Palestinian Analyst: PA Security Forces Will Join Upcoming Terror Campaigns as They Have in the Past

The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s security services, which are funded and trained by the US, have played an active role in terrorism in the past.

Moreover, their current role in terror is “an important indication about the possibility that this group will participate [in the fighting] if a confrontation will develop in the West Bank.”

This assessment, reinforcing Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)’s repeated recent warnings, comes from Palestinian analyst Akram Al-Natsheh. He recognizes that just as the PA Security Forces were very active in terror during the five-year-long terror-intifada [2000-2005], and recently during the Nablus terror wave [2022-2023], they will continue to perpetrate terror in West Bank fighting in the future:

The participation of former or present Security [Forces] members [in operations] is no longer unusual … Recently, we have seen the participation of security members in operations … They provide an important indication about the possibility that this group will participate [in the fighting] if a confrontation will develop in the West Bank, like in the Al-Aqsa Intifada [i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005, more than 1,100 Israelis murdered] or like what we saw with armed groups such as the Lion’s Den in Nablus [i.e., independent terror cell], which relied on the Palestinian Security Forces members who resigned from their positions.” [emphasis added]

[Al Jazeera website, Palestinian publicist and political commentator Akram Al-Natsheh, March 22, 2024]

Fatah, which rules the PA, loves to boast about how many of its members are involved in terror. In January, an official Fatah spokesman said:

Today we are speaking about nearly 8,000 prisoners inside the occupation’s [i.e., Israel’s] prisons. More than half of the prisoners’ movement is from Fatah, and the remaining less than half are from the rest of the factions together.

This shows that Fatah still adheres to the benefit of the struggle, regardless of what will be. It has carried the flag of armed struggle, it carried the flag of popular resistance in the popular [first] Stone Intifada [i.e., Palestinian terror wave, approximately 200 Israelis murdered, 1987-1993], it returned to armed resistance in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, and today it is in favor of popular resistance [i.e., Palestinian term, includes use of violence and terror], and these strategies change and replace each other at every stage, but Fatah has not abandoned any one of its options. [emphasis added]

[Official Fatah Spokesman Abd Al-Fattah Doleh, Falestinona, YouTube channel, Jan. 1, 2024]

PMW, in its report Terrorists in Uniform, has documented this active role in terror by the PA. For example, Palestinian statistics themselves demonstrate that Fatah and the PA Security Forces have been playing a lead role in the recent terror wave against Israelis:

Director of Palestinian Center for Strategic Studies Muhammad Al-Masri: “More than roughly 63-65% of the number of Martyrs in the West Bank, in the daily confrontations, are members of the Fatah Movement.

And most of them are members of the [PA] Security Forces or their sons … The ones who are being pursued in the streets, arrested, and imprisoned are the Palestinian Security Forces officers.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, June 14, 2023]

Fatah has broadcasted similar statistics on its TV channel:

Fatah-run Awdah TV host: “More than two thirds of the Martyrs in the West Bank over [the last] year-and-a-half belong to the Fatah Movement and the PA … More than 355 of our Palestinian people’s prisoners inside the prisons are from the Palestinian [PA] Security Forces–in other words, the PA’s soldiers.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, May 27, 2023]

The PA is controlled by Fatah and by its own admission is synonymous with terror in the West Bank. Nevertheless, the US, UK, and many others in the West believe that the PA and its Security Forces are some sort of moderate element that work to prevent terror and thus should be the ones to receive control over the Gaza Strip on “the day after” the war.

Such beliefs could not be more mistaken. The PA and Fatah are deeply involved in terror and brag about it. Such an organization has no place taking the reins of power in Gaza.

Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.