The Palestinians No One Talks About

by Bassam Tawil, GATESTONE  •  June 27, 2023 at 5:00 am

• Even if the anti-Israel activists are made aware that Palestinian students living under the Palestinian Authority are being hauled off and tortured by their own leaders, they are not likely to speak out because there is no way to blame Israel or hold it responsible.
• The Palestinian Authority crackdown on students is also being ignored by the international media and human rights organizations that regularly attack Israel but indefatigably refuse to see any wrongdoing on the part of Palestinians. Many foreign journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict make it their business actually to hunt for any story that reflects badly on Israel.

• If these activists really cared about Palestinians, they would be speaking out against the arrest and torture of Palestinian students at the hands of Palestinian security forces, the need for better education, jobs and above all better, less corrupt governance for Palestinians. They would also be insisting on freedom of speech and of the press for Palestinians, and protesting the reported forcible closing of human rights groups such as Lawyers for Justice, instead of denouncing Israel day and night.
• The crackdown is part of an ongoing effort by the Palestinian Authority to silence and intimidate its political rivals and deter others from speaking out against Abbas and senior Palestinian officials.
• In May, the Islamic Bloc won the elections for the student council at Birzeit University, defeating the Palestinian Authority-affiliated student list.
• The Palestinian Authority, plainly speaking, which is rapidly losing credibility among its youths, appears to have difficulty accepting the results of the elections in which its supporters were defeated. That is most likely the real reason the newly-elected chairman of the student council was arrested.
• Hassan, in recent weeks, was not the only student from Birzeit University to be arrested by the PA security services. At least another four students have been taken into custody for unknown reasons: Yahya Qassem, Fawzi Abu Kweik, Omar Kiswani and Obaida Qatouseh.
• [S]he noticed bruises all over his body…. “My son told me that he has been warned not to tell anyone about the torture [in Palestinian prison]….” — Mother of Yahya Qassem, Twitter, June 17, 2023.
• Lawyers for Justice, a Ramallah-based independent Palestinian organization, reportedly now being forcibly shut down by the PA, said that it has documented 20 cases of arbitrary arrests by the Palestinian security forces since the beginning of June.
• “Additionally, [the Palestinian security forces] have endangered the rights of detainees by fabricating new charges against them or re-detaining them under the pretext of review or appeal. In addition, the group has observed the presence of signs of torture on the bodies of many detainees….” — Lawyers for Justice, Facebook, June 18, 2023.
• It is time to call out the anti-Israel activists on US campuses for their hypocrisy and lack of respect for Palestinian human rights. By ignoring the plight of their Palestinian colleagues who are being arrested and tortured by fellow Palestinians, the anti-Israel activists are in fact proving that they are also anti-Palestinian.

While anti-Israel activism on US campuses has increased over the past two years, no one seems interested in what is happening on the campuses of Palestinian universities in the West Bank. Students are being arrested and tortured by the security forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The activists leading the anti-Israel campaigns in the US appear so blinded by their hatred for Israel that they are unwilling to help the Palestinians whom they so profess to care about by commenting that the PA security forces are cracking down on Palestinian university students. Even if the anti-Israel activists are made aware that Palestinian students living under the PA are being hauled off and tortured by their own leaders, they are not likely to speak out because there is no way to blame Israel or hold it responsible.

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