How Palestinian Leaders Inflict Pain on Their People; EU Shrugs

by Khaled Abu Toameh

• The peaceful protests were swiftly and violently crushed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces. Again, those protests and the crackdown did not seem to be of any interest to many in the international community, especially the Western donors that fund the PA. Had the demonstrations taken place against Israel, they would doubtless have received extensive coverage and howls of outrage from the mainstream media in the West.
• The protesters have appealed to the European Union for help, to no avail. Attempts by the protesters to gain the attention to their plight from the international media have also been totally ignored. This is the same EU that is quick to criticize Israel over the issue of construction in the settlements...
• Abbas's sanctions... have made the civil servants and their families vulnerable to extreme poverty. — Salah Abdel Ati, head of the International Commission to Support the Rights of the Palestinian People, Alwatanvoice.com, November 3, 2021.
• According to [Hamed] Abu Wadi, the PA leadership cut off the salaries as a means of silencing and punishing its critics.
• "You are the ones who provide aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is depriving us of our salaries and rights in violation of the law." — Hamed Abu Wadi, civil servant affected by Abbas's sanctions, addressing the European Union; Facebook, October 25, 2021.
• Palestinian leaders are punishing their own people as part of the power struggle between the PA and Hamas. Again, this is happening as the world turns away from the perpetrators and fixes its obsessive gaze on Israel.
• If the Biden administration is serious about reviving a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, it should start by trying to make peace between the Palestinian mini-state in the Gaza Strip and Abbas's PA entity in the West Bank.
• If the EU really cares about ending the suffering of the Palestinians, it first needs to hold Abbas responsible for imposing sanctions on his people and to demand that Hamas cease using the Gaza Strip as a launching pad for waging jihad (holy war) on Israel.

The peaceful protests were swiftly and violently crushed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces. Again, those protests and the crackdown did not seem to be of any interest to many in the international community, especially the Western donors that fund the PA. Pictured: A bleeding protester scuffles with PA security forces during a demonstration in Ramallah on June 24, 2021. (Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images)

When Palestinians living in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip demonstrate against Israel, many in the international community, including the mainstream media, are quick to notice the protest.

It seems much less newsworthy, however, when the Palestinians take to the streets to protest against Palestinian leaders, including the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas.

When foreign journalists talk about the dire economic situation in the Gaza Strip, they tend to neglect mentioning the responsibility of the PA and Hamas for the suffering of the Palestinians living there. Instead, the journalists almost always choose to pile the blame on Israel. Somehow, no effort is made to hold the PA or Hamas governments accountable for the misery of their people.

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