‘Post’ just met with top Hebron sheikh who wants to pull out of PA

Joining the Abraham Accords could be a game changer, but it has opposition from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides and may be torpedoed globally.

The South Hebron Hills seem ancient and as unchanging as ever, but massive change may be in the air.

In the aftermath of the Wall Street Journal’s blockbuster disclosure early Sunday morning that half a dozen major Palestinian sheikhs from the Hebron area, all led by Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari (also known as Abu Sanad), are ready to break off from the Palestinian Authority and sign a new Abraham Accords-style deal with Israel as the “Emirates of Hebron,” The Jerusalem Post can now disclose having recently met with Jabari at his ceremonial tent.

It was also disclosed that another 13 sheikhs from the Hebron area also plan to leave the PA.

At the meeting, Jaabari, 48, wore a large and flowing white robe with gold stripes and a black-striped headdress.

He also wore multiple large ceremonial rings, one on one hand and two on the other hand.

His beard was still mostly black, though with shades of gray.

The “tent” itself was mostly red and was no normal tent.

It ranged around 50 feet by 30 feet and had a very high ceiling.

Though it seemed somewhat unchanged from when earlier sheikhs in his family line – who, according to the sheikh, have ruled Hebron since the time of Saladin – may have also conducted the region’s affairs, there was powerful air conditioning to withstand the intense heat of the surrounding desert.

Surprisingly, the tent was not, at that moment, surrounded by many security guards, though the Post was later told that this might have been done temporarily to make it less intimidating for this visiting reporter.

Some less powerful sheikhs are known to have their homes surrounded by as many as 10 armed gunmen.

At this meeting, there was only one male attendee providing drinks, fruits, and other food, as well as three young children, seemingly between the ages of four and seven, running around nearby. One of them sported a Spider-Man-style shirt.

Despite the low-key attendees, the meeting itself was marked by officialdom and honorifics, with the early discussion centering around the illustrious history of the Jaabari family from Saladin to the sheikh’s grandfather and father.

The sheikh said that he had control of around 78% of Hebron’s greater metro population, which could translate into 700,000 or more Palestinians. The simple but radical premise he proposed was that he was ready, along with the other sheikhs (four of whom the Post interacted with separately), to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and end all claims in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Assembling an ‘Emirates of Hebron’

He would do so with the goal of eventually assembling six other Palestinian “emirates” (designed like the UAE) comprising the Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus, Tulkarm, Jenin, Qalqilya, and finally Ramallah areas.

These are the main areas the Palestinian West Bank was divided into under the mid-1990s Oslo Accords, which, while barely functioning, have governed Israeli-Palestinian relations for three decades.

Sheikh Jaabari told the Post he was willing to make this massive shift in exchange for Israel’s support in removing the PA from the area, restoring work permits that were suspended after October 7, 2023, building new joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial work zones, and for some pieces of the Oslo Accords Area C.

The Jaabari family has hated the PA for decades, and, since it torched a PA police station and took 34 PA officers hostage in 2007 in reprisal for their killing a member of the Jaabari clan, it has already reduced PA intervention in Hebron affairs.

Jaabari’s father has had numerous meetings with Israeli officials, including one attended years ago by another Post reporter, to try to move forward with coexistence initiatives that do not involve the PA.

But what is unique about this latest initiative is that it happened in the post-Abraham Accords and post-October 7 world.

The Post’s Zvika Klein wrote an op-ed in May after meeting with Minister Nir Barkat, who is the lead Israeli figure behind the initiative, in which he discussed it at a more general conceptual level.

Barkat has kept Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the loop, but even the risk-averse prime minister has stayed out of it directly until now to see which way the wind would blow.

The IDF and Shin Bet oppose the initiative

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) intensely opposes the initiative.

While the security agency is not satisfied with the PA’s fight against Palestinian terror, it still regards it as the only body that can really assist Israel in curbing terror across the entire West Bank.

Some Israeli officials estimate the PA has as many as 70,000 soldier-officers, including a smaller group of commandos – not an easy body to replace.

Currently, the officials estimate there are around 4,000 PA officers in Hebron, along with 200 commandos.

Throughout the years, despite contrary threats to cut off relations, the PA has shared intelligence with the Shin Bet, helping them to capture at least some Palestinian terrorists, especially Hamas.

Sometimes the PA’s motivation for sharing such intelligence is to weaken Hamas opposition, but Israel does not really care about its motivation if the result is capturing terrorists.

The IDF has similar opposition to the idea, also counting on the PA for security cooperation.

What has happened in Jenin since December 2024 is a good metaphor for the dilemma.

For six weeks, the PA, partially at Israel’s urging, hounded its own people in the Jenin area who were engaging in terror and violent protests.

It substantially succeeded at reducing terror in the area but failed to gain control of the internal Jenin refugee camp.

Eventually, on January 21, the IDF entered the camp itself and started a multi-month operation to truly root out the remaining terror elements.

So the PA helped but also failed.

This is the history of the PA in the West Bank – helping the Shin Bet and IDF at times, but not when the other Palestinian fighters are “too strong.”

The Shin Bet and IDF prefer the enemy that they know about. They worry that a loose confederation of emirates in the West Bank would be unmanageable, not to mention that this initiative could lead to an unpredictable Palestinian civil war.

Jaabari told the Post that if Israel supports him, he can rout the PA in Hebron in hours or days without too much bloodshed since many of its officers are actually part of his clan.

He said that in his Hebron region, his word is law, and promised that he could bring total and utter quiet to an area that a decade ago was among the worst and most chaotic.

This is because Hebron is still run primarily by the tribal clans, and he can take swift and, if needed, deadly action against anyone who violates his decrees.

The deal that Jaabari has negotiated with Barkat discusses 1,000 new Palestinian workers in Israel from Hebron, followed by 5,000 after a trial period.

But these numbers are tiny compared to the pre-October 7 numbers of 210,000 Palestinian workers in Israel.

Jaabari insisted that Barkat and Israel will give him 50,000 from Hebron alone within a short period of time.

The arrangements for Area C are more questionable.

Jaabari would probably get some new parts of Area C, but Israeli officials would also likely try to use the new accords to take larger areas for Israel.

In this way, Palestinians may complain that this new deal is worse for them as a group and nation than getting a more independent and larger Palestinian state along the lines of the 1967 Six Day War.

Also, the accords would permanently yield Jerusalem to Israel and dispose of the “return of refugees” issue, though it would enshrine Palestinian autonomy over the Temple Mount Muslim prayer areas.

Why would Jaabari make such concessions, which the PA would never make, and much of the world would oppose?

Jaabari’s perspective

From his perspective, the PA was a foreign force from Tunisia (where PLO and then PA leader Yasser Arafat was expelled to before Oslo) that returned to the West Bank after over 20 years of exile and pushed down the traditional sheikhdoms that had always run all Palestinian affairs in the area.

He told the Post that all critical local services are still handled by his council of sheikhs and that all the PA does is collect taxes, a way of appropriating local money for its corrupt “foreign” needs.

Put differently, Jaabari sees the PA as only a parasite and wants back full control of the area, which he and his council say existed for hundreds of years before the Oslo Accords.

Also, after October 7, he simply believes that the pre-war idea of a Palestinian state is dead and that Israelis will never accept it.

So what is the point of waiting around for a pipe dream while the PA takes portions of his clan’s money in the meantime?

Jaabari is up against the Shin Bet, the IDF, possibly Netanyahu (his final position is undecided), the PA, and probably much of the world, which is still set on the traditional Oslo-era two-state solution.

It is unclear whether US President Donald Trump would weigh in on the issue and try to sway the world toward accepting it, especially if Israel itself has not decided its position.

And if Netanyahu ever started talking about the plan seriously in public, would it be because he actually intended to implement it – or to use it as a bluff to pressure the Saudis into normalization at a lower price for what he would need to give the PA? (by telling the Saudis he will move along with the plan if they don’t.)

But Trump loves normalization deals, and the Abraham Accords were carried out despite PA opposition.

From one perspective, this could be a new pragmatic way for Israelis and Palestinians to coexist and live in peace after 33 years of Oslo have not yielded this.

Some of the Israeli Right are enthusiastic about the initiative because it would allow them to keep Jerusalem and to take more portions of Area C, while the local sheikhs would also support it in order to get the PA off their backs.

From another perspective, it may be an unrealistic pipe dream of a group of local sheikhs and right-wing Israelis up against much larger forces within their own people and globally.

Even if it did go ahead, it is also unclear how many Palestinians would still be satisfied in 10 years, when October 7 is more of a distant memory, after giving up full statehood and east Jerusalem.

But Sheikh Jaabari made it clear that he is not waiting idly anymore and is stating the question publicly to Israel and the world: do you want to take his hand and forge a new kind of coexistence or not?