By Meir Gurno our commentary on military and security matters

The Palestinian Authority is terrified of Hamas' intention to take over Ramallah. The PA's fear grew stronger after Operation Shield and Arrow, when Netanyahu promised Hamas ten thousand additional workers if Hamas did not intervene in the fighting. Hamas accepted Netanyahu's offer and continues to focus its efforts on taking over Jerusalem, on its way to taking over Ramallah. The Fatah organization, parts of which obey the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, claims that it is winning in Jerusalem, and not Hamas, but in the Palestinian Authority they believe in events on the ground and not in statements.

We are writing this introduction to put into context what a senior source in the Palestinian Authority told us this week, according to which Hamas has started cooperating with Israeli Arab criminal organizations and is purchasing weapons from them. The source added that the seizure of a weapons shipment about a year ago at a checkpoint near Jerusalem is related to this new relationship between the Israeli Arab crime organizations and Hamas.

About a year ago we even reported here on attempts by an Arab criminal organization from the Lod area to take over businesses in Ramallah. We do not know if these attempts developed into a business relationship with Hamas, but it is hard to believe that an organization with such central national ambitions as Hamas would ignore a criminal organization that is trying to gain a foothold in the Palestinian central government city. As mentioned, an Israeli security source said that the security establishment is looking into the matter, but so far has found no proof of the supply of weapons to Hamas from Israeli Arab criminal organizations.