Summary
The Palestinian Authority and its leadership have remained conspicuously silent amid widespread international support for protests against Iran’s regime.
This silence contrasts with a long history of cooperation between Iranian authorities and various Palestinian factions, particularly through funding, weapons transfers, and strategic coordination aimed at confronting Israel.
While ideological and sectarian differences exist, shared objectives have overridden them for decades.
The current lack of support for Iranian protesters appears driven by political self-preservation, reflecting concern that popular uprisings against authoritarian rule could inspire similar challenges closer to home.
As the international community rallies to support the demonstrations in Iran, the silence in Ramallah from the Palestinian Authority (PA), from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), from Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and from the heir apparent, Hussein Al-Sheikh, is deafening.
The PA, the PLO, and Tehran have a stormy relationship. Intuitively, the 1,600-year rift between the Shiite Muslims – the Iranian Mullahs – and the Sunni Muslims – the Palestinian leadership – could have been a dividing force. The fact that the Mullahs present themselves as strictly adherent Muslims, as opposed to the somewhat secular PA/PLO leadership, could also have been a dividing force.
However, in their joint desire to destroy Israel, they have both been able to put aside hundreds of years of sectarian animosity.
One of the highlights of the joint PA-PLO-Iranian partnership was the incident of the Karine A.
After rejecting yet another peace offer, in the 2000 summer talks in Camp David, Yasser Arafat returned to Ramallah to conclude the final aspects of the terror war he had planned. The fighting erupted in September 2000, with Palestinian terrorists carrying out thousands of terror attacks, including shootings, car bombings, and suicide bombings. As the war raged on, the PA-PLO needed more ammunition. In stepped the Iranians.
For decades, Arafat’s friend and confidant, Fuad Shubaki, had armed the PLO. Thus, when the PA-PLO needed more weapons, it was Shubaki that Arafat sent to Tehran. Shubaki did not disappoint. Having concluded the deal, Shubaki told Arafat that he had secured 50 tons of weapons for a measly $7 million. The armaments themselves were valued at over $15 million. Since the PA finances were already under scrutiny, Arafat authorized the payment from the one fluid source – the PA fuel account. A ship was purchased – The Karine A – and the arms were loaded abroad, ostensibly hidden by a legitimate cargo.
But the plan failed. In the early hours of January 3, 2002, Israeli commandos intercepted the Karine A in the Red Sea and seized the weapons.
While Arafat denied any connection to the event, no one believed him. To deflect the criticism, Arafat was forced to place Shubaki in prison. When Shubaki was eventually arrested by Israel, he would explain that the entire shipment of arms was donated by the IRGC and that, in reality, all he had to pay was $125,000 for the ship. When Arafat found out that Shubaki had pocketed the rest of the money, he was furious at him for not letting him in on the scam and not sharing the stolen funds with Arafat. It was this anger, explained Shubaki, that prompted Arafat to agree to his imprisonment.
While Abbas never really managed to strike up a consistent relationship with the Mullahs, the Iranians actively supported and armed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Thus, for example, in 2012, the then-chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, Khaled Mashal, thanked Iran for its role in arming and funding the residents of the Gaza Strip. At a press conference in Cairo, shortly before the announcement of a ceasefire agreement that ended a so-called “cycle of violence” between Israel and the Gazan terrorists, Mashal expressed his gratitude for the Iranian role in aiding Gaza and thanked them for “arms and funding.”1
The then-Secretary-General of PIJ, Ramadan Shalah, similarly noted that “I do not think that between us and Iran, as resistance, there is any difference of opinion pertaining to what is happening in Palestine or concerning the aggression against the Gaza Strip. On this matter we are one hundred percent in agreement with Iran. Iran has given us all the support, the arms that serve the resistance – all the world knows that its principal source is Iran, or weaponry that has arrived with Iranian financing… weapons that have reached the Strip arrived via Egypt of today or of former times, and this will continue for the future too… weapons must be supplied to the resistance, it is unthinkable that only Iran should supply it with weapons.”2
The then-Deputy Secretary-General of the PIJ, Ziad al-Nakhalah, noted that the Fajr 5 long-range missiles, fired during the violence, were “from our brothers in Iran.” He added that “these weapons are excellent Iranian weapons” and thanked the Iranians for “the great sacrifices that they made in order that these weapons would get to the Gaza Strip.”3
In 2014, Israeli commandos intercepted the KLOS-C, another ship packed with Iranian weapons destined for Hamas.4
As the maritime route seemed to have been incurring difficulties, the Iranians also tried to arm the Gazan terrorists using land routes through Yemen, Sudan, and Egypt.5
Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7, 2023, massacre, was particularly successful in deepening terror ties with Tehran. Elected in February 2017 to head Hamas in Gaza, Sinwar quickly sought to expand the Hamas connection to Iran and. By the end of 2017, a senior Hamas delegation had visited Tehran, and the relations between genocidal Iran and Hamas were termed as “excellent.”6
Ali Baraka, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, noted that “Iran is aware that the steadfastness of the resistance [Hamas] is vital to it, just as Hamas recognizes that relations with Iran strengthen the Palestinian resistance, especially [because] Iran is the only country that supports the resistance with money and weapons.”7
Documents seized by the IDF in Gaza, following the October 7 massacre, also exposed the level of contacts between Hamas and Iran. Among other things, the contacts included substantial Iranian funding for Hamas to “advance the plan to destroy the State of Israel within two years.”8
While Abbas, the PA, and PLO have not made the same mistake Arafat made with his support for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and have not expressed open support for the Iranian regime, they have also not expressed any support for the Iranian people and their demonstrations.
Astutely, Abbas recognizes that the revolt of the Iranian people against the Iranian regime is, in its essence, no different than what he, the PA, and the PLO could face from the Palestinian people.
Whatever their motivations for staying silent, the clear reality is that once again, Abbas, the PA, and the PLO are not openly aligning themselves with the battle against tyranny, preferring to hedge their bets in case the leader of the axis of evil manages to survive at least one more time.
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Notes
