Amira Hass. Why the West Bank did not rise up

Philippe Agret.–You are based in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Why, in your opinion, was there no intifada in the West Bank after October 7, even though there were violent armed clashes in the North?

Amira Hass.–This indeed is a crucial question, perhaps the question to be asked, and not only because Sinwar and Deif¹ imagined a major Palestinian revolt and a regional war against Israel, once they launched their grand military onslaught.

This question is in place because the reality that Israel has created in Gaza and the West Bank - before 7 October – was unbearable.

First, I would not call the presence of some dozens of armed young men in each of those northern refugee camps and their readiness to be instantly killed - an Intifada. Based on the first uprising that was named so (1987-1993), Intifada means a popular uprising, participation of all walks of life and therefore – something where arms and live ammunition are not the main feature, if at all. It also means a set of mind of internal solidarity, coordination and a clear goal. Armed resistance is always for the few, and mostly a very male and masculine phenomenon. At least in the Palestinian context. The goal of those groupings has never been clear, either.

“There is a taboo in Palestinian society: criticizing armed operations and martyrs”

If you are asking how come we did not see more groups of young armed men who would shoot here or there at a military position, an armored car or a settler - then it has to do with the strength of the two groups which have financed and encouraged the arming of young men : Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They are said to have been strong in the north of the West Bank, less so in the rest.

Second, in spite of the glory woven around those groups and the sentiments of compassion towards each martyr, I tend to believe that most people in the West Bank doubted the effectiveness of such groupings and their actions.

P.A.–Why people in the West Bank doubt ?

A.H.–There is a subject which is a taboo in the society : criticizing armed initiatives and martyrs. So the feelings of resentment and anger felt in those towns and refugee camps (that Israel demolished their buildings and infrastructure and uprooted around 40 000 residents ) vis a vis the armed groups - are not discussed or reported openly.

But I guess they do circulate and made known. In Balata refugee camp in Nablus the PA’s security agencies together with Fatah members (sometimes these are the same people) succeeded in convincing the armed men to leave the camp - if they were from outside – or give up their weapon. The people accepted the logic of such a position.

P.A.— Why have we never seen a nonviolent popular uprising as an alternative to armed struggle?

A.H.–The Oslo reality has disconnected the occupied from the occupier and placed a buffer entity between the two: the Palestinian Authority (PA). In order to start a project of mass civil disobedience one has first to call for the severance of the bureaucratic and security ties between the buffer and the occupier. In other words : to demand the PA act differently. Endless such demands and some resolutions of PLO central council – to stop security cooperation with Israel – were never listened to or implemented, respectively, by Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and his court.

The bureaucratic dimension of Palestinian cooperation with Israel is even more difficult to be challenged or stopped, as it concerns the very basics of people’s lives : getting an ID card, registering your new born kids, leaving abroad, opening a business and a bank account, importing and exporting… Such severance needs a careful planning, a united decision and the readiness of all the people to pro-actively prepare for huge sacrifices in their daily life.

Some years ago, Fatah member and ex-prisoner Qadura Fares – who is appreciated and loved by the rank and file but often fell out of grace of the top leadership - designed such a long plan of mass civil disobedience, but obviously he was not successful in convincing that it was possible.

During the 30 years of the A&B enclaves, Palestinians have had some “rest” from the occupier : in restricted areas, for restricted stretches of time. I call it the “logic of the bantustans”. It did make people used to some kind of limited comfort or limited normality, that they were not prepared to totally disrupt.

The ever multiplying and shrinking enclaves that Oslo and Israel have designed also fragmented the experience of life under the foreign hostile rule: each village or town experiences it differently, and finds or does not find its own ways to coop or resist. It was very clear during the resistance to the separation wall, by the early 2000’s : the demonstrations were not all-Palestinian, but of each village on its own, with the presence and assistance of international and Israeli activists. The fragmentation and distancing are also cognitive: it is difficult to imagine now a united, all-West-Bank preparation of a strategy. The internal solidarity is impaired.

“The brutality of Israeli repression of any attempt to resist is intimidating”

P.A.—It seems that part of the Palestinian population felt betrayed or abandoned by its leaders ?

A.H.–The so called leadership of course has no interest in a new strategy. It has become a nomenklatura, that identifies the “national cause” with its own stability and welfare. Larger circles around this nucleus of a nomenklatura – namely public employees and the business class - are dependent on it and cannot afford to or do not dare to disengage from it.

There is an official institution that is called “Colonization and wall resistance commission” which is mainly comprised of Fatah activists, on the payroll of the PA. They collect information, have a set of lawyers who represent citizens in issues of land theft (by Israel), and they organize solidarity and protection activities with communities threatened by settlers and the occupation bureaucracy. While there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the individuals involved – who are exposed to soldiers’ shooting, settlers’ violence and arrests– they have not been joined by masses of people. On the contrary, their identification with Fatah and PA is not appealing at all to the public. They are not known as the youth whose huge posters - with huge guns - hang all over the place, and who were killed by the army.

The brutality of Israeli repression of any attempt to resist is intimidating. And the brutality of Israeli repression, without relation to any form of resistance or opposition, is enormous and pervasive more than ever before. Especially under this ultraright wing coalition, especially after 7 October. For resisting it pro-actively the Palestinian collective needs to believe in the effectiveness, to have a trusted leadership that listens to the people and can lead it, and to have a clear common goal. All these are missing.

People may answer in opinion polls that they are in favour of an armed struggle, or that this is the only way to reach a solution, but in practice, their personal choices show the opposite. I see how parents try to keep their children away from clashes near military positions, or send their children to study abroad - even though ideologically they support the armed struggle.

P.A.–Are there new forms of resistance emerging in the West Bank since 7 October ?

A.H.–Before we see new forms of resistance, there need to be a major shift in Palestinian internal political life. Will it be the revival of the obsolete PLO ? A totally new form of PLO ? A diaspora-led change ? An all Palestinian (including 1948’s Palestinians) initiative ? Each of these has a correspondent or is hinted in some intellectual initiatives, which at least tell us how people are yearning for this political change. But, needless to say, it is for Palestinians to decide.

I hope there are serious enough initiatives, so as not to be made public right now. Right now, when the genocide in Gaza perpetrated by the Israelian State continues, the sense of political incompetence and paralysis is stronger than ever. It is in stark contrast with the victorious mood of the first days after 7 October and the slogans heard from the Palestinian diaspora and Palestinians in the West Bank.

“The settlers are waging a war on several fronts against the Palestinians”

P.A.–Are there attempts to build an united resistance movement amongst Palestinian youth in the West Bank cities ?

A.H.–Historically, political youth movements were connected to and affiliated with the various political resistance groups. Whether it was a clandestine or camouflaged activity during the direct occupation, or mostly open after the establishment of the self-rule entity. We are talking mostly about university’s students. The students’ groups affiliated with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the popular front have been declared illegal by Israel in the last decade. Their members get often arrested by the Israeli army, and some are also detained sometimes by the Palestinians. Still, they run for the students council elections.

The one affiliated with Fatah is legal, and the rivalries, tensions and mutual accusations of the “adults” exist also in campus. I have not noticed that they develop their own independent ways of action and thinking, which deviate from those of their respective mother-organizations. But perhaps I am mistaken and there is more going on, only that I am not aware of it.

P.A.–What is the impact of the acceleration of colonization and settlers violence since 7 October ? How do you see the (new ?) Israeli strategies of colonization, especially in the northern West Bank, the eradication of the refugee camps, the destruction of rural villages, the ethnic cleansing of local communities ?

A.H.–To live under the Israeli endless occupation and colonization is a form of permanent resistance. Because it is an organic way of life, not organized or strategized, it is called resilience or Sumud². Since the Israeli goal has always been to have “as much land with as few Palestinians” - the insistence of herding and farming communities to remain on their land, and the skills at securing some normalcy within the A+B enclaves, have been phenomenal.

But the present government and its semi-official militias of settlers’gangs have succeeded in breaking the sumud in vast areas of the West Bank, and expel around 60 communities and prevent dozens of villages from reaching their cultivated or pasture lands. The methods aren’t really new, but the “hilltop youth” settlers³ and the well organized and planned construction of violent herding outposts have come to the assistance of the occupation bureaucracy : it always aimed at “clearing” the great part of the West Bank from Palestinian presence, but it has done it “too slowly”. Now the process has been accelerated.

“ Prisons are the site where state-sadism and individual sadism converge”

P.A.–Could you describe this multi-front war ?

A.H.–Besides, the settlers and their non governmental institutions, headed and inspired by the West bank Gauleiter – Betzalel Smortich - have been launching a multi-front war against the Palestinians, which break the “logic of the Bantustan”. No one is safe, in no place.

There is an open robbery, under full day light, of PA’s revenues. Smotrich, as minister of finance as well – simply does not allow the transfer of those revenues (in the form of customs on Palestinian imports that go through Israeli ports) to the PA’s treasury. There is a continuous stealing of water sources – by the State and by settlers.

Since October 2023, the army has been blocking more villages and towns in brand new iron gates, so that freedom of movement is curtailed more than before. This has always been a demand of settlers: to drive “safely” in WB roads. There is an unprecedented wave of stealing and “confiscation” of cash and gold from people’s homes, by soldiers who are sent by their commanders to the nightly or daily incursions. And this is while people have already eaten up most of their savings, because even against the advice of the military, the government does not allow tens of thousands of Palestinians to return to work in Israel. For the third year, the military does not allow thousands of farmers to harvest their olives – an important source of income and a collective, both national and emotional manifestation of continuity and belonging to the land.

There are mass arrests and detentions, and the conditions have become horrendous : starvation, humiliation, crowdedness that leads to skin diseases, deprivation of reading and writing material, prohibition on family visits. Prisons are the site where state-sadism and individual sadism converge and are manifested most openly.

All over, Palestinians are totally exposed now to the whims of individual soldiers and settlers, and to the calculated cruelty of the men and institutions in charge. No wonder that people fear that once Israel “finishes off” with the Gaza, it will launch mass expulsions if not a genocide policy in the West Bank.

“IN THE ABSENCE OF ”NEW BLOOD,“ THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY IS CHARACTERIZED BY A SCLEROSIS OF IDEAS AND ACTIONS”

P.A.–How do you see the role of the Palestinian Authority, both as a force for collaboration and repression against its own people and, in the same time, as an obstacle to Israel annexation moves ?

A.H.–We have to distinguish between the PA as a giver of services to the public, as a national leadership and as a political entity with a goal to reach statehood.

Many individuals and actors at the PA establishment are honest breadwinners and also serve their community and want to do so. Israeli stealing of PA’s revenues has cut their salaries by half or two-thirds, over several years already. So of course it affects them and their abilities, and their drive to do their work properly.

Still, it is remarkable how the public sector continues to function and give services, meagre and dissatisfying as they may be. As for the institutions themselves: their functioning varies from place to place, they may be minimal especially because of the budget constraints, some fields are too infiltrated by internal politics (like the judicial system)…

The Oslo accords absolved Israel from any responsibility to the people it continues to occupy, and the PA has to address the harm Israel is causing : whether it be helping displaced people, impoverished families, wounded people and just those who have high blood pressure because of the unbearable reality and permanent stress. Until today, for example, the PA pays for Gazan patients who came for treatment to the West Bank before 7 October. It pays for their lodging and ongoing treatment. The PA pays for the fresh water that Israel (under international pressure) renewed its supply to Gaza. Small quantities, that now stand for the only potable water available there. In this respect, one cannot say that the PA works against its own people. It does when we examine its role as political national leadership.

Since there are no elections or other forms of engaging “new blood” – it is characterized by ossification of thoughts and actions. As I mentioned before, it is a nomenklatura that cannot disengage itself from its personal benefits, and therefore lacks any initiative to change or to initiate its own “civil disobedience” vis a vis the Israelis. In some cases, its readiness to follow Israeli diktats is a real collaboration. And I refer to bureaucratic collaboration.

For example, in contravention of the Oslo accords, in 2000, Israel stopped the process of “family reunification” - the granting of residency status to spouses of Palestinian residents in the West Bank and Gaza. People submit their applications for reunification to the PA. Israel says it does not accept because the process is frozen. So the PA bureaucrats obey and do not transfer the applications, even though they could have sent them by mail. When Israeli human rights lawyers or groups such as Hamoked - for the defence of individual rights - submit petitions in favour of these “mixed” couples who cannot live together - the courts want a “proof” that an application was submitted to the Israeli side. There is no such proof, because the PA never sent the applications to the Israeli

P.A.–What about security collaboration ?

.H.–So, the hundreds of communities face settlers’violence. Why couldn’t the PA allocate its many security personnel to stay in each such locality – without arms or uniforms because it is in C, and it is forbidden according to Oslo – but as a support to the people and a message that it does not neglect them ?

Because it is a nomenklatura – with the obvious phenomena such as nepotism and high salaries and extra benefits -, its otherwise sound position against the use of arms is deemed corrupt if not treacherous among the people.

I don’t know whether or to what extent the PA manages or wants to or can foil armed attacks against Israelis. It should have the right to oppose actions that facilitate Israel’s drives of destruction and mass expulsions. But it obviously uses its security agencies to intimidate and hush internal criticism and free debate.

“ Recognition without against Israel is just a lip service”

P.A.–After the last spate of recognitions of the State of Palestine, what is left of the “two-state solution” ?

A.H.–We are mistaken to stick to the term “solution”. Solutions are good for chemistry and math. In historical processes, the question is what we do and how, in order to guarantee that the next phase will be better for the people. The late bloomers who recognize now a Palestinian state seem to ignore the reality of the de facto Israeli annexation of most of the West Bank and the danger of mass expulsion.

But I would like to be positive here : Let us pressure those countries and PM’s to declare sanctions on Israel - so that it first dismantles the 300 odd outposts that have been erected, as a first stage before the gradual dismantling of the settlements. We must bring back to our discourse the axiom that all the settlements are illegal. We must reject the statement that “they are irreversible”, because this means that we accept and support the every day and every moment dispossession of Palestinians.

Once the negotiation process resumes, the Palestinian state might accept that Jews remain in its borders. But on condition: that the ex-settlements are open to everybody, not only for Jews, that the land owners (including local communities whose land is considered public and not private) are being compensated for the stolen land, that the violent settlers be out, that the state of Israel guarantees that the rest of them will not constitute a fifth column. Recognition without immediate and bold sanctions against Israel is just a lip service.

P.A.–How do you see the upcoming of a new Palestinian generation which did not live through the Nakba and the intifadas ? Any sign of “radicalisation”or depoliticisation ?

A.H.–The collective historical memory of the Nakba has always been very vivid and well preserved - even if not in all its details. And more so : because the Oslo period proved to be such a deception, the self-perception that Palestinians live through an on-going Nakba, that the Nakba has never ended, is widespread. Defining Israel as a settler colonial entity is very common, a self-evident fact that does not need much explanation.

P.A.–On a more personal note, how is the work of an Israeli journalist in the West Bank going , especially since 7 October ?

A.H.–It is more frustrating than ever : too many crucial and dangerous developments, incidents, attacks and governmental resolutions to be seriously and meticulously covered. And the readership, more than ever, is not willing to know and to see the general context.