The Palestinian Authority this week will reconsider its relationship with Israel, including its security cooperation with the Jewish state.
The Times of Israel reports today:
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, said she supports a comprehensive reappraisal of Palestinian relations with Israel due to what she called the intransigence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in negotiations.
“We certainly should redefine our relationship with Israel in all areas, because Netanyahu has reneged on all agreements and is working deliberately and aggressively to destroy the chances of peace,” she said, declining to comment on the position of the Palestinian security establishment. “We have to work in ways that will rescue the chances of peace … whatever it takes, we have to do.” …
British Prime Minister David Cameron urged Netanyahu on Monday to pursue a two-state solution through renewed negotiations, but Ashrawi said the Palestinians intend to intensify their unilateral course of action, asking for additional international recognition of a Palestinian state, acceding to more international charters and conventions and “pursuing accountability via the International Criminal Court.”
Abbas declared his intent, in a 2011 op-ed that was published in The New York Times, “to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.” Since then, Abbas has failed to negotiate with Israel in good faith.
During the American-sponsored peace talks that ended last year, Abbas rejected every single proposal of importance to the United States.
According to Israel’s former peace negotiator, Tzipi Livni, it was Abbas who refused to accept a framework proposal made by the Obama administration. Abbas then made a political deal with the terrorist organization Hamas, thereby scuttling the peace process.
The threat to end security cooperation with Israel and pursue Israel in international fora is a continuation of Abbas’ rejectionist approach to the peace process.
In What Will Happen If the Palestinians Really End Security Cooperation?, to be published in the April 2015 of The Tower Magazine, Neri Zilber looks into security cooperation that, so far, has been the most successful feature of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The various organs which make up the PA’s nascent (and U.S.-trained) security forces, including Preventive Security, are responsible for areas of the West Bank under full Palestinian control. They have numerous responsibilities: Upholding law and order, crime prevention, intelligence-gathering, counter-terror, and riot control, among others. But for many Palestinians, the one thing that receives the most attention is the PA security forces’ coordination with Israel. Average Palestinians often condemn the security forces as “subcontractors” for the Israeli occupation. In turn, Israeli officials are well aware of the tightrope that the PA needs to walk in order to maintain the security relationship while protecting its own legitimacy, and rarely discuss the issue in detail.
Because of this, I expected the senior official to politely decline a response when I raised the topic. Instead, he spoke openly about the longstanding security relationship between Israel and the PA “that continues and is ongoing.” He added, even more candidly, “From a security perspective there is not much difference of opinion with the Israelis.…We share the same interests.” Operationally, he said, coordination between Israel and the PA hinges on “daily and weekly contacts, and meetings on all levels”—from lieutenants in the field to service chiefs like him—regarding “security hazards and changes which threaten the stable security situation on both sides.”
These shared interests and security hazards entail many things, but none are as important as the threat of a Hamas takeover of the West Bank. “Just as we liberated Gaza…just as we established a victorious army in it,” Hamas founder Mahmoud al-Zahar declared in December, “we will make the same effort in the West Bank as we prepare to extend our presence to all of Palestine,” i.e., to the entirety of pre-1967 Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of precisely this when he publicly blasted the PA’s recent moves at the United Nations, saying, “Abbas thinks that by taking unilateral steps he threatens us; he doesn’t understand that their result will be Hamas taking over the West Bank.”
[Photo: CCTV America / YouTube ]