In the US and the West, we are able and free to debate God and HIS/HER existence, debate Jesus, Moses, Mohamed, debate America, its failures and its successes, debate our constitution and its interpretations. We are free to debate George Bush and his stupidity, his crimes against America and the world, and his many failures. We are free to debate anything and everything except Zionism, Israel and Judaism. In Palestine and the Arab world, we are allowed to discuss few things but one thing no one dares to discuss is the PLO, its illegitimacy and its failures.
Israel committed war crimes for over 20 days in Gaza, killing and murdering in cold blood women and children, destroying homes, schools, social centers, UN facilities, mosques and hospitals yet, no one in the US and the West dare to say anything let alone criticize Israel, its racist and criminal practices, as we have seen in the BBC’s refusal to air calls for aid to Gaza and in the attack on Paul Simon and CBC for its airing of the recent special of why a two state solution is not possible any more.
Mahmoud Abbas, whose presidential term finished and expired a couple of weeks ago and who lost any and all legitimacy as president of Palestine and the Palestinian Authority stood up yesterday in Cairo and declared that under no circumstances will there be any dialogue with those who (Hamas) questions the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
I am sure all Palestinians and the Arab world, with the exception of the very few Palestinians who are on the payroll of the PLO know well that the PLO lost any and all of whatever legitimacy it had to begin with 20 years ago. What remains now of the PLO is nothing more than perhaps a couple of dozen “parasites” around Mahmoud Abbas, direct beneficiaries of his financial generosity. I am sure if the payroll stops they will drop the PLO as hot potatoes.
To begin with, the PLO was never elected, voted or chosen by the Palestinian people, rather the PLO was chosen by the Arab League, which itself is of questionable legitimacy with many Arab leaders coming to power by tanks but not by the ballots and have no legitimacy whatsoever. As at no time did the Palestinian people in an open debate, forums, votes or ballots ever vote for and selected the PLO as “the sole and only representative of the Palestinian people”. An organization like the Arab League with questionable legitimacy cannot vote on or select an organization for and on behalf of the Palestinians people. The Arab League never had a mandate to represent the people of Palestine let alone select its representative, never.
Even in its heyday, the PLO was never legitimate since its officers and members were not elected by the people, but through a process similar in so many ways to the old Communist Party of the old Soviet Union, where the party on its own, without ever going back to the people, chose its general members and this general membership elected a slate of candidates that the leadership put forward. The same is true of the PLO. Arafat as a party leader funded and organized unions such as teachers, artists, social scientists, engineers, students, etc to be part of the “party” and put forward the slate of leadership to head and represent these “unions” and in turn these selected leaders voted the same (Arafat) leadership that voted them in. Thus the Palestine National Council, which is the “elected” people’s congress, was never elected through open election: rather its members where selected by Arafat and his gangs and where voted in. Faulty process to the core.
Thus the Palestine National Congress never truly represented the people and Arafat and his gangs were never voted in by the Palestinian people inside or outside Palestine. That is why there was never ever an open and serious debate on issues of concern to the people such as the occupation, liberation, building institutions, representing the people of the Diaspora, let alone the many fatal and criminal decisions taken by Arafat and the PLO leadership. There was never a debate on what happened in Jordan in 1970, never a debate on what happened in Lebanon, never a debate on what happened in Tel-Zaater and Sabra and Shatila, never a debate on what happened to cause of the forced exiles of 350,000 from Kuwait, never a debate let alone filing criminal and civil charges against all those who committed war crimes against the Palestinian people. Equally troublesome is the lack of debate or call for accountability of the tens of billions of the people’s money that simply disappeared during the tenures of Arafat, Qurai and Abbas. Tens of billions of the people’s money stolen by the very same leadership that is supposed to be the people’s trustees of their money and future. As such the Palestine National Council was nothing more than a ‘yes’ congress for the leadership so similar to the party congress of the Soviet Union, a bunch of ‘yes’ people who serve the wills of their masters, the leadership.
It was the late Arafat and his partners Abbas and Qurai who, once they signed the Oslo agreement recognizing Israel and its occupations, and becoming its agents and administrators, simply discarded the PLO as no entity. The Palestinian Trio of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai, turned the PLO into a “shell” organization putting a number of loyal cadres on the payroll just to keep the PLO under “oxygen”. The Palestinian Authority became the legal and financial partner of the Jewish Occupation. Arafat and Abbas simply put the PLO in a cold freezer, to use only when needed and to serve the purpose of the Jewish Occupation.
Under Oslo, Israel recognized the PLO as “the representative of the Palestinian people” and the only one authorized to sign and execute a “peace agreement” with Israel. Thus Mahmoud Abbas’s insistence on the PLO and its role in the “peace process”. Without Abbas’s PLO, Israel could not consolidate its occupation, could not settle the issue of the refugees, could not keep the Jewish settlements and could not have a financial and security partner. Abbas’s insistence on the legitimacy of the PLO has nothing to do with ending the Jewish Occupation, has nothing to do with the Apartheid Wall, has nothing to do with ending the Jewish settlements, has nothing to do with return of refugees, has nothing to do with Jerusalem, has nothing to do with Jewish war crimes, has nothing to do with the 11,000 hostages held by Israel, certainly it has nothing to do with the siege of Gaza, with the war on Gaza and the Jewish war crimes committed in Gaza. It has everything to do with his the PLO legal obligations under Oslo to deliver Palestine and the Palestinian people under occupation and in the Diaspora to Israel. Without the PLO Israel could not reach a “peace agreement” that makes Israel a controlling partner of all Occupied Palestine of ‘67 including Jerusalem.
As for Israel and the lack of debate, we all know what happened to anyone and everyone who dares to say or speak out. They end up on the side streets of Washington, Berlin, Paris and London, politically finished and ruined. A deadly bullet waits all those who dare to speak out. The same is true in Palestine and the Arab world.
We Write What We Like 
The pot is calling the kettle black when the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had the audacity to make the offensive statement, “You kill people” to the Israeli President Shimon PERES at the recent World Economic Forum.
Mr. Erdogan has conveniently forgotten the 1915 Armenian Genocide when the Turks murdered 1.5 million Christians predominately Armenians. Other ethnic groups, including Assyrians and Greeks were similarly subjeted to the same policy of extermination.
Lets look at modern history, 1974 was the year when Turkish forces proceeded to take over the northern third of the island of Cyprus (about 37% of Cyprus’s total area), causing large numbers of Greek Cypriots to abandon their homes. Approximately 160,000 Greek Cypriots fled to the south of the island, and approximately 1,500 Greek Cypriot remain missing. Hundreds of persons, including children, women and elderly people, were the victims of systematic torture and SAVAGE and humiliating treatment during their detention by the Turkish army. Mr. Erdogan 40,000 armed personnel continue to this day to occupy Northern Cyprus.
Britain and the US have a lot of explaining to do as they endorsed the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and from that day to this have done nothing positive to rid Cyprus of the illegal Turkish invaders. Imagine if the Republic of Ireland were to Invade Scotland or Canada do the same in Alaska. You would see a British and American reaction immediately. Remember the British and Argentinean stoush over the Falkland Islands.
Currently the Erdogan regime is busy attacking the Kurds in both Turkey and Northern Iraq. Maybe the Israelis should arm the Kurds in the same manner as the Hamas are being armed by Iran. Then Mr. Erdogan will really have some thing to complain about. For sure the pot is calling the kettle black.
So what is the alternative to the Palestinian Authority? Hamas? Or do you have something else in mind? The tone of the article seems to endorse a continuation of the same obstinate, uncompromising posture that has contributed so much to the last half century of suffering. The the bowling balls and b-b’s analogy (the “repression of free speech” represented by your inability to persuade westerners to suspend their critical intelligence and parrot your one-sided view of reality = the “repression” in Gaza whereby questioning the existence of Allah or the inspiration of the Koran or speaking out against Hamas results in a bullet through the head) just is not persuasive at all.
God help anyone who has to live under a Hamas regime that can carry out its full intentions. But then again, if they chose Hamas in a democratic election, I suppose they have what they asked for and should not complain when Hamas’s provocative foreign policy results in war with a more powerful neighbor. But God help any state that has to live next to a Hamas regime that can carry out its full intentions.
The founding of the state of Israel in1948 was a complete mistake, taken by the U.N. .But how to stop this criminal state how to disarm his army? sent the knesset away(arrest them) Who takes the first step? action is needed very soon ***Paul***
Paul. Salam and thanks. The founding of Israel was not an accident and it did not come about as direct result of a UN resolution. As far as the 18 century, Russian Jews have been arriving in small numbers settling in Palestine and seeking the protection of the British government, buying farms and lands funded by the Rothschild. This process continued throughout the 19th, 19th and 20th century. Christian Europe was out to get rid of the Jews from its midst as far as the Spanish Inquisition, and this process continued with the Russian Pogroms culminating in the Nazi German Holocaust. The Zionist Enterprise was not an accident it was to serve Europe and is part of the colonization of the Arab Middle East and continuations of the Christian Crusade as we see now with the powerful support from the Evangelical Americans who see the founding of Israel as fulfillment of the Biblical prophesy. I am convinced the Arabs will be unable to do any thing about Israel and if anything is to happen to Israel it will be from within, within the Jewish community as it sponsors Apartheid. Israel is on a course of self destruct, just like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, There is no way for a racist state like Israel to survive forever.
That is an excellent article, and very well written. It should be syndicated. It would be nice to see it in the Guardian ( which I no longer read by the way). But that’s the thing with forbidden debates. Even the self-styled ‘left’ and a lot of the official Palestine supporters want to steer clear of the fact that Abbas is no longer president. As for the BBC? You don’t need to ask.
In a discussion on a predictably bland post on Israel, on the New Statesman website, I tentatively suggested that the Palestinians might fruitfully place a rope round Mr Abba neck and suspend him from it. My post was removed. A tad intemperate, I admit, but hardly a novel idea for dealing with traitors. I tried again, changing the wording slightly, to remove anything that could be considered rude. Same again, and all posts referring to mine were removed. I tried two more times and satisfied myself that the problem was definitely with mention of ‘hanging Abbas’. Believe me, I don’t really approve of capital punishment, but there’s a limit, and one would think, in the aftermath of the Gaza massacre some strong rhetoric is hardly out of place. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to find many more extreme suggestions which passed the censor – ‘nuking Iran’ doesn’t seem to be ‘off the table’.
And how much attention is given to Marwan Barghouti, the only believable leader of Fatah, now in jail on trumped up charges?
The supporters of Palestine need to have a unified and clear support for the democratically elected government of Palestine, to counter the massive media disinformation; but unfortunately there are a lot of false friends who sow division, and dissipate energies with misdirection. How many headlines could you find in ‘left’ (mostly Trotskyist, predictably) web articles or magazines, drawing attention to the fact that Abbas’s term as president has expired? I haven’t seen ONE?
To the not smart guys in Ramallah, I did not mention the fact that the PLO represents a big and substantial legal and financial liability. At the moment over $120 million of PLO money is held in escrow until the Appeal or Supreme Court rules on the issue of compensation to an American Jewish family victim of “terrorism” and arising out of son being killed in Jerusalem. The PLO also was found legal liability for the death of Eric Klinghoffer’s the poor, old Jewish man on a wheel chair who was thrown overboard and into the sea by the hijackers of the ship Achilles Loro and US courts awarded his family $8.5 million dollars from frozen PLO money. The late Yaser Arafat gave a small piece of paper with hand written note to a friend of Suha Arafat ( the man was the chief security officer for the Lebanese Phalange as they went about murdering Arafat people in Sabra and Shatilla ) promising him to give him the deal for the cellular phone in Palestine. This man friend of Suha collected $27.5 million in case filed against the PLO in US District Court in Washington. I am sure the not so smart guys in Ramallah do not see the need to close down the PLO, since American and Israeli Jews will use the US legal system to bleed the organization dry. Of course the guys in Ramallah do not care about the hundreds of millions in civil law suites that will be filed in the US and around the world against the PLO but they only see how much money they can milk the organization. All those who calls for keeping the PLO are nothing but parasites who are simply sucking the blood out of the PLO and for all of its worth. Let the PLO go out of business and go to hell. We do not need it; no one needs it except the American Jewish “victims” of terror and the PLO functionaries. They are the only beneficiaries out of the existence of the PLO. Simply take a look at the case of Palestinians who have been stranded on the Iraqi/Syrian/Jordanian borders for over 2 years where the PLO from coming to the rescue is. Of course no officials and no support for these poor people, since there are no 5 stars hotel, no 5 stars bars and no 5 star brothels in these camps to entice the PLO leadership to visit these miserable people. I know of no case or incident where Palestinians became at risk and the PLO was there to help not in Kuwait where over 350,000 Palestinians where forced into exile because of Arafat support of Saddam, no help to the tens of thousands thrown out of Libya and stranded for couple of years at the Egyptian –Libyan borders, no help for those who found themselves without travel documents and are stuck for months between airports. What a difference between the Palestinian’s PLO and the Jewish Agency.
Roger, yes I do have a specific idea and plan. For those under Occupation in Gaza and the West Bank there should be a UN sponsored election to choose leadership and that leadership will represent only those under Occupation and will not have the right to represent those in the Diaspora. As for the Palestinians in the Diaspora, we should organize along the line of the Jewish Agency, where Palestinian communities in each country organize and elect their representative to the Palestine Agency and the representative of the Palestine Agency representing all Palestinians in the Diaspora will then have a seat at the table in any and all discussions and negotiations with Israel and the world community. The guys in Ramallah, or Gaza, or Damascus have no right to speak for the millions of Palestinians in the Diaspora in the same way they have no rights to speak for the Palestinians who chose to stay in Israel after 48. I am afraid that the PLO, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt as the countries hosting the largest numbers of refugees will reach a side deal with Israel and the US and will take the money to settle the Palestinians where they are now.
@Mike –
So, Prime Minister Erdogan should not have the right to talk because he is Turkish. Just like the Jews cannot be accused of anything because they have been victims of the Holocaust.
Catchy as it may seem, this argument is neither logically, nor morally sustainable. Firstly, because the statements it contains are awfully generalizing, while the anti-semitism notion should primarily be aimed against the same generalization and subsuming of humans under notions such as race and nationality. Secondly, because it completely reverses the connotation of Mr. Erdogan’s gesture: as a Prime Minister of an important country and during an important international event, he had any right to talk “as a Turkish”; on the contrary, the tacit convention he broke – that of not speaking against the Israeli offensive in Gaza – was a convention applicable to all countries, Turkish or not Turkish. Therefore, he rather had a “courage to speak”.
The new and lame media argument the Israeli offensive has brought into its defence has been to urge us to “imagine” – imagine that our houses, countries, families etc. were bombed. However, I think there have been more people than Israeli leaders had expected, who preferred to open their eyes to what was really happening in Gaza, rather than hypnotically go on imagining one-sided versions of things.
@Mike –
Good morning, mike!!! Time to wake up.
israel has been arming the Kurds for the past five years, and before that, along with the late shah or Iran armed them then. If you have any free time between playing video games and obsessing over atrocities of 1915, try reading Seymour Hersh.
Interview with Franklin Lamb: Self Defense or War Crime?
http://rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/interview-with-franklin-lamb-self-defense-or-war-crime/