The Middle East can be a very confusing place.

Case in point: The Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority have been trading heated declarations about each other’s supposed meddling where they don’t belong, but the whole fracas is mostly for show.

Start with Jenin. The Wall Street Journal reports on Israel’s changing tactics in suppressing Iran-backed terrorist activity in the key West Bank city. Recently, Israel and PA forces have taken turns trying to weaken the separatist militias in their prime area of operation, an area that continues to be called the Jenin “refugee camp.” (These are simply dense urban neighborhoods, not tent cities.)

The IDF has of late pivoted to a strategy of creating more open space by demolishing terrorist hideouts, thus making it easier for troops to map and patrol the city. Israeli troops are also reportedly dividing the area into zones, a maneuver with which they had some success in northern Gaza.

The Journal notes that “the Palestinian Authority’s security forces tried for weeks to uproot militants in Jenin camp, but achieved little. Israeli forces took over, wielding far greater firepower. The PA’s effort was deeply unpopular with Palestinians, many of whom now see the body as little more than a subcontractor for Israel’s occupation.”

In other words, both the IDF and the PA tried to do the same thing, to achieve the same goal, and it was viewed as such by skeptical Palestinians in the West Bank.

Then we are told that “Some Palestinian officials say the timing of Israel’s assault in Jenin is all about politics. The Gaza cease-fire deal, which has allowed Hamas to resurface in the Gaza Strip, has left many supporters of Israel’s right-wing government angry and frustrated.”

But in fact we had already established the reason for the timing of the Israeli operation in Jenin: The PA operation preceding it failed. Israel and the PA both want Jenin under PA control. When PA forces left the city, the IDF went back in.

The article continues: “Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, the spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, said Israel’s operation in Jenin was part of a wider effort to undermine it. He said Israel’s military had interrupted the Palestinian security forces’ operation in Jenin and accused Israel of not coordinating its maneuver with them.”

It’s true, Rajab did say those things. And he absolutely intended for reporters to write down and publish such statements, attributed to him. But it is not because Rajab believed what he said, and you shouldn’t either. If you believe that the IDF would launch an operation in the middle of a PA operation in the exact same place without coordinating, you are not thinking clearly. If you believe Israel would deter the Palestinian Authority from subduing Iranian proxies in the West Bank, and that it would do so in such a way as to risk open war with the PA, you have flunked Middle East 101.

So why is Rajab saying this? Because he has to convince West Bank Palestinians that the PA’s operation in Jenin is proper but Israel’s isn’t, even though they are both ostensibly aimed at the same goal. General Rajab is walking a tightrope.

Israel must occasionally play its own version of this game. Yesterday, New York Times correspondent Patrick Kingsley asked the following question: Who will govern postwar Gaza? According to Kingsley, four options have presented themselves: Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, or an international force.

Israel has not, however, presented itself as a long-term solution to govern Gaza, and neither has “an international force.” The article really only shows two choices: Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. And Kingsley, to his credit, realizes that this means the Israelis would only support the PA regardless of the reservations they express at this point in the process.

Indeed, he writes, the Palestinian Authority already “quietly began working in another part of Gaza.” That is only possible with Israeli coordination. Kingsley adds: “Publicly, the Israeli government downplayed the authority’s involvement at the checkpoint, partly to avoid angering members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition.”

When we zoom out, then, what we see is a whole lot of coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, both in the West Bank and in Gaza. That coordination necessarily includes the Americans and the Egyptians and the Qataris, all of whom have some role in Gaza during the ceasefire.

The IDF isn’t busting into Jenin in the middle of a PA operation there, and PA forces aren’t sneaking into Gaza checkpoints under Israel’s nose. The Middle East can seem indecipherable if you don’t learn to filter out the noise.

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