West Bank protests show that Abbas’ diplomacy has collapsed -
By Amira Hass | Jul. 26, 2014 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.607327
Since Thursday evening, tens of thousands of West Bank Palestinians have taken part in demonstrations aimed at expressing rage, mourning and muqawama (resistance) — also the word used for the armed resistance to Israel in the Gaza Strip. Nine protesters have been killed and hundreds more wounded, hit by plastic-tipped or live bullets fired by Israeli troops.
In the hospitals where casualties from the demonstrations have been treated, people say the scenes remind them of the first intifada. The mood is similar, too: grief and shock over the images from Gaza, next to a spiritual uplift and a sense that the barrier of indifference has been broken.
Notably missing have been the field activists who could unite the Palestinian factions and direct the protests toward an action plan, the way activists from the PLO’s member groups did in the first intifada, leveraging demonstrations into a popular uprising. At a time when everyone is marveling about Hamas’ military planning in Gaza, the lack of political-civil planning among the various leadership groups is striking.
Demonstrations and clashes with the Israel Defense Forces have taken place simultaneously over the past three days in Hebron, Beit Omar, the Aruv refugee camp, Beit Fajr, Al Walaja, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bil’in, Nebi Salah, Salfit, Qalqilyah, Tul Karm, Beit Furiq, Hawara, Nablus and Jenin. Only last week the Palestinian police used force in an attempt to keep protesters in a few cities from reaching army roadblocks in order to confront the soldiers.
The anger with the police and the worry that protesters would demonstrate near the home of Mahmoud Abbas or other symbols of the Palestinian Authority made it clear to the president’s advisers that the balance of forces had shifted against him. Now it’s the PLO leaders who are calling for demonstrations against “the terror of the occupation.” The leaders did not take the lead, they were led.
The West Bank protests say clearly that Abbas’ diplomatic concept has collapsed. His Fatah movement is headed for bankruptcy if it continues to be associated with the Palestinian security forces, which are seen as agents of Israel.
The PLO and Fatah leaders are often big on making declarations about the need for national unity; that is, for determining strategy with the Islamic organizations not in the PLO. They do this to avoid a situation in which an armed group could impose its will on the entire Palestinian people without a mandate to do so, to allow for real debate on the failures of the diplomatic route over the past 20 years, and to officially end Abbas’ one-man rule.
But this sort of unity now seems distant and all but unattainable. Hamas’ political voice is being silenced by its military voice, and the organization’s political goals and demands are unclear.
Given this vacuum, the West Bank protests could go in either of two directions: a return to futility due to a lack of trust in the results and confusion about the aims, or the co-opting of the demonstrations by armed groups in an effort to “imitate” Gaza.
In firing live bullets at the protesters immediately, and in the absence of a danger to soldiers’ lives, the IDF seems to be counting on suppressing the protests by force, until the next round.