Palestinian Authority: Choosing Resistance Or Collapse?

He continued that annexation of other Palestinian areas in the West Bank under the “deal of the century” would take a longer time, meaning that they cannot be annexed by July. 

Need for national Palestinian strategy against the Israeli plan 

As the Israeli regime announces the start of the process of annexation of 30 percent of the West Bank to the occupied territories, a joint strategy looks more than any other time needs to be adopted by all of the Palestinian groups. The Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad have made joint suggestions on adopting a united strategy and naming a nationally-recognized leadership body. 

But as the Israelis go ahead with their expansionist plan, the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, seems to face a political and economic impasse. Beside a host of economic problems that are bringing the Palestinian Authority to bankruptcy, the Ramallah-based governing body seems to be devoid of innovative plans to block the Israeli annexation push. Its conservative and wavering threats to cut off security cooperation with Teel Aviv and Washington have gone nowhere to force the Israeli regime to retreat from its further occupation plan. If it continues to demonstrate lack of resolve against the Israeli plan, it will doubtlessly struggle with a public acceptance crisis depriving it of a clear outlook for existence in the future. 

This comes while the Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s suggestion to Fatah as the dominant party in the Palestinian Authority for naming a national leadership to coordinate practical actions against the Israeli scheme provides an appropriate chance to Abbas to get the body out of the current deadlock. In fact, Abbas can restore the political weight of the Authority that has been largely lost as a result of the Israeli and American negligence in the Palestinian equations. This will give him a chance to also improve the acceptance rates of the Fatah in this critical juncture which have been falling due to its compromises to the Israeli regime.

Without any doubt, all Palestinians living in Gaza Strip and West Bank and also outside Palestine more than any other time expect serious hard reactions from various Palestinian groups as they witness the failure of compromising policy choice and as Tel Aviv now leaves no choice even for compromises and pushes ahead with its expansion policy. The Fatah movement has so far not responded to the proposal and continues to confront the resistant operations by the people and resistant groups. 

West backs Tel Aviv behind the scenes 

The West's policies concerning the Palestinian cause indicate that the Western governments fully back the Israel expansionist policies. Strong pro-Israeli lobbies in the Western capitals not only make the Western government dishonest in their anti-Israeli criticism but also push them to present remarkable support to Tel Aviv in its push towards its goals. 

In its publicized policy, the West simply criticizes the Israeli occupational actions. These critical stances mainly serve to save their prestige globally as so-called backers of democracy and originate from a fear of Palestinian armed uprising against the Israeli regime. 

So, the political Palestinian groups can no longer trust the Western governments’ political shows and games in criticizing the Israeli moves. It is obviously absurd for the Palestinians to enter negotiations with the West to put pressure on the Israeli regime to dissuade it from the implementation of its plans. On the other side, quitting the resistance choice and heading to interaction with the West to settle the problem not only will not check the Israeli expansionist plans but also will give Tel Aviv a proper time to move stronger towards its goals. Quitting the resistance choice will exempt the Western countries even from the condemnation of Israeli strategy. After all, they make sure there is no resistance choice to confront Tel Aviv. 

In this historic juncture, the Palestinians have no choice more effective than resistance and struggle against the Israeli regime. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad reconciliation initiative not only can unite all the Palestinian people but also can give Abbas a good chance to get the Palestinian Authority out of the current dead end. At the same time, any Palestinian move to negotiate the case with the West, while the latter covertly and overtly backs the Israeli occupation, to put strains on Tel Aviv looks quite unreasonable.