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Palestinian Boiling Pot

By Dr. Elias Akleh

21 December, 2006
Countercurrents.org

The Palestinian pot started to boil as soon as the political wing of Hamas (resistance group fighting against Israeli occupation) formed a Palestinian government after its victory in a free and democratic election as certified by all international observers. Hamas’ victory came as a surprise to all. Hamas expected to gain some votes that would allow it to put a foot in the Palestinian government so it can express its wishes and participate in the political decision making. Fatah (the ruling party) on the other hand was hoping that Hamas would win few votes to make it an ineffective and powerless minority so that Fatah could claim that its political decisions were shared by Hamas. Yet people gathered around Hamas. Lately this boiling pot started to spew violence when Presidential Security Guards failed in their attempt to assassinate the Palestinian Hamas Prime Minister “Ismail Haneyya”, and when Palestinian President “Mahmoud Abbas” called for early presidential and parliamentary election.

The Fatah leaders did not accept Hamas victory, which threatened their political positions, their economical monopolies, and their corruption in the public treasury, especially because Hamas pledged to open investigations into all corruption allegations. Israel did not accept a Hamas government, which does not recognize the Israel, to replace the minority Fatah corrupt leaders, who hijacked the whole Fatah movement in order to give Israel one political concession after the other for their own special gains. The American administration (the self-proclaimed democracy spreader) had also rejected this Palestinian democratic choice that exposes American false allegation of global war against terrorism since Hamas, designated by the US as a terrorist group, had participated into and won a democratic election. So they all agreed to topple the newly democratic Hamas government regardless of the cost.

Plans were drawn to financially bankrupt Hamas government, to isolate it politically, and to impede its functions, which would severely burden the Palestinians economically, to show that this government brought only disasters to the people. They were hoping that hunger would change the people’s choice and drives them to abandon Hamas government and adopt Fatah’s leadership again once Abbas declares the government’s failure and calls for new elections to save the hungry people.

After its victory Hamas had called for a national unity government opening the door for all the Palestinian factions, including Fatah, to participate in the political decision making. This call was, unfortunately, met with a vehement Fatah rejection. The other factions rejected the offer especially after Israel and the American administration expressed their rejections to the results of the election. All had abandoned Hamas government to fail miserably.

Through the international quartet the American administration demanded Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist on the occupied Palestinian land (despite Israel had never recognized any of the Palestinian rights to exist as a people), to disarm and to abandon “violence” (quit resisting Israeli occupation and abandon Palestinian rights although Israel is still armed with the deadliest weapons), to accept all previous Palestinian/Israeli agreements (that had never served even one Palestinian interest and had all been broken by the Israeli government), to accept the “Roadmap” (that had been rejected and annulled by numerous Israeli conditions), and to adopt the Arab Peace Initiative (that had met by the then Israeli Prime Minister “Sharon” sending his military tanks into all the major Palestinian cities). These impossible to accept demands came intentional to provoke a “negative” response the American administration could use to justify a political embargo and financial and economical siege against the Palestinian people in order to “crush” Hamas government, the way Abbas threatened the government in his December 16th speech. The American administration was successful in coercing European and Arabic countries to adopt this financial and economical siege through its manipulation and control over the international financial transactions that have to go through American financial institutions since they deal with the Dollar. These countries were faced with the threats of financial embargo and accusation of financing a terrorist organization (Hamas). The administration had, though, supported the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas politically, and provided him with the necessary money to buy the loyalties lf Presidential Security Guards, who were trained by American military “advisors” on home raids and crowd control, and were armed by the Israeli government.

On its part Israel had done everything it could to multiply and intensify the suffering of the Palestinian people. Israel had confiscated million of tax Dollars it collects on behalf of the Palestinian government. It raided and robbed many Palestinian banks and financial institutions under the justification of money laundering to a terrorist group. The Israeli army had tripled its road blocks preventing Palestinian from traveling to their neighboring cities for work or health treatment. Palestinian citizens have been completely imprisoned and isolated in their own towns. Border crossings have been sealed to enforce economical siege and all humanitarian, trade, and economical transactions had been prevented from going in or out of the occupied Palestine. Israeli terrorist army intensified its extrajudicial assassinations of resistance leaders. They routinely raided civilian homes after midnight kidnapping men, old and young. They shelled civilian homes with their artilleries, their tanks, and their fighter airplanes. They demolished many homes, razed farm lands, and built more Israeli colonies on usurped Palestinian land. To further weaken the Hamas government and to render it ineffective the Israeli army kidnapped scores of its parliamentary members and its ministers.

What was worse than all these crimes, expected from an enemy, is when a minority of previous Fatah leaders, had abused their political and security positions to enforce, rather than ease, these crimes against the people in order to further their own personal gains. This corrupt minority, whose financial resources had dried up when the Arab Gulf countries had stopped their financial support after the first Gulf War in 1991 leading them to welcome the Oslo Accord, needed to replenish their monies and to strengthen their political positions after entering the Palestinian occupied territories in 1994. So they abused the money of the donor countries to build their own luxurious homes, to control the local economical resources, to build their own private militias calling them security forces, and to spread drug abuse and whore houses within the people to weaken their social fabric for ease of controlling them.

Some of those corrupt leaders betrayed their people when they cooperated with the Israeli government giving it many political concessions for financial and political personal gains. It has been long known by many Palestinians that “Mohammad Dahlan”, the previous head of security forces, is the worst traitor. He came from a very poor family, but after supervising some of the border crossings (e.g. Rafah Crossing) and managing their monetary fees and tax revenues, he became one of the richest persons in the territories owning big hotels, luxurious homes, and fat accounts in Israeli banks. According to statements by “Hani Hasan”, a former official in the Palestinian intelligence, “Dahlan” had planned to overthrow former President “Arafat” but failed in his attempt.

Hamas members had lately exposed “Dahlan’s” corruption openly and accused him of sending his own “Death Squads” to spread chaos in the streets, of assassinating some Palestinian officials, and of the recent failed assassination attempts of the Prime Minister “Ismael Haneyya” Friday 15th and the failed attempt on the life of Palestinian Foreign Minister “Mahmoud Al-Zahhar” Sunday 17th. Preparing himself for the position of the Prime Minister “Dahlan” now himself is pushing his militias and followers in the streets demanding early parliamentary election.

The Palestinian President “Mahmoud Abbas” (who won presidential election by only 40% of the votes despite all the Israeli and American support and money), and his company of some corrupt Fatah leaders, inside occupied Palestine, had intentionally declined to offer any help to Hamas government, who initially invited them to form a national unity government. They did not also hesitate to throw one obstacle after the other under the feet of the government, and to direct fiery accusations against its members. After Hamas electoral victory the previous Fatah parliament hastened unsuccessfully to grant President “Abbas” more jurisdictions than what the constitution grants. They accused the new Hamas parliamentary member of lacking political experience and knowledge of the laws. “Abbas” himself hastened to employ three thousand more cadres in his own Security Guards to strengthen himself and to further burden the already burdened public budget. When Hamas government took over the public debt was $1.792 Billion according the Foreign Minister “Al-Zahhar”, yet after nine months administration the government was able to pay back $100 million.

Corrupt “Abbas” and company attempted continuously to engage Hamas government into endless non-ending and futile political negotiations in an attempt to render it politically fruitless. After vehemently rejecting Hamas initial offer to form a national unity government they agreed to enter into negotiations to do so. After long useless negotiations, and after meeting with the American Secretary of State “Rice”, “Abbas” declared that negotiations came to an impasse due to Hamas intransigence. Facts show that Hamas had exhibited great efforts, flexibility, and concessions, among which Prime Minister “Haneyya” had offered to give up his position in order to form the national unity government. It was “Abbas” who since the start had sabotaged the negotiations with pre-conditions demanding Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist on the occupied Palestinian land since this is a status quo and to adopt all the conditions of the Quartet. These are well-known impossible to accept demands and are rejected by Hamas.

“Abbas” and company borrowed the American/Israeli tactic of accusing the victims and defending the perpetrators. They accused Hamas government of causing the financial and economical siege against the Palestinians, thus defending the real perpetrators (American administration and Israel), who imposed the siege by threatening the donor countries, who really sympathize with the Palestinians. The Palestinian suffering reached a point to force 12 UN agencies and 14 NGOs operating in occupied territories to launch on December 7th an emergency humanitarian appeal for some $453 million to just ease Palestinian poverty and living situations during 2007. This should be the obligation of the occupying power according to Geneva Convention, yet the international community is asked to pay it.

Neither the Palestinian President “Abbas” nor any of his Fatah ministers had approached any of the Arab countries with a plea to break the siege or to pay their dues to the Arab League fund dedicated for Palestinian support. When some Hamas ministers were able to bring in some money, and delivered it to the Ministry of Finance to pay the salaries of government employees, “Abbas” withheld the money for a long time.

When Prime Minister “Haneyya” toured the Arab countries, who offered to pay the salaries of government employees for the next six months President “Abbas” accused “Haneyya” of smuggling money across borders. What “Abbas” forgot to mention is that this money was coming into the country to be paid to employees, and not going out of the country like what some of his company had done by smuggling and depositing embezzled public money into Egyptian, Jordanian and British banks. “Abbas” had also accused “Haneyya” of being an Iranian agent when he accepted Iranian funds, yet he forgot to mention that “Haneyya” had also accepted funds from Arab countries such as Qatar. Does that make him a Qatari agent?

“Abbas” and company had pushed Presidential Guards in the West Bank and “Dahlan’s” militias in Gaza into the streets to spread chaos, to attack government buildings and set them on fire, to conduct armed marshes in the streets discharging their weapons, and to forcefully close shops, governmental institutions and public schools under the justification of demanding their unpaid salaries. This “creative chaos” was used to accuse the government of inability to keep peace and prevent security chaos. It is well known that the security apparatuses are still under the command of “Abbas” himself, who have not yet surrendered them to the Interior Ministry according to the law. One could not but wonder how could there be security chaos with the presence of 80 thousand security guards under “Abbas” leadership within a small geographical area that could be easily controlled?

After “Abbas” and company, Israeli and American attempts to topple Hamas government failed, despite all the economical siege, the murders, the kidnappings, the imprisonments, the shelling, the destructions, and the political games, “Abbas” dropped his bomb and called for early presidential and parliamentary election as per the recommendations of the appointed (not elected) PLO Executive Committee, that had lost its legal status due to the absence of one third of its members. With such calling “Abbas” had exceeded his presidential and constitutional jurisdictions that do not give him the power to dissolve the parliament. He called for the “return to the people’s will” forgetting that the people had already expressed their will in a democratic election nine months ago. “Abbas” has the right to call for presidential election only.

It is cynical to notice that external powers, (Israel, US, and UK, the enemy of Palestinians, who rejected their democratic election, and who imposed economical siege against them) had rushed to support “Abbas” call for early election, while most of the Palestinian factions (including within Fatah itself) inside and outside occupied Palestine had rejected it because they believe that the previous election, recognized by international observers as free and democratic, is legal. The leaders of ten Palestinian factions had announced, in a Damascus press release, their rejection to early election. They also called for re-building of the PLO (to get rid of traitors like “Abbas” and “Dahlan”), and for the formation of a national unity government to allow all factions to participate in political decision makings. The participation of Mr. “Farouq Qadoumi”, Secretary General for Fatah, in this press release points to the fact that there is no real conflict between Hamas and “real Fatah” movements. The conflict in occupied Palestine is caused by the introduction of a defeatist political agenda offered by a corrupted minority Fatah leadership, who hijacked the whole movement to acquire personal gains on the expense of the Palestinian people.



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