Where has the security coordination with the occupation state reached?
We have become accustomed in recent years to statements and actions by Palestinian Authority officials that have crossed red lines, even those they set themselves, and have also exceeded the agreed national agenda and departed from the Palestinian national consensus. What we have been observing for at least two months has surpassed all permissible limits, and the recent orders issued to some security agencies, along with disgraceful statements broadcast by media figures affiliated with the top of the authority hierarchy, coinciding with the Zionists' escalation of their campaign on Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy City, have exceeded all our expectations.
The dangerous transgressions began with the failed campaign from the presidential kitchen to abort the PLO by attempting to hold a national council away from all laws and national customs. The methods and tricks used clearly showed that these individuals follow an agenda unrelated in any way to the supreme national interest. Fortunately for the Palestinian people, this attempt was aborted, at least initially, though we are fully convinced they will not surrender but will seize the next opportunity to push their project, the American-Zionist operations room plan to eliminate the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by marginalizing the PLO and its institutions, dismantling what remains, and turning the Zionist-Palestinian conflict from a political existential struggle into a humanitarian economic problem solved by appeasing the oppressed party with meager material crumbs.
These days, we face another shameful scene from the kitchen theater. Authoritarian security forces are deployed by orders from above to confront Palestinian masses and national factions protesting in the streets of Palestinian cities against the crimes of the Zionist occupation and its criminal acts against our people's sanctities, nation, and their defenseless children and sons. How do we understand this rush and destructive slide? Is it a slip or a new strategy for the authority’s hierarchy and its cooks?
This is not the first time Palestinian security forces confront their own people in the streets of occupied Palestine. Attempts by security agencies to prevent demonstrations of all kinds, whether against the occupation, authority actions, or division, have a long history reaching its peak during the first Zionist war on Gaza. Despite this shameful history of security agencies' behavior, it is a grave and unforgivable mistake to hold security personnel responsible for what happened. We must realize a clear truth: security personnel and most of their leadership do not act without political orders from above. The political leadership of the Palestinian Authority bears full responsibility for these disgraceful acts by some security agencies. Security personnel are part of the struggling Palestinian people with families and a history of resistance. I am fully convinced that the vast majority are resentful and unhappy about what they are forced to do, but their families' livelihood and their children's fate depend on their jobs in security agencies, and they face a daily conflict between their job, family sustenance, and noble national duty.
What the Palestinian Authority leadership is doing is not a new strategy in dealing with the worsening tragic situation in occupied Palestine. It is also not political confusion as some claim. The authority’s suppression of popular anger and pursuit of 'troublemakers' among activists, resistance factions, and journalists is a full embodiment and implementation of security coordination with the occupation, yielding to the wishes of donor countries who give instructions to the authority and its leaders through their men in Ramallah.
In our opinion, and not alone, but also the opinion of many Palestinian, Arab, and foreign experts, the security coordination, which President Mahmoud Abbas has sanctified and placed above all agreed national interests, has become the suffocating nightmare and tight restraint on the Palestinian national movement and its struggle against the Zionist occupation. It is obvious that any leadership of a people has the right to adopt the strategy it deems appropriate to achieve its political goals within its vision of reality, and the people judge this leadership and evaluate its strategy through elections. This is the normal situation in democratic and semi-democratic systems, but in occupied Palestine, we are light years away from this reality.
The Palestinian leadership, from the presidency and its legislative council, has lost its legitimacy, as the Palestinian constitution sees it, years ago. Despite their throne on the authority without referendum or accountability, and despite this blatant constitutional breach, they have not even tried to explain their 'strategy' in dealing with 'their friends' to their people. President Mahmoud Abbas and his kitchen have limited themselves to saying: security coordination is sacred!! More than that, none of them has explained to the people over all these years what really happens in security coordination with the occupation, what its limits are if any, and what benefits this coordination brings while the occupation sits heavily on our people's chests and steals from our land!
No need for the reader to be a political or security expert to understand the reality of security coordination. Everyone knows these coordination sessions are not casual coffee chats between the two sides. A quick look at the websites of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of War, and army intelligence sites like 'Walla' allows anyone to clearly see what really happens within security coordination. Since 2011, more than 320 sessions are held annually between the Zionist and Palestinian sides, averaging one session per day excluding holidays. In these sessions, according to Israeli data, about 1100 security operations are coordinated annually.
Security coordination, as known in international relations, is a political-security tool to document general security and stability between two friendly states by exchanging security information concerning both countries and their interests. It is also a preventive tool to deter escalation and intensification of conflict between two entities in a truce state or ongoing war. The question here is: which case applies to occupied Palestine and its neighbor Zionist Israel?
If we consider President Mahmoud Abbas's statements about 'his Israeli friends' as mere sweet talk to ease tensions between adversaries, then we must conclude that occupied Palestine and Israel are two states without true friendship or partnership, and their national interests conflict. This is an obvious conclusion for the general Palestinian people, and the realistic result is that any security coordination between them contradicts the supreme national interest. However, I doubt this is an obvious conclusion for a considerable number of men at the top of the authority hierarchy.
The second hypothetical scenario for the basis of security coordination is that occupied Palestine and its people are in conflict and war with the usurping state, Israel, but the two entities signed a truce agreement requiring security coordination to prevent the security situation from escalating into open conflict between their military forces, which would cause loss of lives and destruction of infrastructure on both sides. If we consider the Oslo Agreement a truce agreement on the way to a full peace agreement, then the truce, according to international standards, should mean stopping and freezing hostile acts in various forms during this period. The reality in occupied Palestine shows a different picture. During the 'truce' starting in 1993, Israel launched four wars on occupied Palestine (three on Gaza Strip and one on the West Bank), destroyed entire sectors, killed thousands of Palestinians, confiscated vast lands, settled inside occupied territories, plundered natural resources, kidnapped thousands of defenseless Palestinians, and imprisoned them outside their homeland. All these are breaches of any agreement we might call a 'truce agreement' and violations of all international charters. We conclude from these facts that Israel does not consider there is a truce agreement with Palestine, so the question must be asked to President Abbas and his kitchen: Why do you still cling to an agreement repeatedly violated from its first hours? Why do you still cling to security coordination with it? Why do you confront every military and popular attempt to resist the occupation?
These are legitimate questions I believe run through the mind of every Palestinian and every supporter of the Palestinian people and their cause.
