What happens if you arrive at a religious ceremony and discover that your Jewish neighbors are also on the guest list?

Well, if you are a representative of the Palestinian Authority (PA), you get up and leave. No matter if such a move insults your hosts: the main thing is not to sit with Jews, especially if they are from the settlements.

This embarrassing incident took place last week near the Palestinian city of Nablus, where members of the tiny Samaritan community gathered to celebrate their own Passover. The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group in the Levant, originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East.

Pictured above: Samaritans near Nablus celebrate their Passover holiday in April 2014.

Things went well for about two minutes on Mount Gerizim, one of the two mountains in the immediate vicinity of Nablus. That was how long it took for the Palestinian guests to walk out in protest at the presence of representatives of the Jewish settler community and IDF officers.

The Palestinian Authority Governor of Nablus, General Akram Rajoub, was an honored guest, as were Nablus Mayor Adli Yaish and dozens of Palestinians.

Rajoub later explained his decision to “vote with his feet”:

“Yes, we withdrew from the ceremony. We respect and appreciate the Samaritan community and have been regularly sharing with them in joyous and sad events. We consider them part of the Palestinian people. But we can’t accept the presence of settlers at the ceremony. Even worse, these settlers were given the privilege to speak at the ceremony, which is why we had to boycott the official event and leave the hall. We’re not prepared to talk to Jewish settlers because we don’t accept their presence among us.”

Shortly thereafter, PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank issued a statement strongly condemning the invitation of Jewish settler leaders to the Samaritan ceremony:

“This is a dangerous precedent that must not be allowed to recur. This is something unusual for the Samaritan community to do. We consider them to be part of the Palestinian people and we hope that this invitation does not represent the will of our Samaritan people. They need to fix this and prevent it from ever happening again.”

Raed Dib’i, a senior Fatah official in the West Bank, praised the Palestinian delegation’s decision to boycott the ceremony. He said that the move reflected the Palestinians’ rejection of any form of “normalization with the occupiers and the settler gangs.”

This is non-normalization in action. The Palestinian Authority has had a long-standing policy of combating “normalization” with Israelis, and this is but one unpleasant example. Yet this campaign is directed not only against Jewish settlers, but also against Jews who live inside Israel proper.

During the past few years, Palestinian political activists, including many belonging to Abbas’s Fatah faction, have been waging a fierce campaign against meetings between Jews and Arabs.

Showing their true colors, the activists do not hesitate to attack even Jews who are supportive of the Palestinians. In one incident last year, Fatah activists foiled a joint Palestinian-Israeli event called Jerusalem Hug near the Old City’s Damascus Gate. Thugs assaulted people indiscriminately, including film crews, European activists and even Palestinian participants. Needless to say, none of the Jewish participants in this “peaceful” event was a Jewish settler.

The Samaritan incident reveals as well how the Palestinian Authority treats religious minorities in the Palestinian territories.

By walking out of the ceremony, the PA leaders conveyed to the Samaritans that they are not, as it were, the ones who make up the guest list for their own party — especially if the guests are Jews living in nearby settlements, or IDF officers. The message here is clear: Follow our rules or face a boycott.

That is quite a slap in the face for the Samaritan community. And the slap came at a religious feast, not a political rally.

Time will tell, and it probably will not be long, whether the PA and its Fatah activists will strike the Samaritan community with more than a slap.

The Palestinian Authority has already “punished” the Samaritans by passing a law that cancels the only seat the community has in the Palestinian parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The only Samaritan member of parliament, Saloum Cohen, was elected in 1996. He died in 2004. Since then the community has had no representation in the PLC.

Yet lack of representation in parliament is not a top concern for the Samaritans these days. Instead, the community worries how they will be treated by the PA, now that it seems to look at them as “traitors” rather than friends. Samaritans are beginning to ask themselves whether their fate will be the same as that of the Christian minority in the Palestinian territories.

Earlier this month, Palestinian Christians accused the Palestinian Authority and Hamas of working toward erasing Christian history. The allegations came after the discovery of an ancient Byzantine church in Gaza City. Despite the important historical discovery, bulldozers were used to destroy the church artifacts in order to build a shopping mall on the site.

In yet another blow to the Christians, the PA government recently rejected demands to consider Easter an official holiday. The decision angered many Palestinian Christians. Their leaders wrote a strong letter to PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, in which they stated that they wouldn’t have been surprised if such a decision had been taken by the government of Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Malaysia.

The Samaritans are now facing a tough choice: continue living with the Palestinian Authority and accept its intimidation, or relocate to a safer locale. If they choose the former, they had better make their peace with having no peace with their Jewish neighbors.

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