Palestinians living in refugee camps in the Arab world are facing ethnic cleansing, displacement, and death — but their leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are too busy tearing each other to pieces to notice or even, apparently, care much.

Between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, it looks as if they are competing for the worst leadership, not the best. Clearly, neither regime gives a damn about the plight of their people in the Arab world.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who is scheduled to visit Washington in the coming weeks for his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, spends most of his time abroad. There is hardly a country in the world that he has not visited since he assumed office in January 2005.

Hamas, for its part, is too occupied with hunting down Palestinians suspected of “collaboration” with Israel, and arming its members as massively as possible for war with Israel, to spend much time on the well-being of the two million people living under its thumb in the Gaza Strip. Hamas does have resources: its money is otherwise designated, however, to digging attack tunnels into Israel and smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip.

The globetrotting Abbas, treated to red-carpet receptions wherever he shows up, has no time to attend to his miserable people in the Arab countries. Abbas devotes more than 90 percent of his speeches to denunciations of Israel, uttering barely a word about the atrocities committed against his people in Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Iraq. The 82-year-old PA president is, as always, fully preoccupied with political survival.

Abbas’s real enemies are his critics, such as estranged Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, and Hamas. Abbas is currently focused on undermining Dahlan and preventing Hamas from taking control of the West Bank. In the past few years, Abbas has also demonstrated an obsession with isolating and delegitimizing Israel in the international arena. For him, this mission is more sacred than saving the lives of Palestinians.

Notably, neither Abbas’s Palestinian Authority nor Hamas dares to criticize Arab countries for their mistreatment of Palestinians. In this, they are nothing if not savvy: critics in Arab states pay an extremely nasty price for forthrightness.

Consider for a moment the agenda of the recent Arab League summit in Jordan. This monumental meeting was conspicuously silent on the plight of Palestinians in Arab lands. The Arab heads of state and monarchs do not like to be reminded of how badly they treat Palestinians and subject them to discriminatory and apartheid laws. Beneath the public Arab support for the Palestinians rests a ruthless policy of oppression that is largely ignored by Palestinian leaders, the international community and mainstream Western media.

This apathy has turned Palestinians in the Arab countries into easy prey.

The Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, which once housed nearly one million Palestinians, stands almost empty after six years of Syria’s civil war. Most of the camp’s houses have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting between the Syrian army, Palestinian factions, ISIS terrorists and Syrian opposition groups. More than 3,400 Palestinians have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the civil war. Thousands of Palestinians are believed to be held in various Syrian government prisons. Another 80,000 have fled Syria to neighboring countries.

In nearby Lebanon, the conditions of Palestinians are no better. Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, home to nearly half a million people, were long ago turned into ghettos surrounded by the Lebanese security forces. In recent years, the camps have become battlefields for rival Palestinian gangs and other terrorists, many of whom are affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS.

About 10 years ago, the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon was shelled by the Lebanese army; most of its houses were destroyed. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee the camp; hundreds were killed and wounded after a Palestinian terror leader, Shaker al-Absi, and his men launched a series of deadly attacks on Lebanese targets, and the Lebanese army assaulted the camp. Before they were attacked by the Lebanese army, Al-Absi and his men had barricaded themselves inside the camp, using civilians as human shields.

The scenario of Nahr al-Bared is now repeating itself in another Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon: Ain al-Hilweh. As in the previous instance, a terror leader, Belal Bader, has found shelter inside Ain al-Hilweh, home to more than 50,000 Palestinians. Like al-Absi, Bader is affiliated with radical Islamic groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. Bader’s presence in the camp has triggered a gang war with other Palestinian factions, resulting in heavy fighting between the warring gangs inside Ain al-Hilweh. In the past week, at least eight Palestinians have been killed and 40 wounded.

A street celebration in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh camp, July 2015. (Image source: Geneva Call/Flickr)

Residents of the camp now fear that they could meet the same fate as their fellow Palestinians in Nahr al-Bared.

The Lebanese army, however, has still not intervened to stop the bloodletting. For Lebanese security forces, Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon remain “no-go zone.” All that is left for the Lebanese authorities to do, in the hope of preventing the violence from spilling outside the camps, is besiege the camps and impose restrictions on the movement of Palestinians.

The fears of the residents of Ain al-Hilweh are not unjustified. The Lebanese government is facing growing pressure to enter Palestinian camps and disarm the gangs that have been operating there over the course of many years.

By and large, in recent years, the Palestinians who used to live in Syria, Iraq and Libya have left these countries as a result of the civil wars, and oppression by the governments and various militias. It is not comfortable or safe to be a Palestinian in an Arab country. Scenes of lawlessness and anarchy inside Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank have also driven many residents to move to nearby cities and villages. Most refugees in the West Bank no longer live inside UNRWA-run camps.

Let us end where we began: with the Palestinian (non)leadership. What has it done to help its people in the Arab countries? Nothing. No Palestinian leader will urge an emergency session of the UN Security Council to expose the ethnic cleansing and killing of Palestinians in Arab countries. No Palestinian leader will demand that the international media and human rights organizations investigate the atrocities perpetrated by Arabs on their Palestinian brethren. We are sure to see more such criminal silence when Abbas meets with the president of the United States.

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

As Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies occupied themselves in the past two weeks issuing warnings to President Trump against moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reports resurfaced concerning the brutal conditions and human rights violations in a Palestinian prison in the West Bank.

These reports, however, were buried, along with the abuse, in favor of attention to rhetoric directed against the Trump Administration. Anything uttered by Abbas and senior PA officials regarding the possible transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem made it to the headlines of major newspapers and TV networks around the world.

At one point, it actually appeared as if the mainstream media in the West was interested in highlighting and inflating these statements in a bid to pressure Trump into abandoning the idea of moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Western journalists ran to provide platforms for any Palestinian official interested in threatening the Trump Administration.

The threats included warnings that the transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem would “destroy the peace process,” “jeopardize regional and international security” and “plunge the entire region into anarchy and violence.” Some Palestinian officials went so far as to state that such a move would be considered an “assault on all Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.” They also threatened to “revoke” Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Regrettably, as Palestinian officials from across the political spectrum joined forces to broadcast sensational headlines in the mainstream media around the world, the reports about torture of Palestinian detainees in a PA prison failed to attract the interest of the many journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The torture that takes place in PA-controlled prisons and detention centers is not new.

Over the past few years, Palestinians have become accustomed to hearing horror stories about what is happening within the walls of these structures. Yet, because it is not Israelis who are perpetrating the abuse, the reports are ho-hum to these journalists.

A Palestinian who points a finger at Israel is guaranteed a sympathetic ear among journalists. When a Palestinian complains of torture at the hands of Palestinian interrogators or security officers, it is seen as just more of the same. Worse: It is seen as “Oh those Arabs, what can anyone expect from them?”

Ironically, it is the Hamas and Palestinian Authority media outlets that publish such reports. The two sides regularly report about the abuse of human rights and torture in each other’s prisons and detention centers as part of the smear campaign they have been waging against each other for the past decade.

Hamas-affiliated media outlets are teeming with reports documenting cases of torture in PA detention facilities in the West Bank. Similarly, PA media organizations are always happy to hear from any Palestinian who is prepared to recount his or her ordeal in a Hamas prison in the Gaza Strip.

The bottom line: both Hamas and the PA, according to testimonies and reports, are practicing torture in their prisons. Neither cares a fig for the rights of detainees and prisoners, and both scoff at the values of international human rights. But because human rights organizations, lawyers and relatives are so often denied access to the Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Hamas and the PA, they cannot get any first-hand information from the prisoners themselves. They are people — being tortured in prison!

All of this makes perfect sense, of course: Hamas is an extremist Islamist movement that does not consider itself obliged to abide by international laws and treaties concerning basic human rights. Indeed, the concept of human rights simply does not exist under Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where public freedoms, including free speech and media, are non-existent.

Then how does the Western-funded PA, which has long attempted to join international bodies such as the United Nations, explain its systemic barbarity?

For years, the PA has been acting as an “independent state” that is recognized by more than 100 countries. As such, foreign governments, especially American and European taxpayers, are entitled, or rather obliged, to hold the PA accountable for human rights violations and demand transparency and accountability. This right derives from the fact that the PA is asking to become part of the international community by winning recognition for a Palestinian state. Unless, of course, the international community is willing to welcome yet another Arab state that tramples upon human rights, and practices torture in its prisons.

The most recent evidence of torture in the West Bank was disclosed in a report by a Hamas-affiliated online website. The report sheds light on some of the torture methods employed by PA interrogators and offers a unique insight into the conditions detainees are held under. The report refers specifically to the notorious Jericho Central Prison, which is controlled by various security branches of the PA.

Entitled “Jericho Prison — A Fort of Torture?” the report describes conditions inside the prison as similar to those sensational films aired on TV screens to draw the attention of viewers.

A Palestinian who was recently released from the Jericho Central Prison is quoted as saying that anyone who arrives at the facility is first blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back before he is severely beaten by five to 10 security officers. One of the most common forms of torture in the PA prison, he recounted, is called the “shabah” position, where a prisoner’s hands are shackled and he is hung from the ceiling for several hours. During this time, the detainee is beaten on all parts of his body. If the detainee tries to move or change his position, the beating gets worse. Sometimes, the “shabah” takes place inside the prison lavatories.

Another infamous form of torture in the Jericho Central Prison is the “falaka,” where the victims are whipped on their bare feet. According to the testimony of another former detainee, who is identified only as Abu Majd, he was subjected to the “falaka” with a plastic hose for several hours each session. Sometimes, one of the “interrogators” would also slap him on the face while he was being whipped on his bare feet.

Abu Majd reported that he was also subjected to another well-known form of torture, where he would be asked to “climb” a non-existent ladder on a wall. Because there is no ladder and the detainee cannot “climb” it, he is punished with more beatings.

Other former detainees recounted sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and being locked up in a small closet with powerful air-conditioning as common practices of torture in the same prison. This is in addition to verbal abuse, of course, and forcing detainees to sleep on the floor without mattresses or blankets.

In 2013, two Palestinian detainees reportedly died from torture in the Jericho Central Prison five days apart from each other. They were identified as Arafat Jaradat and Ayman Samarah.

Earlier this month, the father of Ahmed Salhab, who was recently detained by PA security forces and taken to the Jericho prison, complained that his son’s health was seriously harmed as a result of torture. The father said that his son was suffering from acute pain after being hit on the head by his interrogators.

Detainees in Palestinian prisons have reportedly gone on hunger strikes to protest their incarceration and torture. Unfortunately for them, they are not going on hunger strikes in an Israeli prison, where such actions garner the immediate interest of the mainstream media.

A London-based human rights organization reported 3,175 cases of human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions, by the PA security forces in the West Bank during 2016. According to the report, hundreds of those detained include university students and lecturers, as well as schoolteachers.

A Palestinian Authority policeman attacks protestors. (Image source: “Palestinians for Dignity” Facebook Page)

During the same year, the PA security forces also detained 27 Palestinian journalists, the report revealed.

PA political and security officials dismiss these reports as Hamas-orchestrated “propaganda.” But one does not need wait for Hamas to tell the world about torture and human rights abuses at the hands of PA security officers. Among the thousands of Palestinians who have experienced incarceration in PA prisons and detention facilities during the past two decades, many are willing to tell their stories. But who is willing to listen?

Not Western governments, human rights organizations and journalists. Most of them seek evil in Israel, and Israeli alone. Yet such a policy aids and abets the emergence of yet another Arab dictatorship in the Middle East. For now, the residents of Jericho will continue to hear the screams of the tortured detainees in their city. The rest of the world will close its eyes and ears and continue to pretend that all is rosy in the land of Abbas.

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

For many Palestinians, the stabbing murder of a 23-year-old Israeli Border Police officer in Jerusalem on June 16 is an act of “heroism” that proves that the “revolution against the Zionist entity will continue until the liberation of Palestine, from the (Mediterranean) sea to the (Jordan) river.”

For many Palestinians, the three terrorists who murdered the young woman, Hadas Malka, are “heroes” and “martyrs” who will be rewarded by Allah in Paradise.

President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA), which is funded by Americans and Europeans, has once again chosen to maintain silence following a terror attack perpetrated by Palestinians. This silence of Abbas and his PA leadership, specifically their refusal to condemn the terror attack, can only be interpreted as an endorsement of the killing of Jews.

The silence of Mahmoud Abbas following the Jerusalem terror attack, specifically his refusal to condemn the attack, can only be interpreted as an endorsement of the killing of Jews. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)

Moreover, in a move reminiscent of a demented Alice in Wonderland, Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction, which is often described by Westerners as “moderate” and “pragmatic,” publicly blasted Israel for killing the three terrorists who murdered the policewoman and wounded several others.

In a statement published in Ramallah shortly after the terror attack, Fatah “condemned the Israeli occupation forces for killing three young Palestinian men in East Jerusalem.” It said that the killing of the three terrorists “proves that the Israeli government is pursuing its policy of escalation.” Fatah called on the international community to “seriously look into providing protection for the defenseless Palestinian people.”

The Fatah statement failed to mention that the three Palestinian “young men” were armed with knives and a homemade submachine gun. Nor did Fatah mention a word about the Border Police officer who was stabbed to death in the terror attack.

Such a statement could never have been published without the approval of Abbas and his top cronies in Ramallah. They even seem to have endorsed the Fatah communiqué by publishing it on the website of the PA’s official news agency, Wafa. This agency is managed and funded by the PA, which also appoints the editors and journalists working there.

This is the twisted logic of Abbas and his people: How dare Israeli police officers shoot terrorists armed with knives and a machinegun and prevent them from killing more Jews?

Fatah spokesperson Osama Qawassmeh went as far as accusing Israel of committing a “war crime” by killing the terrorists and thwarting a bigger attack. He called on the international community to condemn Israel for the “cold-blooded” killing of the three terrorists in Jerusalem, dubbing it a “cruel crime.” Qawassmeh, who is considered a trusted advisor and confidant of Abbas, seized the opportunity to heap praise on the terrorists, describing them as “martyrs.” Palestinians, he added, should remain faithful to the “blood of the martyrs” by “holding on to their lands and holy sites and defending them.”

One wonders: how does this public endorsement of the Jerusalem terror attack and the terrorists stand up to Abbas’s promise to US President Donald Trump to stop anti-Israel incitement and “promote a culture of peace” among Palestinians?

This is but further proof in an endless string of damning evidence concerning the ‘peace lies’ spouted by Abbas and his PA. The PA president is always among the first to denounce terror attacks around the world, including Britain, France and Germany. Yet when Palestinians murder Israelis, they suddenly become “heroes” and “martyrs.”

How would the British government and public have reacted had someone condemned the British police for killing the three terrorists who carried out the recent London Bridge attack?

How would the British government and public have reacted had the international media run headlines such as, “British policemen kill three Muslim men in London attack?” This is precisely how Abbas’s media outlets — and the BBC — reported on the Jerusalem terror attack: “Israeli policemen shoot dead three Palestinians in Jerusalem” and “Three Palestinian youth martyred at the hands of Israeli occupation policemen.”

It is no wonder, then, that many Palestinians have been celebrating the terror attack in Jerusalem. If these are the messages Abbas and his PA and Fatah cronies are sending to their people, why should it come as a surprise that many Palestinians have been glorifying the terrorists and calling for more attacks against Jews?

Hamas, notably, was the first party to applaud the Jerusalem terror attack, saying it proves that the Palestinian intifada was continuing and would escalate.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist Palestinian terror group, also joined the chorus of those heaping praise on the terrorists for murdering the Israeli policewoman. Hamas and the PFLP have claimed responsibility for the “heroic operation” and dismissed as “false” a statement by ISIS taking credit for the attack.

To be clear: the two terror groups are furious with ISIS for attempting to rob them of the “honor” of murdering a young policewoman on the streets of Jerusalem. This is the surreal reality in the Middle East today.

Not to be left behind in the promotion of Jew-killing, Palestinians across the political spectrum took to social media to applaud the latest terror attack and express their jubilation over the murder of the policewoman.

In innumerable postings on Facebook and Twitter, dozens, if not hundreds, of Palestinians praised the terrorists, describing them as “heroes” and “martyrs.” They particularly expressed excitement over the use of a homemade submachine gun (often referred to as a “Carl Gustav“). This type of weapon is often produced in workshops in various parts of the PA-controlled territories in the West Bank.

The Palestinians also expressed deep satisfaction that the terrorists chose to carry out their attack during the holy month of Ramadan. They pointed out that the three terrorists, who were fasting, had chosen to carry out their attack during Ramadan because this was the surest and fastest path to Paradise. “There is nothing more pure and sacred than killing the infidels and Jews than when one is fasting during Ramadan,” remarked some of the Palestinians.

There is documented, widespread jubilation in the Muslim world about this and other terror attacks perpetrated not only by Palestinians against Israelis, but — contrary to the statements of many in the West — by many Muslims against all “unbelievers”: if “infidels” are murdered during Ramadan, their killers expect to be “doubly rewarded in Paradise.”

In Israel, this joy over Jew-killing does not emerge from nothing. It can be traced directly to the Palestinian leadership, beginning with President Abbas and his Palestinian Authority friends. When he and the PA leadership next mouth their lies about a “culture of peace,” perhaps the world will pause for a moment, not just to think of a murdered young woman, Hadas Malka, but also of what the Palestinian leadership really wants.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.