In a three-part interview, the scholar and former advisor to Mahmoud Abbas Ghaith al-Omari discusses the current Palestinian predicament, and what can be done to improve it. In the second segment, he addresses the decline of the Palestinian Authority, and the opportunity it creates for terrorists:

There’s a political and security vacuum in the West Bank that is prompting its people to abandon their government and institutions and turn to other actors. . . . In every town, every area in the West Bank, people are taking matters into their own hands because the authorities are unable to ensure their security. That explains—in part—the emergence of small armed groups in the West Bank. In the town of Jenin, it’s Islamic Jihad [an armed Islamist group] that dominates, alongside other small groups. In Hebron, further south, it’s tribes and clans that are maintaining the peace.

Hamas is doing everything it can to encourage an explosion in the West Bank and a collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas’s view in general is that if the Palestinian Authority collapses, then it is the “last man standing” and it becomes the only [actor] for the international community and for the region to deal with. So Hamas is doing this in a number of ways. First of all, we know that it is trying to get its terrorist cells in the West Bank to conduct terror attacks.

In the final segment, al-Omari addresses the claim that in normalizing relations with Israel, Arab states abandoned the Palestinians:

I don’t believe that the signatories of the accords have turned their back on Palestinians. We are witnessing a new way of doing politics in the Middle East, centered in the Gulf. The Arab countries that are undertaking this new approach did this to pursue their national interests, and they have every right to do so. I think the Palestinian leaders don’t realize that the region is changing; they still live in the past.

If [Palestinian leaders] choose to engage, they will obtain strengthened political support from Arab countries. . . . More than political support, there are also possibilities for economic benefits. . . . There is much to gain but they need to make the choice of joining. The region is changing, and the Abraham Accords are here to stay.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.