What was considered until a few weeks ago an “estimate with high likelihood” by the Israeli security establishment has turned more into a certainty in the last few days. Experts say that unless necessary, immediate, and substantive steps are taken, a violent conflict with the Palestinian Authority is unavoidable. Former army Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot expressed this concern in a May 7 conversation in Washington with President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt. “The West Bank could erupt before, during or after the presentation of the American peace plan,” Eizenkot warned Greenblatt, according to a report on Channel 13, and “from the moment the genie is out of the bottle, it would take five years to get it back in.”

In other words, Eizenkot, who ended his term four months ago and is now working at the Washington Institute in the American capital, warns of an outbreak of an extended intifada. According to the report, the situation in the West Bank is “combustible and sensitive,” among other things, as a result of the American cut to foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and the refusal of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to accept the authority’s tax revenues collected by Israel since Israel started deducting from them stipends paid by the authority to Palestinian prisoners.

The Palestinian Authority has been in a serious financial crisis for some time. Authority employees, including security services personnel, have been receiving only half of their monthly salaries lately and many of them cannot meet their financial commitments. Thus, many Palestinian families face imminent financial collapse, pressure is mounting and despair is felt in every corner of the West Bank, especially now during the month of Ramadan. After Eid al-Fitr, which takes place June 4, President Donald Trump’s "deal of the century" is expected to be presented, which apparently includes a promise to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian infrastructure and welfare institutions. But it appears that this won’t stop the fury and anger on the Palestinian street at Israel and to a great extent at the Palestinian Authority headed by Abbas, whose popularity among Palestinians is at an unprecedented low. All this puts in doubt the Palestinian Authority’s ability to sustain itself and not to collapse within a short time. The Israeli security establishment’s estimates that such a cataclysmic occurrence will happen grow more certain every day. 

What is Israel doing to prevent all this? Close to nothing. At one time official Israel lauded every move Trump took to cause economic damage to the Palestinians — starting from ending aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to the cut in aid to Palestinian security mechanisms. While the Israeli security establishment warned repeatedly that an economic crisis could destroy the Palestinian Authority, the government did not listen. Instead, it rushed to advance legislation that would deduct monies from Palestinian tax revenues, ignoring the dangerous ramifications of the move.