But the PA’s biggest weakness is that it has had to operate on a false assumption. When the PA itself was created in 1994, Palestinian leaders promoted it as a transitional body in a diplomatic process after the Oslo accords that would lead to statehood. Yet the collapse of any worthwhile peace diplomacy and the dwindling prospects of a two-state solution have deprived the PA of its raison d’etre.
As a result, the PA ended up being viewed by Palestinians increasingly as a security sub-contractor for Israel, and in the name of fighting terrorism often imposed arbitrary justice in the West Bank. Lawyers for Justice, a group that documents just such arbitrary justice cases, estimated that in 2022 alone the PA arrested more than 500 Palestinians for anti-Israeli offences. The alternative, the PA argued, would be a third intifada and the collapse of the PA.
This has all taken a massive toll on the PA’s reputation. Respected opinion polling by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows that days before the Hamas assault on Israelis 80% of Palestinians considered the PA corrupt, and 62% viewed it as a liability rather than an asset. None of its main institutions enjoys popular legitimacy.
This has been an intentional tactic since the Oslo Accords MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ
History of peace process
Corrupt, discredited: could a reformed Palestinian Authority run Gaza? - The Guardian
It’s not popular because it’s not extreme enough. They want Hamas.
They want emancipation.
You want to think of them as violent and unreasonable so you can justify Israel’s ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide.