Palestinians demand Abbas end security deal with Israel after 4 killed

RAMALLAH: Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in Ramallah and Jenin in a 12-hour period, with 15 Palestinians being arrested in the West Bank, leading to growing calls for President Mahmoud Abbas to end security coordination with Israel.
Public mourning was announced in Jenin for the victims killed at dawn on Thursday as the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the beginning of the year reached 164.
The bloodshed has pushed senior Fatah leaders to call on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to immediately halt security coordination with Israel, especially after the country’s election of a far right-wing government under Benjamin Netanyahu that has vowed to subject Palestinians to unprecedented punitive measures.
Abbas told Al Arabiya that “security coordination is part of the agreements, and we have a theory that combating terrorism should be done wherever it is (needed), and here is an important point that no one may know. We concluded agreements to combat terrorism and violence with 85 countries in the world, led by the US, UK, Canada, Russia and Japan.
“Today we signed an agreement with Cyprus; we are, in principle, against terrorism and violence. Also, with Israel, we are against terrorism and violence, but if Israel continues with its actions, why should I complete and be committed to the security agreement? I will cancel my commitment to the security agreement if Israel continues to strike casually.”
When asked why Palestinian security services fail to confront Israeli troops who storm Palestinian cities, Abbas said that the security services “work as much as they can, but I do not want matters to reach the point of armed confrontation (with the Israeli army).”
The Palestinian Authority has about 35,000 security personnel in the West Bank, including the Presidential Guard, National Security, General Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Preventive Security and Civil Police.
Palestinian political analyst Hani Al-Masri said on Facebook that Abbas is “confused and is confusing the world with him.”
He added: “He can abandon them (the security agreements with Israel) at any moment if the Israeli government continues to not abide by them.”
Abbas said that he would deal with the next government under Netanyahu, maintaining his position that “all Israeli governments are the same. All of them commit massacres.”
A Palestinian youth activist in Ramallah told Arab News: “There is no difference between a left-wing government and a right-wing government in Israel when it comes to killing Palestinians. Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a friend of Mahmoud Abbas, has overseen the killing of scores of Palestinians since the beginning of the year.”
Security experts told Arab News that due to Palestinian security coordination with Israel, recruitment in the state’s security forces has slumped over the past year.
Taysir Nasrallah, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council in Nablus, told Arab News that it has become “shameful and embarrassing for us as Palestinians and for the PA to continue security coordination in the face of the continuation of crimes and field executions of Palestinians by Israel.
“Security coordination must be stopped immediately, whatever the justifications for its continuation by the PA. It has become a personal demand for the sake of national dignity,” he said.
Nasrallah added that the issue was discussed during the Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting in Ramallah earlier this week.
Jamal Hweil, a member of the council from the Jenin refugee camp, told Arab News: “I advise Abbas to stop the security coordination immediately because the occupation has not and will not change its policy toward the Palestinians, and as (former Israeli premier) Ben-Gurion said, had it not been for the Deir Yassin massacre, there would have been no state called Israel.”
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when about 130 fighters from the Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi killed at least 107 Palestinian Arabs, including women and children, in Deir Yassin, a village of about 600 people near Jerusalem.
Hweil said that continuing security coordination with Israel means “giving the Israeli army bullets to shoot and kill the Palestinians.”
Ahmed Ghuneim, a prominent Fatah leader in East Jerusalem, told Arab News that the PA should have stopped security coordination long ago because “there is nothing left of the Oslo Accords but to participate in protecting Israel’s security.”
Ghuneim said that the desire of Palestinian officials to “remain in power” is behind the PA’s continued support for security coordination with Israel, despite the latter committing daily violence against Palestinians.