YONI BEN MENACHEM -- A report in The Wall Street Journal about a new initiative by sheikhs from the Hebron area to establish a "Hebron Emirate," recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and join the normalization accords has ignited a storm across the Palestinian street—even though the Israeli government has not officially endorsed the initiative.
Major Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front, condemned the proposal in harsh terms. Dozens of Hebron clans, led by the powerful Ja’abari family, rejected it, calling it a betrayal of the Palestinian cause and a move to erode national identity and the vision of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
Terrorist groups see the initiative as a dangerous experiment that could spread to other parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, bolstering the idea that the Palestinians are not a distinct people deserving of nationhood. They fear this could fragment the Palestinian national project into isolated clans under Israeli control—effectively ending any hope for independence.
Palestinian analyst Rassem Obeidat wrote in Al-Quds newspaper that amid the collapse of the Palestinian national movement and lack of leadership, figures like Yasser Abu Shabab, Rami Khalas, and Yasser Khanidq in Gaza are emerging—figures allegedly used by Israel and the U.S. for their own interests. He compared the situation to France’s Vichy regime under Nazi occupation and the South Lebanon Army under Antoine Lahad.