Analyst: Palestinian Leadership Behind ‘Spontaneous’ Attacks

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas are responsible for supporting and directing current attacks against Israelis, civilian and soldier alike, according to a recent article by Middle East analyst Jonathan Halevi (Nov. 29, 2015, “The ‘Spontaneous Intifada’ Is Orchestrated by the Palestinian Leadership”).

Halevi, a former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Lt. Colonel and currently a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, argues that Palestinian Arab attacks since September, using knives, vehicles and guns, are not “spontaneous.” The analyst says that despite Palestinian leadership attempts to portray the violence as “a kind of popular, spontaneous struggle,” it is in fact orchestrated, noting: “It is a Palestinian strategy that has been seen before.”

Halevi says both West Bank Palestinian leadership including the PA, the Fatah movement that dominates the authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Gaza Strip and Palestinian leadership, under Hamas, are responsible. This sponsorship, he argues, has clear goals.

The PA wants to “use it as a tool to achieve its political objectives, which include compelling Israel to withdraw from Judea, Samaria, and east Jerusalem under international pressure.”

The former IDF Lt. Col. notes that Hamas Political Bureau member Mousa Abu Marzook described the anti-Jewish violence as an “effective instrument for achieving political objectives.”

Marzook argued that the first intifada (uprising) in December 1987 led to the Oslo accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. The second intifada, occurring from 2000 until 2005, preceded Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and Israel’s construction of a security fence, the latter of which to Marzook, “symbolizes the end of the Zionist endeavor.”

The goals of the latest intifada, according to the Hamas leader are forcing Israel to withdrawal from Judea, Samaria, the release of Palestinian Arab prisoners and lifting the Israel blockade of Gaza—currently in place to prevent the smuggling of weapons and terrorist supplies.

Marzook’s remarks were made at the General Arab Conference to Support the intifada, held in Beirut on Nov. 20, 2015. Officials from the PA and Fatah attended along with Hamas leaders like Marzook.

Halevi notes that these officials adopted resolutions at the conference calling for an “all-out war” against Israel until the Jewish state is destroyed.

Resolutions at the conference called for an end to rivalries between Hamas and Fatah and for pursuing a joint strategy based on the intifada—with the shared goal being to “liberate all the occupied land [Israel].” The committee’s resolutions also call for the implementation of the PLO Central Committee’s March 2015 resolution, which advocated ending security cooperation with Israel.

Security cooperation between Israel and the PA is the result of the 1990s Oslo peace process that created the PA and allowed the PLO, previously designated a terror group by the U.S. and others, to relocate from Tunisia and establish limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Halevi says that the closing declaration of the Beirut conference makes clear the current outbreak of violence, “seeks to make it less costly for the IDF to withdraw from Jerusalem and the territories than to keep fighting both the intifada itself and international opinion…the Palestinians were already benefiting from the tension between Israel and the United States and Europe, which weaken Israel.”