The horrific killing of the activist and outspoken critic Nizar Banat at the hands of Palestinian Authority security forces, and the subsequent brutal crackdown and arbitrary arrests of Palestinian protesters, activists, and journalists, have widened the debate among Palestinians about the PA’s place within Israel’s occupation regime.
What makes the latest debate particularly significant is that it has attracted a considerable segment of apolitical and depoliticized Palestinians. Illusionary slogans of “state-building” are being blatantly rejected by more and more Palestinians. On social media and in public discussions, it has become common to label the PA as “collaborators” and its security forces as the “guardian of Israeli settlements,” while ridiculing the success of the “national project” depicted by PA apologists. Perhaps most strikingly, much of the Palestinian public today openly perceives the PA as an extension of Israeli colonial rule that is incapable of advancing their struggle. And they are correct.
Established in 1994 under the Oslo Accords as an inter-elite accommodation between the Palestine Liberation Organization, Israel, and the latter’s Western partners, the PA
— source 972mag.com | Tariq Dana | Jul 25, 2021