Assassination of activist shows Palestinian Authority is extension of Israeli occupation

The South Africa BDS Coalition joins Palestinians around the world in condemning the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the murder of Nizar Banat in Hebron by PA security forces on the 24th June 2021. This travesty is compounded by the brutal repression unleashed by PA security officials and their plain-clothed thugs against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank for peacefully protesting against Nizar’s torture and murder. These PA actions emulate the violence of Israeli Occupation Forces.

Nizar was a critic of the PA’s “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation, which, according to Human Rights Watch, “contribute[s] to facilitating the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution”.

Some 25 PA security forces stormed Nizar’s house in the early hours of the morning, and brutally assaulted him, in full view of his family and neighbours, before dragging him off to a vehicle and driving him away. He was pronounced dead two hours later.

The murder sparked demonstrations against the PA across Occupied Palestine and condemnations and protests from Palestinians around the world. Palestinians have labelled the PA a proxy of Israel, an extension of the occupation, and a sub-contractor for Israel’s repression. Nizar’s murder is a further indication that the PA is a security contractor for Israel’s occupation and apartheid.

This repression comes soon after the exceptional unity in struggle and solidarity expressed by Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza, Israel and in refugee camps against the barbaric bombardment of Gaza and the ethnic cleansing in the Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Sheik Jarrah and Silwan, the racist pogroms by Zionist mobs in 1948 Palestine communities and the invasion of Masjid Al Aqsa.

For the past few days, PA security forces have attacked protesters across the West Bank, (in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and elsewhere). PA thugs have attacked demonstrators, journalists, and targeted women protestors. Some armed supporters of Fatah, PA president Mahmoud Abbas’s party, intimidated Palestinian civilians by provocatively marching in some cities with automatic weapons.

Abbas and his PA have become more and more irrelevant to the Palestinian people, the cause of Palestinian liberation and the struggle against Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid. Most recently, Palestinian anger against the PA and Abbas has grown after Abbas cancelled Palestinian elections that were due to take place in May and July; he has refused to hold elections since elected in 2005, and after Fatah lost parliamentary elections in 2006. Anger increased after the PA’s silence and subsequent weak response to the Israeli onslaught on Gaza in May, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian families in Jerusalem. In fact, PA security officials physically attacked Palestinians protesting against Israel’s actions.

Nizar’s murder, for many Palestinians, is the most recent indication not only of the PA’s irrelevance, but of its active collaboration with Israel. It is clear that the PA is not a ‘government’ - it exists to normalise Israeli apartheid as the bantustans sought to do under apartheid South Africa. The PA’s main role appers to be to suppress Palestinian resistance to the occupation through its security collaboration with Israel.

The PA and its head, Mahmoud Abbas, have shown themselves to be no better than the worst bantustan regimes in South Africa, which accepted the outsourcing of repression from the apartheid regime to them, and acted brutally against Black people and the South African liberation movements.

Echoing the calls of Palestinians under occupation and in the diaspora we demand:

1. The release of all political prisoners from PA jails and the release of all those detained for protesting the murder of Nizar Banat;

2. An independent, international inquiry into Nizar’s murder, believing, along with most Palestinians, that any enquiry set up by the PA will be a cover-up to protect the PA, its president and its security forces;

3. An end to “security coordination” and collaboration with apartheid Israel’s security and military forces;

4. That immediate steps be taken by the PA and all political parties towards holding of free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections with independent oversight and in line with the wishes of the Palestinian people;

5. That Abbas steps down from his position as head of the PA and chairperson of the PLO. He has exposed the PA as a partner of the Israeli occupation, systematically destroyed the PLO and brought disrepute to this formerly respected liberation movement which inspired so many around the world;

6. That international human rights organizations and the UN Human Rights Council pressure governments to act and stop the PA human rights violations of the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank;

7. That Western powers, mainly the EU and the US, immediately stop their cooperation, training, weapons transfer and funding for the PA security forces and instead redirect support to Palestinian farmers and workers most affected by Israeli policies of dispossession.

We call on the South African government to demarche the PA’s representative in Pretoria, and to express its condemnation of the PA’s murderous actions. We further call on the ANC and the government not to give any credence to the notion that the PA represents the Palestinian people.

We call on all Palestinian solidarity organisations and progressive social movements, trade unions and individuals to refuse to cooperate with the representatives of the PA Embassy until these demands are met.

Statement issued by the BDS Coalition, 28 June 2021