| EDITORIAL
Hold Your Applause, Fatah: The Palestinian Body Politic is Rotten to the CoreBy Ramzy Baroud
In July 2003, the then Palestinian Authority Chairman, Yasser Arafat, described Mahmoud Abbas as a "traitor" who "betrayed the interests of the Palestinian People." Arafat loathed Abbas to the very end. This particular outburst was made during a meeting with United Nations envoy Terje Larsen. The meeting took place a few months after Arafat was coerced by the US, Israel and other Western powers to appoint Abbas as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. Historically, Abbas has been the least popular among Fatah leaders; the likes of Abu Jihad, Abu Iyad and Arafat himself. These popular leaders were mostly assassinated, sidelined or died under mysterious circumstances. Arafat is widely believed to have been poisoned by Israel with the help of Palestinians, and Abbas has alleged recently that he knows who killed him. Yet, despite his unpopularity, Abbas has remained in one top position or another. The power struggle between him and Arafat which culminated in 2003, until Arafat's death in November 2004, hardly helped Abbas's insipid reputation among Palestinians. At times, it seemed that the less popular Abbas became, the greater his powers grew. Now, he has just been re-elected as the head of his political party, Fatah, during its seventh congress held in Ramallah on 29 November. At 81, he is the leader of Fatah, head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and President of the Palestinian Authority.
However, his long, drawn-out speech of nearly three hours on 30 November contained nothing new; just rehashed slogans and subtle messages to the US and Israel that his "revolution" shall remain subdued and non-violent. Considering this critical period in Palestine's history, Abbas's impractical rhetoric represents the depth of the crisis among Palestine's political elites. The numerous rounds of applause that his tedious, unimaginative speech received from the nearly 1,400 supporters who attended the conference is a reflection of the deep-seated political tribalism that now controls Fatah, the dominant PLO party and, arguably, the party that sparked the modern Palestinian revolution. However, today's party is a far cry from its original self. Fatah's founders were young, vibrant, educated rebels. Their primary literature from 1959 spoke of their early influences, particularly the guerrilla war of Algeria's resistance against French colonialism. "The guerrilla war in Algeria had a profound influence on us," wrote Abu Iyad. "We were impressed by the Algerian nationalists' ability to form a solid front, wage war against an army a thousand times superior to their own, obtain many forms of aid from various Arab governments and, at the same time, avoid becoming dependent on any of them." Certainly, some circumstances have changed, inevitably so, but many aspects of the conflict have remained the same, including Israel's territorial war and unceasing colonial expansion, backed by the United States' unhinged imperialism. Yet, Fatah has changed to the point that its founders would no longer recognize the current political structure as the entity that they created. The movement is now more keenly interested in consolidating the power of Abbas's allies than fighting Israel; top members are conspiring against each other, buying allegiances and ensuring that the massive financial perks which resulted from Abbas's Oslo accords remain intact, even after the old leader retires or dies.
Mohammed Dahlan's political clan was, of course, excluded from the conference. In fact, the reason the conference was held after all these years (seven years separate it from the previous one) was partly to ensure that the new Fatah hierarchy is set up in such a way that it will prevent Dahlan's allies from staging a comeback. The sad truth is that, regardless of who wins in the current power struggle, Fatah's fall is inexorable. Both Abbas and Dahlan are perceived as moderates by Israel, supported by the US and extremely unpopular among most Palestinians. According to a poll conducted in September 2015, the majority of Palestinians - 65 per cent - want Abbas to resign. The same poll indicated that Dahlan was nowhere near popular (only six per cent supported him) while Abbas's allies, Saeb Erekat and former prime minister Salam Fayyad, received four per cent and three per cent of the vote respectively. Indeed, there is a chasm between Palestinians and those who claim to represent them, and that rift is growing exponentially. The Fatah conference's political theater last week seemed far removed from this reality. After Abbas - who was only elected to lead the Palestinian Authority once in 2005 for a period of four years - had purged all of his opponents, he sought a new mandate from his supporters. Predictably, "everyone voted yes," a spokesman for Fatah, Mahmoud Abu Al-Hija, told reporters.When "everyone" in Fatah's top political circle votes for Abbas, while the majority of Palestinians reject him, it is reasonable to conclude that Fatah is neither a fair representation of the Palestinian people, nor remotely close to the pulse of the Palestinian street. Even if one is to ignore the "yes-men" of Fatah, one cannot ignore the fact that the current fight among the Palestinian elites is almost entirely detached from the struggle against Israel. Palestinians are victims of daily violence; Jewish settlements are occupying Palestinian hills and are forever expanding; Israeli soldiers roam occupied Palestinian land; and Abbas himself is not allowed free movement without prior "security coordination" with the Israeli army. Moreover, Palestinians are divided among factions, regions and clans; political favoritism, financial corruption and outright treason are eating the Palestinian body politic like an incurable cancer. Talk of "unity", "reconciliation" and "state building" is just that - talk - while Palestinians suffer their bitter existence behind checkpoints and under the boots of soldiers and the quiet - but maddening - humming of military drones.
Despite this, the Fatah elites still applauded Abbas nearly 300 times during his three hour speech. What were they applauding, exactly? What has been achieved? What vision did he put forth to end the Israeli occupation? Too much Palestinian land has been lost between Fatah's sixth congress in 2009 and last month's seventh congress. That is not an achievement worthy of such acclaim, but a cause for alarm. The sad truth is that no self-respecting Palestinian should be applauding empty rhetoric; instead, the respected Fatah members should rethink this destructive course altogether, and do so as a matter of urgency. - Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include "Searching Jenin", "The Second Palestinian Intifada" and his latest "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story". His website is www.ramzybaroud.net. |
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| COMMENT
The Real Link between Israel's Forest Fires and Muezzin Bill
Israeli legislation ostensibly intended to tackle noise pollution from Muslim houses of worship has, paradoxically, served chiefly to provoke a cacophony of indignation across much of the Middle East. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his support this month for the so-called "muezzin bill", claiming it was urgently needed to stop the dawn call to prayer from mosques ruining the Israeli public's sleep. A vote in the parliament is due this week. The use of loudspeakers by muezzins was unnecessarily disruptive, Mr Netanyahu argued, in an age of alarm clocks and phone apps. But the one in five of Israel's population who are Palestinian, most of them Muslim, and a further 300,000 living under occupation in East Jerusalem, say the legislation is grossly discriminatory. The bill's environmental rationale is bogus, they note. Moti Yogev, a settler leader who drafted the bill, originally wanted the loudspeaker ban to curb the broadcasting of sermons supposedly full of "incitement" against Israel. And last week, after the Jewish ultra-Orthodox lobby began to fear the bill might also apply to sirens welcoming in the Sabbath, the government hurriedly introduced an exemption for synagogues. The "muezzin bill" does not arrive in a politically neutral context. The extremist wing of the settler movement championing it has been vandalizing and torching mosques in Israel and the occupied territories for years. The new bill follows hot on the heels of a government-sponsored expulsion law that allows Jewish legislators to oust from the parliament the Palestinian minority's representatives if they voice unpopular views. Palestinian leaders in Israel are rarely invited on TV, unless it is to defend themselves against accusations of treasonous behavior. And this month a branch of a major restaurant chain in the northern city of Haifa, where many Palestinian citizens live, banned staff from speaking Arabic to avoid Jewish customers' suspicions that they were being covertly derided. Incrementally, Israel's Palestinian minority has found itself squeezed out of the public sphere. The "muezzin bill" is just the latest step in making them inaudible as well as invisible. Notably, Basel Ghattas, a Palestinian Christian legislator from the Galilee, denounced the bill too. Churches in Nazareth, Jerusalem and Haifa, he vowed, would broadcast the muezzin's call to prayer if mosques were muzzled. For Ghattas and others, the bill is as much an assault on the community's beleaguered Palestinian identity as it is on its Muslim character. Netanyahu, on the other hand, has dismissed criticism by comparing the proposed restrictions to measures adopted in countries like France and Switzerland. What is good for Europe, he argues, is good for Israel. Except Israel, it hardly needs pointing out, is not in Europe. And its Palestinians are the native population, not immigrants. Haneen Zoabi, another lawmaker, observed that the legislation was not about "the noise in [Israeli Jews'] ears but the noise in their minds". Their colonial fears, she said, were evoked by the Palestinians' continuing vibrant presence in Israel - a presence that was supposed to have been extinguished in 1948 with the Nakba, the creation of a Jewish state on the ruins of the Palestinians' homeland. That point was illustrated inadvertently over the weekend by dozens of fires that ravaged pine forests and neighbouring homes across Israel, fuelled by high winds and months of drought. Some posting on social media relished the fires as God's punishment for the "muezzin bill". With almost as little evidence, Netanyahu accused Palestinians of setting "terrorist" fires to burn down the Israeli state. The Israeli prime minister needs to distract attention from his failure to heed warnings six years ago, when similar blazes struck, that Israel's densely packed forests pose a fire hazard. If it turns out that some of the fires were set on purpose, Netanyahu will have no interest in explaining why. Many of the forests were planted decades ago by Israel to conceal the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, after 80 per cent of the Palestinian population - some 750,000 - were expelled outside Israel's new borders in 1948. Today they live in refugee camps, including in the West Bank and Gaza. According to Israeli scholars, the country's European founders turned the pine tree into a "weapon of war", using it to erase any trace of the Palestinians. The Israeli historian Ilan Pappe calls this policy "memoricide". Olive trees and other native species like carob, pomegranate and citrus were also uprooted in favor of the pine. Importing the landscape of Europe was a way to ensure Jewish immigrants would not feel homesick. Today, for many Israeli Jews, only the muezzin threatens this contrived idyll. His intermittent call to prayer emanates from the dozens of Palestinian communities that survived 1948's mass expulsions and were not replaced with pine trees. Like an unwelcome ghost, the sound now haunts neighboring Jewish towns. The "muezzin bill" aims to eradicate the aural remnants of Palestine as completely as Israel's forests obliterated its visible parts - and reassure Israelis that they live in Europe rather than the Middle East. (A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.) - Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit his website: www.jonathan-cook.net. |
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| ANALYSIS
What's behind Egypt's 'New Political Position' Towards Gaza?After three years of open hostility, Egypt appears to be resetting its policy towards the Gaza Strip. Whereas in the recent past the Cairo administration has only opened the Rafah border crossing to deliver Palestinian corpses, the authorities have, in recent weeks, opened it more frequently to allow the passage of people to and from the besieged enclave. But this is not all. Last month witnessed an unprecedented spate of official invitations from Egyptian state agencies to Palestinian businessmen, journalists and even jihadists. The first was extended to more than 30 businessmen and economists from Gaza to attend the second economic conference at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Ain Sokhna. One week later, an Islamic Jihad delegation headed by its exiled secretary general, Ramadan Shallah, and senior figures from the Gaza Strip were invited to Cairo for talks with Egyptian intelligence officials. That was followed quickly by a visit of leading Palestinian journalists to the government-owned Al Ahram newspaper. All told, the frequency and sheer scope of these meetings point to a possible shift in policy. The visiting delegations represent important constituencies that could contribute significantly to improved relations with Egypt. However, while the developments of the past month can be seen as a new beginning, there is no doubt that the road ahead still remains long and challenging. For all practical purposes, Egypt has a lot to gain from good relations with Palestine, and the Gaza Strip in particular. The coastal territory possesses no major industries and offers a consumer market that supplies two million inhabitants. Instead of taking full advantage of this market to boost its own economy, Egypt has throughout the past decade missed every opportunity to do so by maintaining the Israeli-led blockade of the territory. The net result is that while Israel ranks first as the main exporter to Palestine, Egypt is a lowly ninth even though Gaza, with its estimated bank deposits of $9.6 billion and annual trade valued at $10 billion, has the potential to become an important trading partner for Egypt. Though by no means too late, Egypt, it seems, is finally beginning to put its own interest before that of Israel. Last month's Ain Sokhna conference reopened discussions on the longstanding project to establish a free trade zone between Egypt and Gaza. The idea was first discussed 10 years ago during the Mubarak regime but never saw the light of day. President Mohamed Morsi tried to revive it as an alternative to the perilous tunnel economy that sprung up as a result of the blockade, but he was forced to abandon the project after being confronted with the unfounded accusations of supporting an initiative that would lead to the secession of Gaza from Palestine. Apart from Israel, which wants to maintain its monopoly of the whole Palestinian market, the free zone was also questioned by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, which lost political control of Gaza in 2007. Neither of the two are likely to support the idea as long as Hamas remains in control of the Strip. In the case of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the matter has become even more disturbing because of the growing influence of his Fatah rival, Muhammed Dahlan. It is believed widely that the latter enjoys the full backing of the Cairo regime, as well as a number of regional states. Dahlan, who hails from Gaza, has in recent years been supporting a number of charitable initiatives there. Faced as it was with chronic economic hardship, the Hamas authority in Gaza has accommodated this activity. While it is true that Dahlan's "charitable" work has brought some relief to many families in Gaza it is equally true that it has earned him loyal support from disaffected Fatah elements in the territory; there is a distinct political edge to the charity. For the time being his supporters appear to be more a source of embarrassment and an irritant rather than a threat to Abbas's grip on Fatah; he was re-elected as leader of the movement - at the age of 81 - by this week's Seventh Fatah Conference. Given these realities, it would be in Egypt's best interest to seize every opportunity to engage with Hamas in an open and fair manner, without preconceptions or suspicions. After all, the Islamic Resistance Movement still has effective control of the Gaza Strip. Any attempt to dismiss it as irrelevant would be counter-productive and self-defeating to say the least. The movement has proven itself to be capable both militarily as well as politically. Even its inveterate enemy, Israel, acknowledges its enduring popularity throughout Palestine. Last October, it is believed that Abbas and the PA aborted the planned local elections to deny Hamas its expected victory. Hamas may well have strong and uncompromising views about the Israeli occupation, but it has shown that it can be pragmatic in the pursuit of Palestinian national interests. Hence, the Hamas leadership's acceptance of Fatah's invitation to participate in the secular movement's major Conference this week. For better or worse, geography and history have locked Egypt and Gaza into a relationship of interdependency. Instead of pursing the impossible dream of going their separate ways, Egypt should now change its policy toward Gaza for the common good of the two peoples. This will not please Israel and its allies, but at the end of the day it is likely to be the best course of action to secure a more stable and prosperous future. - Dr. Daud Abdullah is the director of Middle East Monitor, where this article was first published. |
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| FEATURE
Palestinian Short Story Collection Wins Arab Award
Palestinian short-story author Mazen Marouf has won the Kuwaiti-based Multaqaaward for the best Arab short-story collection, after his short story collection titled Nukaat Almusalheen, the jokes of armed people, published by Alkawkab Publishing house in Lebanon.The panel of judges of the award has announced the winner this year at a ceremony organized at the American University in Kuwait on Monday, December 5. The award was initiated this year and Marouf was the first winner to be announced. The novel, as part of the award, will be translated and published in English and French. Five short story collections made it to the shortlist this year including 'Wonderful Reasons to Cry' by Palestinian Ziaad Kadash. 189 contributions from 15 different Arab countries were sent to the judging panel. Nukaat Almusalheen, the jokes of armed people, is the first short story collection by Mazen Marouf, and it is a collection of 14 short stories he wrote in Iceland, where he is based now, about his experience in Lebanon's refugee camps for Palestinians, in which he mixes reality, imagination, humor, and tragedy. (PC, SAMA, PC, Social Media) |
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