PA Chairman Abu Mazen is waging a persistent struggle to maintain his rule in the West Bank through the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, even though he has reached the age of 87, he has no intention of stepping down from the political stage anytime soon.
He is well aware of the moods on the Palestinian street and the Palestinian public opinion polls from which it is clear that the Palestinian public is tired of him and wants his replacement.
The majority of public opinion polls conducted to date in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip indicate that approximately 70 percent of the Palestinian public is interested in the immediate retirement of the PA Chairman from his post and holding general elections for the presidency and parliament.
According to the majority of the Palestinian public, the most suitable candidate to replace Abu Mazen is Fatah senior Marwan Barghouti, who was sentenced to five life sentences and is serving his time in an Israeli prison, and the second place is occupied by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The PA chairman knows very well how to deal with Fatah officials who threaten his leadership, he ousted Muhammad Dahlan and Nasser al-Kidawa from the Fatah movement, imposed sanctions on Tawfik Al-Tirawi and worked with the US and Israel so that Marwan Barghouti would not be released from prison in any way Prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas.
The chairman of the PA is very concerned about the activities of the Palestinian opposition factions in the West Bank and especially the activists of the Hamas movement, his instructions to the Palestinian security forces are clear and unequivocal to suppress by force any activity of Hamas in the West Bank.
PA security forces last week violently suppressed a demonstration held in Nablus demanding the release of the political detainees held in PA detention facilities and the wanted Hamas operative Mouseb Isshtayeh who has been held in Jericho prison for four months.
He belongs to the Lions Den terror group from Nablus and underwent severe torture in a Palestinian prison.
The Palestinian Authority’s security forces have accurate intelligence on any demonstration or activity against Abu Mazen’s rule and they act quickly in various areas of the West Bank to suppress it.
Last December, the security forces of the PA in the West Bank arrested more than 250 activists of the Hamas movement in the largest arrest operation since 2007, the wave of arrests was in preparation for the celebrations of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Hamas movement.
The arrests that were made by PA security forces in the city of Hebron, where there is a large Hamas presence, were numerous and violent, during which live bullets and tear gas were used.
Hamas officials claim that the arrests of the PA security forces are done in coordination with the Israeli Shin Bet and that the two sides divide the work between them.
The Hamas operatives arrested by the PA’s security forces are released security prisoners who were in custody in an Israeli prison and students at the universities of Bir Zeit in Ramallah and Al-Najah in Nablus.
Among the detainees are also human rights activists, some of whom openly call for the punishment of the PA security personnel who brutally murdered the human rights activist Nizar Banat.
The security forces of the PA monitor the activity in the mosques in the West Bank and on social networks, they monitor any criticism of the corruption in the PA, the political failure of Abu Mazen and the security coordination between the PA and Israel and make arrests accordingly.
The Palestinian opposition activists are abducted from their homes by the PA’s security personnel, taken to interrogations and some of them undergo severe torture, many of those who remain in detention go on hunger strikes, but this does not deter the PA.
Among those arrested were Palestinian journalists, according to a report by the Palestinian organization Lawyers for Justice, from 2022 until today, the Palestinian Authority has arrested 500 political activists in the West Bank, the arrests are being carried out despite the Fatah movement’s commitment to the Palestinian factions in the reconciliation talks held recently in Algeria to respect human rights and freedom of expression.
Contrary to the arrests of opposition activists, Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen refrained from ordering his security forces to arrest the operatives of armed terrorist groups in the northern West Bank because they do not pose a direct threat to his rule.
A senior official in the PA says that the members of these groups mainly belong to the Fatah movement and the Islamic Jihad organization, they aim their weapons at IDF soldiers and the settlers and not against PA security personnel, therefore, they do not endanger the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and are not working to overthrow Abu Mazen.
The chairman of the Palestinian Authority is interested in the failure of the new right-wing government in Israel and he is not prepared to forcefully confront the armed terrorists in the northern West Bank, even though the Palestinian Authority has the intelligence and operational capabilities to do so.
What interests him is the survival on his throne and his working assumption is that he has an insurance certificate because Israel, the USA, the European Union and the moderate Arab countries want his rule to continue.
