Fratricide Amid Genocide
Colmcille Dearg explores the meaning of the recent Palestinian Authority raids in Jenin.
The last few weeks, beginning December 14th, have seen deadly raids imposed on the Jenin camp in the Northen Occupied West Bank, with martyrs including the child Mohammad al-Amer and wanted resistance commander Yazid Ja'ayseh. These scenes are sadly not unusual for the camps in general or Jenin, from this past summer’s ‘battle of the camps’ dating back to the second intifada. However, what is unusual about this raid is the perpetrators – namely the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces and not the Zionist occupation’s army. This fratricidal violence is the latest in a dangerous pattern of escalation between Mahmood Abbas’s PA clique and the popular resistance movements, exposing contradictions within the Palestinian liberation movement being exploited by imperialist forces worthy of closer examination
Figure 1 PA security forces in Jenin this past week. Source: Al Jazeera
Firstly, an understanding of the actors is needed. The PA was established in the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords, touted as the first steps towards a Palestinian state. With sovereignty over the Gaza strip and to varying degrees certain areas of the West Bank. The West Bank was divided into Area A, nominally under full PA civilian and security control, Area B under PA civil control with Zionist security control and Area C under complete Zionist control. This is all of course de jure, with de facto control of all aspects of life within the Occupied West Bank resting in the hands of the occupation, but an exploration of this reality lies outwith the scope of this article.
Spearheaded by Arafat, the Ramallah based PA initiative was always divisive within Palestinian society, divisions that grew following the election of Fatah member Mahmood Abbas as PA president in the wake of Arafat’s death and the botched coup in Gaza following the Hamas movement’s victory in the 2007 election. Notably there has not been presidential elections held since Abbas’s initial victory in 2005, and whatever good will the PA enjoyed from Palestinian society in the early days has long been dashed, with the Ramallah based apparatchiks viewed as corrupt and detached elites, who line their own pockets through backroom business deals and a web of NGO’s. This is best summed up by a Nablusi Palestine People’s Party cadre who decries ‘the Ramallah night is deep red, not from the blood of the martyrs who fell in defence of the land and of our honour, but from the doings of the knights of chatter and greedy chiefs vying for power and a piece of the cake. ‘
In stark contrast in nearly every facet lies the Jenin Brigades. Coming to prominence in 2022 and comprised of mainly young men from the impoverished camp, the brigades are firstly notable for their lack of factional strife – drawing support and volunteers from diverse groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the communist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and notably the Nationalist Al-Aqsa Martyrs , an offshoot of Fatah who reject the Oslo ‘peace’ process. This iron clad focus on national liberation is further evidenced by their insistence that their rifles are pointed solely at the occupation and not opposing factions or indeed normally the PA. Collectively they embody and profit from their character as a true people’s army engaged in struggle for national liberation – both on a tactical level using their intimate knowledge of the tightly organised camp to conduct complex and deadly confrontations with the occupier and societally they enjoy widespread support from local residents, who have over the course of this raid engaged in a general strike.
Figure 2: A December 14th demonstation in Jenin to support the resistance. Source: The Cradle
The PA security forces have earned their reputation as the Zionist ‘security sub-contractor’ from groups such as the Jenin Brigades through infrequent raids, kidnappings of resistance members and sabotage of pre laid ambushes. The frequency and intensity of this ‘enforcement’ has grown over the course of the Al-Aqsa flood battle, despite popular demonstrations, calls from all movements for escalation against the occupier across Palestine and the reconciliation talks hosted in Moscow and Beijing earlier this year resulting in the issuance of joint agreement calling for ‘comprehensive national unity under the PLO framework’. This significant and positive step from Beijing however has been undermined by Abbas’s cliques’ escalation into what now seems to be a verifiable attack dog of the occupation, decried by Hamas spokesperson Abdul-Rahman Shadeed as ‘inviting internal strife’, adding that they ‘must strengthen the national cause, not target field leaders in the West Bank.’
Figure 3: Representative of 14 the Palestinian factions who signed the Beijing Declaration. Source: Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs
These words and indeed actions of the Jenin resistance, initially refusing to detonate explosives underneath PA vehicles to avoid deaths, show a willingness to reach national unity and not entrench existing divisions. Indeed, this has been heeded by certain elements of the PA’s own security service who have engaged in resistant acts such as Fatah member and former Presidential Guard Muhannad al-Asood who shot dead 3 members of the occupation’s army in September before his martyrdom. The appeals of the resistance are directed to people like this and not toward the PA security apparatus as an institution. The character of which is best explained by an examination of its supporters: the US provides training of a special force specifically to target Jenin and Nablus; the PA requests weapons transfer via the U.S ambassador to ‘tel aviv’ be approved by the Zionist occupation; and most damningly the openness of the IDF to increase co-operation and co-ordination with the PA. Further reinforcing this is the concurrent occupation’s assassinations of resistance fighters in Tulkarem and raids on surrounding villages, it could be argued the PA security forces are in fact acting as relief for the exhausted and weakened IDF divisions.
This lays bare the comprador status of the PA under Abbas, like historic comprador regimes from Rhee’s Republic of Korea to the emergent HTS led Syria which has so far refused to even condemn Zionist incursion. They quite happily sell national sovereignty to ensure the survival of their own fiefdom. This possibility has long been outlined by Marxist groupings in the Palestinian resistance who quite bluntly, and evidently correctly, state ‘Since our battle against Israel is at the same time a battle against imperialism, this class will stand by its own interests, that is, with imperialism against the revolution’ (the Popular Front’s, Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine).
Figure 4: A Nov 10th Funeral of a Resistance member strongly attended by camp residents. Source: Andalou Agency
And what do we in the West do with this information? Despite the blatantly traitorous and collaborationist approach of the PA leadership, it is clear that the wider resistance movement is keen to pursue a comprehensive and unified national front. Evidence of this can be seen in the statements of Hamas, the PFLP and others in welcoming the recognition of Palestinian statehood and opening of PA staffed embassies by states such as Norway, Ireland and Spain. The future governance and direction of a liberated Palestine is quite frankly a matter for Palestinians, and the diverse nature of a grouping such as the Jenin brigades show us that any one in the trenches is an ally. However we must remain on guard, that in our messaging and indeed who we look to for direction in our movements, we look toward the authentic and steadfast resistance. Those that carry the flame of the fedayeen, the intifadas and now the Al Aqsa flood are who we must take guidance from – and as this latest episode shows us, it is the organic and popular movements arising from the masses such as the Jenin brigades that carry this flame and not a comprador bourgeois Palestinian Authority.