Just before the Bahrain conference is scheduled to open, the Palestinians can chalk up a win for their battle for a boycott of the event. After the Palestinians put all Arab states under heavy pressure and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas launched a fresh volley of attacks on US President Donald Trump, the Americans took a step back. The Bahrain economic workshop will go ahead, but it will be different: the delegations from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel will consist of low-ranking officials, and made up mostly of businesspeople. It's possible that a few Palestinian businesspeople might slip in, as well. The summit is now redefined as apolitical.
The Israeli representatives will include the former head of the IDF's Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Mordechai and Professor Yitshak Kreiss, director general of the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. However, dozens of Palestinians business figures with ties to the PA establishment have already declined the American invitation. The most notable among them is Bashar al-Masri, the developer behind the new Palestinian city Rawabi. China, Russia, Turkey, Lebanon, and Qatar will not be attending at all.
The Palestinian refusal to take part in the summit that was supposed to benefit them is so sweeping that this week, they announced that projects agreed upon in Bahrain would not be greenlighted in PA territory, even if the money for them comes from Gulf states rather than the US.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
To Bahraini Foreign Minister Khaled al-Khalifa's declaration that the purpose of the workshop is to support the Palestinian economy, nothing else, PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki responded: "If the Americans think that economic benefits will tempt the Palestinians to give up on east Jerusalem or a Palestinian state, they are mistaken."
Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the PLO steering committee, threw things into even sharper relief: "There is no justification for Arab participation in the workshop that is designed to eradicate the Palestinian problem."
Abbas' office put out a statement saying "We are not for sale," and the Fatah movement – which Abbas leads – announced three days of marches in the West Bank during the Bahrain conference. Deputy Fatah leader Mahmoud al-Aloul characterized what is being planned there as "outraged popular activity."
Meanwhile, in Beirut, all the Palestinian factions are slated to convene for a counter-conference that will take place at the same time as the Bahrain summit.
The Americans showed the Palestinians their plan to raise $68 billion to be disbursed as grants between the PLO, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon over the course of a decade. The Palestinians are familiar with the plan to pave a highway to connect the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, and they were informed that the US administration wants to invest in high-tech development in the West Bank and possibly even build air and seaports in Gaza. Abbas also noted the message he was given by US special envoy Jason Greenblatt, that "benefits to the Palestinians will be immediate if they only agree to take part in the deal of the century." Still, he remained adamant in his refusal.
The Americans asked the Palestinians, like they asked Israel, to draft an agreement they could each live with and had a chance of being accepted by the other side. Israel complied. One day, when historians are studying the "deal of the century," it will become clear how closely Israel and the US were working to create that draft. The Palestinians, however, turned down the request, just like they are rejecting every attempt to bring them to Bahrain. Abbas rejects the American-Israeli view of economic peace as a foundation of any future peace deal. He wants to start off by addressing the core issues: Jerusalem, the settlements, Palestinian refugees, and the borders of a Palestinian state. On none of them is he budging an inch. The US and Israel are doing the opposite – first, the economy, and then the major questions.
'Time for strategic deterrence'
Abbas is already 83. Many think he is concerned not only about his people but about how he will go down in Palestinian history. He repeatedly makes it clear that he isn't willing to play along. "I won't be a traitor," he tells his associates. He has enlisted Russia and China, who are skipping the conference, and hopes that Qatar and the Europeans will fill up the holes in the PLO's budget, holes for which he blames Israel and the US.
Col. (res.) Michael Milstein, who until last year served as an adviser to COGAT on Palestinian affairs and head of the Palestinian desk in the IDF Intelligence Directorate, is now publishing a paper for the Institute for National Security Studies that is highly relevant to the issues to be discussed in Bahrain. Milstein determines that it is time for "strategic deterrence" against the PA. Given the situation in the PA and its ongoing financial crisis, Milstein warns of a few different threats: an increased number of Palestinians participating in violent incidents, terrorism, and rioting; Hamas getting back on its feet given the PA's limitations; harm to security coordination between the PA and Israel; and the PA finding it difficult to address civil issues, which Israel would then have to take care of.
In his paper, Milstein delves into the background to the financial crisis gripping the PA: Abbas' decision to stop accepting the tax money Israel collects on behalf of the PA as a way of protesting Israel's decision to deduct the amount of money the PA pays terrorists and their families from the funds it would transfer to the Palestinians.
A reminder: the tax money Israel collects for the Palestinians makes up about half of its budget. Stopping the flow of all tax funds into the PA forced it to declare a state of economic emergency four months ago, which resulted in 160,000 functionaries having their salaries slashed by 50%. Some 65,000 of these functionaries work for the PA security services.
According to the latest report from the World Bank on the situation in the PA and the decreasing international aid it receives, in 2010 the PA received some 4.5 billion shekels (roughly $1.3 billion) from Israel. In 2018, it received about 2 billion shekels (nearly $600 million) less. The cuts to the budget of UNRWA, which was "carrying" the West Bank refugee camps, is also having an effect on the economic reality in the PA, as are the cuts to US aid to the Palestinians ever since a crisis between Washington and Ramallah emerged after the US declared it would be relocating its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. All that notwithstanding, it's Israel who is keeping the Palestinians' economic head above water. Over 100,000 Palestinians enter Israel legally every day to work. About 130,000 Palestinians make a living from markets in Israel, and the Israeli workforce is basically the Palestinians' main lifeline today.
Arouri's chance
The deteriorating economic situation in the PA and its decision to boycott the Bahrain conference are a concern to Israel and the US not only in terms of economics but also security. Information obtained by the Israeli security establishment indicates that the instability in the PA has prompted various Palestinian factions to start stockpiling weapons in preparation for the day Abbas is no longer in power. How his Fatah movement will act in the next few months is also an unanswered question. Fatah, which for some time has been on the fence about normalization with and preventing terrorism against Israel, receives its funding from the PA. If the PA continues to weaken or even collapses, Fatah will also take a financial hit, which will likely have immediate ramifications on Hamas' standing in the West Bank, allowing it to become more dominant.
Behind the scenes, Hamas is trying to instigate more terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria. In 2018, 3,173 terrorist suspects were arrested, 406 illegal guns were confiscated, and the Shin Bet security agency thwarted 820 terrorist plots, about half of which Hamas was behind. In the first four months of 2019, 1,077 terrorist suspects were arrested; 263 illegal guns were confiscated, and another 200 or so planned attacks were scuppered – again, Hamas was behind about half of them. Many of the Hamas cells were thwarted while still in the planning stages, thanks to Israel's intelligence network. Last year, the IDF exposed over 200 kg. worth of bombs. Some were intended to be used in major bombings inside the Green Line.
In one instance, Awis Rajoub, 25, was handed from the Gaza Strip. Rajoub, a resident of the village of Dura, near Hebron, was instructed on how to build bombs and his handlers ordered him to find targets inside the Green Line, such as "a big building, a shopping mall, a restaurant, a hotel, a train, or a bus." Rajoub enlisted two other Hamas operatives to help him find appropriate targets. They were supposed to attack last October. The Shin Bet arrested the cell members in September.
Another major attack using a suicide bomber and an explosives-rigged car was planned for Maaleh Adumim. They were supposed to detonate in an area crowded with Israeli civilians, soldiers, and buses close to the time of the April 9 election. Only the arrest of Yehiya Abu Daia, a resident of the village A-Zaim, prevented it. Hamas in Gaza was behind that plot, too.
The security establishment thinks that as the Bahrain summit draws closer, Hamas in Gaza and Hamas cells abroad will step up their efforts to carry out more terrorist attacks. For years, the person behind Hamas' never-ending attempts at terrorist attacks has been Salah al-Arouri, currently the head of Hamas' political wing. Although al-Arouri is involved in working to secure cease-fire terms between Israel and Gaza, he is also working to build up the Hamas terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. The US State Dept. recently announced a prize of up to $5 million for anyone who can find al-Arouri.
Alongside the worry about Hamas terrorist activity, defense and security officials are warning about a possible uptick in stabbing attacks. In the past three weeks, there has been an increase in attempts to carry out terrorist stabbings, and a few would-be attackers have been arrested.
The economic aspects of the deal of the century will be unveiled in Bahrain, unlike the other parts of the deal, which will address the core issues. Greenblatt admitted frankly this week that if Israel weren't holding a do-over election in September, the rest of the deal would be announced. He cited Nov. 6, after a new Israeli government should be in power, as the date on which all the details of the deal will come to light.
