Since the Oslo Accords were signed almost 30 years ago, the two-state solution has been the mainstay of Western policy.
Under its terms, the Palestinian Authority first acts as a negotiator and then transforms into a state. Billions of pounds of aid have followed in its wake.
But this month, the JC has published evidence of brutality and corruption that undermines convenient assumptions that the PA is a responsible government-in-waiting and an adequate partner for peace.
Ghassan Banat, campaigner, with picture of his murdered brother Nizar
In a series of investigations, we revealed how the PA’s British-trained security forces use brutality routinely, beating a human rights activist to death; and how the PA is riddled with corruption, with even medical patients forced to pay bribes for treatment.
This week, we examine whether the PA is any longer viable as a foundation for a Palestinian state. Should it continue to be supported so committedly by the international community? And if not, what are the alternatives?
Radi Jarai, who served as a PA minister until 2011 and has now resigned from Fatah, the PA’s ruling party, offered a bleak assessment.
“Faith in the PA has never been so low,” he told the JC. “It runs people’s daily lives but it doesn’t give Palestinians any vision of hope. People talk about corruption every day, but the PA does nothing about it.”
The murder of human rights activist Nazir Banat was a turning point, he added. “It make people really hate the PA. If Banat had broken the law, he should have been brought to court, not killed because he criticised [PA president Mahmoud] Abbas.”
Democracy campaigner Omar Assaf
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Ramallah civil servant agreed. “This is the PA’s worst period since its foundation,” he said. “There is a general weaking of legitimacy of the Authority and its agencies.
“I have given my career to the PA to achieve a Palestinian state, but I feel confused. I have a sense of embarrassment and disillusion, as do my colleagues. My salary has become the only reason for showing up for work.”
Adding to the pressure is a looming fiscal catastrophe. In 2018, the disclosure that the PA spends some £160 million a year on salaries for the families of terrorists — the so-called “pay for slay” policy — led President Trump to cut off direct US aid to the PA treasury.
Britain continued to pay salaries for PA health and education staff until last year. But after spending £138 million of taxpayers’ money in four years, this too has stopped.
According to officials at the Israeli government body COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), the PA is now almost totally reliant on tax revenues collected on its behalf by Israel, leaving it with a deficit that grows by the month.
The PA’s monthly income is about £200 million, but its salary bill alone runs to £240 million, with the costs of buildings, vehicles, medical supplies and transfers to Israeli hospitals running to many millions more.
Yet the pay-for-slay policy continues, with money dispensed to terrorists’ families from a special network of ATMs attached to West Bank post offices.
Maurice Hirsch, legal director at the Jerusalem NGO Palestinian Media Watch, told the JC that analysing the PA’s monthly budget is difficult.
“There has always been very little transparency, and so it has been hard to work out how much was really flowing in and out,” he said. Now, however, it has become almost impossible; at the beginning of 2022, the PA stopped publishing any figures at all.
For good reason. Even in the security agencies, where officers put their lives on the line, staff are no longer being paid their full salaries, and are owed huge sums.
PA president Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: Getty)
As a result, thousands of PA employees take long periods of unpaid leave to do manual jobs in Israel or Israeli settlements.
“Absenteeism is worst among the police and security services, about 30 per cent,” a senior PA official said. “That makes it hard to do basic law enforcement, and crime is rising, murder and drugs.”
Corruption is rife. A 2019 study by the NGO Transparency International reported that 17 per cent of Palestinians had paid a bribe to a PA official in the previous 12 months.
Thirty-nine per cent had resorted to wasta, an Arabic word roughly translating as “nepotism”. Sixty-two per cent thought corruption had increased in the previous year.
There is increasing concern that this makes the PA not a partner for peace but a stimulus for continuing conflict. Mr Hirsch said: “The more Abbas is hated for corruption, the more he has to focus on an external enemy, Israel.”
Yet instead of trying to restore its legitimacy, the PA appears to be undermining what is left of it. The Hamas victory in the 2006 elections marked a turning point, after which the Palestinian parliament has not convened for years.
In place of laws enacted by democratic means, President Abbas has issued a long stream of decrees, gravely weakening the PA’s Basic Law, which theoretically safeguard human rights and free speech.
It was via one of these diktats that earlier this year, he quietly abolished any limit to the length of time in which a prisoner could be held without charge.
Abbas is now 12 years past what should have been the end of his term in office. New Palestinian elections are unlikely, but at the age of 87, the end of his political career must be coming soon.
What then? This year, Mr Abbas anointed a successor, Hussein al-Sheikh, 61, appointing him secretary-general of the PLO.
As the PA’s top official dealing with Israel, responsible for Israeli work permits and the transfer of goods, Mr al-Sheikh would represent continuity. He also happens to own businesses and property said to be worth millions.
However, an opinion poll in June found just three per cent of Palestinians wanted him to become their next president. When a regime is tainted by corruption, continuity may not be an asset.
In truth, the PA is a system of national government imposed upon a patchwork of local tribal leaders, many with security backgrounds. They have made it clear they would challenge Mr al-Sheikh’s succession.
“In the Arab world, the hamoula, the clan, is way more important than the state,” said Mordechai Kedar, a military intelligence veteran and expert on Arab culture.
“There are at least five rival groups led by dominant personalities already acquiring the means — guns and fighters — to protect their interests.
“The question is: what will happen one minute after Abbas leaves? Will they actually fight each other?”
In an interview with the JC, Ashraf Jaberi, a leader of the powerful Jaberi family, which wields huge influence in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city, confirmed: “Around here, this clan is more important than the PA.”
He was formerly a senior officer with the Preventive Security Organisation, the service accused of murdering Mr Banat. But then he decided to leave.
“My biggest problem was that I could not raise a gun against a member of my clan,” he said. “A person may serve the PA for many years, but he will always go back to his family.”
He too has become gradually disillusioned with the PA. “It started legitimate and strong,” he said. “But then its leaders started reaping personal benefits.
“The development of dictatorial one-party rule has weakened it. [Murdered human rights activist] Nizar Banat told the truth.”
Like all Palestinian clans, the Jaberis are building up weapons stockpiles in anticipation of a power struggle, he said.
“There are cells and cells of armed people. Abbas is the last piece of glue holding the PA together, and when he goes, there will be chaos.
