Why have recent mass Palestinian protests been limited to Gaza?
The recent mass protests along the Gaza-Israel border raise questions as to why similar events aren't happening in the West Bank.
The unprecedented, six-week peaceful protests that began with Land Day on March 30 in Gaza and are supposed to reach a climax on Nakba Day on May 15 have been largely confined to the Gaza Strip.
While the large, nonviolent protests have been led by an independent committee in Gaza, they were supported by all Palestinian nationalist PLO factions as well as Islamic ones.
PLO and Islamic factions have their leaders and followers in the West Bank also, so why didn’t they coordinate with each other and hold simultaneous protest activities?
Anees Sweidan, the director of the PLO’s international relations department, told Al-Monitor that in fact Palestinians in the West Bank have been constantly protesting for some time at near every flashpoint with the Israelis. “The situation in Gaza is different from that in the West Bank, and therefore they require a different set of responses to the Israelis.”
