Palaestinian Authority's Inconvenient Truths

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The Palestinian Authority's Inconvenient Truths
by Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, January 3, 2013

The truth sometimes hurts; that is why the Palestinian Authority has been working hard to prevent the outside world from hearing about many occurrences that reflect negatively on its leaders or people.

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority leadership, often with the help of the mainstream media in the US and EU, has been successful in its effort to divert all attention only toward Israel.

Following are examples of some of the inconvenient truths that the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank do not want others to know about:

- Over 100 senior PLO and Fatah officials hold Israeli-issued VIP cards that grant them various privileges denied to most Palestinians. Among these privileges is the freedom to enter Israel and travel abroad at any time they wish. This privileging has existed since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO in 1993.

- Out of the 600 Christians from the Gaza Strip who arrived in the West Bank in the past two weeks to celebrate Christmas, dozens have asked to move to Israel because they no longer feel comfortable living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

- Dozens of Christian families from east Jerusalem have moved to Jewish neighborhoods in the the city because they too no longer feel comfortable living among Muslims.

- Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank continue to summon and arrest political opponents, journalists and bloggers who dare to criticize the Palestinian leadership.

- The Palestinian Authority government, which has been complaining about a severe financial crisis for the past few months, just cancelled outstanding electricity debts for Palestinians in the West Bank. Palestinians pay their bills to the Arab Jerusalem Electric Company, which buys electricity from the Israeli Electric Company; the Palestinians have not been paying their electricity bills and many have been stealing electricity from their Arab company.

- Tens of thousands of Palestinian Authority civil servants in the Gaza Strip receive salaries to stay at home and not work. The practice has been in effect since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007. According to Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf, the Palestinian Authority, which is funded mostly by American and European taxpayer money, spends around $120 million each month on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

- Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction has allocated more than one million dollars for celebrations marking the 48th anniversary of the "launching of the revolution" -- a reference to the first armed attack carried out by Fatah against Israel.

- Despite the calls for an economic boycott of Israel, more than 40,000 Palestinians have received permits to work in Israel. Moreover, another 15,000 Palestinians continue to work in Jewish settlements in spite of an official ban.

- Top PLO and Fatah officials continue to do their shopping in Israeli-owned businesses both in the West Bank and Israel. Last week, for example, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and his family were spotted shopping in Jerusalem's Malha mall. Of course, the PLO official did not forget to bring along his private driver and maid.

- The wife of a senior PLO official recently spent $20,000 for dental treatment in Tel Aviv at a time when there is no shortage of renowned Palestinian dentists in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus.

These are only some of the inconvenient truths that the Palestinian Authority does not want the outside world to know. Palestinian journalists often avoid reporting about such issues out of concern for their safety or for "ideological" reasons. These journalists have been taught that it is forbidden to hang out the dirty laundry.

Western journalists, funders and decision-makers who deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict need to know that there are many truths being completely ignored or hidden from their eyes and ears.

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[+4] - InfraBlue - 01/31/2013The Palestinian leadership's principle failure has been its incitement to violence against the Zionists since the time that Zionist immigration to Palestine reached a critical point shortly after...

bookmark

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

bookmark

What do you mean by that?

1 Reply

@Advocate,

It's a way of making sure that this thread is easily accessible to me. Type in anything whatsoever and the thread is now in the "my posts" category since I have posted a reply on it. Now, if and when anyone else posts here, I'll know and be able to respond if I wish.

1 Reply

@Advocate,

Bookmark.

0 Replies

@Lustig Andrei,

I have often wondered what those sorts of replies meant like "word", thanks for clearing it up.

1 Reply

@revelette,

When someone types "Word," they mean that the person to whom they are responding is correct.

1 Reply

Form the Urban Dictionary:

Word
1) well said
2) said in a agreement

0 Replies

@Setanta,

Thanks, guess you learn something everyday if you just mention your ignorance in the first place.

1 Reply

@revelette,

If you hung out with ghetto youth, you'd certainly know what "word" meant. It's quite common to say something and have the other person reply "word," meaning "you're soooo right."

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Not really sure we have "ghetto youth" in south western ky. Also, I confess, never was one to really hang out so to speak in any group. Speaks volumns I guess. In any case, feel kind of dumb even mentioning it now. What was the topic about? Wink

1 Reply

@Advocate,

You forgot to include the Isralies in your post. They have gained a lot of attention with their policies intended to put the pals down. Maybe if they quit stealing land and killing pal children some of the bad publicity would go away.

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@RABEL222,

Better still .... just make em into atheists, then they'd have nothing to hate each other for, other than money ;-)))

1 Reply

@revelette,

I like ya, revelette. We are all dumb in our ways.

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@tenderfoot,

Yeah, if they were all atheists, they could get along like good Christians.

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@RABEL222,

The settlements are not on Pal land. For one thing, there is no country called Palestine. The land taken by Israel is essentially unclaimed land. Moreover, Israel has taken certain land as a prize of war. As you know, Israel has been attacked constantly since the nation was formed. Finally, Israel fought off a massive invasion in 1967, with Israel taking the WB and Gaza.

Israel gets bad publicity when it merely defends itself. I don't think that Israel worries very much about bad publicity.

1 Reply

@Advocate,

Quote:

For one thing, there is no country called Palestine. The land taken by Israel is essentially unclaimed land. Moreover, Israel has taken certain land as a prize of war.

If the state of Israel hadn't had/didn't have its powerful backers, it probably would not exist either. The notion that in the late 1940s there was unclaimed land in that part of the world is ridiculous.

Quote:

As you know, Israel has been attacked constantly since the nation was formed.

This should hardly be seen as surprising. Why would the people who have been indigenous to those lands view the artificial creation of a state by distant arrogant western powers as anything but a usurpation?

Let's have the UN carve out a portion of New Mexico, Utah, or Arizona and see what even the latecomers [American] think of that.

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Quote:
For one thing, there is no country called Palestine. The land taken by Israel is essentially unclaimed land. Moreover, Israel has taken certain land as a prize of war.

If the state of Israel hadn't had/didn't have its powerful backers, it probably would not exist either. The notion that in the late 1940s there was unclaimed land in that part of the world is ridiculous.

THE JEWS ARE MORE INDIGENOUS TO THE TERRITORY THAN ARE THE PALESTINIANS. NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE THE ORIGINS OF THE PALESTINIANS. THE BEST GUESS IS THAT THEY COME FROM PEOPLE WHO ROAMED THE MIDDLE EAST. THE JEWS, WITHOUT QUESTION, GO BACK THOUSANDS OF YEAR.

Quote:
As you know, Israel has been attacked constantly since the nation was formed.

This should hardly be seen as surprising. Why would the people who have been indigenous to those lands view the artificial creation of a state by distant arrogant western powers as anything but a usurpation?

REMEMBER THAT MUCH OF THE MIDDLE EAST WAS THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, LATER THE BRITISH MANDATE. THERE WAS NO COUNTRY FORMED BY THE PALESTINIANS.

Let's have the UN carve out a portion of New Mexico, Utah, or Arizona and see what even the latecomers [American] think of that.

THAT IS KIND OF SILLY WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT THOSE STATES ARE PART OF A COUNTRY, THE USA.

1 Reply

@Advocate,

Quote:

THE JEWS ARE MORE INDIGENOUS TO THE TERRITORY THAN ARE THE PALESTINIANS. NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE THE ORIGINS OF THE PALESTINIANS. THE BEST GUESS IS THAT THEY COME FROM PEOPLE WHO ROAMED THE MIDDLE EAST. THE JEWS, WITHOUT QUESTION, GO BACK THOUSANDS OF YEAR.

Which Jews? The Ashkenazim? The Ashkenazim are indigenous to Europe, being a people of mixed European and Semitic genealogy. The Mizrahim? Most Mizrahim are from the northern Middle East and are Syrians, Iraqis, Kurds and other peoples from those regions. Many of these peoples are Semitic, others aren’t. Most of these peoples that are Semitic derive their Judaism from ancestors who professed the religion but otherwise had nothing to do with Palestine. Throughout the millennia some of these peoples may have mixed with other Semitic peoples indigenous to Palestine, but that is neither here nor there.

Persians, Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, and other non-Semitic peoples are also Mizrahim. Throughout the millennia they too mixed with peoples professing the Jewish faith, some of them undoubtedly having ancestors indigenous to Palestine, but that also is neither here nor there in regard to the assertion that “the Jews” go back thousands of years in Palestine.

There are other Jewish peoples with similar circumstances, such as the Sephardim and the Maghrebim.

To say that “the Jews” are more indigenous to the territory than are the Palestinians, and that “the Jews” go back thousands of years is the epitome of self-service based on simplistic and utterly stupid thinking that conflates ethnicity with religion as a rationalization for the oppression of an entire people.

Quote:

REMEMBER THAT MUCH OF THE MIDDLE EAST WAS THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, LATER THE BRITISH MANDATE. THERE WAS NO COUNTRY FORMED BY THE PALESTINIANS.

The fact that there was no country formed by the Palestinians is irrelevant to the fact that the Palestinians, being indigenous to Palestine have rights to Palestine that the Israelis steadfastly deny to them. This is the crux of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

This is the real political issue which needs to be resolved.Palestinians are not innocent too.But the role of Israel is also not appreciable.

1 Reply

Palaestinian Authority's Inconvenient Truths

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