Palestinian Authority beats up Palestinians

You may hear from time to time about demands from Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to stop US funds from going to the Palestinian Authority. Her latest effort to do so was ignored by the U.S. State Department.

While this might seem like a positive thing, keeping money going to a downtrodden group, the PA is far from representative of the Palestinians and, in fact, is mainly a police force tasked with keeping down Palestinian dissent - holding a lid on any demonstrations that might displease the Israelis and the Americans who provide money. Currently, the PA is cracking down on those many Palestinians who realize the so-called Peace Process is dead and wish everyone to stop pretending that it isn't.

Here is an excerpt from an article on the mistreatment of Palestinians by the PA, written by Eoin O'Ceallaigh, who participated in the demonstrations described...

On Saturday, 30 June, approximately 1,000 people gathered in al-Manara square in Ramallah to protest the Palestinian Authority’s invitation to Shaul Mofaz, Israel’s deputy prime minister and an indicted war criminal, and demanding an end to negotiations with Israel.

The protest was swiftly and violently repressed by plain-clothed mukhabarat (secret police) thugs, with PA police coordination. The repression took the form of mukhabarat and police beating people with batons and metal chains, sexually assaulting and spitting in the face of female protestors, kidnapping and beating several people, including journalists, in police stations. Many were treated in the hospital for their injuries.
The following day there was another large protest in al-Manara Square. This time the target of anger was not only the PA’s commitment to “negotiations” with Israel, which have benefited nobody other than the colonizing power, but now the PA “security” forces who had violently beaten and humiliated people the day before.

As the march arrived outside the taxi station on al-Irsal street, the police again attacked the demonstration, this time with far more violence than the previous day. There were scenes of chaos as police thugs tore into the crowd, lashing out at anyone within range, beating people on the heads with EU-supplied batons. Mukhabarat again dragged protesters from the crowd, where at least one person was taken to a police station and beaten, before being released for treatment at the hospital...