Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad al-Shtayeh said on January 9 that the sanctions imposed by Israel on the PA could lead to its collapse.
Similar things were said by Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary general of the PLO’s executive committee, to Hadi Amer, the American envoy in charge of the Palestinian file in the State Department, who arrived at the head of a delegation to Ramallah for talks with the Palestinian leadership.
Al-Sheikh demanded that the US put pressure on the Netanyahu government to immediately cancel the sanctions it imposed on the PA.
The Israeli Defense Cabinet recently decided on a series of sanctions to be imposed on the PA following the Palestinians’ appeal to the Court of Justice in The Hague for a legal opinion on the legality of the occupation and following the appeal to the Security Council after the visit of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to the Temple Mount.
The sanctions that were imposed were economic and personal against senior PA officials who lead the political confrontation against Israel.
The Israeli sanctions were not very harsh and did not deviate from the recommendations of the security establishment, Prime Minister Netanyahu restrained the demands of cabinet ministers who demanded more radical measures, he ordered the formation of a team of ministers that together with him would decide on the next steps if necessary.
The sanctions imposed on PA officials do not include PA chairman Abu Mazen, Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh, and Majed Faraj, the head of Palestinian intelligence.
It seems that in a few weeks and they will receive their VIP cards back in the hope that the Israeli message has reached its destination.
The wave of terror did not turn into a new armed intifada because the majority of the Palestinian public in the West Bank is not involved in it, most of the Palestinian residents do not want their economic situation to worsen and tens of thousands of Palestinians to stop working in Israel even though they identify with the idea of armed resistance to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and the settlement policy.
Although the PA has lost control of the Jenin and Nablus areas and new terrorist groups are growing in the area, the Chairman of the PA Abu Mazen still controls the situation despite the weakening of his status on the Palestinian street, he has at his disposal a military force of approximately 30 thousand armed Palestinian security forces , not to mention tens of thousands of Fatah Tanzim militants in the West Bank.
Senior officials in Fatah warn that the rule of the right-wing government in Israel will lead to a major security escalation in the West Bank and there may not even be a new armed intifada, Prime Minister Netanyahu is not interested in that, he wants the PA to continue to remain as the political and security address of the Palestinians and to continue managing the conflict, for him this is a bad choice, he does not want the IDF to return to controlling the large concentrations of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and that Israel becomes the one to be responsible for managing the day-to-day lives of more than two million Palestinians in the West Bank.
Security officials in Israel say that it is very important to continue security coordination with the PA for the purpose of the war on terrorism and preventing the Hamas movement from coming to power in the West Bank, this is true, but it should be remembered that the PA also benefits a lot from this security coordination.
The Biden administration is very concerned about the weakening of the Palestinian Authority’s power and demands that Israel strengthen it, this month it is sending two senior representatives to Israel, National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan and Secretary of State Tony Blinken to clarify its position.
The Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad al-Shtayeh accuses Israel of consistently working to destroy the PA and damage its institutions. This is a false claim intended for internal political needs. If Israel wanted this , it could have done so a long time ago.
A possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority has internal consequences. It creates a danger to the security situation in the West Bank and also has an impact on the regional stability situation, moderate Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan fear the consequences of the collapse of the PA on their internal security situation and they are sending clear messages on this matter to the US and Israel.
The PA is currently not going anywhere, Israel will not allow the collapse of the Palestinian Authority from a security and economic point of view, even though the Palestinian Authority has lost security control in Jenin and Nablus, this situation is reversible and with the help of the IDF it can regain control.
Senior PA officials have been warning for several years about the possibility of the PA collapsing, in the past they threatened to disband the PA and hand over the keys to Israel, they also stopped security coordination with Israel for a few months in June 2020, but renewed it after they realized that this was harming the Palestinians more than Israel.
The chairman of the PA is not interested in the collapse of the PA or its dissolution, he sees the establishment of the PA as a direct national achievement of the PA from the Oslo Accords, for him, the PA is the core of the future independent Palestinian state.
The latest sanctions that Israel imposed on the PA were intended to convey a political message to it to stop the unilateral measures against Israel in the international arena, the Israeli security establishment estimated that they would not topple the PA regime.
The new Israeli government is conducting itself cautiously but firmly with the PA, Israel and the PA have a common strategic interest and that is to prevent the Hamas movement from taking over the West Bank.
