Amid swirl of violence, Palestinians wonder: Where are their leaders?

Irrelevant and despised, feared but ineffective. Across the West Bank, Palestinians say a repressive Palestinian Authority is failing to protect citizens’ rights and leaving them to fend for themselves in the face of rising violence that many fear is threatening to spin out of control.

“The Authority is so out of touch with what is going on on the ground, it would be laughable if people weren’t dying,” says Mariam, a university student in Ramallah.

Seeing their hold on power slip, and seeking to quash any initiative that may challenge their rule, the increasingly autocratic Palestinian Authority (PA) and its aging, long-serving president, Mahmoud Abbas, are restricting the few liberties Palestinians have enjoyed: speech, political activity, civil society, and art.

That leaves Palestinians in the West Bank in a quandary: They are burdened with an unrepresentative government they see as nonfunctional, yet they are unable to articulate who, or what, could possibly replace it.

“We don’t want the Palestinian Authority; we don’t want Hamas – give us an alternative for us to support,” says Mariam, who like others interviewed asked that her full name be withheld. “Right now, no one is giving us an alternative or even envisioning one.”

This absence of leadership has been felt amid the violence across the West Bank.

According to Palestinian health officials, 200 Palestinians, including 52 children, were killed in violence so far this year, which according to the United Nations makes 2022 the deadliest year for Palestinians in 16 years. Often triggered by Israeli settler attacks that escalate into clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli military, the violence has killed 132 Palestinians in the West Bank alone. According to Israeli media reports, Palestinian attacks this year have killed 31 people in Israel and the West Bank, including 10 Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank.

At these flashpoints, the PA is nowhere to be found.

When violence between settlers and Palestinian civilians erupted in Hebron a week ago, the PA waited 24 hours before issuing a statement of “condemnation.”

When settler-Palestinian clashes led to an Israeli military blockade last month on the city of Nablus, halting life in the West Bank’s economic hub, the PA was implored to intervene and reach a solution with Israel to lift the blockade.

Instead, it issued a statement praising Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh’s opening of a permanent trade office in Singapore.

To solve, or to listen?

When a PA delegation finally visited Nablus in late October, residents said they received a clear message: They were on their own.

“When the Authority came to visit us, we were hoping they had solutions,” says Dr. Ghassan Hamdan, a civil society veteran in Nablus. “Instead, they said, ‘We want to listen to you.’

“We’re not the ones who should be coming up with solutions to crises,” he says. “As our government representatives you should be coming to help us.”

Palestinians contrast their lack of security with the PA’s close coordination with Israel to arrest and transfer Palestinians that Israel considers a threat.

As the PA delegation toured the Old City of Nablus in late October, few even lifted their heads to acknowledge them.

“The Authority and Fatah [the PA’s dominant political faction] do not represent us or serve us,” one Fatah youth member said as the delegation walked past. “In fact, we consider them a silent enemy; ready to betray us to the occupation at any second.”

One of the few areas where the PA has been active is suppressing dissent, using what little power it has to snuff out opposition.

The PA’s crackdown intensified in the months after its decision to suspend general elections in May 2021. Rights groups say the security services have targeted critics, including Fatah members who expressed support for presidential candidates seeking to challenge Mr. Abbas. He has ruled without a mandate since 2009.

“This year alone, over 600 Palestinians walked in and out of PA jails” on political charges, says Muhanad Karaja, a human rights lawyer at the Ramallah-based Lawyers for Justice. 

Many of the detainees were taken to a prison and alleged torture site in Jericho where PA security services’ techniques are so violent it has earned the nickname the “Jericho slaughterhouse.”

The “slaughterhouse” traditionally housed members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But it and other jails are filling up with political activists and supporters of nonviolent groups, even members of factions allied with Mr. Abbas, which Mr. Karaja says is due to political changes “that are threatening Fatah’s grip on power.”

In July, gunmen in Nablus attempted to assassinate former Deputy Prime Minister Nasser al-Shaer, a member of Fatah rival Hamas, in an attack for which many blame the PA. Last year security services killed political activist and PA critic Nizar Banat.

Part of the problem

“We are afraid of the Palestinian Authority, of Israel, of the settlers – we are being pressured from all sides,” says Dana, a 25-year-old youth activist in Ramallah.

Mohamed, a human rights trainer, says the international community’s support of the Authority is forcing into place an outdated system that no longer reflects Palestinians’ aspirations – or reality.

“The Oslo Accords, the peace process, and the Palestinian Authority created a dictatorship to prevent Palestinians from gaining statehood or full rights,” he says, “and the international community showers them with legitimacy and funds.”

Ramallah cafe owner Shadi Jaradat says many young Palestinians are bypassing the “illegitimate” PA altogether and are supporting open resistance to Israel.

“Instead of confronting the Palestinian Authority, these young people are going straight after Israel,” Mr. Jaradat says of a recent rise in local youth militias. “They know that by targeting Israel, they hurt both parties.”

The rise of militia groups defying the PA has harmed its ties with Israel, whose anticipated incoming coalition includes members of the Jewish extreme right. Last week they called for a stop in the transfer of tax revenues to the Authority following a pair of Jerusalem bus stop bombings that killed two Israelis and wounded more than 20 others.

In a September poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Research, public satisfaction with Mr. Abbas stood at just 26%, and 74% demanded his resignation.

Among West Bank Palestinians, 86% of those polled said there was corruption in the PA; 59% viewed the PA as a “burden on the Palestinian people,” and 38% as an “asset.”

Dissolve or not

In a July poll by the Ramallah-based Jerusalem Media & Communication Center (JMCC), 45% rated the PA’s performance as “bad.” Yet the same poll points to an irony: 58.5% said the PA should be maintained compared with 33.3% who said it should be dissolved – numbers that have been consistent for 15 years.

“On one hand the public sees the Palestinian Authority as politically irrelevant and maybe a tool for the occupation,” says Ghassan Al Khatib, an analyst and JMCC pollster. “But on the other hand, people do not believe that it makes sense to get rid of it for practical purposes.”

Despite its flaws, the Authority provides basic services for millions of Palestinians with funds it receives from the international community and the United States as well as taxes collected on its behalf by Israel.

“Whoever dissolves the Authority will have to have to answer these questions: Who will take care of the 40,000 teachers and 1 million pupils? Who will finance the health sector? What about policing?” Mr. Al Khatib says.

Then there are the PA’s 160,000 employees, who make up the bulk of support for Mr. Abbas.

Yet even among this segment, discontent is rising; defections from the Authority and Fatah are on the rise.

“There is a new majority migrating from Fatah to the growing silent majority against [Mr. Abbas]. We cannot support him,” says Ahmad, a Fatah supporter recently forced into early retirement over what he believes was his lack of support for the president.

Another former Fatah member says he cut ties when he realized that the PA was no longer “fulfilling its duty and responsibility.”  

“I couldn’t answer my own children’s questions about ‘why things are like this under our rule? Why can’t we have a separate and independent judiciary, elected parliament, or a serious government?’” he says. “So, I decided to quit. The movement was no longer democratic nor responsible.”

Sabri Saidam, who at 50 is one of Fatah’s youngest figures in a leadership role, describes this criticism as a healthy internal debate, and denies PA responsibility for frustrations bubbling up in the West Bank.

Others disagree.

“The PA, the occupation – it is all one obstacle preventing us from gaining statehood and our basic human rights,” says Mohammed, the human rights trainer. “Our path to statehood and freedom now runs through the dismantling of them both.”