Iran exploiting West Bank power vacuum, Palestinian analyst says

Iran is taking advantage of the ruling Palestinian Authority's lack of political legitimacy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to arm militants, the director of a leading research center in Ramallah told Iran International.

“Iran exploits this vacuum left by the lack of legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and unpopularity of President Mahmoud Abbas to maintain and sustain this situation," said Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.

Adding that Tehran's interference is not welcome by most of the Palestinian pubic, the veteran pollster said around 90 percent of Palestinians want the resignation of the 89-year-old president who is 20 years into his four-year term.

“Palestinians don’t like Iran because they see it interfering in domestic Palestinian politics," he said.

"But since October 7 this has started to change, but we don’t see a majority of the Palestinian public favoring Iran. They just don’t see how they can achieve their goals other than those advocated by Hezbollah and Iran which is violence," he added.

Suspicion with Iran's Shi'ite theocracy runs deep among Sunni Palestinians too.

"Palestinians see Iran as a Shia state that seeks to take advantage of the situation to advance Shi’ism in the region, exporting their ideologies as they’ve done in other countries such as Yemen and Iraq - which is unacceptable," he explained.

It comes as Israel launched an operation it dubbed Iron Wall in Jenin on Tuesday, a haven for Palestinian militants for decades where gunmen from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade have eluded Israeli and PA forces.

The operation has already seen multiple deaths and injuries as Israel cracks down on the armed groups, according to WAFA, the PA's official news agency.

“Iran has an interest in supporting armed groups like those in Jenin or anywhere else where Hamas and such groups are interested in fighting occupation," Shikaki added. "Given the fertile ground that’s there to recruit new foot soldiers and join armed groups, Iran will continue to provide assistance.”

On Wednesday, as the violence in Jenin mounted, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the raids were aimed at curbing the influence of Tehran.

“We will not allow the arms of the Iranian octopus and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of the settlers and establish an eastern terrorist front against the State of Israel. Strongly cripple the octopus's arms until they break,” he said.

Shikaki said that Iran will continue to have an avenue to interfere in Palestinian affairs as long as the occupation continues and there is a failure to come to a peaceful, diplomatic solution.

“Around 80-90% of Palestinians don’t see a peaceful solution because Isreal doesn’t want peace so that gives Iran the opportunity to exploit that.”

Earlier this month, Katz said that in the wake of the weakening of Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and Iran’s largest military ally, Hezbollah in Lebanon, a new focus had been placed on military allies in the West Bank, compounded by the fall of Tehran’s ally, President Bashar Al Assad, in Syria.

"We are seeing increasing efforts to promote Palestinian terrorism in Israel through the smuggling of advanced weapons, funding and guidance both on the part of the Iranian axis and on the part of the radical Sunni Islamic axis that is strengthening its grip on the region after the events in Syria,” he said.