West Bank parliamentarians say security coordination with Israel protects settlers not Palestinians

Elected parliamentarians belonging to the Change and Reform bloc have denounced the attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian citizens, their properties and mosques in several villages in the occupied West Bank. They called on the Palestinian security services to protect Palestinians against such attacks. Security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel is blamed by the MPs for the lack of action by the PA’s security apparatus.

In a press statement, the MPs called upon the Palestinian security services to use the personnel they have recently recruited, trained and equipped to play their the natural role in defending Palestinian citizens and their properties against repeated attacks by Zionist settlers. “It is shocking,” they added, “that a request was made to the security services by Palestinian officials not to respond to attacks by settlers on the pretext that they wished to avoid armed conflict apparently planned by the Israelis to divert attention from the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood at the UN.”

---

The MPs also complained that the dangerous escalation in attacks by the illegal settlers is taking place “under the eyes and full protection of Israeli soldiers who are deployed in the West Bank” against unarmed Palestinians who have been stripped of their weapons and other means of self-defence. “This is evidence,” they said, “that security coordination is tilted in Israel’s favour and the security of the settlers, and not – as is claimed by some of the people in power – in the interests of the Palestinian people.”