Khalid Amayreh

Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and spokesmen have been lying through their teeth lately about their increasingly vile treatment of the Palestinian people.

These people have been claiming, nearly on a daily basis, that their American-paid and trained forces are not arresting political activists and that only “criminals” and “terrorist elements” are being hounded and arrested.

Well, we who live here in the West Bank, don’t have to be presumptive about what is happening in our neighborhoods, streets, towns and villages these days. We see the daily arrests with our own eyes, we know the detainees, we know their families and their friends. Hence, we don’t even have to compare and contrast various accounts of the disgraceful onslaught by the PA against the Palestinian masses. Things are simply too plain to be controversial.

Hence, it is our responsibility as journalists to communicate the truth and facts concerning this unmitigated wave of repression by the Ramallah regime against its perceived political opponents.

And the truth of the matter is that the PA is working in broad daylight and in concert with the Israeli occupation army to repress, humiliate and torment Palestinians Israel considers “subversive elements.”

In the past few days, hundreds of teachers, students, businessmen and civil servants were rounded up throughout the Hebron region in a theatrical show of force that is meant to provoke and intimidate ordinary citizens.

On Saturday, 1 November, hundreds of American-supplied Jeeps, decorated with all sorts of colorful flags and bearing the official logo of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), stormed many villages and hamlets along the former armistice line west of Hebron terrorizing the local population and rounding up anti-Israeli activists.

The provocative campaign, which took place under the watchful eyes of the Israeli occupation army, was made possible only thanks to Israeli troops who allowed the long PA security convoys through Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints.

In fact, one can safely argue that these highly-publicized forays, a mere poor imitation of Israeli raids on Palestinian population centers, are utterly stupid, absolutely unnecessary and ultimately futile.

Indeed, instead of storming people’s homes in the quiet hours before dawn, the PA security apparatus could have summoned the “wanted persons” for questioning, without all this hubris and flamboyancy..

However, it is abundantly clear that the PA security apparatus is not really pursuing legitimate security goals, as the PA claims. The security apparatus is simply putting up a show of force in the hope that the Palestinian masses will be deterred from putting up any further resistance to the Israeli occupiers. This is what they are ordered to do by their American masters and bankrollers.

We all know that the PA has no power of its own, since this quisling-like entity is totally and absolutely dependent on Israel for its very survival.

Hence, one can only conclude that these provocative and stupid inquisitions against Palestinian towns and villages, which PA officials claim are meant to restore law and order, are in fact Israeli-envisaged acts of repression aimed at further weakening the Palestinian society by Palestinians hands, very much like the Judenrate (or Jewish councils) did to the Jewish masses under the Nazi regime.

The PA claims that these raids enjoy widespread support amongst the people. But this is a scandalous lie. People everywhere, not just in Palestine, resent watching cruel and undisciplined soldiers, accompanied by sniffing dogs, break into their living rooms without any pre-warning.

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By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank. Posted on :