Hebron, West Bank - On 2 September, Israeli forces arrested Hebron’s mayor, Tayseer Abu Sneineh, in a raid on his home that left the property damaged. The Hebron Municipal Council denounced the move as an assault on Palestinian self-governance.
Israeli media cited security sources claiming his detention was linked to “support for terrorism,” recalling his 1980 conviction for an attack that killed six Israeli settlers.
Abu Sneineh, a veteran Fatah figure, split from the party in 2022 and ran on a joint list with Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in local elections. He had previously served time in Israeli prisons before being released in a prisoner swap in 1983.
PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yousef told The New Arab that the arrest “fits into a wider crackdown on Hebron, from raids on schools to flag bans and dispersal of protests”.
He warned that "Israel seeks to replicate in Hebron the same restrictions imposed in Jerusalem to erase Palestinian identity".
This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly considered separating Hebron from Palestinian Authority (PA) control and replacing elected leadership with tribal figures.
The plan, framed as an “independent emirate,” would recognise Israel as a Jewish state and join the Abraham Accords. Analysts see it as part of a broader Israeli strategy to dismantle Palestinian national structures and block international recognition of a Palestinian state.
This coincides with far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s declaration that Israel intends to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank. Since 7 October 2023, Israel has accelerated settlement expansion, home demolitions, and forced displacement.
At least 1,017 Palestinians have been killed and 7,000 injured in the West Bank, with more than 18,500 arrested.
Hebron, the West Bank’s largest governorate with about one million residents, epitomises these dynamics. The 1997 Hebron Protocol split the city into H1, under PA administration, and H2, including the Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque, under Israeli military control.
Today, around 700 Jewish settlers - among them extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir - dominate H2, tightening restrictions on Palestinian life.
Meanwhile, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians and displaced hundreds of thousands. Analysts argue that Israeli policies in both Gaza and the West Bank aim to extinguish any chance of a Palestinian state, effectively burying the two-state solution.
Tribal rejection
Adnan al-Rajabi, a leading clan figure in Hebron, described the reported “emirate plan” as “dangerous, unacceptable, and rejected by all Palestinians”. He said the scheme amounts to a total war on the Palestinian cause, an attempt to fracture representation and unity.
Al-Rajabi stressed that Hebron’s clans - including his own - have held meetings at the governor’s office to coordinate opposition, declaring: “We will not surrender. Hebron is part of the national fabric, and the emirate is rejected.”
He was responding to a Wall Street Journal report, which said that Wadi’ al-Jaabari, head of one of Hebron’s most powerful families, and allied sheikhs had written to Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat proposing a breakaway emirate.
The letter pledged peace, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and economic partnerships, including labour access and a joint industrial zone. The sheikhs insisted they could oust the PA from Hebron within days if Israel allowed it.
But clan leader Ziad al-Fakhouri compared the idea to Israel’s failed “village leagues” of the 1980s, when Tel Aviv tried to build an alternative Palestinian leadership to replace the PLO.
Those efforts collapsed under mass protests, strikes, and unified rejection. “Even the youngest child in Hebron’s tribes rejects separation,” al-Fakhouri said, denouncing collaborators as “weak souls sowing discord”.
Undermining representation
Abu Yousef told The New Arab that Israel is waging a double war. “A genocidal assault in Gaza, and in the West Bank, a war of settlement, annexation, and attempts to dismantle Palestinian representation.”
He pointed to Israel’s recent approval of construction in the controversial E1 settlement project - 3,400 new units east of Jerusalem - which rights groups like Peace Now warn will kill the two-state solution by cutting the West Bank in half.
Abu Yousef said Israel is recycling failed schemes such as the village leagues, but stressed that clan and street rejection will derail them.
“This is a colonial project disguised as an economic partnership,” he said. “Israel doesn’t want Palestinian self-rule, only land grabs, displacement, and control. The only solution is recognition of Palestinian rights, a state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return for refugees.”
Suleiman Basharat, director of the Yabous Centre for Studies, told The New Arab that Israel’s “emirate plan” fits into a longstanding strategy of fragmenting Palestinian society to make it easier to control.
“Since 1948, Israel has experimented with using clans, family heads, party rivalries, and geographic divides to weaken Palestinian cohesion,” he said.
Basharat identified three factors behind the focus on Hebron: the city’s deeply tribal social structure, which Israel believes could be mobilised; its role as the West Bank’s main economic hub, making it vulnerable to economic blackmail; and its high concentration of settlers, anchored in Kiryat Arba, which gives Israel institutional leverage.
But he argued the plan faces serious obstacles. “Palestinians have learned through experience that Israel’s promises are deceptive. Any collaboration would be partial and mistrustful. At the core, Palestinians still cling to the idea of a national political entity,” he said.
For Basharat, the only way to block such Israeli schemes is for the Palestinian leadership to rebuild ties with clans and communities through democratic renewal.
“The answer is the ballot box, not bypassing the people,” he concluded.
This article is published in collaboration with Egab