Palestijnse protesten tegen premier Fayyad

 

Het is wat langs de Nederlandse media heen gegaan vanwege de verkiezingen, maar afgelopen week waren er protesten in de PA gebieden waarbij onder meer het aftreden van premier Fayyad werd geëist.

 

 

Palestijnse protesten

 

Elder of Ziyon haalt een Palestijnse anti-Hamas bron aan die zegt dat de protesten op de Westbank door Hamas worden georchestreerd met als doel de PA ten val te brengen:

 

While the agency is very anti-Hamas, they name specific Hamas members behind this alleged scheme: Khalil al-Hayya, Ismail al-Ashqar, and Zakaria Abu Muammar.

According to the report, Muammar is responsible for the Bethlehem and Hebron protests, attracting "weak" and poor people and radical students to join and co-opt the otherwise peaceful rallies. 

Al-Hayya and al-Ashqar are directing Hamas cells in the northern section, including Ramallah and Nablus.

The report says that Hamas is attempting to guide the rallies into becoming anti-Abbas rallies, forcing confrontations with police with the intent of ultimately toppling the PA and taking over. 

 

Khaled Abu Toameh geeft op The Gatestone Institute een andere analyse. Volgens hem probeert Fatah de protesten te gebruiken om van premier Fayyad af te komen, en bovendien meer sympathie en aandacht voor de Palestijnen te genereren:

 

Fatah leaders in the West Bank were hoping that the street protests would force Fayyad to resign. But the prime minister's refusal to succumb to the immense pressure (and threats) has left most of these leaders deeply disappointed.

 

For Fatah, the public outcry over the high cost of living provided a good opportunity to resume its efforts to remove Fayyad.

As soon as protesters took to the streets in a number of West Bank cities last week to demand the resignation of Fayyad, Abbas, who was in Cairo, declared that the "Palestinian Spring" had begun and that he supported the "just demands" of the demonstrators.

(...)

The 77-year-old Abbas is about to enter his eighth year of his four-year term in office and has shown no sign that he is willing to step down and pave the way for the emergence of new leaders.

The recent protests in the West Bank over the economic hardships do not signal the beginning of a "Palestinian Spring." Rather, they are seen by many Palestinians in the context of the ongoing behind-the-scenes power struggle between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.