Alwaght- As it was predicted, the new Israeli cabinet is waging full-force hostility on the Palestinians since the beginning of its work, and National Security Minister Itmar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as the most radical cabinet members are realizing their anti-Palestinian election campaign promises one after another. As part of anti-Palestinian actions, the new Israeli cabinet led by far-right Saturday slapped sanctions on the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its senior officials. According to the sanction plan, the Israeli $39 million monthly aids which Tel Aviv claim is paid for families of the Palestinian prisoners and those killed by Israeli forces will be cut off. Instead, it will be paid to the families of Israeli settlers who are killed in clashes with Palestinians.
Withholding the aids to the PA and taking measures against organizations in the West Bank that take political and legal measures against Israel are part of the sanctions package which is meant to put strains on the Authority. The hard-line leaders in the new cabinet held that these are initial measures and more strict actions against the Palestinians are coming.
By sanctioning the PA, Tel Aviv showed that it is not ready to make any political concessions to the Palestinians. This position marks the end of the Oslo Accords, in which the PA was recognized by Tel Aviv as the representative of the Palestinians.
According to the compromise made by the PA, an independent Palestinian state with Eastern Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital was planned to be formed. But the Israelis have so far not allowed this to happen. By their radical agenda, the Israeli leaders seems to be paving the way for full occupation of the West Bank. The storming of the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque by Ben-Gvir with the aim of Judaization of the holy Muslim place was the first hostile step of the new government to advance further in the Palestinian territories, and the sanctions are a supplement to this dangerous plan. These adventures come while the international community advocates the two-state solution and is strongly opposed to the Israeli expansionism in the West Bank.
Fear from Palestinian flag flying
Sanctioning of the PA was not the end of the adventures of Netanyahu’s radical cabinet, and new programs are about to be implemented. In his latest action, Ben-Gvir ordered the Israeli police forces to remove the Palestinian flags from public places in the occupied territories.
“It cannot be that lawbreakers wave terrorist flags, incite and encourage terrorism, so I ordered the removal of flags supporting terrorism from the public space and to stop the incitement against Israel,” Ben-Gvir said.
Ben-Gvir’s decision came after Palestinian flag was flown in a ceremony in Ar’ara town following release of a Palestinian prisoner from Israeli captivity after 40 years. In another decision aimed at pressurizing the Palestinian prisoners, Ben-Gvir banned meetings by the Knesset members to them. Ben-Gvir’s new decision is definitely a complementary measure in line with anti-PA sanctions to destroy all the national symbols of Palestine and occupy all the territories and form the so-called united Jewish state.
The Israeli regime is trying to realize this largely impossible dream by destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque and establishing the Temple of Solomon in its place, along developing settlement projects. Its hardliners see all Palestinians as terrorists whose blood is allowed to be shed.
The removal of Palestinian flags comes while nearly 20 percent of the residents of the occupied territories are Arabs from the territories of 1948, and this flag is the national symbol of the Palestinians, which will be flown forever despite Tel Aviv’s efforts, and calling the Palestinians terrorists can lead to the escalation of tensions.
Tel Aviv measures’ political and security consequences
Without any doubt, Tel Aviv’s new crackdown against the Palestinians will have negative political and security consequences for the Israelis. Since the PA is recognized by the international community as the representative of the Palestinian people, boycotting it will increase political pressure on Tel Aviv. Israel committed to pay a certain amount to the PA on a monthly basis under Oslo Accords, but it is now cutting off this payment and causing problems for the PA in paying for its expenses and salaries of its employees. PA officials have said that they will sue Tel Aviv through international legal channels, and perhaps the UN will act again and pass a new resolution to put pressure on Tel Aviv to fulfill its obligations. What is certain is that political tensions between the PA and Tel Aviv are set to escalate.
On the other hand, cutting off PA financial aids will affect the living conditions of many Palestinian families in the West Bank, and this will add to public dissatisfaction in this sensitive and tense region and can spark a popular intifada prompted by the criminal actions of the Israelis over the past weeks.
In recent months, tensions between the resistance groups and the Israeli army have risen, and any miscalculations can re-ignite war in the West Bank, possibly with larger domain this time. The Lions’ Den resistance group, which is leading the armed struggle in the West Bank these days, has warned many times that it will not allow the Israeli settlers to rest, and several operations during which tens of Israelis were killed and injured are expressive of its resolution.
Desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and increasing security adventures will certainly bring many consequences to the Israelis, as the resistance is now at its highest readiness levels and in case of start of a new war, Israel will be attacked from all sides and the Axis of Resistance will stand by the Palestinians full-force.
Years of good service faced by sanctions
Slapping sanctions on the PA comes as this organization and its President Mahmoud Abbas personally in the past years have had broad cooperation with the Israelis and, to be precise, implemented Tel Aviv security plans in the West Bank to keep alive the negotiations option for peace. Following the security agreements with the Israeli government, the PA has become the most important force protecting Israeli security interests in the West Bank, as it has repeatedly arrested members of the Hamas movement and handed them over to the Israelis, a policy followed for years despite the public opposition inside and outside the borders of the West Bank. Even two years ago, Abbas canceled the parliamentary elections in the West Bank driven by the Tel Aviv advice that if the elections were held, the representatives of Hamas in the West Bank would be the final winners and Fatah’s position would be jeopardized. Despite all this good service, Tel Aviv responded with sanctions to show that the PA’s expiration date has come.
Aware of how disgracefully cooperation with the Israelis would end, people and resistance groups had repeatedly demanded the PA to end security collaboration with the Israelis especially in the West Bank. However, Abbas has not been a good listener to pro-resistance voices and continued his work with the Israelis despite occasional threats to withdraw from agreements with Tel Aviv. The PA has never shown a decisive action in condemning the Israeli crimes in Gaza and even in the West Bank, and it has only served as a tool legitimizing the occupation of more Palestinian lands under compromising negotiations with the Israelis.
Abbas turns a blind eye to repeated Israeli raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque but at the same time calls on the resistance forces to stop anti-Israeli escalation and lay down their arms. Three decades of subservience to occupation indicate that the Israelis show no mercy even to their acolytes and if the need arises, they dispose of them.
PA at a historic juncture
Though the PA ostensibly represents the Palestinians, the reality is that it is brain-dead since years and is far from capable of running the West Bank. At present, the Palestinians do not regard the PA as their real representative, therefore, Israeli sanctions not only will not affect the simmering popular uprising in the West Bank, but also they can even be a blow to the Israelis themselves and an opportunity to change the political and field equations of the West Bank in favor of the Palestinians.
A Look at the field realities discloses the fact that the Palestinians have now separated their ways from the PA and embraced armed struggle as an ultimate way for liberation. In other words, it is now the resistance discourse that is determining the course of security developments in the West Bank.
Actually, the far-right measures in the West Bank are more detrimental to the Israelis than to the Palestinians and can, as former Israeli officials predicted, accelerate the Israeli collapse from within.
