(ZENIT News – TerraSantaNet / Jerusalem, 09.01.2025).- A few weeks ago, armed men stole two vehicles in Jenin of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). One belonged to the Police and the other to the Ministry of Agriculture. The robbery was in response to the arrest of a man engaged in money transfers, suspicious of giving funds to the Islamic Jihad. Not only did the thieves refuse to return the stolen vans, but they drove triumphally through the streets of the Refugee Camp flying the Jihad flag and shooting in the air. Angered by the open challenge and desirous of demonstrating that the PNA would be able to manage the Gaza Strip in case of a truce, President Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) ordered to enter the Refugee Camp and arrest the armed militiamen. Hence, on December 14, the largest round of arrests took place in ten years, leaving two militiamen dead, in one of the main Palestinian cities of the West Bank. The incident has its own relevance in the struggle that the Palestinian Authority, with its popularity in tatters, is waging to be able to sit at a possible negotiations table with Israel if and when the Gulf monarchies, together with the United States and the European Union, are able to impose a truce.
Throughout 2024, several countries, such as Ireland, Spain and Norway, formally recognized the State of Palestine. Today, 149 countries do so, in addition to States such as Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Great Britain, which have expressed their willingness to do so. Since 2012, when the UN General Assembly recognized the Palestinian Authority as a non-member Observer State, the PNA has signed almost 200 Treaties and has adhered to numerous unilateral bodies. However, international recognition does not solve the problems on the ground: the continuous expansion of Jewish colonies in the Occupied Territories (which did not cease during 2024); the fragmentation of the Palestinian territories between the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem; the difficulties of guaranteeing order and security in the areas controlled by the Palestinians, and the corruption that has brought the Palestinian Public Administration to its knees.
Hence, the man problem is that, although international recognition carries weight from the political point of view, in itself it does not bring concrete benefits to the Palestinians: the Israeli Government’s actions to demolish the PNA’s finances have led the organization to the edge of insolvency and today, the World Bank warns, the Palestinian Authority is closer to financial collapse than it has never been since the Second Intifada (2000-2005).
On the other hand, the financial limitations are only one of the reasons of the bad governance of the Palestinian Authority: corruption and authoritarianism have made the PNA’s popularity plummet. In the areas it controls almost totally (the A and B Zones established 30 years ago by the Oslo Agreements and which now encompass around 40% of the West Bank), the PNA is only able to guarantee partially services to residents and, at this point, not even security. For years a growing number of armed bands have challenged the unmotivated and badly paid Palestinian Police Forces in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem. The last survey carried out in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in September 2024 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, the largest Palestinian demographic institute with headquarters in Ramallah, showed a significant decrease in the support of the October 7, 2023 attack (from 52% in the previous survey to 39% in September) and the expectations that Hamas can “win” the war (from 48% to 28%). Support has also decreased for Hamas to control the Gaza Strip when the war ends: only 37% of Gazans think this is possible (as opposed to the 70% of Palestinians of the West Bank), whereas 42% of Gazans think that the administration should be in the hands of the Palestinian Authority, as opposed to 17% in the Territories. Finally, the survey showed a significant increase of consensus in favour of the Two-State solution: now it is 39% between the West Bank and Gaza, as opposed to the 32% of the first semester, but the percentage increases to 51% if the 1967 borders are included. There is also a decrease of support to armed struggle and a significant increase in consensus in favour of negotiations.
The fact is that a signature is not sufficient for the Palestinian Authority to go from being a provisional body to an entity that can represent a permanent State. The risk that Palestine might be born as a failed State is realistic in this serious situation of disfunction and inefficiency, economic insolvency and popular de-legitimization: the inability to at least guarantee order and security could favour the rise of armed criminal organizations in different areas of the West Bank, as happened during the Second Intifada. To avoid such a scenario should be above all a concern of the State of Israel and of those who are concerned as well about its future.
The most urgent measure to stabilize the construction process of the Palestinian State is to respond to the financial emergency. Mohammad Mustafa, the Palestinian Prime Minister designated last February, has requested US$2,700 million to reestablish the cash flow at least until mid 2025, but this fund is a temporal cover and only with the aid of international actors will it yield concrete results.
“The ceasefire should have taken place a long time ago,” said Khaled Khiari, senior official of the UN General Secretariat, on Wednesday, December 18 at the UN Security Council. “The collective punishment of the Palestinian people and the incessant bombing of Gaza are unjustifiable: the continuation of the occupation also in the West Bank, where settlements are illegitimate and violate International Law, will only lead to more hatred and antagonism and sow seeds of instability throughout the region,” he said.
Translation of the Italian original into Spanish by ZENIT’s Editorial Director and, into English, by Virginia M. Forrester
