The vicious campaign being conducted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) against the Jenin refugee camp is incomprehensible.
Equally incomprehensible are the statements being issued by the PA's security apparatus – including claims by its spokesman, Anwar Rajab that they are targeting "mercenaries" controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
On the one hand this claim completely ignores the plentiful evidence that it is in fact Israeli agents that have a foothold in the camp, which has lead to numerous betrayals of resistance fighters, assassinations and arrests.
On the other hand, accusing Jenin's youth of being Iranian agents is to take an explicit stance which serves Israel in its ongoing battle to eradicate Palestinian resistance.
It’s clear that the PA intends to disarm the Jenin Brigades by terrorising the whole camp. In this approach, it is sending an unequivocal message to Palestinian fighters from all factions - including Fatah - which is that the era of armed resistance against Israel is over.
The resistance groups it is targeting are those who emerged following Israel's May 2021 war on Gaza, when multi-factional groups formed, including members from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and also Fatah (the faction that dominates the PA). For instance, most members of the Lion's Den, which bravely confronted the Israeli occupation army in Nablus, were Fatah affiliates.
For objectivity's sake it must be acknowledged that there has long been an issue with the unchecked distribution and use of weapons, particularly involving PIJ (whose members form the backbone of the Jenin Brigades, but which members from other factions including Fatah have joined since its inception in the camp). This is a real problem.
However, why has the PA not sought to address it through communicating directly with the PIJ's leadership? The PA is more than capable of sending its delegates to speak with senior members of the organisation, including its leader Ziad al-Nakhalah.
It should be noted here that Fatah's presence in the camp, which had been composed of young members who believe in resistance, has declined due to Israel's repeated military operations and the arrest and imprisonment of many of them. At the forefront of those currently in Israeli jails is Jamal Hawil, Fatah's most powerful representative in the camp, who participated in effective armed resistance to Israel's siege of Jenin camp during the Second Intifada (2000).
He also stood firm against previous attempts by the PA to subjugate resistance in the camp, and would undoubtedly have been fighting now against their efforts were it not for Israel's decision to extend his prison sentence – maybe due to PA accusations that Iran is pulling the strings of the Jenin Brigades, a claim that perfectly suits Tel Aviv and Washington.
Israel's string of military-security campaigns across the West Bank, which have seen them assassinate resistance fighters, demolish homes, and roll out collective punishments, have terrorised the people of the West Bank - and now the PA security forces are joining them in their crackdown on Jenin camp. This is a step they wouldn't have dared take if the Jenin Brigades were unified, and Fatah's leaders in the camp had refused the PA's "security solution".
Statements by the PA's security services - that Iran is behind the armed fighters in Jenin – seek both to benefit from Iran's declining regional influence and to send an implicit message to the Palestinian people under occupation in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The content of this message is that the presence of these armed fighters in their midst will unleash disaster on them, and provoke Israeli retaliation, mirroring the genocidal war ongoing in Gaza.
This message speaks to genuine fears among Palestinians in the West Bank. However, the issue is that the PA has not presented any alternative approach - other than failure and collusion with the Israeli occupiers. Moreover, the Palestinian resistance has long been unable to find anyone who will support and arm them except Iran. Fatah also encountered this problem during its lengthy history of struggle.
Far from presenting an alternative source of support, the Arab states are actively stifling all resistance efforts, with some of them deeply invested in normalisation deals and alliances with Israel. This has seen Arab support for criminalising resistance, even adding their clout to Israel's attempts to pressure the PA to stop salaries for prisoners and the families of the martyrs' – which has been one of the red lines the PA has been unwilling to cede ground on until now.
After all this, the PA then has the audacity to announce, via its security spokesman Rajab, that Iran is responsible for "the chaos in the West Bank".
Does the PA seriously believe Iran is controlling the situation in the West Bank? Or that Iran will use Jenin camp to plot and organise a coup against it? Moreover, what will the PA's stance be if Israel mounts a full-scale invasion of the West Bank under the pretext of "combatting terrorist organisations controlled by Iran"? If this happens, the Israeli army won't differentiate between Fatah, Hamas, PIJ and any other Palestinian, whether from the PA or elsewhere – it never has.
What is shameful and tragic is that at the very moment Palestine most desperately needs national unity, the PA is making spurious claims that Iran may be controlling the camp – that is, the Jenin Battalion - whose resistance operations provoked Israeli ex-Defence Minister Benny Gantz to describe Jenin Camp (according to an interview on 11 April 2022) as "a strategic threat to Israel which must be defeated".
In short, the PA's pretexts for its operation in Jenin are unacceptable and must be condemned, even if they stem from its desire to pre-emptively avoid provoking the wrath of the incoming US administration and president Donald Trump – who seems to have every regime preoccupied with how to win his favour.
The suffering in Gaza cannot be described or imagined, from the starvation, to the freezing temperatures, to the indiscriminate and relentless killing, and endless forced displacement. Every story that comes out is more horrific than the last, with the horrors only magnified by the total indifference of the US and Western states that continue acting as though no genocide is taking place.
It is this suffering that must galvanise action by all - instead of being distracted by a struggle to bolster an authority devoid of real power.
In the meantime, the voices of intellectuals, artists, and global activists are clamouring in support of Palestinian rights. Their criticism of the current US administration means it is waging a repressive campaign against critics of Israel, which is all paving the way for the coming stage of even more draconian repression under Trump. The incoming administration will have no qualms about crushing the right to freedom of expression in the US.
Meanwhile, the Arab regimes suffer from a chronic affliction, which is their lack of - and longstanding search for - a role which will render them pertinent to US interests. However, the role being drawn up for the PA by the incoming president will involve its total abandonment of the Palestinian cause, if Trump deigns to accept a Palestinian Authority in the first place.
We must now urgently work to preserve the gains and achievements of the resistance, and not waste the efforts that have already been made to mount international lawsuits against Israel. We must push for these to move forward.
Conversely, the PA is fighting Palestinians, and in fact itself, because everyone will be depicted as nothing but Iranian agents. They are not considering that Palestinian organisations have always suffered, and still suffer, from the label of terrorism, and that the US still hasn't removed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) off its "terrorist list".
The PA should immediately withdraw its forces from Jenin camp, and desist from using "chaos" as a pretext - even if chaos exists - as there are many alternative ways to deal with it. It must also stop levelling accusations which could have dire consequences for the Palestinian people.
Finally, if it truly believes that once it has joined the ranks of Iran's regional opponents this will secure it a role in managing "post-war Gaza" it is mistaken. Washington's interests lie in the total liquidation of the Palestinian cause - not in the PA volunteering its efforts to "fight against Iran" in Jenin camp.
Lamis Andoni is a Palestinian journalist, writer and academic who launched °®Âþµº as its editor-in-chief.
This is an edited and abridged translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click
Translated by Rose Chacko
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