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The Palestinian Authority's Revolving Door with Alaa Tartir
117 Plays1 year ago
Alaa Tartir joins host Yara Hawari to discuss the revolving door/al-bab al-dawaar, a critical component of PA-Israeli security coordination. They situate the policy within the wider “collaboration paradigm" and examine its disruptive impact on Palestinian resistance and the liberation movement.
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Transcript
Shared Interests in Suppression
00:00:00
Speaker
What is common between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli regime, as far as the revolving door policy is concerned, is that it highlights a shared interest of the Palestinian Authority, Israel and their international supporters in doing one thing, which is to suppress and silence Palestinian resistance.
Introduction to 'Rethinking Palestine'
00:00:23
Speaker
From Ashabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, I am Yara Hawari, and this is Rethinking Palestine.
Jenin Invasion and Aftermath
00:00:33
Speaker
In July, 2023, the Israeli regime invaded the Palestinian refugee camp on Shannin and the surrounding areas. It was a brutal invasion. Israeli bulldozers tore up roads, destroyed vital infrastructure and houses, and displaced hundreds of families. Missiles were also launched at the Denskelpack camp, the site not seen in the West Bank since 2002. Dozens of Palestinians were killed and many more injured.
00:01:01
Speaker
Shortly after the Israeli regime army withdrew, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Jenin accompanied by a large number of personnel from the Palestinian Authority's security forces. Days later, the Palestinian Authority began a crackdown campaign of its own arresting members of Islamic Jihad and other political factions across Jenin and throughout the West Bank. Many of those arrested have been previously targeted and or incarcerated by the Israeli regime.
Understanding Revolving Door Arrests
00:01:31
Speaker
This cycle of incarceration is not coincidental. Rather, it's known as the revolving door practice and forms a crucial part of the Palestinian Authority's security coordination with the Israeli regime. In August, 2023, Dr. Al-Atartir, Shabaka's program and policy advisor, researcher and director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, wrote a policy memo on this practice for Shabaka.
00:02:00
Speaker
You can find it on our website, www.al-shabaka.org.
Discussing Revolving Door with Hala
00:02:06
Speaker
And for this episode, Hala is joining me to discuss that memo and more about the revolving door practice. Hala, thank you for joining me once again on Rethinking Palestine. Thank you very much, Hera. Hala, let's start off at the beginning. What is the revolving door practice and why is it called that?
Security Collaboration Roots
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, when the Palestinian Authority was established 30 years ago, it accepted a security framework that effectively made it a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation in the security domain. And the Oslo Accords in that sense was a security arrangement or a security agreement in effective terms to sustain the status quo
00:02:50
Speaker
and not an agreement to make the Palestinian people living in the West Bank and Gaza in particular closer to statehood or to freedom. And the key element of that framework, of that security framework, is the so-called security coordination or security collaboration paradigm.
00:03:08
Speaker
And security collaboration or security coordination takes different forms, different shapes, and the revolving door policy is one of its components. What we call in Arabic al-Baba dawar or the revolving door policy is effectively a mechanism.
00:03:26
Speaker
to operationalize the overall security framework agreement or arrangement or coordination that put in place with Oslo Accords.
Impacts of Revolving Door Policy
00:03:35
Speaker
And this revolving door is a transactional and operational protocol whereby the Palestinians and Palestinians activists, freedom fighters, opposition members and the oppositions are imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority or
00:03:54
Speaker
the Israeli regime and then directly or indirectly handed over or handed back to one of those, the Palestinian Authority or Israel. So for example, the Palestinian Authority can arrest a Palestinian and few days, few hours, few weeks, few months later, the person would be arrested by the Israeli regime for the same charges.
00:04:19
Speaker
and vice versa. So it works that Palestinians are imprisoned by the Israelis, by the Israeli regime, where a list of charges are presented to them, then few months later they are out, then the Palestinian Authority comes and arrest them with similar charges. So this is why it is called
00:04:38
Speaker
revolving door, Bab Dawar, because it is really this kind of door, revolving door that leads to prison, either in Palestinian authorities prisons or in the Israeli jails for same charges.
00:04:54
Speaker
And that is why also it's called revolving door in that sense. Yet it is a revolving door and it's a one-way relationship in the sense that only Palestinians are in that revolving door, meaning it is not reciprocal.
00:05:10
Speaker
It is not reciprocal. You would not see Israeli settlers, for example, in that revolving door. It only concerns the Palestinians and the Palestinian people that they go into either of these jails. And this is a policy that's been documented over the years since the inception of
00:05:30
Speaker
It goes to different levels of peakness, depends on the level of mobilization, but it is by now unfortunately a well-established policy that operationalize this security framework and security coordination
00:05:49
Speaker
through that policy. And finally, what is common between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli regime, as far as the revolving door policy is concerned, is that it highlights a shared interest, a shared interest of both the Palestinian Authority, Israel and their international supporters in doing one thing, which is to suppress and silence Palestinian resistance.
Rejection of Security Coordination
00:06:16
Speaker
Some might be surprised at such a collaboration with the Israeli regime by the Palestinian Authority. And you mentioned the Oslo Accords and how the PA, the Palestinian Authority, essentially became a subcontractor for the Israeli regime, particularly in the realm of security. But perhaps you can contextualize this for us and tell us a bit more about this wider collaboration paradigm.
00:06:40
Speaker
Let's agree on one thing at the beginning concerning this so-called collaboration paradigm or security coordination. And let's agree that there is no such thing as coordination or collaboration within and under frameworks of settler colonialism and apartheid. There is only one thing. There is only domination.
00:07:01
Speaker
So whenever we talk about security coordination, about security collaborations, these are the terms that are commonly used all the time. They only mean one thing, domination. And that really summarizes why also the Palestinian people reject, fundamentally reject, this paradigm of security collaboration and security coordination. So it is really crucial not to be misled by the titles and names of collaboration because effectively it is
Exploring Security Coordination Paradigm
00:07:30
Speaker
domination.
00:07:30
Speaker
But if we want to take a step back and look at this so-called paradigm of security coordination that started and emerged three decades ago with the Oslo agreement and with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, we notice that it started originally as what we could call a contractual obligation. A contractual obligation in the sense that because of the Oslo framework,
00:07:54
Speaker
Because of the conditionality of the international donors and international actors, because of the different security sector reform plans that put in place, there was a contractual obligation that the Palestinian Authority took too seriously in delivering. And that was how the security coordination was manifested.
00:08:16
Speaker
However, over the past decade in particular, it transformed into deep rooted institutional behavior and even formal identity when it comes to security coordination to the extent that it became a firm belief.
00:08:32
Speaker
that was so deep in the minds and perceptions and actions of the Palestinian authorities current and future leadership. And that's really the problem. It's not just a concept or practice that belongs to history and the existing
00:08:48
Speaker
leadership of the Palestinian Authority, but also becoming future leadership adopts this paradigm of security collaboration. So it is not surprising in the sense that it was part of the package. It was part of the package of the Oslo Accurates to get the Palestinian Authority to do this job when it comes to security collaboration and security coordination and to effectively serve as a subcontractor to the Israeli regime in the security domain.
00:09:15
Speaker
The worrying sign is that it is becoming a paradigm that the official Palestinian authorities stand are very passionate and uncompromisingly about, in the sense that they see security coordination as a bridge to fight what they call violence and radicalization. They see it as an avenue for independence.
00:09:36
Speaker
they insist that security coordination is part and parcel of our liberation strategy. So that is the very unfortunate and surprising thing, but what we need to keep in mind is that it belongs to the overall larger framework of Oslo hackers and its security arrangement and security collaboration paradigm.
00:10:00
Speaker
And this is why the only time I argue that the Palestinian Authority can and will really, really stop security coordination with Israel is when the Palestinian Authority ceases to exist in its current shape, form and functions and leadership. And to testify to all of this, if I'm not mistaken, the Palestinian Authority threatened or declared
00:10:22
Speaker
over 60 times that it has stopped or is stopping security coordination, 60 times. And that means it is really deeply rooted in the structure of Oates Blackers and in the structural dimensions that we have there. And this is why it is so deeply rooted there. If you're enjoying this podcast, please visit our website al-shabaka.org where you will find more Palestinian policy analysis and where you can join our mailing list and donate to support our work.
00:10:53
Speaker
So, taking us back to specifically the revolving door policy, it's not a coincidence, and you mentioned this, that it's most frequently utilised at a time when there's heightened Palestinian mobilisation or armed resistance.
00:11:09
Speaker
It is designed for that. It is designed to be an action when there is heightened mobilization and high level of resistance. It is by definition created to do that. It is by definition created to suppress resistance, be it armed or not armed. So that's my definition.
00:11:27
Speaker
Because when it is calm, when it is stable, you don't see this revolving door policy. It's not visible in that sense. There are other forms of security coordination and other mechanisms that are in place, intelligent sharing and so on.
00:11:43
Speaker
But it is precisely when there is an anti-fado, there is an uprising, or there is a height in terms of resistance, and there is a new peak of resistance or larger mobilization. That's when the revolving door policy gets utilized and instrumentalized.
Victims' Stories and Impact
00:12:02
Speaker
So it is by design, designed to do that at that time when Palestinians are mobilizing, when Palestinians are resisting, when the Palestinians are acting together to resist the oppression by the Israeli regime. So this is really by design and by default and by definition when it is being utilized. Can you humanize this for us and paint a picture of what someone who is subjected to this practice goes through?
00:12:30
Speaker
This takes me back over 10 years ago, when I spent some time in particular in Balata and Geneva refugee camps during my research. And during that time, I've interviewed and talked to many, many, many Palestinians who were victims of this revolving door policy.
00:12:51
Speaker
and documented some of the experiences that they went through. Until now, and that was over 10 years ago, there were two lasting impressions during these conversations with multiple people and refugees, in particular in Balata and refugee camps, and they
00:13:09
Speaker
they are stuck with me. And I've been thinking a lot about two responses in particular when we discuss security collaboration, but in particular, this phenomena or this policy of revolving door. And one of the respondents, I believe in from Jeanine at the time, and I'm talking here about over 10 years ago, he said that the revolving door is a door that revolves around our next
00:13:34
Speaker
around our arms, around our resistance and around our dignity, freedom and liberation. And that was very powerful illustration from a victim of that policy, of the revolving door policy at the time. Another voice was that this revolving door policy, he argued then that we must shut it down forever and never open it because the moment we open one door, then million other doors will open
00:14:01
Speaker
and all these doors will lead to hell. These two codes from victims of revolving door policies really stayed with me for a long time and they illustrate the significance of that and they illustrate the harm that it could cause that is known to the Palestinian people but not.
00:14:22
Speaker
to the Palestinian security establishment of the Palestinian Authority. I had many interviews with people who were charged with the same charges and prisons in both prisons as administration of this revolving door policy.
00:14:39
Speaker
Another voice from Jeanine refugee camp also, for example, told me that, and I'm quoting here, after I was arrested and detained for nine months in the Palestinian Authority Preventive Security Prison, because I'm a member of Hamas, after three weeks of my release from the PA prison Israel arrested me and accused me of the same exact crimes.
00:15:01
Speaker
Literally, they used the same words. Another respondent from Balata refugee camps told me, after six months of administrative detention in an Israeli jail and before I enjoyed the flavor of freedom, the PAA forces raided our house after midnight, arrested me and detained me for eight months. They didn't ask me any question in the jail, any.
00:15:23
Speaker
they showed me a document and told me in Hebrew, they said, which means, all right, your file is ready. And just wait for God until he comes and rescues you. I read these two quotes and the previously two other quotes as direct quotations for this revolving door policy. And these goes back to over 10 years ago. And we can imagine what happened over the past years after that.
00:15:50
Speaker
with the different forms of uprisings that the Palestinians led that was directly linked with further increase in the implementation of this revolving door policy. This seems like a really damaging practice and one that really highlights the Palestinian Authority's complicity in the oppression of its own people.
Challenging the Oslo Framework
00:16:12
Speaker
But beyond condemnation, what do you think can be done to challenge or even disrupt the revolving door practice?
00:16:21
Speaker
Many things can be done, but really at the fundamental level, what is needed is to question and reverse the overall framework of Oslo Accords. 30 years of that is enough.
00:16:36
Speaker
30 years of failing the Palestinians and failing to protect them is a very, very long time. And security coordination paradigm and the revolving door policy were instrumental in causing that. So really the first one of the fundamental asks here is that the Palestinian Authority listens to the Palestinian people and the popular opinion
00:17:03
Speaker
And it is clear that the vast majority of the Palestinian people want security coordination with Israel to stop now, including the revolving door policy. This is a key aspect and it is a political will. It is a clear political declaration that
00:17:21
Speaker
We're done with the Oslo hackers and its framework in its 30th anniversary, especially when it comes to security collaboration. So stopping that, although it is not easy process, as I said earlier, 60 attempts by the Palestinian Authority failed, but it's enough of that and it is time to take critical steps to stop that.
00:17:43
Speaker
as a way also to contribute to a process of what we can call a national reconciliation. But also there is an element of leadership there. There is an element that the external donors and external interventions, they add lots of political conditionalities when it comes to sustaining security coordination and investing in that. And it is time to say no for that.
00:18:08
Speaker
To say no, there is a need for a courageous leadership to say no to these politically conditioned interventions that aims to invest and sustain insecurity coordination. And finally, there is a need for the Palestinian civil society organizations and human rights organizations to continue in documenting the consequences.
00:18:37
Speaker
and the implications of the revolving door policy in particular and security coordination at large, especially that there is a denial by the Palestinian Authority that such policy even exists, although there is a strong ample evidence out there to tell us that this is a well-established policy that's been documented by human rights organizations over the years and over the decades.
00:19:04
Speaker
So there is a need for a continuation of that as a way to engage in a constructive and responsible conversation about security coordination, about the revolving door policy, as a way of knowing that accountability could be possible.
00:19:23
Speaker
We miss accountability. The structures of governance and leadership miss any element of accountability. And this policy dialogue related to security coordination, related to revolving door policy,
00:19:39
Speaker
could be an avenue to have that constructive debate and constructive conversation about a damaging policy that makes the Palestinians further away from being closer to their freedom.
Conclusion and Call for Support
00:19:56
Speaker
So these are some of the policy or some of the ideas or recommendations how to move away from a damaging
00:20:06
Speaker
policy and engage in a process to reverse that. Alad, thank you so much for your insightful analysis and for joining me on this episode of Rethinking Palestine. Thank you very much.
00:20:27
Speaker
Rethinking Palestine is brought to you by Ashabaka, the Palestinian policy network. Ashabaka is the only global independent Palestinian think tank whose mission is to produce critical policy analysis and collectively imagine a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine and Palestinians worldwide. For more information or to donate to support our work, visit al-ashabaka.org. And importantly, don't forget to subscribe to Rethinking Palestine, wherever you listen to podcasts.