How the Wall Street Journal fell for the trap of the Hebron ‘emirate’

In a rare occurrence, the Wall Street Journal finally took interest in a Palestinian voice last week, going so far as to devote an entire story to him. The focus of the groundbreaking WSJ story happens to be a man from Hebron called Wadea Jaabari, who proposes to lead a new would-be entity: the “emirate” of Hebron, which he says would split from the Palestinian Authority and recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The WSJ presents Jaabari and his “emirate” as if it were a major development in Palestinian politics, especially since the man behind it is presented as the “leader of the most influential clan in Hebron.” The WSJ highlights that Jaabari said he would recognize Israel as a Jewish state in exchange for joining the Abraham Accords, supposedly breaking “decades of rejectionism” on the Palestinian side. It also paints the so-called emirate as a creative “outside-the-box” idea instead of the two-state solution framework, which the article begins by dismissing as futile.

However, Jaabari’s “emirate” was minor news in Palestine, failing to even make it on local headlines and being treated mostly with ridicule on social media. It was out of the public conversation within 24 hours, at which point the other leaders of the Jaabari clan issued a statement disavowing the self-proclaimed “leader,” declaring that he holds no status within the family and speaks for no one but himself.

The statement said that Wadea Jaabari is “unknown to the family and doesn’t live in Hebron.” A Palestinian resident of Hebron who asked not to be named told Mondoweiss that “the man in  question lives in Jerusalem, and has no influence in Hebron, neither inside the Jaabari clan nor in the city.”

“His father was an influential person, but upon his death, his son didn’t have the same status, and he has been completely absent from the affairs of the family and the city,” said the source. “In Hebron, people didn’t even take the news seriously, because everybody knows that the so-called emirate has no basis in the city or in any clan.”

The source added that the Jaabari elders held the press conference in order to put an end to the stirring controversy in the media.

A failed old story

It is not the first time that a Palestinian individual or group has tried to start a local leadership in complete compliance with Israeli dictates, often as an alternative to the Palestinian national movement. In fact, shortly after the occupation of 1967, a group of local elites in Hebron and in Nablus approached the Israeli military authorities, seeking recognition as representatives of their regions in exchange for collaboration.

Then, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Israel organized a series of local councils made up of collaborators and traditional rural elites who agreed to participate in order to create an alternative to the political influence of the PLO. These councils were called the Village Leagues, and were given wide municipal powers to start local development projects, control the administrative needs of Palestinians, like granting building and travel permits, and even driving licences.

The Village Leagues lasted for less than five years, and they failed miserably. The fact that all Palestinian political expression in the West Bank and Gaza was severely punished at the time by Israeli authorities gave the false impression that the Leagues would find no competition. But events proved that it wasn’t about political competition — the reason Israel tried to create an alternative to the PLO in the villages was that it had previously failed to do so in the cities.

In the 1970s, Israel allowed municipal elections in Palestinian cities, expecting that “moderate” candidates friendly to the Israeli authorities would easily win. Many of them did in the 1972 municipal election, but in an unpredictable twist of events, independent candidates known to be close to the PLO took the municipalities in a landslide victory during elections four years later in 1976. 

It was then that Israel decided to try again in the countryside, expecting that the more “traditional” social structure and clan-based social ties would make them amenable to collaborating with Israel. In 1978, the first League of representatives of the Hebron villages was proclaimed, and then two others followed for the villages around Nablus and Ramallah. Israel invested so much in these Leagues that Israel’s then-Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon, decided to hand their leaders 100 firearms in 1981.

But Israel miscalculated again. It didn’t understand the anti-colonial history of the Palestinian countryside, which had been carved into the rural Palestinian public ethos since the 1930s and the days of revolt against British rule. For decades already, clans took pride in having participated in the anti-colonial struggle, as this was a source of social respect and influence where small families could compete with large clans.

In the space of five years, between 1978 and 1983, the most well-known figures of the Village Leagues were either assassinated by Palestinian militants or disowned by their own families. Simultaneously, a whole movement of volunteer youth groups had risen across the West Bank and Gaza, offering community-supported alternatives to the Leagues’ proposed development projects. Villages, one after the other, began to receive the volunteers to build farm walls, paint schools, or pave streets instead of the Village Leagues, and then formed their own local volunteer committees. In 1981, delegates from 40 volunteer committees from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem met in a founding conference for the movement, where they explicitly announced their rejection of the Leagues. Eventually, Israel abandoned the project altogether.

The fight against the Village Leagues in its different forms laid the grounds for a mass movement that continued to brew until it erupted in the First Intifada of 1987, lasting for six years. The uprising was entirely led by the Palestinian grassroots and included the participation of all sectors of Palestinian society, including unions, voluntary and neighborhood committees, and women’s groups. It was a rare example of civic, political, and community action combined, which proved that Palestinian society had long developed beyond clan loyalties and tribal bonds, in favor of embracing the national struggle.

This part of Palestine’s history and social development has been alien to most of western mainstream media. In most cases, it’s hardly been interesting. But that is to be expected of the mainstream media, which has never shown any genuine interest in the cultural, social, and political composition of Palestinians as a people. A clan figure or  tribal “sheikh” — even a fake one — who is willing to recite the U.S.-Israeli political canon without reservations is far more preferable.

Anyone with minimal knowledge of Palestine and Palestinians would have known that the “emirate” story is a typical Palestinian tourist trap, the type for which Hebron is well-known, among other Palestinian cities. In addition to their hospitality, kindness, and family-centered sense of community, Hebronites are also known for their ingenuity in trade and business, especially with tourists. It is said in Palestine that a Hebronite can sell anything to anyone, and can instantly detect what a tourist is looking for and offer it to them. It seems that one doesn’t need to be a tourist in Hebron to fall for such a trap. From thousands of miles away, all that is needed is a naive, orientalist mindset that refuses to recognize Palestinians as a people with national aspirations for freedom and self-determination.