PA financial crisis: a symptom of continued Israeli domination – By Khalid Amayreh

[ 13/07/2012 – 11:18 PM ]
Source PIC


Comment by Khalid Amayreh

The Palestinian autonomous authority (PA) has been called many names, all denoting its inherent deformity, pathetic nature and scandalous subservience to Israel. A police state without a state, a Palestinian Judenrat (Jewish council under the Nazis), and a subcontractor entity answerable to the Israeli occupation regime are among the names given to the self-rule junta.

None the less, despite the lack of basic elements necessary to make a state worthy of the name, the PA was portrayed from the very inception by much of the world media as a state in the making or at the very least a preparatory stage toward the eventual establishment of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The PA leadership, including Arafat and his less charismatic successor Mahmoud Abbas, contributed to foster the illusion through rhetorical overindulgence, repressive action against political opponents and winning small but insignificant “victories” at the world arena, such as gaining membership in UNESCO and some other UN agencies.

Needless to say, all of this happened as the Israeli regime continued unabated decapitating any realistic chance for the establishment of a viable and territorially contiguous state. Israel’s means to achieve its genocidal goals have been and continue to be grabbing Arab land and building thereon more Jewish colonies for Jewish fanatics indoctrinated in Talmudic racism, including viewing non-Jews as infra-human beings or outright animals.

I remember asking Yasser Arafat during a visit he paid to the University of Hebron in 1999 why he was persisting in pursuing the two-state solution strategy when all signs showed the utter unrealism if not impossibility of achieving that strategy.

A notorious prevaricator, Arafat didn’t resort to verbal juggling. He told an audience of some three hundred attendees that “your question is more than reasonable. We can not disregard the Quranic prophetic prediction that Israel will reach high levels of arrogance and insolence.”

The Quran states that “And We decreed for the Children of Israel in the Scripture, that indeed you (the children of Israel) would do mischief on the earth twice and you will become tyrants and extremely arrogant!

Arafat then recited the following verse from Sura (chapter) Israa, which is also called “the Children of Israel.” “Then, when the second promise came to pass, (We permitted your enemies) to savage your faces and enter the mosque (of Jerusalem) as they had entered it before, and to destroy with utter destruction all that fell in their hands.”

Arafat knew what he was talking about. Most likely, he realized that the two-state solution strategy was a mirage that would never be realized.

For their part, the Israelis who knowingly effectively decapitated the two-state solution prospect by building hundreds of colonies in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, knew too well that the Palestinians were only dreaming.

This is because no present or potential Israeli government would agree willingly to uproot the settlements and allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state worthy of the name. This is not to mention the other central Palestinian demand of allowing several million refugees to return to their homes and villages in what is now called Israel.

And bidding on the US to pressure Israel to give up occupied territories is like seeking safety in a snake hole and searching for justice in a thieves den. In the final analysis, if the U.S. can not stop Israel from demolishing even one Palestinian home in East Jerusalem, it would be futile to expect the White House to be able, even if willing, to force Israel to give up the spoils of the 1967 war.

Some American intellectuals have admitted, though belatedly, that when it comes to the Arab Israeli conflict, it is Israel, not the U.S. that calls the shots.

This is while most American politicians have effectively been enslaved by Jewish money and disproportionate Jewish power, which prompted one senator to declare that the Palestinians will only be liberated from the clutches of Israel when the Americans are freed from the stranglehold of Zionism.

The Israelis knew this fact, also too well. It was rumored a few years ago, that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told Shimon Peres during an acrimonious cabinet session that “don’t worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America and the stupid Americans know it.”

The PA seems to have internalized the American-Israeli connection and reasoned that “why speak to the monkey when you can speak to the organ grinder.”

But the organ grinder, Israel, is too arrogant, too malicious and too nefarious to give a fair hearing to Palestinian grievances, however just and legitimate they may be.

That is why Israel is only allowing the PA to merely survive in return for giving up or effectively giving up Palestinian aspirations. Israel is allowing the PA to day-dream, even loudly, as log as this day-dreaming remains within the realm of wishful thinking. And as it is known to psychologists, day-dreaming represents the most advanced stage of frustration.

Today, the PA is facing the most suffocating financial crisis since its establishment in 1994, rendering the self-rule government in Ramallah unable to pay salaries for its estimated 180,000 employees. Around 70,000 of these employees are security personnel tasked with coordinating with the Israeli occupation army against patriotic Palestinians, e.g. Hamas.

PA economic “experts” would go on for hours explaining the financial crisis facing the Ramallah government. But they wouldn’t explain to non-experts like this writer how a real economy can function under a sinister foreign military occupation.

Well, one doesn’t have to be a Nobel Prize laureate in economics to understand that an economy can hardly function in the absence or freedom, especially the freedom of movement, let alone sovereignty and control over border crossings, taxes, imports and exports.

Needless the say, the PA, which is notoriously dependent on politically-driven foreign aid, can’t import or export even a piece of underwear without Israeli permission.

This alone speaks volumes and shows that it is hopeless and pointless to expect Palestinian economic prosperity, even at modest levels, as long as the Palestinians are usurped of their freedom by the Nazi-like Israeli occupation.

This is why the current crisis pummeling the Palestinian Authority is only symptomatic of the enduring Israeli the occupation. And by definition, one can’t treat the symptoms of a given illness while leaving the underlying causes intact.

With Israel continuing to narrow Palestinian horizons, and with bankrupt PA officials fretting about donor countries not making good on their financial pledges to Ramallah, perhaps we Palestinians ought to seriously consider the dissolution of the entire PA structure as a step in the right direction. Perhaps, we have to go back to square one in order to rid our people of the scandalous illusion that a Palestinian state is in the making.

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