In the predawn hours of Aug. 5, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrested 13 Palestinians in the West Bank. According to an official IDF statement, the wanted men are suspected of involvement in terrorism, “popular terrorism” and violent disorderly conduct toward civilians and combatants. The use of the term “popular terrorism” in an IDF statement attests to the desperate straits of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its impact on the Palestinians.

The term “popular resistance” was introduced by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, initially in the days of his predecessor PLO leader Yasser Arafat, to differentiate it from “armed resistance” to which Abbas was opposed. The IDF and other security agencies adopted the term (as they did the Arabic word “intifada,” meaning “uprising”), but in a different context, using it to designate Palestinians, mostly in their teens, not affiliated with any organization or motivated by ideology, but rather driven by despair and frustration. Israel claims that the PA exploits the despair to encourage popular terrorism, or at least does nothing to curb it.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center also contends that the PA encourages popular terrorism. According to an October 2017 report, the current violence, along with harsh anti-Israel incitement, stems from a diplomatic-strategic decision adopted at the August 2009 Fatah conference (reconfirmed at the seventh Fatah conference in December 2016). This decision, which calls for popular resistance, has been in fact implemented ever since by the PA and Fatah.

However, the report argues that there is a major difference between organized terrorism and popular terrorism. Israel can strike at the organizational infrastructure of organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah movement’s armed Tanzim wing, but its capacity to collect intelligence on widespread, deep-rooted popular resistance and terrorism is limited, at best.