News Analysis: PLO decisions prepare for new stage of conflict with Israel

The decisions of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council, mainly to halt all types of security coordination with Israel, are to establish a new Palestinian stage and escalate the conflicts with Israel, analysts said.

However, they noted that the consequences and the influence of these decisions on the ground are linked to whether the leading Palestinian executive authority will execute them, mainly the part related to severing all types of security coordination with Israel, as this may lead to an open clash between the two sides.

On Thursday night, the PLO Central Council said in an official statement issued after a two-day meeting held in Ramallah that it decided to halt all types of security coordination with Israel in response to Israel's measures of settlements expansion and the withholding of the Palestinian tax dues.

All the PLO Central Council decisions "are obligatory," Tayseer Khaled, a member of the PLO Executive Committee told Xinhua, adding that "the council is a high reference and the executive committee is obliged to follow up its decisions."

"The decisions of the PLO council prepare for a new stage in the Palestinian struggle to move the Palestinian Authority and all its functions from its current status of being an authority working as an agent for Israel to a new status that sets it free from the agreements' restrictions," Khaled added.

Since the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the Palestinians have always been complaining that Israel is always trying to empty the PNA from its content and leaving it without any authorities. Their outrage grew after Israel kept withholding their tax revenue dues in early January.

Israel's decision to withhold the tax revenue dues, which represent two third of the Palestinian monthly budget, was made in response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' decision of signing on joining 20 international treaties and agencies, including the International Criminal Court.

According to Oslo peace accords signed between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, Israel agreed to collect taxes at crossing points it controls from the Palestinian trades and to pay back the dues of these taxes to the PNA in order to cover its bill of salaries and other monthly running costs.

While, security coordination between the PNA and Israel was a basic part of Oslo deal.

Adnan Damiri, spokesman of the PNA security apparatuses, told Xinhua earlier that his security forces will be committed to severing security coordination with Israel once a decision is made by the leadership.

"The long-time stalemate in the political process, the tight Israeli security measures and the settlement building had badly influenced the bilateral security ties," he said, adding that "even regular meetings between security officials from both sides hadn't been held for a long time."

Security coordination with Israel collapsed following the breakout of the second Palestinian Intifada in September of 2000 and was resumed after the International Quartet for Mideast Peace proposed the roadmap peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians in 2003.

Following the PLO decision of halting security coordination with Israel, Israeli Radio quoted senior Israeli officials as saying that security coordination with the PNA is still going on until now. Meanwhile, it quoted a senior Palestinian official as saying that the decision is just "a recommendation."

Over the past several years, President Abbas has refused to listen to factions and militant groups' calls to halt security coordination with Israel. Supporters of this coordination believed that halting it unilaterally "would boost Israel and hold Palestinians responsible for upcoming violent consequences."

Beside the coordination in hot security questions, the PNA has to keep a direct line of coordinating the daily life of the Palestinians, mainly commercial activities at crossing points controlled by Israel and also coordinating the movement of individuals at Israeli army checkpoints and roadblocks.

However, Sameeh Shbeib, political analyst from Ramallah, said the decision is not obligatory and the leading Palestinian executive authorities may not immediately implement it, "but the PNA, according to what Abbas said, may reconsider its functions on the ground."

George Jackman, chairman of the Democratic Studies Association in Ramallah, told Xinhua that the idea of halting security coordination with Israel "represents the most important steps the Palestinians can do in response to Israel's policy against them."

"But I'm sorry to say that the PNA is unfortunately unable to halt security coordination with Israel because halting it completely would open the gates largely for endless confrontations which will be ended with tragedies, losses, destructions and reoccupation of the West Bank." Endit