Israel’s search for “non-hostile” Palestinian subcontractors, a brief history.

On Jan 4, 2024, Israeli Defense Minister Gallant published a 3-page document called the “Day After.” The day after the war ends in Gaza, he wrote, “Palestinian bodies will be in charge,” with one condition. The Palestinian “entity controlling the territory” would be a “non-hostile actor.” 

Gallant is on the hunt for new Palestinian subcontractors in Gaza who are non-hostile to the Israeli military. After having survived a genocide, their role will be to ensure the millions of other genocide survivors in Gaza do not show any hostility towards the genocide’s perpetrators.

What could possibly go wrong?

Israel’s search for compliant Palestinian subcontractors to manage the occupation dates to the 1970s. In 1971, Israeli authorities chose Rashad Shawa, born to a prominent Gaza family, as mayor of Gaza, and tasked him with integrating the Shati refugee camp (Beach Camp) into Gaza City’s municipal services. But Palestinians saw this as an attempt to erase the camp as a refugee camp, to erase the idea that its residents were refugees, and so Shawa refused to comply. Just one year into his tenure, he was summarily dismissed for non-compliance. So, instead, the Israeli military established a committee in the camp to manage its forced integration into Gaza City. The leader of the committee was murdered in February 1972. All the other members of the committee soon resigned. Can you blame them? 

In the West Bank, just like in Gaza, Israel struggled to convince Palestinians to just “do-as-told.” Recall that, in 1974, the Arab League proclaimed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” and so the organization naturally attracted a lot of support in the occupied territories. And although pro-PLO candidates boycotted the 1972 municipal elections in the occupied territories, they participated in the 1974-75 elections, and won. By 1976, pro-PLO candidates had won municipal elections in Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah, and eleven other towns, gaining 75% of the municipal council seats and 60% of mayors’ offices. “Could the message be more clear?” asked Karim Khalaf, mayor of Ramallah, whose pro-PLO block won 8 of the 9 seats on the City Council in 1976.

Who would have guessed that occupied Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would find common cause with those seeking their liberation rather than with those seeking their subjugation? 

Israel wanted compliant subcontractors, though, and so in 1978, it sponsored the creation of the Village Leagues, a network of anti-PLO figures from rural areas. Israel’s goal was to bypass the Palestinian elected representatives, i.e., the mayors and the city councils. Israel provided the Village Leagues with weapons and granted them authority over travel and building permits and civil service jobs. Meanwhile, Israel refused development aid requested by the elected representatives, but provided such aid to the unelected Village Leagues. 

In 1983,  Mohammad Nasr, a leader within the Village Leagues, launched a movement to call for "internationally supervised elections in the West Bank and Gaza" to determine "the true leaders of the Palestinians." Nasr was arrested and expelled from the Village Leagues. It became clear their purpose was to take orders from the Israeli authorities, and not much else.

Ultimately, the Village Leagues project floundered. As Salim Tamari observed in 1983, it was a legitimacy problem. By the mid-1980s, they had effectively evolved into a branch of Israel’s security apparatus, forming a network of espionage “gangs” that reported to the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police. By 1988, the Village Leagues ceased to exist.

But Israel had a backup plan to undermine the pro-PLO elected representatives: empower the Islamists. In the 1980s, Israel funded and supported an organization called al-Mujama' al-Islami, an Islamic charity that operated a network of mosques, medical centers, orphanages, health clinics, food banks, soup kitchens, summer camps, youth sports, educational programs and schools across the West Bank and Gaza. The organization focused on charity work and Islamic preaching.

The Israeli military propped up the Islamists for the same reason it propped up the Village Leagues: subvert the elected representatives of Palestine’s towns and cities.

As a result, al-Mujama' al-Islami greatly expanded its reach, power and influence in the 1980s. In 1988, with the outbreak of the First Uprising, known as the Intifada, the organization embraced violent jihad, and it took on a new name as well, Hamas. 

Israel’s divide and conquer strategy did not go as planned. If the project to empower the Village Leagues ended in failure, the project to empower the Islamists ended in catastrophe, a catastrophe that Israel would not fully comprehend until October 7th, 2023. 

Ultimately, the Uprising changed the occupation calculus for Israel, making it clear to Israel’s political establishment that it needed a new approach for managing the occupation. It needed new occupation subcontractors.

No sooner, in 1988, Yasser Arafat declared that the PLO accepted the existence of the state of Israel. ''We accept two states,” he said, “the Palestine state and the Jewish state of Israel.'' 

At some point, Israeli leaders realized the PLO was not an obstacle to maintaining its control of the occupied territories, it was part of the solution.

The result of this realization was the Oslo Process, a series of agreements in which the PLO--through its new organ, the Palestinian Authority (PA)--would subcontract out limited control of urban areas of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel promised that, in five years from the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the two sides would conclude “final status” talks.

Israel’s goal with the Palestinian Authority was similar to its goal with the Village Leagues: provide Palestinians a facade of autonomy or self-rule, without actually providing the Palestinians autonomy or self-rule. 

Israel wanted to relieve itself of the responsibility of managing the day-to-day affairs of the occupation, while maintaining ultimate control of all the land between the river and sea. The Palestinian Authority became critical to that project.

More than three decades later, the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, has proven to be Israel’s most reliable and resilient subcontractor. The PA has earned the support of the entire international community, including the UN, as well as the Israeli government, even though the entity has not held elections in nearly two decades and has almost no legitimacy among Palestinians. 

A December 2023 poll found that a staggering 90% of Palestinians in the occupied territories believe that PA President Mahmoud Abbas should resign. Today, the majority of Palestinians in the occupied territories consider the institution itself as part of Israel’s apartheid regime in the West Bank, rather than a force for opposing it.

We do not yet know who Israel will choose to subcontract out its occupation of Gaza. But if Israel hopes to avoid repeating past mistakes, it has to let the people of Gaza decide their own fate.

Much love,

-Zach