The United States is exerting intense pressure on Israel to install the Palestinian Authority as ruler of Gaza. Senior politicians in Israel have also been expressing the same view, going so far as to present it to the members of the War Cabinet as the “least of all evils” option as far as Israel is concerned (as reported in the media). In view of all these, it is important to examine whether the Authority is indeed an Israeli security interest, as its proponents say, or whether it actually poses a security threat to Israel.
Read more:
A study conducted by the IDSF indicates that despite the PA being portrayed as a pragmatic representative of the Palestinians, in reality, it is committed to armed struggle and to the elimination of the State of Israel. The main difference between the PA and Hamas is in the strategy.
Pay for slay
Israeli readers will be familiar with the PA’s system of disbursements to terrorists. This is no system of “random payments”, which is part of a bureaucratic accounting apparatus. Rather, it is an official law intended to propagate the Palestinian ethos surrounding the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel.
Under this law, any terrorist - of any faction - is entitled to a lifelong annuity and other benefits. The PA has cynically christened this law as Pay for Slay, or in other words, killing as a way of life. The most highly-respected occupation within the PA, the most senior role, is to be a Jew slayer. A terrorist serving 30 years or more in prison earns on average $3,700 per month. Compare that with a medical doctor, who earns an average of only $550 per month.
Under the law, the PA is expected to pay the Nukhba terrorists $7 million per month (!!), and in total some $370 million per year, to all the terrorists of which it is in charge. The Palestinian Authority has transformed the Palestinian people into a nation whose “skill is kill”, all with Israeli and international backing and funding.
Antisemitic propaganda instead of education
In addition to instigating and financing terrorism through financial incentives, the Palestinian Authority educates terrorism through its education system, which is steeped in antisemitism and in conditioning its students to grow up and become Jew killers.
Palestinian schoolbooks show maps according to which the entire territory of the State of Israel is Palestine. Tel Aviv appears in its books as “Tal a-Rabi’”. Schools have been observed praising the October 7 massacre, doing art projects in the spirit of the massacre and marking ‘memorial days’ for the Nukhba terrorists. A video has been posted showing a student's speech on a “day that will be written into the Palestinian Arab book on the history of the struggle as... the Al-Aqsa Flood Day”.
Senior PA officials: “The next, more powerful... onslaught will be in the West Bank”
The educational and economic systems operated by the PA are an extension of its worldview, as expressed in statements by senior PA officials. Since October 7, the Authority has been praising the massacre and encouraging its continuation.
The Fatah terrorist faction - the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has boasted that its fighters took part in the October 7 massacre. An organization spokesman posted videos of terrorists kidnapping Israeli victims, abusing and torturing them wearing yellow scarves clearly identifying them as Fatah members (as opposed to the green color, which is identified with Hamas). One of the videos says: “First we will free the Gaza Strip, then we will free the rest of Palestine” - “Tomorrow at the gates of Jerusalem”.
On top of all this, senior PA and Fatah officials have publicly praised the massacre and have called for it to be repeated throughout Judea and Samaria. I shall quote just a few select statements, out of the many, many more available, all from the mouths of potential successors to the Chairman of the PA, who are regarded by Israel as being “moderates”.
Thus for example, in an interview with Egyptian television, Jibril Rajoub threatened that the next onslaught, which will be more intense, much more violent, will occur in the West Bank”. Dahlan said that Western leaders are visiting Israel to ensure Israelis don’t escape to Europe. Marwan Barghouti called on the PA’s security services to take aim at Israel with their weapons, to surprise them and re-enact the Hamas October 7 massacre.
All these add to the fact that Holocaust Denier Mahmoud Abbas, has not condemned the massacre, and PA Prime Minister Muhammad Ashtiyah flatly refused to condemn the Hamas crimes. Furthermore, the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the massacre in an official statement and claimed that it was Israel that was behind the massacre at the Nova festival.
This is the Palestinian Authority’s world view, this is what they advocate. It is therefore no surprise that 75% of all Palestinians support the massacre, and that the level of support for it in Judea and Samaria exceeds even the level in Gaza.
PA rule over Gaza not feasible
Not only is the PA an organization that promotes evil and murder, it has no practical prospect of imposing its control over Gaza. Such an experiment has already been done in the past after the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Two years afterwards Hamas beat the PA in parliamentary elections and since then it has been the unchallenged ruler of the Gaza Strip.
The PA is viewed irreversibly negatively among ordinary Palestinians. Some 77% of all Palestinians are dissatisfied with the way President Abbas is handling his job and are demanding his resignation. 82% of all Palestinians are convinced the PA is corrupt and 63% regard it to be a liability, rather than an asset. In May 2021, only 14% of those polled said they would vote for President Abbas if elections were to be held. This lack of legitimacy is evident on the ground as well: the PA has lost security control over large swathes of territory. The IDF is forced to launch incursions into Areas A and B to fight terrorists in Jenin and Nablus, in Ramallah, in Bethlehem, Tulkarm and other places.
Dr. Ruth Kabessa AbramzonPhoto: Sharon GabayThe bottom line is that the Palestinian Authority is an organization propagating murder and incitement, an organization committed to Israel’s destruction. Israel has got to resist any initiative that will increase the influence of any “resurgent” PA, in whichever form it takes. The Palestinian Authority is, when all is said and done, part of the problem, not part of the solution.
- Dr. Ruth Kabbesa Abramzon is an expert on Management and Government, a social-Zionist activist and senior researcher at the Israel Defense and Security Forum - the IDSF