle East Monitor:
Since 1993, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has policed Palestinians in the West Bank and, until 2007, the Gaza Strip. Under Israel’s apartheid regime, the PA has no authority to police the Israeli settlers who illegally occupy the West Bank – quite the opposite.
In fact, the PA protects them.
Many people, even in the Palestine solidarity movement, fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the PA. The PA, veritably, has no real authority – it is fundamentally misnamed. Israeli occupation forces have full veto power over everything it does. Neither does it truly belong to the Palestinians, or act in the interests of their liberation.
The PA is in truth a subcontractor for Israeli occupation, and it always has been. There is nothing else it can ever be. It is structurally intended to serve the interests of Israel, and its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It has been unstintingly loyal in serving this role for the best part of 30 years.
Hamas, Palestine’s Islamic liberation movement, briefly attempted to change the PA from within, by winning free and fair elections in 2006. This effort was soon aborted by a coup. The Central Intelligence Agency, Israel, Jordan and other powers all acted together to remove Hamas, successfully confining them to Gaza.