Palestine and Palestinians

The past few days have again shown that the Palestinians’ two governments – the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip – are doing their utmost to silence and intimidate Palestinian journalists who criticize them or report about their repressive measures and financial corruption. It is no secret that the Palestinians do not have a free media. The media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is controlled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

On July 30, thousands of Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip took to the streets to protest harsh living conditions and a shortage of power and gas. The protests, held under the banner “We want to live!“, reflected growing discontent among the Palestinians against the Iranian-backed Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip through a violent and bloody coup in the summer of 2007.

At the same time as the Palestinians were demonstrating in the Gaza Strip, armed clashes erupted in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, where at least 11 people were killed, including a senior Palestinian security official, and several others were injured.

While anti-Israel activism on US campuses has increased over the past two years, no one seems interested in what is happening on the campuses of Palestinian universities in the West Bank. Students are being arrested and tortured by the security forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The activists leading the anti-Israel campaigns in the US appear so blinded by their hatred for Israel that they are unwilling to help the Palestinians whom they so profess to care about by commenting that the PA security forces are cracking down on Palestinian university students. Even if the anti-Israel activists are made aware that Palestinian students living under the PA are being hauled off and tortured by their own leaders, they are not likely to speak out because there is no way to blame Israel or hold it responsible.

Under the kleptocratic Palestinian Authority (PA) and the theocratic Hamas regimes, Palestinians have no freedom of speech and no independent or free media.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under two regimes that crack down on critics, and imprison and intimidate journalists, human rights activists and political opponents. Those who dare to criticize the Palestinian Authority or Hamas often face various forms of punishment, including torture and incarceration.

A report published on September 18 revealed that 638 Palestinians have been tortured to death by Syrian intelligence officers in the past few years. The victims include 37 women, according to the report by the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS), a human rights watchdog that monitors the situation of Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria.

The group called on the Syrian authorities to disclose the status of hundreds of Palestinians who are being held in Syrian prisons and whose fate remains unknown. “What is happening inside the Syrian detention centers against the Palestinians is a war crime by all standards,” it said.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on August 27 that he is concerned about the condition of Palestinians who are being held in Israeli prisons. He described the prisoners, many of whom have been convicted of carrying out or involvement in attacks against Israel and Israeli citizens, as “freedom fighters” and announced that the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people will continue to support them “until they gain their freedom.”

On the same day that Abbas made his remarks, a committee representing the families of Palestinian prisoners held in Palestinian Authority (PA) prisons called for holding a protest in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinians’ de facto capital.

The Palestinians are disappointed: their Arab brothers have stopped providing them with financial aid. The truth is that most of the Arab countries long ago turned their backs on the Palestinians. They can only blame themselves for ruining their relations with the rest of the Arab world.

It is ironic that while the European Union recently announced its decision to resume unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians, the Arab countries continue to completely ignore the Palestinians. It is also ironic that while the Biden administration continues to talk about providing financial aid to the Palestinians, the Arab countries do not seem to care at all about their Palestinian brothers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.