Israel is trying to incite a “third Intifada” to "exploit" Palestinian society "in order to serve the Israeli enemy's plans", lies PA
Excerpt of an op-ed by Bassem Barhoum, regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “Why does Israel want to set the West Bank on fire?”
“Whoever has been monitoring the Israeli media for the last few weeks notices that it is focusing on one idea regarding the Palestinian situation: that the West Bank is about to explode, and that Hamas has chosen to respond to the [PA’s] postponement of elections by inflaming the situation in the West Bank and pressing towards a third Intifada.
It should be noted that Israel spoke about the same idea following the collapse of the Camp David Summit in 2000, when security leaks were published in the Israeli media regarding the occupation army preparing for a number of scenarios to deal with an intifada in the Palestinian territories. At the height of this talk, [former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon made his ominous tour of the Al-Aqsa Mosque plazas, which was the direct cause of the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005, more than 1,100 Israelis murdered). Today the Israeli media is repeating the same idea, and all that is required is just a spark to set the situation on fire!
There is no doubt that there is deep and accumulating frustration among the Palestinian people that is liable to turn into an explosion at any moment. The causes of this frustration are many, and most of them are connected to the Israeli occupation, its actions, and the inability to achieve any national goal. This is in addition to the current frustration that stems from the epidemiological situation with the spread of the Coronavirus, and the financial, social, and psychological crises that have been caused as a result of it.
The Israeli security forces are closely monitoring all of these developments in the Palestinian street and are not just planning how to deal with the explosion if it happens, but rather are planning much further than this: how Israel can exploit the rage, frustration, and explosion in a way that will serve its plans. Therefore, we must be careful about the Israeli campaign to set the land around us and under our feet on fire, and about a situation in which Israel will push us to what it wants and not to the forms of resistance that we want…
The first step that we must carry out to prevent any kind of boiling over into what Israel is planning is to cool off the internal situation as soon as possible. This requires us to immediately stop all our media attacks against each other, and to launch a comprehensive national dialogue…
The Israeli enemy is waiting for the moment when anarchy will ignite in order to carry out what it pleases through it. The importance of thwarting its plans stems from this, and we can still do this. It is not important to set a new date for the [PA] elections, as the dates are not important; the most important thing is that we return to elections after we have agreed to deal with the causes that led to their postponement.”