Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian National Authority, or Palestinian Authority (PA), was created following the signing of the first of the Oslo Accords in 1993 by Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat. The PA was meant as an interim governing body for the Palestinian people while Israeli and Palestinian leaders worked out final status negotiations to end the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict regarding Israeli control of Palestinian lands. The PA was initially meant to exist for five years, but instead the PA remained the main governing body of Palestinians into the 2020s. The PA's territory covered the West Bank and Gaza Strip, also known as Israel’s Occupied Territories. The Palestinian Authority is composed of a president, a prime minister, a cabinet, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and various security forces.

Background

The Palestinian people (Arabs living in the historical land of Palestine, roughly coterminous with present-day Israel) have spent most of their history without being in control of their own destiny. For centuries the territory was part of the Ottoman Empire. In the early part of the twentieth century, following the end of World War I (1914–8) and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire shortly afterward, Palestinian nationalism emerged in response to the establishment of a British mandate over Jordan and Palestine and to the push for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. By the end of the 1920s, violence between Jewish people and Palestinians was on the rise. Prominent clans such as the Hussein and Nashashibi recruited allies and began forming Palestinian political parties. Events in Europe in the 1930s, as well as the Zionist, or Jewish nationalist, movement which had first emerged in the nineteenth century forced large numbers of Jews into exile in Palestine while also encouraging many Jews to settle there, resulting in an Arab revolt (1936–9) that was quelled by the British.

World War II focused world attention on human rights, and the newly formed United Nations issued a plan in 1947 for the partition of mandatory Palestine into one Jewish and one Arab state. The population of mandatory Palestine at that time was one-third Jewish and two-thirds Arab. The following May, the British ended their mandate over Palestine, and Israel was established in the area of Palestine where most Jews and 940,000 Arabs lived. As a result, 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip or were evicted from Israel. Neighboring Arab countries, including Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Transjordan, then invaded Israel in the First Arab-Israeli War. The result was Israeli victory and domination of Palestinian lands, but agitation and violence in support of a separate Palestinian state continued.

Palestinian Authority Today

The agreement that established the Palestinian Authority also called for the gradual withdrawal of Israel from contested territory. In 1994, political authority was transferred from the Israeli Civil Administration to the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), an umbrella group representing the interests of the Palestinian people. Subsequent agreements broadened the powers of the PA, extending its authority to all major cities and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip except for East Jerusalem. The agreement also established guidelines for addressing security and economic concerns and for the release of prisoners.

Palestinian elections held at the beginning of 1996 legitimized the powers of the PA still further when presidential candidate Yasser Arafat won an overwhelming victory in both the West Bank and Gaza. Most seats in the Palestinian legislature were held at that time by Fatah, the largest political party in the PLO. However, the stability that had seemed to be a real possibility failed to materialize. Israeli prime minister Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Jewish extremist in 1995, after which violence increased on both sides. Israelis claimed that there was significant PA involvement in the violence and responded by reclaiming contested territory. Between 1992 and 2001, the number of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank doubled.

The success of PA governance was mixed in the decades after its establishment. By the turn of the twenty-first century, one in five Palestinians was living in poverty, even as the lifestyles of PA officials grew ever more lavish. With former leaders of the PLO serving in key positions, trust in government and respect for its legitimacy eroded, leading to the reemergence of guerilla groups dedicated to reclaiming land for Palestine.

On September 28, 2000, an upsurge in violence accompanied the visit of Ariel Sharon, the leader of Israel’s Likud political party, to the Temple Mount/Harem al-Sharif. The site is considered sacred to both Jews and Muslims, and controversy over ownership is a key element in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Sharon’s visit was particularly galling to Muslims because of his connection to a 1982 massacre of Palestinians at the Lebanese refugee camps Sabra and Shatila. The ensuing violence, a period referred to as the Second Intifada or Al-Aqsa Intifada, lasted from 2000 to 2005 and significantly weakened the PA both internally and externally.

In 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was named president of the PA. Abbas and Sharon, by then the Israeli prime minister, signed a truce. However, the following year, members of the militant Islamist group Hamas gained control of the Palestinian legislature, leading to increased tensions. Western countries withdrew financial support, and Israel responded by levying taxes and duties on Palestinians. Fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah, and in 2007, Hamas gained military control of the Gaza Strip, where Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh claimed the title of prime minister. This effectively split the Palestinians both geographically and politically, with the PA, under Fatah's control, restricted to the West Bank. This split remained in effect throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s despite attempts at reconciliation and the creation of coalition government.

Tensions between Hamas and Fatah, along with the general conflict between Israel and Palestine, continued throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s with occasional spikes in violence. By 2023 an estimated 350 to 600 people had been killed in armed fighting between Fatah and Hamas; at that time the geographic split between the two factions' spheres of influence, with Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip and Fatah controlling the West Bank, remained in place. Both sides claimed to be the true representatives of the Palestinian people, with Fatah considering itself the true governing party of the PA and claiming authority over the Gaza Strip but Hamas still holding military control over the area. Many ordinary Palestinians, as well as outside observers, criticized the PA for not holding elections in the years after 2006; by the early 2020s, no Palestinian elections had been held in over fifteen years. Despite efforts to unify these two competing factions, no single Palestinian coalition government was formed during this time.

Meanwhile, violence continued to periodically flare up between Israelis and Palestinians over a number of issues. In particular, the right-wing government of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who served as PM from 2009 and 2021, stepped down amid a corruption scandal, and later recaptured the position of PM in December 2022, generally took a hardline approach towards Palestinians. Netanyahu's government also gained a reputation for allowing the construction of permanent Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which also contributed to rising tensions and outbreaks of violence, including bombings, shootings, and rocket attacks. A major war in the Gaza Strip in 2014 between Hamas and the Israeli government resulted in an estimated 2,300 deaths, the majority of them Palestinian civilians, according to the United Nations. May 2021 saw a series of riots and open fighting between Israel and Hamas and its allies; during two weeks of violence, nearly 300 people died, the majority of them Palestinian civilians.

While not all countries have recognized the PA as the legitimate government of Palestine, it has been granted recognition by others, and in 2012 the United Nations General Assembly granted the PA the status of nonmember observer state, regarded as an important step on the way to Palestinian statehood. By 2023, 139 members states of the United Nations—excluding, significantly, Israel, the United States, and most of the countries of Western Europe—had recognized Palestinian statehood.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 Israelis. Terrorists committed acts of sexual violence, massacred civilians, and took more than 200 people hostage. In response, Israel launched a large-scale invasion of Gaza, attempting to wipe out the entirety of Hamas. On February 26, 2024, the entirety of the Palestinian government resigned from office due to mass opposition from the people and pressure from other governments.

Bibliography

Fuqaha, Nidal. “Palestinian Civil Society Organizations and the Palestinian National Authority.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture 18.2–3 (2012): 31–35.

Ghanem, As’ad. “Palestinian Nationalism: An Overview.” Shared Narratives—A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue. Spec. Issue of Israel Studies 18.2 (2013): 11–29.

Khalidi, Rashid. The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Beacon, 2006.

LeVine, Mark, and Mathias Mossberg, eds. One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States. U of California P, 2014.

Norman, Julie E. "Israel-Palestine Conflict: the Role of Hamas and Fatah Rivalry in Latest Violence." The Conversation, 12 May 2021, theconversation.com/israel-palestine-conflict-the-role-of-hamas-and-fatah-rivalry-in-latest-violence-160814. Accessed 24 Jan. 2025.

"Palestinian Authority Prime Minister and Government Resign Amid Pressure to Reform." CNN, 27 Feb. 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/02/26/middleeast/palestinian-authority-prime-minister-resigns-intl/index.html. Accessed 24 Jan. 2025.

"Palestinian Territories." United States Department of State, June 2023, www.state.gov/countries-areas/palestinian-territories/. Accessed 24 Jan. 2025.

Rød-Larsen, Terje, Fabrice Aidan, and Nur Laiq. The Search for Peace in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Compendium of Documents and Analysis. Oxford UP, 2014.

Rubin, Barry M. The Transformation of Palestinian Politics: From Revolution to State-Building. Harvard UP, 2001.

Schulze, Kirsten E. The Arab-Israeli Conflict. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2013.

"The Question of Palestine—Timeline of Events." United Nations, 2023, www.un.org/unispal/timeline/. Accessed 24 Jan. 2025.