If Palestinians are annihilated, though, it will be because of Israel’s genocide carried out with the full complicity of the international community, especially the US, UK and Europe. So, what message is Fatah trying to convey?
Since the beginning of the genocide, the discrepancy between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas was made more evident by the former’s insistence that it will govern Gaza when Israel is finished destroying the enclave. The international community was swift to latch on to the idea; after all, there has been no greater advocate of the two-state compromise than PA leader Mahmoud Abbas himself.
Moreover, working towards a hypothetical scenario with the PA in charge of Gaza does not disrupt the international community’s state-building and humanitarian paradigms.
Israel’s genocide, however, has altered everything.
In the absence of real political action against Israel, the international community has not come up with an alternative to genocide. Repeating worn out condemnations and reminding Israel that its actions are contrary to international law have not provided any protection for Palestinians in Gaza and, increasingly, in the West Bank. What affected the outcome – more genocidal bombings and killing of civilians by Israel, including 15,613 children to date – was the international community’s decision to blame Hamas, ignore the role of Israel’s settler-colonialism and uphold the occupation state’s false security narrative.
And in Israel’s narrative, as well as that of the international community, Hamas is the obstacle to security and, therefore, the obstacle to Palestinians’ protection. Hamas has not been around since 1948, however. Israel has, though, and therein lies the security problem. A colonial entity occupying stolen land is by definition an act of aggression, and thus a threat to security. Israel has been killing and oppressing Palestinians for decades, not only since October 2023. World leaders cannot pretend not to know how colonialism functions; how it terrorises the indigenous people and how it steals land.
After all, the world’s greatest powers are all experts in tried and tested colonial tactics.
Likewise, Fatah is no stranger to the workings of colonial politics. However, it has chosen to abandon its roots and align itself with the oppressive, external impositions that refuse to recognise the legitimacy of anti-colonial resistance. Which means that Palestinians are experiencing a betrayal from within, because blaming anti-colonial resistance for Palestinian annihilation is straight out of the Israeli narrative and state terrorism handbook.
Fatah’s issue is the question of governance and finance to run a faux government. In his meeting with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, Abbas requested, among other diplomatic and humanitarian needs, “the Palestinian Authority’s assumption of full responsibility in the Gaza Strip, and [the EU’s] support for the Palestinian government’s reform efforts and its funding.” We are yet to see any “reform efforts”, and I for one am not holding my breath.
However, blaming Hamas is, in Fatah’s narrative, essential for the PA’s survival. Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza are the backdrop that accentuate Fatah’s demands. But if Fatah is so concerned that the resistance movement is endangering Palestinians, why did Abbas keep postponing the elections? Palestinians could have chosen their own representatives in a democratic process that might have swayed resistance against colonial rule in a different direction.
Abbas chose repression to stay in power, not to mention violence and collaboration with the Israeli occupation forces. How can the PA with its fake “compassion” guarantee safety for Palestinians in Gaza, when it cannot even guarantee it for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank due to its allegiance with Israel and the international community?
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