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The Palestinians' problem with the Authority
Source: Washington Post
The Palestinians’ problem with the Authority
By Ishaan Tharoor
Columnist covering foreign affairs, geopolitics and history
July 7, 2021 at 12:01 a.m. EDT
Over the weekend, the protests continued. Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah, renewing their calls against the Palestinian Authority and its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas. At a rally Saturday, the protesters did not face the same sort of harassment and violence meted out by Palestinian security forces in previous weeks. But, in the following days, a number of activists, lawyers and academics were detained both by Israeli and Palestinian security forces, which have long operated in close coordination.
The unrest was spurred by the apparent killing of Nizar Banat, a prominent activist and critic of Abbas. According to witnesses, he was violently seized and beaten by Palestinian security forces in a predawn raid June 24. Just hours later, his family learned that he had died in custody. The circumstances of his death fueled popular outrage, leading thousands to take to the streets across the West Bank. Their anger has been largely met with repression and harassment from the Palestinian Authority, with myriad reports of journalists and demonstrators being targeted by the security forces, roughed up and arbitrarily detained.
Banat’s death has tapped into widespread anger at the Palestinian Authority and Abbas, who has been at its helm for 16 years. “The protests, along with growing calls for a general strike, reflect rising frustration with widely perceived corruption and incompetence within Palestinian leadership ranks,” my colleagues wrote last week. “They follow the abrupt cancellation of Palestinian elections — the first in 15 years — scheduled for this spring and summer at a time when polls showed Abbas and his Fatah party losing support.”
The Palestinian Authority is an entity that emerged in 1994 in the wake of the Oslo I Accord. It was only intended to be a transitional, technocratic apparatus that would help usher in a future independent Palestinian state. But the peace process with Israel has collapsed. Abbas’s Fatah party is at odds with the Islamist group Hamas, which holds sway in the Gaza Strip. Their lack of unity has coincided with the steady lurch to the right of Israeli politics, where numerous elected lawmakers openly reject the idea of Israel even permitting a “two-state” solution and instead push for further annexation of Palestinian lands.
Now, Abbas faces an Israel that is uninterested in the political project that defines his position, while presiding over a Palestinian public chafing under his increasingly autocratic rule. Abbas’s decision to scrap the already-delayed elections raised the ire of activists such as Banat and underscored the long-ruling leader’s dwindling political legitimacy, which critics say amounts to serving as an accomplice to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
-snip-
By Ishaan Tharoor
Columnist covering foreign affairs, geopolitics and history
July 7, 2021 at 12:01 a.m. EDT
Over the weekend, the protests continued. Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah, renewing their calls against the Palestinian Authority and its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas. At a rally Saturday, the protesters did not face the same sort of harassment and violence meted out by Palestinian security forces in previous weeks. But, in the following days, a number of activists, lawyers and academics were detained both by Israeli and Palestinian security forces, which have long operated in close coordination.
The unrest was spurred by the apparent killing of Nizar Banat, a prominent activist and critic of Abbas. According to witnesses, he was violently seized and beaten by Palestinian security forces in a predawn raid June 24. Just hours later, his family learned that he had died in custody. The circumstances of his death fueled popular outrage, leading thousands to take to the streets across the West Bank. Their anger has been largely met with repression and harassment from the Palestinian Authority, with myriad reports of journalists and demonstrators being targeted by the security forces, roughed up and arbitrarily detained.
Banat’s death has tapped into widespread anger at the Palestinian Authority and Abbas, who has been at its helm for 16 years. “The protests, along with growing calls for a general strike, reflect rising frustration with widely perceived corruption and incompetence within Palestinian leadership ranks,” my colleagues wrote last week. “They follow the abrupt cancellation of Palestinian elections — the first in 15 years — scheduled for this spring and summer at a time when polls showed Abbas and his Fatah party losing support.”
The Palestinian Authority is an entity that emerged in 1994 in the wake of the Oslo I Accord. It was only intended to be a transitional, technocratic apparatus that would help usher in a future independent Palestinian state. But the peace process with Israel has collapsed. Abbas’s Fatah party is at odds with the Islamist group Hamas, which holds sway in the Gaza Strip. Their lack of unity has coincided with the steady lurch to the right of Israeli politics, where numerous elected lawmakers openly reject the idea of Israel even permitting a “two-state” solution and instead push for further annexation of Palestinian lands.
Now, Abbas faces an Israel that is uninterested in the political project that defines his position, while presiding over a Palestinian public chafing under his increasingly autocratic rule. Abbas’s decision to scrap the already-delayed elections raised the ire of activists such as Banat and underscored the long-ruling leader’s dwindling political legitimacy, which critics say amounts to serving as an accomplice to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/07/palestinians-authority-protests/