Palestinians are accusing the Palestinian Security Forces of helping carry out Israel’s 40 year old occupation after they attacked anti-Annapolis demonstrations across the West Bank yesterday.
The demonstrations were held to protest against the discussion of concessions on core issues at the Annapolis meeting, trying to prevent them before they happen. At a march in Ramallah, protesters attempted to reach the Presidential compound, the site of Yassir Arafat’s memorial, but police and the Presidential Guard blocked the way, driving cars through the demonstration, using teargas, confiscating signs and banners, beating people with batons and rifle butts, and grabbing media cameras.
Participants maintain that the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the places they were forced to leave in 1948, the dismantlement of all Israeli settlements, the removal of Israel’s Wall, and a full end to occupation are non-negotiable in any agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Leadership. “This demonstration is against [PA] participation in the Annapolis meeting because we believe it doesn’t have any benefit for our cause as Palestinians. It just benefits Israelis and Americans,” says Khitam Saafin from the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committee. “[Annapolis] is a process to make Palestinians decrease their demands...this is a process to increase the division between Palestinians.”
After police arrested several demonstration organizers including Jamal Juma, coordinator of the grassroots "Stop the Wall Campaign" — which called yesterdays protest — a few hundred demonstrators gathered in the city’s main square chanting “The right of return is non-negotiable” and “No peace with occupation.” Participants also targeted the United States government. Contending that the U.S. is instrumental in the occupation, they chanted “America is the head of the snake.”
Upon his release, Juma questioned why the PA had reacted so aggressively to the demonstration, rhetorically asking why the Authority is afraid of its own people’s voice. He compared the Security Forces’ actions to violence Palestinians experience from Israeli soldiers. “The PA Security Forces remind the people of the way the Israeli soldiers treat us,” he says. “They were very aggressive, very violent and this treatment is exactly what the Israeli soldiers do to people.”
As 100 police and Presidential Guards rushed through the 200-person demonstration using batons and rifle butts to try and disband it, participant Mohammad Abu-Alyumian looked on with dismay as a short, stout police officer waving a baton forced him to the sidewalk. “You see this” he exclaims. “This is the State we’re being promised [at Annapolis]. This regime is carrying out the role of occupation [for Israel].
In another demonstration called by The Liberation Party, an Islamic movement, police reportedly used teargas and live ammunition in Ramallah’s Abdel Nasser Mosque to prevent people from leaving. Witnesses said the Security Forces surrounded the Mosque and refused to let the demonstration move outside.
Between the two Ramallah demonstrations, organizers stated that there were 200 arrests and 30 injuries. They also say that the Israeli army prevented 14 buses from entering the city to participate in the demonstration.
In an anti-Annapolis protest in Hebron, Security Forces killed one person when they used live ammunition to disperse the demonstration and local media reported a similar crackdown on protests in Nablus.
“What really freaks people out is that at the same time that Israel is closing the West Bank and preventing the buses from entering the cities for the demonstrations, by preventing the demonstrations, the [Palestinian] Authority did the same thing in the main cities,” says Juma. He adds that most of the young men who were arrested were severely beaten by police, describing how they were punched, kicked and beaten with sticks around their heads both outside and inside the jail.
The PA had previously issued public statements and a decree banning demonstrations about Annapolis while the meeting is happening. This crackdown is happening in face of decreasing optimism and growing opposition to the summit in the Occupied Territories. People are becoming increasingly frustrated with Israel for what they see as unwillingness to end its occupation, and are angry at the PA for its perceived willingness to concede on issues central to Palestinians.
Many of the demonstrators in Ramallah describe Annapolis as a meeting to secure Israeli rule rather than to produce a just peace. “There is no negotiation with the Israelis [in Annapolis]. Abbas is going to Annapolis just to sell out everything,” argues college student, Thaer Malsa. “Palestinians will not have their true voice in Annapolis. I think the 50 countries there will decide what will happen for Palestinians” adds Abu-Alyumian.
Israel’s recent demand that the Palestinian Authority recognizes it as a Jewish State has only added to skepticism about the nature of Israel’s interest in a peace agreement at Annapolis, strengthening the notion for Palestinians that the summit will only try to solidify Israeli colonial rule. “Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State means that it absolves Israel from all the crimes they’ve committed over the past 60 years,” says Juma. “It means automatically no right of return of Palestinians to their homelands, and paves the way to expel what is left of the Palestinians from Israel under the slogan of Israel keeping its ‘Jewish identity.’ It’s not acceptable, it’s going to reinforce and deepen the racism of Israel as a colonial Apartheid state.”
In the wake of decreasing faith in the PA, Israel’s expansion of the occupation through the continued construction of the Wall, checkpoints and village demolitions in the south of the West Bank, there is a growing discussion about disbanding the PA. “I think the Palestinians should take the historical decision to dismantle the Authority and give back the decisions to the Palestinian people,” says Juma. “We are under occupation and you have to deal with this reality.”
With files from Maan News
Jesse Rosenfeld is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah