Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: security chaos

Showing posts with label security chaos. Show all posts

Sunday, September 03, 2023

Was Jordan behind Abbas' recent mass firing of envoys and governors?

After PA President Mahmoud Abbas fired 12 provincial governors and 35 foreign envoys, analysts say it is Jordan that has pushed him for changes out of concern for the stability of the entity on its border. Further overhauls may lie ahead.

Rumors of imminent changes within the Palestinian Authority government continue to swirl, despite official denials from Ramallah.

Earlier this month, PA President Mahmoud Abbas fired 12 provincial governors in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in what many say is part of an “overhaul” in personnel in the political and security structure. The shakeup continued some days later with the announcement of the retirement of 35 of his foreign envoys, all of them over the age of 65.

Experts believe the dismissals are an attempt to promote newer leadership and quell increasing domestic, regional, and international criticism of the PA.

Ramallah-based political analyst Esmat Mansour told The Media Line that Abbas’s visit to Jordan contributed to the speed with which he carried out the firings.

“It is not possible for the president to ignore Arab advice, as well as international demands, out of fear for the future and fate of the PA,” Mansour said.

Analysts say the Palestinian leadership is scrambling to appease regional players while satisfying the disgruntled Palestinian street, which sees the PA as ineffective, incompetent, and a tool in the hands of Israel.

“Abbas is trying through these decisions to give the impression that he is still influential and in control of things, and that change comes by his own will and is not imposed on him by anyone,” Mansour said.

As part of the shakeup, Abbas is planning a limited cabinet shuffle in the next few weeks, according to Palestinian media outlets. This may affect the current prime minister.

The only part that makes sense is that Abbas wanted to project the idea that he is still in charge. But firing governors and envoys does not change the main challenges he faces - the loss of control by the PA security forces and the lack of elections.

Ironically, Abbas fired a lot of the older people working for him in favor of youth, but he himself remains the 87-year old dictator above all.

It is true the PA has been trying a little harder to assert security control over areas that had been effectively ceded to terror groups. I can certainly see Jordan pushing for that, since security chaos would affect Jordan as well.

Abbas met with the heads of his security services last week to emphasize the importance of the "rule of law.".

But these changes are really just re-arranging the deck chairs of the Titanic.

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Al Aqsa Brigades (Fatah) issues a direct challenge to Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah

After the clashed between Palestinain Authority and terrorist forces in Tulkarm this morning, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - which are associate with Fatah - issued what appears to be an unprecedented, direct challenge to their supposed leader, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA who is the head of the Fatah party.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement, ...said in a statement published on its Telegram channel:

"Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades calls on the leaders of the Fatah movement and the brigades in the regions, cities and villages to announce clearly and explicitly their rejection of the treacherous practices against our heroes, to reactivate all military groups, and to hold accountable those involved in betraying the commandments of our martyrs and prisoners.

"We have always called on the authority to stop the arresting and pursuing the resistance fighters, and we affirmed our clear commitment not to deviate from the compass and not to pay attention to the treacherous acts of some of the leaders of the authority, and we called for reform.

"Any project that shackles the resistance is treachery. Our project is confrontation with the occupation in a long-term manner until it is defeated."

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades issued a decision in its statement that it prevents the entry of the authority and its devices into the Tulkarm camp, "and that the answer will be bullets, and the entry of the devices will be dealt with as we deal with the occupation."

They are effectively annexing the Tulkarm camp from the Palestinian Authority and barring entry of the PA security forces.

That is a direct and real challenge to the PA - from Fatah itself.

Your move, Abbas.

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What would a Palestinian state look like? Look at Ain el-Hilweh, Lebanon

From Naharnet on Sunday:

Clashes renewed Sunday in the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon between the secular Fatah Movement and hardline Islamist groups.

TV networks said the fighting resumed after a senior Fatah commander was killed in an ambush.

An Islamist had been killed and six people including children had been injured in overnight clashes in the camp.

Key Sidon highways were closed to traffic on Sunday as stray bullets and shells landed in various areas of the major southern Lebanese city.

Clashes between rival groups are common in Ain al-Helweh, which is home to more than 54,000 registered Palestinian refugees who have been joined in recent years by thousands of Palestinians fleeing the conflict in Syria.

By long-standing convention, the Lebanese Army does not enter Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, leaving the factions themselves to handle security.

That has created lawless areas in many camps, and Ain al-Helweh has gained notoriety as a refuge for extremists and fugitives.

The Palestinian Authority and its sycophants claim that they would take care of law and order, but Israel's raids of Palestinian areas makes the PA security forces look weak and they lose respect of the populace, which is what cause many armed militias to arrive on the scene to fill the vacuum. If only Israel would leave Area A alone, the claim goes, the Palestinian Authority would be able to enforce law and order.

Ain el-Hilweh is a social experiment that proves this thesis false.

Lebanese troops do not enter. All security is provided by Palestinians. This is the situation that Palestinians want to see in PA-controlled areas - no outsiders, and security provided exclusively by Palestinians.

The result? They cannot govern themselves effectively. They cannot live in peace with each other. They regularly endanger their own people. Two UNRWA schools were damaged and children have been injured in the fighting;UNRWA is suspending all services and operations so the people will suffer even more.

This is how Palestinians treat each other without any outside interference.

And they cannot use the excuse of being in dire straits - which they are - because that should make a people want to work together even more, not use deadly force on each other.

If you want to see what a Palestinian state would look like, look at Ain el-Hilweh.

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It sure looks like the PA is finally starting to crack down on West Bank terror groups

Early Monday morning, the Palestinian Authority arrested some major Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Brigades figures from the Jenin area.

Also arrested were two students with ties to Hamas.

This comes on the heels of their arresting several last week, and a number of others during Israel's last incursion into Jenin.

Two of those arrested on July 5 embarked on a hunger strike to protest their arrests.

An Islamic Jihad spokesman condemned the arrests, saying, "The authority today must unleash the sons of the resistance and the Palestinian masses, to overthrow the policies of the Zionist enemy and confront them."

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades also issued a statement, saying, "We resolutely and categorically reject the arrests carried out by the security services after midnight."

While the PA is publicly taking a strong pro-terror line, it appears to be cooperating with Israeli security as it had in the past, despite denials.

It is unclear is this is because the PA is finally recognizing that if it allows other militias to operate freely, then it has lost what little influence it has, or if there is serious pressure being given to it from Israel, the US or Gulf countries.

The PA must also be thinking about the day after Mahmoud Abbas is gone. If they do not show some strength now, then Fatah infighting will certainly not determine the next West Bank leader - it will belong to Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

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Abbas' visit to Jenin was either a success or a failure, depending on which media you read

On Wednesday, PA president Mahmoud Abbas visited Jenin for the first time in over a decade.

The visit was widely viewed as a belated attempt to assert that the PA is in control of the area, which no one really believes.

Hamas media says:

During his visit to Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, the President of the Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, showed disregard for meeting popular figures and representatives of the factions, as his visit was limited to the outer edges of the camp. This sparked anger and resentment among the people.

The official PA news agency Wafa paints an entirely different picture of the visit:

An atmosphere of relief prevailed, after President Mahmoud Abbas' tour in the city of Jenin and its camp today, Wednesday .

His Eminence began his tour in the Jenin camp, by laying a wreath of flowers on the tombs of the martyrs in the new martyrs' cemetery in Jenin camp. His Eminence also inspected the effects of the destruction left by the recent Israeli aggression, and was briefed on the progress of work in its reconstruction .

His Excellency stressed, during a speech, in the camp square in the midst of a mass audience, that the heroic Jenin camp is an icon of struggle, steadfastness and challenge, which withstood the aggression and made sacrifices, martyrs, prisoners and wounded for the sake of the homeland .

He said, "We came today to continue rebuilding the camp and the city, so that they are as they were and better, and we have not and will not forget the camps of Nablus, Jabal al-Nar, and all the camps of the homeland, and we will not forget Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the State of Palestine. "

The President's speech was widely welcomed by the people of Jenin and its camp, who affirmed their support for the President's position and his emphasis on the importance of strengthening the steadfastness of citizens .

Same visit, opposite conclusions.

The Hamas site adds some interesting context. It notes that Abbas rarely leaves Ramallah to visit other Palestinian towns altogether, except to visit Bethlehem for Christmas. It also reminds the readers that three major Fatah figures were expelled from a funeral of the camps' "martyrs" due to anger at the PA, which was (as far as I can tell) not reported in official PA media.

In this case, Hamas media is probably closer to the truth.

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Palestinian Authority stops a 17 year old Fatah activist transporting bombs, upsetting terror groups

The Palestinian Authority has been trying to walk a tightrope between publicly supporting terror to its people and quietly doing a small part to retake police control over the parts of the West Bank that have become fully subjugated to terror groups.

The local terror groups complained loudly after Israel's Jenin operation last week that the PA had reportedly intercepted terrorists en route to the camp to fight Israeli forces.

Abbas was humiliated when one of his senior Fatah officials, Mahmoud Aloul, was expelled from Jenin while attending a funeral for some of the terrorists killed during the operation.

Today, the PA arrested a member of Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, a 17 year old who was transporting bombs in his car in Nablus.

The "Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - Youth for Revenge and Liberation" group called on the PA to release their member, stating, "We direct our words to the security personnel and whoever may be concerned, that what was seized is an honorable weapon, and it is on its way to our soldiers in the camp."

And they warned the PA, "Do not deviate from the proper direction, and do not be a helping hand for those who want to kill us and want to arrest us. Do not be like our enemies, we are one people, do not sow the fuse of sedition."

The statement concluded, "We still speak the language of dialogue, and we do not want to start to use methods that we do not want to reach."

Sources said that the PA police seized five homemade explosives, along with wires, a battery and switch for detonation inside the vehicle driven by a child.

Protesters against the arrest closed Al-Quds Street, adjacent to Balata refugee camp, with burning rubber tires.

At this point it is unclear how much of the PA's arrest spree is due to pressure from Israel, or pressure from the US and Arab countries, and how much is just because it does not want to lose what power it has left in the face of the proliferation of terror groups in the West Bank.

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Palestinians shooting each other in Beit Ummar - and Palestinian police are nowhere to be found

Palestinian police aren't only abdicating on doing their jobs to stop the growth of terror groups in West Bank towns.

They are also nowhere to be found when Arabs shoot at other Arabs.

The Safa news agency reports:

About a week ago, the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, witnessed an escalation of security chaos, which claimed the lives of two young men, due to a quarrel between the Khalil and Abu Ayyash families in the town.

The townspeople complain about the lack of security, the destruction of public property, and the bullets flying between houses, which have been going on for days without interruption.

Resident Rami Zaazik said in an interview with Safa agency hat he and his family avoid leaving the house for fear of flying bullets, and even inside the house, the danger remains.

He explained that the town's economy and people's livelihoods were affected by the security situation in the town and the curfew, in addition to the security and social harm.

Political activist Fayez Sweiti held the Palestinian Authority responsible for the security chaos in Beit Ummar, explaining that the authority has about 70,000 armed personnel who are unable to protect citizens and are unable to maintain civil peace.

Sweiti said, "The corrupt judiciary and weak law contributed to fueling the crisis and reaching a stage of no return."

The article blames Israel, of course, for Palestinians killing Palestinians, claiming that the IDF wants this infighting. But reading between the lines we see that this current security chaos is a direct result of the PA not taking the rise of local terror groups seriously. It notes that in the last six months of 2022, there was an increase of "resistance" in Beit Ummar, from which there were "several shooting operations targeting military points of the occupation army and the settlements surrounding the town. "

The PA turned a blind eye to the proliferation of weapons and armed groups when their targets were the IDF and Jews, and now those weapons are being used by Palestinians against each other.

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In a Palestinian society where guns are cheap and violence is admired, people murder each other

In Hebron yesterday, three people were executed while driving in a car - by other Palestinians.

Fighting broke out in Yatta as the news spread.

This happens often. Sometimes the murders are from family feuds, sometimes from honor killings.

The Palestinian Independent Center for Human Rights finds a correlation between Palestinians attacking Jews and Palestinians attacking Palestinians.

The same report notes that the Palestinian Authority is not keen on prosecuting those who misuse weapons - because a lot of them are members of Fatah.

But it happens in Gaza, too. And in the Palestinian camps in Syria and Lebanon. When you have a society where the most admired people are terrorists, and where guns are easily available, where honor is the motivating factor in nearly every decision - this is what is going to happen.

Not that there are any academic papers on the phenomenon. I couldn't find any from the past 20 years that mentioned "security chaos" or "clan clashes" or "family feuds" in Palestinian territories. There are plenty of articles in Arabic about the phenomenon, but in the overwhelmingly liberal halls of academia, this is not a topic for analysis. Palestinians are killed by Jews, not by other Palestinians.

And among the "progressive" crowd, one never hears calls for effective gun control in the Palestinian territories. But in that case, the reason is because they support Palestinians attacking Jews, and they need weapons to do that. A little collateral damage of scores of Palestinians killed as a result? To these faux liberals, it is a small price to pay.

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Security and Insecurity (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Last week my Masorti shul hosted a visiting group of Americans, members of a Conservative synagogue. One of the subjects for discussion was “what’s the issue that you are most concerned with at your synagogue?” The answer was not declining and aging membership, providing Jewish education for children (and grandchildren), mixed marriage, Israel, or any of the usual issues. It was security. “Ask anybody. Security is the top issue,” they said. “Who wants to join a shul or send their children to a school where they might get shot?”

The traditional position of liberal Jews in the US has always been that security was for someone else. It was sort of a badge of honor for liberals to insist that they didn’t need to protect themselves. They really liked themselves, so why shouldn’t everyone else like them? The Reform Temple in my home town built a beautiful new suburban structure for themselves in 1990, to replace the old fortress-like building downtown. The new one was invitingly open, with acres of glass, lots of doors, and expansive grounds without serious fencing – and it will cost them a small fortune to secure it.

Liberal Jews disliked guns and favored limiting access to them. They trusted the state to protect them. Now they are happy to have the “paranoid” gun owners with carry permits among them. Now they are having “active shooter drills” and taking self-defense courses too, because they are in danger on the street as well as in the synagogue.

This is just one aspect of the end of a golden age. There is no going back. As economic conditions get worse – and they will, thanks to the massive, crushing debt which will leave the increasingly incompetent government no choice but to inflate the currency – both the disenfranchised former blue-collar workers and the revolutionary Left will continue to blame the Jews, as will the blacks, who have been taught since the 1960s that anything bad that happens to them is a result of institutional white racism, and who have also come to believe – thanks to almost every important black “leader” after MLK – that the power behind the racist institutions is The Jew. The increase in the Muslim population, which is already close in number to the diminishing Jewish one, is another reason for an increase in antisemitism. Many Muslim immigrants bring with them the Jew-hatred that is common in the Muslim world, even apart from tensions relating to Israel. The security problem is a new reality, not a temporary problem.

I have to admit that I am lucky in that I have almost never experienced insecurity by virtue of being a Jew. I could say I have lived a charmed life. I lived in America at a time when being a Jew was almost as safe as being anything else. I did not live in Israel during the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973, when her existence was threatened. I was in California when Saddam was firing Scuds at Tel Aviv. I missed the Second Intifada, with its exploding buses and restaurants, and the recent Knife Intifada never came to Rehovot. I didn’t live in the North in 1981 when missiles from the PLO were landing, nor in 2006 when Hezbollah was launching them. I don’t live in the South now, which periodically comes under fire from Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

One exception was in California in January, 2009. It was during Operation Cast Lead, the first of the “mowing the grass” operations in Gaza. After Israel absorbed thousands of rockets and mortars on the southern part of the country, Israel’s government decided to end the threat. In air, ground and naval attacks, Hamas installations were pounded, with buildings, tunnels, and of course rocket manufacturing and storage sites destroyed.

The operation started on December 27, 2008, and lasted 22 days before officials of the incoming Obama Administration ordered Israel to get the IDF out of Gaza before the inauguration. In the meantime, Hamas and supportive NGOs launched a vicious and effective propaganda attack, in which Israel was portrayed as deliberately trying to injure and kill civilians (the ultimate product of this was the tendentious Goldstone Report). At the same time, the Al Jazeera satellite channel showed continuous violent footage, much of it from wars in other places at other times, inflaming the world against Israel.

The local Islamic Center and “Peace” organization organized an anti-Israel demonstration at a main intersection. Several hundred demonstrators, many of them Muslim teenagers bused from other cities in California, stood on three corners of the intersection, facing a handful of pro-Israel demonstrators. Muslim demonstrators crossed the street and threatened the counter-demonstrators; at one point I called the police and told them that verbal confrontations were escalating and might become violent. They responded that the Muslims had promised that they would control their people. Shortly thereafter, one of the leaders of the demonstration came across and placed himself in front of the counter-demonstrators, protecting us from their more aggressive members.

This was an object lesson in dhimmitude and in diaspora life. We Jews were shown that Muslims would protect us, assuming of course that we were properly subservient; and we saw that the goyishe authorities could not be depended on. Not strong enough to protect ourselves, we were at our enemies’ mercy. My wife commented that it was time for us to move back to Israel (it took five more years).

The Jews of Europe have been insecure for some time now. I was in the UK in 2001, and the synagogue in North London that I visited already had the kind of precautions that Americans are only needing to implement today. Once-safe Germany is warning Jews to keep their kippot in their pockets. Forget France or Sweden.

Insecurity is unpleasant. Someone wants to hurt you, maybe kill you. You look over your shoulder. You cluster together with your own people, in ghettos or “Jewish neighborhoods,” because there’s safety in numbers (sometimes). You look for exits, make contingency plans. You try to make alliances with your non-Jewish neighbors, and to keep on the right side of the authorities in case you need their help.

This is humiliating, dishonorable. It harms your self-respect when your people can’t stand up for themselves. This is life in the diaspora.

Israel is the world’s biggest Jewish neighborhood, with the world’s most powerful security patrol, the IDF. Sometimes we would like the government to get a little tougher with our enemies. After all, this is the Jewish state, not the diaspora. There is still insecurity in Israel, but it is usually collective insecurity, in which the whole country worries about the same things. But personally speaking, I feel much more secure as a Jew in Israel than I ever did in California.

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Applying honor/shame to the metal detector fiasco

Once again, Palestinians are behaving irrationally.

Once again, no one knows what to make of it.

And once again, once you apply the honor/shame construct, it all makes perfect sense.

Abbas didn't want to see the terror attack on the Israeli policemen. But he is bound by the social rules of his society, and once the events were set in motion, he has no choice but to act like a typical Arab leader who is too cowardly to face down the insane shame culture.

Israel closing down the Temple Mount for two days was a source of a huge amount of shame. It showed that Jews ultimately control the area, and the myth that the Waqf controls it was shown to be a lie. The idea that Jews control the purported third holiest site in Islam is a source of deep shame that has been buried for years by the fantasy of Waqf control.

Once the shame started, it cannot be erased.

The fact that Israel re-opened the area in less than 48 hours is irrelevant; the metal detectors - or cameras or extra guards or wands or anything - just add to the shame of reminding the Arabs of who is the boss of the Temple Mount in the sense of who ultimately provides security. All else is irrelevant.

Once we have entered the honor./shame universe, actual facts or logic are meaningless - all that matters are symbols. And symbols don't get bigger than pretending to "defend Al Aqsa." (Which is what the stabber in Petah Tikva shouted this morning, as he stabbed an Arab mistaking him for a Jew.)

Abbas cannot act in a way that diminishes his honor, so he needs to double down on demanding honor and refusing shame. He must use all the weapons in his arsenal to "win". Because the other aspect of honor/shame societies is the zero-sum game, and if Israel gets anything out of this episode that it didn't have before- like normal security that any society would demand - Abbas thinks he loses. Winning the zero-sum game becomes more important than human lives. Abbas therefore ups the ante and says he will end security cooperation - the biggest weapon in his arsenal. He feels he has to go for the big guns because if he loses, he is finished - his shame will end him as a leader.

So now a very reasonable Israeli expectation for basic security becomes a life-or-death pissing match to the Palestinian leadership. They cannot back down. If Israel would offer to compromise by painting a stick figure of a camera on all entrances to the Mount the pushback would be exactly the same. Actual facts are of no interest.

Meanwhile, the honor/shame dynamic is played out with more terror attacks. Hamas' leader called the father of the murderer of the father and his children in Halamish explicitly in terms of honor, saying that "Your son brought pride to the nation." Abbas cannot be seen as less interested in national pride than Hamas, to do so would be politically costly, although he cannot explicitly praise the attack either or risk alienating his Western friends. So he stays quiet. But he will pay the salary of the murderer for the rest of his life.

As often happens, the logical West is confronted with the irrational Middle East. Usually the West blinks before dealing with these seemingly crazy people who would happily start a war over metal detectors. Because crazy people are scary and unpredictable and passionate, while normal people just want to live their lives without that drama.

The interesting part of this saga is how the Western world reacts. Israel's requirement for security in the face of a proven threat reflects what every other nation would do. The PA's reaction is completely bonkers by any normal yardstick. If the world wasn't so reflexively "pro-Palestinian" it wouldn't coddle the crazy demands, but the Palestinians have made an art form of these kinds of crazy demands that end up sounding reasonable over the years of constant repetition.

This time might be a little too crazy for, say, Western Europe at least. Palestinians have been losing their support behind the scenes, especially in Arab countries but cracks are appearing in the West as well. Their UN victories are getting narrower, and European parties are pushing back more against the UNHRC bias. They believe in the two state solution but they are not quite as certain that the 1967 lines are so sacred. Palestinian intransigence is being seen more and more as an obstacle to peace.

This episode may hurt the Palestinians in the long run much more than a symbolic victory would gain them. And this can be accelerated if the West uses the honor/shame dynamic to shame the Palestinians into acting like responsible adults.

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