PA official worries US ‘replicating’ Netanyahu strategy of bolstering Hamas at PA’s expense

A senior Palestinian Authority official expresses “concern” that the US is “replicating” what he says has been Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy of bolstering Hamas at the expense of the PA.

The remark to The Times of Israel comes two days after US envoy Jared Kushner held a rare in-person meeting with Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt before proceeding to Jerusalem for a sit-down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without making a stop in Ramallah to see anyone from the PA.

“The PA can play a critical role in stabilizing the situation in Gaza and the West Bank and should not be ignored,” the Palestinian official says, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official recalled how successive Netanyahu governments authorized Qatari payments to Hamas, which allowed for the bolstering of the terror group, even as Jerusalem gradually disengaged from the more moderate PA, which supports a two-state solution, and took steps to delegitimize it.

The official is careful not to explicitly criticize the Trump administration, as Ramallah apparently recognizes the limited leverage that it currently holds.

Kushner was asked in a portion of a Fox News interview that aired yesterday about the possibility of the US recognizing a Palestinian state and dismissed the idea for the time being, while knocking the PA.

“Before we can even talk about the political nature of a state, what we want to see is that the Palestinians can govern themselves. With the PA, they fall very, very short on the standard we need for somebody who can qualify for a state,” he said. “They have a lot of reforms they need to do, which the Saudis, the French and everyone agrees with us on. Governments are working on what the right set of reforms are.”

“Whether they’ll actually do it is another question. They’ve been threatening to reform for a decade now,” Kushner said of the PA.

Kushner recalled how the US has established a technocratic panel to govern postwar Gaza in place of Hamas, adding that “maybe we can talk about a political horizon later on in the future,” if the new committee shows that it can properly run Gaza.

The US plan for Gaza envisions that body, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, handing over control of the Strip to the PA once it has completed a series of reforms.

The Palestinian official insists that Ramallah is in the midst of such steps, but is significantly hobbled by a growing list of punitive measures taken by Netanyahu’s government that have brought the West Bank economy to the brink of collapse.

For example, the official noted that the PA has reformed its textbooks amid accusations from Israel that they have long included incitement against Jews.

The official says the curriculum has been updated online but that the PA education ministry doesn’t currently have the funds to print them en masse, as Israel continues to withhold billions of dollars in funds.