Thread by @theIMEU

THREAD: 6 Things to know about the Palestinian Authority's (PA) Crackdown on Dissent

1) PA police are effectively a subcontractor for Israel’s occupying army. PA police work closely with the Israeli army and operate under its overall control.

2) Many of the people arrested have also been imprisoned by the Israeli army for political reasons, some for extended periods without charge or trial.

Israel’s occupying army has targeted many of the same individuals for arrest for protesting and nonviolently resisting its brutal military rule and apartheid regime, sometimes imprisoning them without charge or trial ” which has been condemned by human rights groups.

3) PA police are funded by the US government.

Since the 1990s, the US government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars arming and training PA police while expressing little concern for the abuses they commit against Palestinians.

4) The PA was supposed to be a temporary body and is not an independent government.

The PA was established in the early 1990s under the Oslo Accords and was supposed to be temporary on the way to Palestinian statehood by 1999.

It has no sovereignty and little control even in the areas it is responsible for administering under the terms of Oslo.

5) Even if the PA ends its repression, Palestinians will remain under Israel’s apartheid regime.

Israel’s oppressive, more than half-century-old military rule over Palestinians in the occupied territories (West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza)

and the system of apartheid it has imposed in all of Palestine/Israel will remain even if the PA is reformed or abolished.

6) Palestinians have a long history of civic engagement and organizing for their rights and freedom.

Palestinian civil society has a long and vibrant tradition of working in democratic fashion for the freedom and rights of all Palestinians.