By: Abdelkader Badawi; a researcher at The Palestinian Centre for Israeli Studies (Madar) is an independent research center specializing in Israeli affairs, based in the city of Ramallah.
In parallel with the military operation – the “land maneuvering” – in the Gaza Strip, many think tanks and think tanks in Israel are busy developing scenarios and alternatives for the future of the Gaza Strip almost under the slogan “the day after Hamas” in terms of what is best for Israel in security – military and political terms as well. In previous contributions (to colleague Walid Habbas), the most prominent of these centres and the scenarios they prepared were reviewed, but on the other hand, it does not seem that the future of the rule of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is far from what happens in the corridors of these centres in conjunction with the field developments and the acceleration of the wheel of settlement and internal displacement of Palestinians since October 7, last, and all of this is happening in response, or perhaps, as a result of what became known as the “collapse of perception”, which over more than a decade (since Benjamin Netanyahu took over the presidency of the government in 2009) the nature, form and location of the “conflict management”, which is mainly based on the principle of “stick and carrot” as its bases have established the leadership of governance The Israeli military since the 1967 occupation. In this contribution, we review the highlights of the reports and estimates issued by research and think tanks on the future of the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority in the “day after the war.”
First of all, it can be said that the Israeli scenarios about the authority and its place in the “day after the war” range from the maximum extreme limit, which requires the need to criminalise it and remove it from the political scene on the one hand, and the maximum “moderation” of the need to work to strengthen it and enhance its stability security and economically only, while depriving it of any future political role, especially with regard to the representation of Palestinians in the occupied territories of 1967, so that this scenario – in addition to the perception of the future of the Hamas-free sector – constitutes a “safe corridor” for Israel to prevent the establishment of a future Palestinian state within the so-called two-state solution.
The collapse of the political-security perception of the Palestinian issue within the so-called doctrine of “conflict management” that governed the behaviour of the political and military-security levels in Israel towards the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is taking clear translations in Israeli statements and discussions, whether at the official level, or even at the level of various research and thinking institutes. As for Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip, it was addressed by many previous contributions, as for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the positions ranged from the duality of the “enemy” – in the limit of maximum extremism – to the “partner” in the limit of maximum “moderation” on the opposite side, as we noted above.
On the one hand, some studies have indicated that the collapse of the “perception” forces Israel to change the perception of the Palestinian Authority, as it cannot and should not “be treated as a suitable and loyal partner for Israel in any settlement process,” according to this perception, the Palestinian Authority cannot be a future solution in the Gaza Strip (the return of the Authority to the Strip after the war) and not only; it is necessary to reconsider its presence in the first place in the West Bank. This assumption, adopted by the Jerusalem Institute for Zionist Strategy and Security, mainly favours Israeli arguments that the past three decades (since the signing of the Oslo Accords) have been a “bad experience” because “the Palestinian Authority is a failure, instigating, and hostile.” Therefore, work should not be done to create a similar reality in Gaza after the war, and it is necessary to think of alternatives that will change the existing reality in the West Bank as well, and this can only be done through the establishment of a Palestinian civil government (a technocratic government) as a model for a new mechanism that also commensurate with what US President Joe Biden called for about the need to work on the establishment of a “new Palestinian authority” that may form the nucleus of a future Palestinian-Jordanian federation with the help and support of the United States and the moderate Arab countries (after strengthening and expanding normalisation agreements, including Saudi Arabia). This government operates completely separately from the Civil Administration in Gaza (the civil government in the Gaza Strip that will be established after the end of the war), and this requires, among other requirements: 1- Dividing the West Bank into several areas governed by separate civilian administrations (within the technocratic government); 2. In parallel, Israel retains full security responsibility and absolute freedom of military action for the army in the West Bank; 3- Dismantling the Palestinian security services while retaining only law enforcement units. It is stressed that these security services should be without any offensive military capabilities, whatever their size, since the experience of the past has shown that any military capabilities in the hands of the Palestinians are turned into offensive capabilities, not to mention that some units of the Authority’s organs – Americanly trained and armed – currently have military capabilities that enable them to attack settlements in the West Bank or even carry out attacks inside Israel.
To ensure the success of this mechanism, the Institute proposes that work to achieve the following tasks: 1- Fully changing the existing education curricula and ensuring that they are free of any incitement against Israel, in addition to finding a mechanism to stop the payment of the allowances of the families of martyrs and prisoners in Israeli prisons; 2- Stop all forms of corruption and nepotism in the proposed civil government as it was in the Authority’s work mechanism; 3- Work to establish an infrastructure for a future arrangement, but this requires removing the compounds of the right of return and the justice of the armed struggle from the general Palestinian climate (for this, it is necessary to cancel any activities of the Nakba and the right of return and the end the role of UNRWA, as well as ending the UNRWA agency The idea of the camps in Gaza first – during the reconstruction process and then the West Bank), this can be reinforced, according to the report, with the premise that the armed struggle and the right of return did not bring freedom to the Palestinian people, but rather destruction.
On the other hand, in contrast to the perception presented above (which in principle corresponds to Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent statements about the Palestinian Authority), some research and thinking centres and institutes offer a different perception of what is presented above based mainly on the need to work to strengthen and strengthen the Palestinian Authority as a partner of Israel and not an “enemy” to take over responsibility in the Gaza Strip after the war on the basis that neither Israel nor international powers will be able to carry out this task.
The report by Tel Aviv University’s National Security Research Institute stems from the assumption that the Al-Aqsa Flood attack on the morning of October 7, and the Israeli war aimed at eliminating Hamas’ rule in Gaza as well as its military capabilities, constitutes a strategic turning point in the regional environment as a whole, and in the Palestinian arena specifically. But this turn holds a historic opportunity for the authority, as well as for Israel, which is reshaping reality to be free of any “terrorist threats” in its vicinity. The Palestinian Authority, in the face of what is happening in the recent period, is oscillating between the options of supporting the resistance of Hamas – the political opponent of Fatah and its rival in the leadership of the Palestinian arena – and containing the escalation between the Israeli army and the activists of the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank, as well as the dilemma of acting as a ruling political actor worthy of taking over to rule in the Gaza Strip again, but without appearing the appearance of “cooperative” with Israel.
The report does not ignore the existing data in the West Bank, which shape the political reality in it, as it indicates in detail that several factors constitute an obstacle to the authority and destabilise its rule in the West Bank, which are as follows: 1- The weakness and sagging of the authority; 2- Strikes witnessed by the Palestinian street against it; 3- Army operations against resistance cells in the West Bank; 4- Escalating violence and extremism of settlers against Palestinians; 5- Israeli financial deductions from clearing funds; 6- Preventing the entry of workers into Israel. These factors are working to destabilise the authority and threaten its rule. The report indicates that the authority is trying to confront it with the following three mechanisms so far: 1- Restricting the “organisation” – the armed military wing of Fatah and preventing its involvement in confrontation with Israel; 2- Stopping protests and large demonstrations in the West Bank; 3- Security coordination with Israel.
Based on the report’s view, these steps taken by the authority do not appear to be effective and are able to create a stabilisation of the authority in light of the constraining factors that have been pointed out. Therefore, it is required for Israel to express its desire to maintain the stability of the authority and work to strengthen its role and stability, and to base this with a number of steps put forward in the report as recommendations that Israel must take into account in order to strengthen the authority and enhance its stability in the West Bank, and later, to assume responsibility for the Gaza Strip after the war: 1- Expanding the entry of Palestinian workers to vital sectors of the Israeli economy will have positive economic effects for Israel; 2- Working to reduce the crimes and attacks of extremist settlers in the West Bank; 3- Setting a timetable or arrangement for the entry of funds to the Palestinian Authority.
Given the perceptions presented above (the two perceptions are at their maximum), it can be said that Israeli research and thinking institutes, perhaps not alone, have not already left the security-political “perception” that has governed their behaviour in dealing with the Palestinian question for more than a decade. In the first scenario, Israel is reproducing itself as an occupying state once again seeking to “resolve” the Palestinian cause by returning to pre-Oslo, which has become a dilemma that Israel must get rid of. In the second scenario, it seems clear that criticism of the political-security experience of Benjamin Netanyahu did not push the report’s authors to get out of this perception, but rather, at its best, beautify the “conflict management” by putting forward a “non-political” or “pre-political” conception of the Palestinian file that deepens its connection with Israel as a colonial state.
Between Oslo and Oct. 7 (Netanyahu’s statements)
Despite the (sometimes) (substantial) differences between the official political position and what is published by Israeli research and thinking institutes, a broad line can be touched in both positions. Netanyahu, as well as the institutes of research and thinking, still believe that the most appropriate way to manage the Palestinian file is to “manage the conflict” and not to solve it, with a complete disattion of the motives and factors that lead to the war, foremost of which is the continuation of the occupation, therefore, all the perceptions developed (of which we have reviewed only two tracks) do not leave the “perception” that is short of understanding the Palestinian issue as a political issue and the right of a people to self-determination. In junction with the above, Benjamin Netanyahu stated that “Oslo is the mother of sins” reciting to it all the “security threats and risks” that Israel currently faces, including the threat of Hamas, and this also does not seem far from trying to bring himself back to the forefront by escaping forward and adopting a radical position on the Oslo agreement and the Palestinian Authority that came under this agreement. The return to Oslo and the attribution of all the “evil” to which Israel has suffered to the agreement, despite the loss of any logic for many reasons, reinforces the suspicion that Netanyahu is already starting his next election campaign amid the ongoing war, by installing himself the only person who can prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state as it has always boasted in the past and to rein efforts to reunify the West Bank and Gaza geographically and politically.
This research was published in Arabic by The Palestinian Centre for Israeli Studies (Madar) is an independent research center specializing in Israeli affairs, based in the city of Ramallah.
The English translation is by Apple.