U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Ramallah last week, and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his top officials are laughing their heads off.

Why not laugh? Biden arrived in the region hoping to persuade the Palestinian leaders to issue a “condemnation” of the reign of terror, which they continue to describe as a “popular and peaceful uprising.” This in itself reeks of gallows humor.

But what Biden got was even funnier, from the point of view of Abbas and his friends.

The Palestinian president offered “condolences” over the killing of a U.S. citizen in Jaffa the previous day: “The President [Abbas] offered his condolences over the killing of the US citizen, while stressing at the same time that the occupation authorities have killed 200 Palestinians over the past five months,” according to a statement released by the PA leadership in Ramallah.

Abbas’s crocodile tears were shed for Taylor Force, a West Point graduate from Texas who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian during a rampage on the Jaffa beachfront promenade. Abbas is doubtless also upset because Israel has killed Palestinian stabbers and shooters.

Just before Biden arrived in Ramallah, Abbas’s Fatah faction praised the murderer of Force, calling him a “martyr.” But Fatah was quick to delete the posts to avoid embarrassing the Palestinian leadership during Biden’s visit.

It seems that the murder of an American visitor is condemnable, but the murder of some 34 Israelis since last October, including a pregnant woman and civilians, is somewhat less so.

Where was the condemnation of the wounding of nine Israelis in the attack that killed Taylor Force? Where was the condemnation of the attacks the took place on that very day in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva?

But Abbas explained everything to Biden: Israel was in fact fully responsible for the “violence and bloodshed” because of the “occupation” and “settlements.”

Here is a dirty little secret: the Palestinian attackers were not driven to murder Jews because of “settlements” and “checkpoints.”

Check their Facebook accounts: what fueled their hatred were the lies they had been fed for the past few years by President Abbas and other Palestinian leaders, concerning Jews “desecrating” Islamic holy sites and plotting to destroy them. No checkpoint snags, no settlement issues, no protests against construction of new apartments in Jerusalem for Jewish families.

Many of these Palestinians went for Israeli blood because they have been taught — by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and other Palestinian groups — to hate Israel. And they do not give a damn whether that Jew lives in Jaffa or in the West Bank. They also do not give a damn if some of their victims are Arabs.

Yet the comedy continues. Biden is reported to have urged Abbas and the Palestinian leadership to stop the anti-Israel incitement in their official media and on social media. Abbas vehemently denied that this incitement was taking place, and indeed, explained that the US leader had gotten things mixed up entirely: it was Israel that was guilty of incitement against the Palestinians.

While Abbas was busy offering his condolences for the killing of the U.S. citizen, his ruling Fatah faction was busy glorifying Palestinian assailants who killed Israelis.

In one instance, Fatah published an announcement inviting Palestinians to mark the 38th anniversary of the “martyrdom” of Dalal Al-Mughrabi.

Al-Mughrabi was a Fatah member who participated in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel, in which 38 civilians were killed, including 13 children.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on March 10, hoping to persuade Abbas to issue a “condemnation” of the wave of terror attacks against Israelis. The next day, Abbas’s Fatah party invited Palestinians to commemorate the 38th anniversary of the “martyrdom” of Dalal Al-Mughrabi. Al-Mughrabi was a Fatah member who participated in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel, in which 38 civilians were killed, including 13 children.

The condolence message was also long enough for Fatah to praise Palestinian assailants, including Abdel Malek Abu Kharoub, who carried out a recent shooting attack in Jerusalem. In a post on its official Facebook account, Fatah hailed Abu Kharoub as a “hero and martyr.”

Of course neither Biden nor any of his advisors and aides saw these posts. They prefer to continue burying their heads in the sand and pretending that once the “peace process” is revived, everything will be fine.

So it is business as usual for Abbas and crew. As in any comedy, there is a clown, and Biden was played for a fool by a PA leadership that finds that it pays to point its finger at Israel.

In Arabic, a language in which Western leaders are perhaps not fluent, Palestinian media outlets and spokesmen vomit poison against Israel. Condemnation of attacks on Israelis would be rather unlikely in such a drama.

And so the curtain rises on another act of the ceremonial, make-believe theater of the Middle East. In Abbas’s sneaky script, it is about settlements. In reality, it is about the refusal of the Americans to read, speak or even translate Arabic.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

Palestinians have an old habit of settling internal scores by diverting their grievances and violence towards Israel. This practice is clear to those who have been monitoring developments in the Palestinian arena for the past decades. It is an integral part of the Palestinian strategy to undermine, isolate, delegitimize and destroy Israel.

Those less familiar with Palestinian culture and tactics, however, have difficulty understanding the Palestinian mindset. Officials in Washington, London, Paris and other Western capitals rarely meet the ordinary Palestinian, the “man on the street” who represents the authentic voice of the Palestinians.

Instead, these officials meet Palestinian politicians and academics from Ramallah — the “experts” who are actually accomplished con artists. Such Palestinians grasp the Western mindset very well, and use their understanding to twist Western officials any which way they want.

The Western reaction to the hunger strike declared on April 17 by Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails is a case in point. The strike was initiated by Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah official who is serving five life terms for his role in terror attacks against Israelis. Barghouti has been in prison for 15 years so far.

Remarkably, despite Barghouti’s long-term imprisonment, this is his first hunger strike, apparently despite the poor incarceration conditions that have supposedly driven him to this move. Or might there be some other factor behind Barghouti’s sudden acute discomfort?

The hunger strike is, in fact, completely unrelated to conditions in Israeli prisons. Rather, Barghouti’s hunger strike is directly linked to a power struggle that has long been raging inside his Fatah faction. More than a move against Israel, the hunger strike is aimed at Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas (who is also chairman of Fatah).

The hunger strike declared by jailed Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti (left) is aimed at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right). Barghouti’s supporters accuse Abbas and his loyalists of sidelining the jailed Fatah leader and seeking to “bury” him.

Last November, Barghouti emerged as the biggest winner in Fatah’s internal election. His status as a prisoner and his involvement in terrorism continue to be the main reason why he is so popular among Palestinians. Barghouti’s victory in the election meant that he was now number two after Abbas, and many expected the PA president to appoint him as his deputy.

This past February, however, the Fatah Central Council, a body dominated by Abbas loyalists, delivered a deliberate slap in the face to Barghouti, ignoring his landslide victory and appointing someone else (Mahmoud Aloul) as Deputy Fatah Chairman. The appointment of Aloul enraged Barghouti’s supporters, who rushed to accuse Abbas and his loyalists of sidelining the jailed Fatah leader and seeking to “bury” him.

Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, even went as far as accusing Abbas of “succumbing” to threats by Israel. Israeli officials had strongly criticized the result of the Fatah internal election, which the Barghouti won, calling it a vote for terrorism. Fadwa Barghouti said that her husband had won the first slot in the election, “which means he is number two in Fatah. There is no ignoring Marwan Barghouti’s position.”

The charges leveled by Barghouti’s wife against Abbas are not the first. In the past, she has accused Abbas and the PA leadership of imposing a blackout on news concerning her husband. In a letter to Abbas, she expressed “regret and pain” over the failure of Abbas to help her in her campaign to secure the release of her husband. She also complained that neither Fatah nor the PA leadership had provided funds to support the campaign calling for her husband’s release.

It is no secret that Abbas detests competition. He has been waging war against anyone who dares to challenge his rule, especially from within his own Fatah faction. Mohammed Dahlan, for example, a former PA security commander from the Gaza Strip and considered the number one enemy of the PA president, was expelled from Fatah on orders from Abbas. Dahlan, a Fatah parliamentarian, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity by Abbas. Dahlan is currently living in the United Arab Emirates, but is wanted by Abbas for “corruption” and “murder.”

Barghouti, however, presents Abbas with an immediate problem. The Palestinian on the street will not tolerate the defamation, at least not in public, of any Palestinian sitting in Israeli prison. Abbas sees Barghouti as a real threat, particularly in the wake of public opinion polls suggesting that Barghouti could easily win any presidential election. Barghouti at large would be a nightmare for Abbas.

So, no love is lost between Abbas and Barghouti; the two are engaged in a behind-the-scenes power struggle. Barghouti wants to succeed Abbas, while Abbas is working hard to marginalize him. Palestinian sources say that Abbas is not happy with Barghouti’s hunger strike. He believes Barghouti is trying to steal the spotlight from him, especially on the eve of his visit to Washington for talks with President Donald Trump. Abbas, who wants to be in the news all the time, cannot stand that Barghouti is grabbing the headlines and was even invited to write an op-ed in the New York Times.

It is not only Abbas, however, who is in trouble. Barghouti, too, knows better than to air dirty Fatah laundry. What, then, is to be done? The traditional diversionary tactic: Direct the heat towards Israel. Barghouti is suddenly concerned about his prison conditions and is demanding more privileges. Israel, he claims, imprisons Palestinians for their “peaceful resistance.” Barghouti knows it is not popular to come out in public against Abbas. Similarly, Abbas is using the hunger strike to incite against Israel and demand that all Palestinian terrorists, including ones with blood on their hands, be released unconditionally. The hunger strike is a smokescreen for the real problems inside Fatah and has nothing to do with the conditions of prisoners in Israeli jails.

Stripped of its Western trappings, Barghouti’s “hunger strike” is actually a struggle between Abbas and yet another Fatah pretender to the throne. And once again, Israel — the state that supposedly so “mistreats” incarcerated Palestinian terrorists — takes the heat.

Bassam Tawil, an Arab Muslim, is based in the Middle East.

Western donors want to see a list of the names of Palestinians who are on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the PA is not happy about it.

What is driving this demand? Thousands of Palestinian school teachers in the West Bank are striking for better conditions. The Palestinian leadership, in response, has ordered a security crackdown on the strikers.

To justify the crackdown, PA officials have claimed that the strike was organized by Hamas as part of a conspiracy to embarrass and undermine the regime of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

What is really happening is that the teachers are blowing the whistle on PA corruption. They have accused the PA Ministry of Education of wasting donors’ funds and deceiving them by inflating the number of teachers. They claim that the list of employees (about 56,000) ostensibly hired by the ministry contains many fictitious names. These include teachers and administrative workers of the ministry.

The teachers also accuse the PA of lying to the donors about their salaries. The information provided by the PA to donors claimed that the PA pays higher salaries to the teachers than the teachers actually receive.

In other words, the striking teachers are exposing the PA as playing Western donors for suckers.

The PA’s Finance Ministry has yet to publish the general budget for the years 2015 and 2016. The last time the budget appeared on the ministry’s official website was in 2014. The striking teachers and other Palestinians say there is something fishy about the Finance Ministry’s failure to make public the annual budget for 2015 and 2016. They call this a lack of transparency.

According to various sources, the donors’ request took PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah by surprise. He has referred the request to the office of Mahmoud Abbas and is now awaiting the president’s personal intervention in the developing scandal.

One report revealed that the PA leadership has formed a secret legal committee, headed by Palestinian official Karim Shehadeh, to prepare a reply to the donors about the discrepancy in the salaries. The committee has been tasked to avoid scandal and ensure that donors do not get to the bottom of the case.

The donors’ request explains the hysterical response of the PA leadership to the ongoing teachers’ strike in the West Bank. In the past few weeks, PA security forces have rounded up dozens of striking teachers and imposed a reign of intimidation against others. When the teachers planned to hold a protest rally in Ramallah last week, the PA deployed hundreds of policemen and set up checkpoints in various parts of the West Bank in a bid to foil the protest and terrify the teachers.

Left: Striking Palestinian teachers protest in Ramallah last week. Right: Palestinian Authority policemen deploy in the street to intimidate the teachers.

In a typical game of smoke and mirrors, the Palestinian government this week denied that the donor countries demanded to inspect the payroll records. Yet Palestinian sources in Ramallah insisted that the reports were true. According to the sources, this marks a watershed in donors’ demand for accountability from the PA leadership.

Striking teachers is only one of the PA headaches. The donors’ demand for a full report on the names of PA public employees is bad news for Abbas. No one, in fact, knows how many Palestinians are on the PA payroll. Some figures estimate the number of employees at over 160,000, while others have put the figure at 250,000.

According to one study, the Palestinians have one policeman for every 52 people, compared to one teacher for each 72. Since its founding more than two decades ago, the PA has established ten different security services that employ more than 70,000 people.

Some Palestinians have charged that these numbers have been vastly inflated by using names of the deceased, those who live abroad and some who do not even exist. In the main, these salaries are covered by donor governments such as the US and EU, who for years have failed to check the lists of the public employees or verify the sums.

Moreover, donors might not be aware that they are paying over 50,000 employees from the Gaza Strip to not work. This has been the case since 20007, when Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip. In response, the Palestinian Authority ordered all its employees to boycott Hamas and promised to pay them full salaries for sitting at home.

If the donors are indeed demanding the report, it could mark the dawn of a new era — one in which the PA leadership is called on the carpet for its financial shenanigans. Of course, President Abbas and his friends might still find a way to blame Israel. This tactic has worked wonders in the past.

Thus, the jury is still out on whether the donors will show themselves to be the suckers the PA is hoping for, or if the Palestinians will finally begin to be held accountable for their behavior.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.