On January 21st, 2025, Israel Defense Forces launched a major military raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank entitled “Operation Iron Wall”. The Israeli military operations have since expanded to other areas of the West Bank, including the towns of Tulkarm, Nablus and Tubas. According to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), at least 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced since the beginning of these attacks, which largely target refugee camps. This is the bloodiest assault on the West Bank since being formally occupied by Israel in 1967.
Operation Iron Wall marks the first time the Palestine Authority (PA)—the Fatah-led governing body of the West Bank—fights alongside IDF forces in their assaults on Palestinian cities, killing many unarmed civilians and even journalists. Twenty years after coming to power, the aging Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the PA, faces growing criticism for this collaboration. The West Bank is facing an existential dilemma: either fight one of the most heavily funded militaries in the world or become completely annexed by its occupier, and the Palestine Authority openly engaging in treacherous behavior against its own people may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
In 1958, 10 years following the creation of the state of Israel, which saw the violent displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians and the loss of nearly 80% of Palestinian land in what is called the “Nakba” (“catastrophe”), a group of Palestinian intellectuals who lived in surrounding Arab states formed the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Ḥarakat at-Taḥrīr al-Waṭanī l-Filasṭīnī), known as Fatah (“Victory”). Many of the founders of Fatah were originally from the Gaza Strip and were made refugees in their own homeland. The movement called on Palestinians of differing political backgrounds to unite and “organize a vanguard that would rise above factionalism, whims and leanings to include the entire people.” A core tenet of the movement stated that armed struggle would be necessary to ensure the total liberation of Palestine, with the writings of Frantz Fanon and historical achievements in Algeria and Vietnam drawing inspiration.
In Cairo 1964, a coalition consisting of leaders in Arab governments across the Middle East and North Africa formed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO initially enjoyed greater legitimacy in the Arab world than Fatah in regards to the Palestine Question because it represented pan-Arab unity. Unlike Fatah, the PLO did not see armed struggle as the appropriate solution to the Palestine Question. This is in alignment with the President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who also did not agree that it was the right time for Palestinian forces to take up arms and fight against Israeli forces. Some scholars like Ilan Pappé argue that Nasser “miscalculated Israel’s reaction” to Palestine, failing to predict Israel launching an offensive against neighboring Arab states in the Six-Day war, leading to the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
Following 1967, Fatah and other Palestinian armed groups like the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) would conduct operations targeting Israeli military outposts. A battle in 1968 in the town of al-Karama in Jordan saw Palestinian forces “[inflict] relatively heavy losses on the Israelis,” leading to a surge in support for Fatah among Palestinian civilians. The following year, Fatah would gain the majority of seats within the Palestine National Council (PNC), the governing body of the PLO. As a result, Yasser Arafat, co-founder of Fatah and son of two Palestinians from Gaza City, would become the leader of the PLO. Arafat would become the face of the movement for Palestinian liberation on the global stage, and he would openly meet with many non-aligned and communist leaders to gain support for the Palestinian cause. Although once a strong believer in the necessity for armed struggle to solve the Palestine Question, Arafat would also make pleas for peace in the international arena. In a speech to the UN General Assembly in 1974, Arafat would famously say, “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”
Following the end of the First Intifada, the Israeli government and the PLO would sign two agreements known as the Oslo Accords, which created the Palestine Authority as the governing body of the Palestinian territories. Arafat, head of the PLO and Fatah, would become its first president. Mahmoud Abbas would become the second and current president of the PA following Arafat’s death in 2004. The defining image of this so-called “peace process” would see Prime Minister of Israel Yitzak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shaking hands at the White House in 1993. On paper, the Oslo Accords were meant to normalize relations between Israelis and Palestinians and lead to a last peace. However, in the thirty years since the initial signing of these accords, many scholars see Oslo as a failure. Political scientist Khaled Elgindy argues that the Oslo Accords did not address the “uniquely asymmetrical” relations between Israelis and Palestinians as “as occupier and occupied”. Historically, Oslo reflects a growing trend of Arab normalization of Israel, seen as recently as 2020 with the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE.
Now, twenty years since his ascension to power, Mahmoud Abbas faces a political dilemma. In a December 2023 interview, Yasser Arafat’s nephew would state that Abbas’ rule over the West Bank must end, claiming that “85% of Palestinians want Mister Abbas to resign.” Even before Israeli tanks rolled into Jenin at the beginning of this year, there was increased violence against Palestinians in the West Bank perpetrated by PA forces. On December 14th, 2024, PA forces launched an assault on Jenin refugee camp, claiming that militant groups were attempting to spark an uprising. The assault would last over forty days, and 21-year old journalist Shatha al-Sabbagh was killed by the PA. Many journalistic organizations covering violence in the West Bank condemned the killing, but the PA cracked down on coverage of its assault, leading to Al Jazeera’s digital platforms being temporarily banned. Unfortunately, the current collaboration between Israel Defense Forces and Palestine Authority forces is nothing new for Palestinians in the West Bank.The history of the Palestinian liberation movement both inside and outside of Palestine is one marked with both collaboration and betrayal. The Palestinians in the West Bank are staring down a bleak future due to not only the occupation of their land but now their own government. Rhetoric coming from the United States does not bode much better, as Donald Trump’s Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, recognizes the West Bank as part of a greater Israeli state. Palestinans must live without the threat of displacement or death in their own homeland. As it stands now, the Palestine Authority stands in direct opposition to its founding principles in allowing for such a reality to happen.
Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: “People Demonstration in Palestine,” by Mohammed Abubakr, Image source from Pexels | CC License, no changes made