Hussein Al-Sheikh; Who is the hated face of Palestine and the pawn of the Zionists in Ramallah?
According to Al Jazeera, while the Zionist regime continues to intensify its attacks on the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority has increased its security cooperation and coordination with the Zionists to suppress the Palestinians in this region, the appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh, a senior member of the Fatah movement and a person known for his closeness to Israeli security circles, as deputy to Mahmoud Abbas, the head of this organization, has sparked a lot of controversy among Palestinian groups and its people and raises new questions about the future of the Palestinian leadership and the path of the Palestinian cause in this critical period.
At a time when the cities of the West Bank, and in particular Jenin, Tulkarm and Hebron, are exposed to repeated and brutal attacks by the Zionists, accompanied by the displacement of people and the systematic destruction of infrastructure, it seems that the PA is facing increasing challenges that require real political considerations, especially after the recent developments in its organizational structure.
Hussein Al-Sheikh: The Unpopular Face of the Palestinians, a Pawn of Israel and America
Hussein Al-Sheikh was born in Ramallah in 1960, when the West Bank was under Jordanian control. His family, who came from a small village near Tel Aviv, were among the 700,000 Palestinians who were driven from their homes in the 1948 wars and were victims of displacement, which Palestinians now remember as the “Day of the Palestinian Catastrophe” and a catastrophe.
When he was six, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War, and he joined Fatah as a teenager. For this reason, he spent much of the 1980s in Israeli prisons, during which time he gained popularity and credibility among the Palestinian people.
After the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, Al-Sheikh began working in the newly established Palestinian security services, amid high hopes that the Palestinians were close to forming an independent state.
In 2007, he was appointed the Palestinians’ main liaison with the Israeli military. A year later, he joined the Fatah leadership council, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In the decade that followed, although the Palestinians’ efforts to establish an independent state suffered setbacks, the sheikh grew closer to Mahmoud Abbas and often attended his meetings with foreign leaders.
Hussein al-Sheikh is a close associate of Mahmoud Abbas and a candidate wanted by the US and Israel to succeed Abu Mazen. He is an unpopular figure among the Palestinian people due to his close cooperation with the Zionist regime’s security circles and his prominent role in suppressing Palestinians in the West Bank.
According to polls published over the past two years, only 3 percent of the Palestinian people considered Hussein al-Sheikh worthy of their leadership, which means that almost all of the Palestinian people consider the sheikh to be a non-national figure who cannot be trusted, like Abu Mazen.
Daniel Shapiro, former US ambassador to occupied Palestine and a member of the Atlantic Council Research Institute in Washington, says that Hussein Al-Sheikh is supported by American and Israeli officials. He is a serious person with whom American officials can work and is also popular with Israeli officials.
The challenging path of the PA with the Sheikh coming to power
In this context, Dr. Hassan Khreisheh, Deputy Chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council, expressed doubts about the Central Council’s move to appoint Hussein Al-Sheikh as Deputy Chairman of the PA, saying that Hussein Al-Sheikh’s appointment was made in response to pressure from the US, Israel, and some Arab regimes to reproduce a political model in Palestine that is in line with the policies of Washington and Tel Aviv and does not reflect the will of the Palestinian people.
He emphasized: The appointment of the Deputy Chairman of the PA should have been carried out through free popular elections, not through an internal decision limited to the Central Council. Also, many Palestinian groups were not present at the Central Council meeting for this purpose. This means that there was no real political quorum at the meeting where this important step was taken.
The Palestinian representative believes that what happened is a deviation from the path of real reforms that the Palestinians expected. Political reforms should come from the broad public will of the people, not from monopolization within the structure of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which aims to get the organization out of the crisis and satisfy external parties.
He clarified: The real danger lies not only in the lack of consensus on leadership, but also in the PA’s continued security coordination with the enemy and the erosion of the national project, which threatens to continue the division in Palestinian society and the disintegration of the unity of the national ranks against the occupiers.
The appointment of Al-Sheikh as Abu Mazen’s deputy is in line with Israeli plans
Raja Abdel-Haq, a Palestinian political analyst, also stated in the same context: The appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh as deputy head of the PA is part of a larger project to rebuild the Palestinian leadership in line with Israeli and American plans; In such a way that leaders come to power who do not oppose the continuation of colonialism and Zionist settlements in Palestine.
He added: This appointment is reminiscent of the experience of Salam Fayyad, the former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, where, instead of leading the process of the national struggle for liberation, he was simply managing the daily affairs of the Palestinians.
The Palestinian analyst emphasized: The appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh as Mahmoud Abbas’s deputy will lead to further disappointment among the Palestinian people and will destroy hopes for a real change in the structure of the Liberation Organization, by the sacrifices of our people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, especially given the intensification of the brutal aggressions of the Zionist enemy against civilians.