PA Chairman Abu Mazen is outraged by the decision of Israel’s security cabinet to legitimize nine illegal outposts in Judea and Samaria, in a statement he issued he stated that the decision is a challenge to the American and Arab effort and provocations to the Palestinian people that will lead to further tensions and escalation.
Abu Mazen continues the extreme line against Israel, in a speech at the Jerusalem Conference held this week in Cairo, he claimed that the Western Wall is an Islamic Waqf and part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The Biden administration has failed miserably in its efforts to calm the tensions in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, he recently sent three high-ranking envoys to the Middle East to try and prevent a security escalation, but they returned empty-handed.
In recent weeks he sent one after the other national security adviser Jack Sullivan, CIA chief William Burns and Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
All three met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and PA Chairman Abu Mazen but returned to Washington without any real results.
Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to the American ideas for calming the West Bank, he promised to restrain the ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and to avoid unilateral measures that could increase tensions towards the month of Ramadan, but the one who torpedoed the Americans’ plans was PA Chairman Abu Mazen who tried to blackmail them and get a political achievement such as the opening of the American consulate in East Jerusalem or the opening of PLO offices in Washington, when he realized that the administration was not interested in these moves now he simply rejected the American plan to return security control to the PA fight against the armed groups in the West Bank.
The security plan was prepared by American General Mike Fenzel who coordinates between the administration and the security forces of the Palestinian Authority.
He followed in the footsteps of General Keith Dayton who served in the years 2005-2010 as a coordinator between the administration and the PA and trained the PA’s security forces how to fight terrorism after the second intifada.
General Penzel planned to establish a special force of several thousand security personnel of the Palestinian Authority that would undergo training in Jordan, return to the West Bank and be stationed in the Nablus and Jenin areas to fight against the armed terrorist groups and allow the Palestinian Authority to regain its security control in the region.
His plan won the support of the head of the CIA William Burns, the support of Egypt and Jordan and the agreement of the Israeli security establishment.
Senior administration officials asked PA Chairman Abu Mazen to meet the PA’s security obligations according to the Oslo Accords and to agree to a plan so that the IDF would refrain from entry into Area A in the West Bank and let the PA try to fight terrorism on its own, but he rejected the American plan and rolled out the blame for terrorism to the Israeli court.
Abu Mazen tried to convince the senior American officials that his way was better and that he would succeed in luring the wanted terrorists with promises of amnesty, salaries and vehicles in exchange for them laying down their weapons.
The containment plan of PA chairman Abu Mazen is destined for complete failure, he tried to implement it without success in the last months, but the members of the armed groups in Jenin and Nablus reject it outright.
The working assumption of PA chairman Abu Mazen is that the Biden administration is weak and busy in a confrontation with Russia over the war in Ukraine and the economic conflict with China and he does not want a confrontation with the PA, therefore he allowed himself to ignore the requests of President Biden who until now has not invited him for a visit to the White House and is not ready to get his hands dirty and offer the Palestinians a political horizon.
In conversations with his associates, Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen says that the American administration cannot be trusted with anything because it is biased in Israel’s favor.
The refusal of the PA chairman is a blow to the Biden administration, the continuation of terrorist activity in the West Bank is supposed to increase towards the month of Ramadan and force Israel to defend itself through intensive military activity which naturally will result in many Palestinian casualties and may also undermine regional stability.
President Biden is wrong in that he does not apply levers of pressure on the chairman of the Palestinian Authority as President George Bush used at the time on Yasser Arafat to fight terrorism, the chairman of the PA does not hesitate even for a moment to thwart the American security plan knowing that the continuation of the existing situation may encourage terrorism and cause more victims on both sides.
The reluctance of the chairman of the PA to fight terrorism emphasizes the fact that he long ago finished his role as a possible partner for negotiations with Israel, what interests him is only one thing, to continue surviving in his position without confronting any factor that could endanger his throne.
President Biden will find this out the hard way.
