West Bank strike highlights Palestinian frustrations with ‘symbolic’ gestures of protest

Palestinians across the West Bank observed a general strike on Monday protesting the renewed Israeli genocide in Gaza. The strike was observed in all West Bank cities and towns and joined by all civil society bodies. The Palestinian Teachers’ Union announced the halt of all classes, while the Palestinian Bar Association announced that all lawyers and judges were called to abstain from attending court hearings. The “national and Islamic forces,” the coalition of all Palestinian political parties, also called for the general strike. It was observed by all of Palestinian society in the West Bank, including businesses and public transportation.

The strike echoed a global call for a general strike in solidarity with Gaza. Although no central entity called for the strike in Palestine, different Palestinian entities consecutively announced that they would join the global strike a day ahead of when it was set to take place.

But despite the broad participation of all Palestinians in the West Bank-wide action, the protests remained contained and subdued, with some describing the demonstrations as performative or “symbolic.”

In Ramallah and Nablus, thousands of Palestinians marched in the cities’ streets, which remained confined to the city centers and started and ended without incident. One slight exception was when Palestinian police arrested four protesters in Ramallah, claiming that the protesters had raised Hamas flags. Palestinian protesters had gathered in front of the Palestinian police center in Ramallah and demanded the release of the detainees. Two of them were later released.

More marches were reported in several towns and villages in the Nablus and Ramallah regions. Some protests and strikes were observed in other countries, with rallies reported in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, while in southern Lebanon, some schools were closed on Monday as part of the strike.

West Bank experiencing ‘moment of weakness’

What was most notable about this day of action was that it was not accompanied by confrontations with Israeli forces at the entrances of cities — despite the broad participation and adherence to the strike from all Palestinian society. Clashes with Israeli forces used to be a usual occurrence prior to the genocide in Gaza, particularly on days when general strikes were being held, but have since become a rare occurrence. 

The last time protesters in Ramallah clashed with Israeli forces at the city’s northern entrance was on Nakba day, May 15, of last year, when one university student was killed by Israeli fire during the protests. At the time, protesters told Mondoweiss that Israeli forces no longer used rubber-coated bullets or low-caliber crowd-dispersing bullets, instead deploying live ammunition against protesters.

The strike “exceeded our expectations,” said Jamal Jumaa, the coordinator of the Stop The Wall campaign in the West Bank. “Even in Jerusalem, the strike was strictly observed, and this indicates that Palestinians are all affected and impacted by the genocide and are willing to mobilize in support Gaza’s people.”

Despite this, Jumaa says that organized Palestinian forces are “facing a moment of weakness internally,” explaining the lack of a cohesive strategy to support Gaza and oppose Israel’s ongoing onslaught. “Years of being targeted by the Israeli occupation and internal divisions explains the lack of leadership and the lack of popular will to mobilize for Gaza,” Jumaa continued. 

But these factors have held in the West Bank for years, yet the lack of any sort of mass action is more recent, tied to the genocide in Gaza and its reverberations in the West Bank. “The intensification of Israeli repression and attack on Palestinian communities, the complete disregard for life, the ease of killing, and the increased cruelty against detainees in the occupation jails has all terrorized Palestinians into mobilizing less than usual,” Jumaa explained. “That is why Monday’s strike is so important.”

According to Jumaa, the call for the strike initially came from Gaza before it became global. “The fact that it became a global call in itself is remarkable,” he said. “The international solidarity movement is probably the last light of hope that Palestinians see in the world after the rhetoric of governments on democracy and the rule of law was exposed to be just that — pure rhetoric devoid of any serious meaning.” 

“It took months before the International Court of Justice delivered its ruling, and it still has not been acted upon by most countries,” Jumaa explained. “But Palestinians can see the difference between governments and societies, who haven’t stopped protesting for Gaza for almost two years.”

‘We’ve had enough of symbolic stances’

In Gaza, Palestinians in displaced encampments received the global strike and the strike in the West Bank and Jerusalem “with a mix of gratitude and skepticism,” according to a displaced Palestinian in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis, who preferred not to be named.

“Of course, we thank all efforts to stand with us and pressure world governments to stop the genocide, especially after a year and a half of struggling to survive bombs, hunger, and repeated displacement,” he said. “But it will take much more for this pressure to be effective.”

“The entire point of strikes, or any other form of protest, is that they are continuous and cumulative and that they make specific demands and target specific people in positions of power to pressure them,” he continued. “Otherwise, they become symbolic, and we here are dying…we’ve had enough of symbolic stances.”

“There are only two kinds of people in the world today,” he added. “Those who cannot remain passive…and the rest, who range between those who support the genocide to those who don’t feel that everything that has happened to us is enough for them to step out of their comfort zone.”

Since October 2023, Israel has intensified its crackdown on all forms of Palestinian activism in the West Bank, arresting up to 10,000 Palestinians, including those who were later released. Palestinians were and continue to be subjected to brutal and inhumane treatment, including systematic torture, starvation, regular beatings, and in many cases, rapes. As of now, some 9,500 Palestinians are held in Israeli prison, including more than 3,400 held under “administrative detention” without charge or trial.