.webp)
Analysis
Jenin then. Jenin now. The weakness of
Palestinian security forces is the key difference
Peter
Beaumont
Marginalisation of Palestinian Authority has led to a
new generation of militants who cannot be controlled
Mon 3 Jul
2023 14.07 BST
Jenin 21
years ago. Jenin today. In 2002, it was attack helicopters hovering above the
West Bank city’s refugee camp over a week of brutal fighting. The new offensive
has been led by drone strikes as Israeli soldiers entered the city, reducing
the centre of the camp to rubble.
Scenes
still stand out from that fighting two decades ago. Journalists standing in the
olive groves outside the camp and watching a hovering helicopter fire into the
streets. A woman sitting in the first floor room of a house whose front had
been sliced off. A man in a wheelchair trying to cross a debris field of
shattered buildings.
When the
smoke had cleared in what became known as the Battle of Jenin in 2002, more
than 50 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers were dead, 13 of them killed in a
single ambush trying to fight through the booby-trapped streets.
The current
Israeli military operation is being described as the biggest in the West Bank
since Israeli troops went into Palestinian cities during the second intifada,
surrounding Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, and putting the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem under siege. Those were violent days in the West Bank,
when Israeli tanks were on streets noisy with gun battles with angry funerals
to follow.
But Jenin
and the wider West Bank have changed in the past two decades, with the steady
marginalisation by Israel of the western-backed Palestinian Authority, which
has given way to a new generation of militants who cannot be controlled.
Israeli
officials have said the present assault, with 2,000 troops deployed, could last
for days.
If it seems
familiar that’s because it is. Once again armoured bulldozers are pushing their
way into the camp, with snipers on rooftops in an operation that was approved
10 days ago.
Then, as
now, Jenin’s refugee camp was a place where the writ of Palestinian security
forces was considered weak.
The assault
in 2002 occurred a few days after a Palestinian suicide bombing during a large
gathering for the Jewish holiday of Passover, killing 30 people.
Monday’s
raid came two weeks after another violent confrontation in Jenin and after the
military said a rocket was fired from the area last week.
“There has
been a dynamic here around Jenin for the last year,” Israeli spokesperson Lt
Col Richard Hecht said, defending Monday’s tactics. “It’s been intensifying all
the time.”
If there is
a difference, it is that during the second intifada, Palestinian security
forces and fighters associated with senior Palestinian figures were drawn into
the escalating violence. In this cycle of violence, it has been the absence of
Palestinian security forces that has contributed to the recent escalation.
The level
of armed resistance from within the camp during the last major Israeli raid in
June caught Israel unaware, with videos showing an explosion that wounded seven
of its soldiers and helicopters and drone strikes deployed to rescue injured
troops.
That led to
pressure from Israeli politicians on the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,
whose government is dominated by West Bank settlers and their supporters for a
“large-scale operation” across the occupied West Bank.
It was an
incident that underlined Netanyahu’s weakness. The years in which his
governments have undermined and marginalised the Palestinian Authority as both
a plausible peace partner and a viable government, allied with his association
with emboldened far-right settler groups, has contributed to the growing vacuum
in Palestinian society on the West Bank.
That has
emboldened the armed groups in Jenin and other cities, including Nablus, as a
new generation has become disaffected with the Palestinian Authority.
But
Netanyahu has been weakened in other ways, perhaps explaining the timing of
this offensive. Facing large scale protests over his controversial judicial
reform bill, which restarted its legislative process on Sunday, he might hope
for a show of strength as a distraction, amid calls from some political figures
to suspend demonstrations amid the operation.
One thing
is clear, however. Revisiting large scale violence on Jenin and other
Palestinian cities – as the experience of Gaza has amply demonstrated – will
not solve the long-term and toxic issues of occupation and settlement building.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário