Why do you support a Palestinian Authority that is cruel and repressive?

This essay isn't addressed to my readers. It's addressed to those who don't typically read this blog.

A title like the one above could be misleading. It presupposes that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is cruel and repressive. 

That's a difficult presupposition. From what one reads of the Arab-Israel conflict, one could easily conclude that it's Israel that's cruel and repressive. That's what the world's media claims, isn't it?

But the PA? According to the world's media, that doesn't seem likely, does it?

Well, it's more than likely. A new Human Rights Watch (hrw) Report has just concluded that these so-called innocent Middle East victims everyone loves to love aren't so loving after all. They're cruel--and repressive.

I don't know what people who support the Palestinian Authority (PA) believe about the PA. Perhaps they support the PA because they truly believe that Palestinians are victims of Israeli brutality. 

If that's what they believe, they should read this Human Rights Watch Report before they go to another pro-Palestinian march. They might learn something. 

This new Report reminds everyone that the PA is no democracy. Far from it. The PA is a repressive, brutal authoritarian state wannabee that seems to want to compete with North Korea for 'most corrupt, most brutal regime'. This hrw report puts the world on notice: the truth about the PA is ugly--uglier than many thought possible.

Here's the Report (here). The details are real. You can validate these details with this from 2015, this from 2016 (with evidence of torture than predates the current hrw Report), and this from 2018.

Unlike most of what you've read about the PA, this Report minces no words: both Hamas and the PA have "established machineries (sic) of repression to crush dissent". These "machineries" (sic) include torture (ibid). 

Journalists, university students, social media users and peaceful demonstrators are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention. 'Security forces' routinely taunt, threaten and beat these victims both before and after arrest. PA security forces torture those they question. 

This doesn't sound like Palestinians-are-victims. It sounds like Palestinians-are-more-barbaric-than-not.

It took two years of investigation to complete this Report, which focused on patterns of arrest and detention conditions in the PA and Gaza. Investigators interviewed 147 victims of Palestinian abuse. Investigators also interviewed doctors, family members of the abused, lawyers and representatives of NGO's.  Pictures and videos were gathered. Medical reports and court documents were analyzed.

The sum of this two-year study is damning and ugly. Mistreatment and torture in Gaza and the PA isn't occasional. It's "routine"...habitual..deliberate". HRW concludes that torture is in fact government policy [emphasis  mine] in both Gaza and the PA.

Read the entire report here. You'll find hrw recommendations as well as specific evidence of a systematic commitment to arbitrary torture by Palestinian police.

Will anyone at the UN or in the EU take action against this horror? Don't hold your breath.

Will the UN Human Rights Council condemn the PA? I don't think so.

Will international aid be withheld from Palestinians until the PA and Hamas start acting less like North Korea and more like Britain? Will plans for peace be suspended until the PA and Hamas stop their torture and repression?

I don't think so. At least, don't bet on that happening.

If you promote and support the PA, you might want to do some rethinking. After all, if the PA is more like North Korea than South Korea, how will supporting such brutality bring peace? Do you really think peace accompanies those who brutalize, beat, repress and torture their own people? 

Why do you support such people?