Bring the Palestinian Authority to Gaza?

Not if you Want Change

With Hamas showing its true colors the ‘” enlightened” Western world led by US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have rekindled their love affair with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its leader, Mahmud Abas (AKA Abu Mazen) who has been in power since 2005 despite winning just one 4 year term.   The cancellation of elections time and time again due to fear of losing to Hamas has allowed Abu Mazen to remain in power, with Western support, despite having no legitimacy even in the West Bank.

The rekindled love affair and the rumors that Blinken/Biden will impose a two state solution on Israel and hand control over a defeated and devastated Gaza to the PA leads one to ask President Biden what he meant when he said things will not be the same as was before October 7?    Let us take a look at the status-quo-ante and see if the Blinken/Biden plan for a PA restoration is what will bring the change that everyone in Israel and abroad knows, needs to happen.  

We will give the Biden/Blinken team some credit and assume that they too believe that a Gaza without an army and without any violence and terror emanating from it bringing safety to Israelis and Gazans alike, is their goal rather than building yet another terrorist enclave threatening Israel’s borders.

Is the PA’s West Bank a model for Gaza?    Is that the “change” that Biden/Blinken are looking for?   The PA has been in control of the cities in the West Bank for the last 30 some odd years.    During the Second Intafada and after the Park Hotel Passover night massacre in 2002 the Israeli government decided to root out the terror cells in the main cities of the West Bank – Jenin, Tulkarm, Nablus, Qalquilya, Bethlehem, Ramallah – where the PA (then still under Yassir Arafat) allowed and encouraged them to flourish.   It was in these cities that the infamous bus bombings, café attacks and other terror operations were planned.    Yitzchak Rabin’s famous statement that Arafat would be able to fight terror since he had neither the Supreme Court nor Human Rights Watch tying one hand behind his back turned into a license to commit terror. 

After the Passover night massacre at Netanya’s Park Hotel in which 28 celebrants were killed and 140 were hurt, Ariel Sharon decided on a military operation to wipe out the terror cells and laboratories and regain control of the West Bank cities.   After the operation, called Homat Magen – Defensive Shield – Israel withdrew from the cities and the returned control to the PA while retaining the right of its armed forces to enter them in order to stop planned terror attacks.  This was a change from before the military operation where Israel had to ask permission from the PA to enter.  The Israeli internal security service – Shaback – reestablished its network of human intelligence (hum-int) and thousands of attacks were prevented over the years.   Over the last few years though, under the nose of the PA, Hamas and Islamic Jihad (PIJ) established cells there and grew ever stronger.  They were supplied by Iranian smuggling operations through Iraq and Jordan (a Jordanian MP was arrested as he passed into Israel with his trunk filled with smuggled arms – Israel, needless to say, released him). IDF attempts to interdict these terrorist attacks became more and more violent.

Jenin and Tulkarm along with Nablus became the main centers of Hamas, PIJ and Fatah (the PA’s main group) cells.   Terrorists who were arrested received stipends from the PA and if they were killed while killing Jews their families were rewarded.  All of this is against US and EU law – but that did not stop their funding of the PA.   While the US State Department and, needless to say the UN have harped on what they like to call “settler violence” with the NY Times highlighting self-defense as unnecessary violence (but why should they report about Israel differently than they report about the US?) the true incidences of un-instigated vigilante violence against unarmed Palestinian civilians can be counted on one hand.   Even if all the stories told by the UN were true, it would not compare to what Hamas, PIJ and Fatah terrorists plan and carry out.   And when there is vigilante violence the perpetrators are arrested, tried, and sentenced – often in military courts. 

The current situation is so bad, that since the start of the war Israel has interned over 2,000 terrorists in the West Bank, most of whom are Hamas members.  Israel continues its operations against West Bank Hamas, PIJ and Fatah terror on a daily basis. Had  Iran been able to infiltrate its arms and people into the West Bank on October 7, as was its plan, and had Israel not started to aggressively fight the West Bank terror starting Saturday night October 7, the war would certainly have spread there, too. 

But it is not on the security front alone that the PA has failed utterly.  The PA’s security services, according to a Council of Foreign Relations report in 2018, is so top heavy that the ratio of senior officers (Lt. Colonel and above) to regular soldiers is 2:1.  As a comparison. in the US Army it is 5:1 and in the Israeli Army 9:1. The report further stipulates that salaries are paid to hundreds of employees of the non-existent Palestinian Airlines.  They have been receiving salaries since 1994 and even have been given raises over the years – for an airline that does not exist.

 This is just the tip of the iceberg as it is well known that Yassir Arafat’s estate was worth billions of dollars upon his death.  Abu Mazen’s net worth is said to be well north of $100 million.  While the west loves to ignore this as it continues to fund the PA, the West Bank Arabs know full well where western money goes.  The PA lacks legitimacy on the West Bank and Biden/Blinken still seem to think it is the team that should overlook the multi-billion dollar effort to rebuild Gaza after the war.

Will PA control of Gaza bring peace and prosperity to Gazans and security to Israelis living in the Western Negev?    The answer is clear to all who really understand that what was before October 7 can no longer exist.  Our solution written a few days ago  detailing of occupation zones (https://iraslomowitz.substack.com/p/gaza-after-the-war)  - non militarized  - with an Israeli controlled, civilian-free buffer zone is not only a more practical and durable solution – it is the one that will help the Gazans that chose to stay, rebuild their lives and provide Israelis that want to return to their homes and rebuild their kibbutzim and towns the security they need.

 The PA needs to be replaced on the West Bank, too,  as this experiment in Palestinian self-rule has failed utterly – but that is for another day.  The “change” needed must recognize what has worked and what has not worked.  The experiment that is the PA, clearly, has not worked.  I know that many people on the global progressive left have a stake in pretending that the PA is the only “solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just as they thought that the pre-Oslo PLO was the only solution.   However, it is time to leave past mistakes behind.

It is as if, after WWII, the allies decided to bring back Weimar.