By all accounts, cooperation between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli government and military to deal with the coronavirus crisis has been very good. Amos Harel, the veteran military correspondent and defence analyst for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper recently wrote that “Cooperation with the Palestinians is at its tightest ever.”
This is all the more notable because as recently as February, Israeli-Palestinian relations seemed to be unprecedently precarious. In the wake of the release of the Trump Administration’s peace plan in late January, PA President Mahmoud Abbas promised to withdraw all cooperation with Israel, including the vital security cooperation. While similar threats had been made before, this time Palestinian anger seemed more palpable and serious. Israeli government plans to annex the Jordan valley or other parts of the West Bank, as the peace plan allowed, looked set to deepen the crisis in relations.
Now, that is all gone. No one is talking about the Trump plan or annexations. Coronavirus has swept all such issues aside, as the two sides seek to manage the pandemic which threatens both Israelis and Palestinians who live intermixed with each other. There is even reportedly an Israeli-Palestinian “joint operations room” to oversee the shared response to the pandemic threat.
Amid the pandemic doom and gloom, this at least is good news, right?
Yes. However… why is it that even in this shared medical emergency the PA cannot stop its official media from engaging in ongoing incitement against Israel?
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