[News] Palestine - Israel builds settlements, PA guards them

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Israel builds settlements, PA guards them *

[ 17/06/2013 - 10:22 PM ]

By Khalid Amayeh in Occupied Jerusalem

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7fPhD9TzWaUT27qhNqoDVZnemHu8GZlgCoX8kBUcD0wUrI6%2bJe01dVR%2fOVeySLEjb9iJ0wISeb06dfZj%2bSpsVDzpEa8Wua7O%2b0YpRLAamWe4%3d

PLO official Nabil Shaath threw a bombshell this week when he told 
Israeli reporters in Ramallah that the Palestinian Authority (PA) spends 
a large portion of its meager budget on guarding Israeli colonies 
against possible attacks by Palestinian resistance fighters.

Shaath, who is known for his honesty and candidness, said the PA was 
spending more funds on protecting Israeli settlements than it was on 
education and health in the occupied territories.

Fatah spokespersons said Shaath was trying to tell the Israeli public 
that the PA was doing all it could to keep the peace and honor signed 
agreements with Israel .

This is really a shocking, though not surprising- admission which should 
embarrass all Palestinians, especially those still giving the PA the 
benefit of the doubt and thinking that the PLO is still the sole 
legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

We all know that the PA is filling the ether with never-ending 
complaints about Jewish settlement expansion. So one wonders how the 
world will take the PA seriously ever after this scandalous revelation, 
which really illustrates the moral and political schizophrenia 
overwhelming the PLO-PA leadership. Others, who are less diplomatic, 
would not hesitate to consider the matter a brazen treason to the 
Palestinian people and their aspiration for independence and freedom.

The PA used to call itself "the Palestinian National Authority." Now, 
The State of Palestine" is replacing the PA as the official name of the 
semi-autonomous regime. Unfortunately both names are devoid of substance 
as the Israeli occupation continues to control every street and 
neighborhood in the West Bank .

It is really disgraceful that the PA regime always strives to appease 
the Israeli occupiers, not only by allocating hard-earned or 
politically-motivated aid money for protecting Jewish colonies but also 
by continuing to arrest and round up Palestinians deemed supportive of 
Islamic groups.

This is actually more than disgraceful. In the final analysis, we are 
protecting child-killers, land-grabbers, and terrorists who vandalize 
our mosques and torch our grain fields and live orchards.

As to terrorizing Palestinians on behalf of Israel, it shows that the PA 
is decidedly at Israel's beck and call, which means that the PA is 
actually answerable to the Zionist regime, its whims and vagaries when 
the Ramallah regime ought to be responsible to the Palestinian people.

Apart from the political dimension, one can't really find the right 
words to describe the scandal of PA willingness to spend hundreds of 
millions of dollars on protecting the security of Israeli settlements in 
the West Bank when more than 70% of Palestinians live under the poverty 
line.

More to the point, the PA, including the new government headed by Rami 
Hamdallah, lacks the courage to tell the truth to the Palestinian masses 
about its umbilical subservience to Israel.

Instead, the PA continues to indulge in cheap rhetoric and lies about 
Palestinian statehood when even the most casual observers have come to 
realize that establishing a viable and territorially contiguous state is 
no longer a realistic possibility in light of the massive expansion of 
Jewish settlements and the adamant rejection by Israel of any 
compromises that would allow the Palestinian people to reclaim even a 
small part of their usurped rights.

In fact, the PA is not only deceiving the Palestinian people. It is also 
deceiving Arab states and the Muslim public opinion by insisting that 
donated Arab aid would enhance Palestinian steadfastness and thwart 
colonialist Zionist schemes. Well, the truth, the naked truth, is that 
Arab and non-Arab aid money is used to enhance the security of Jewish 
settlements, not Palestinian steadfastness.

Well, the next time a PA official comes to ask for more money from Arab 
states; he should be asked how much money the PA spends on education as 
opposed to protecting Nazi-like Jewish settlers hell-bent on ethnically 
cleansing our people from our ancestral homeland.

The Palestinian people, thoroughly exhausted by an economic meltdown and 
cheated by the world community as well as its own leadership, should 
also bring the PA to account and ask it about the merits of keeping up 
and funding 70,000 security personnel whose main job is protecting 
Israeli settlement security.

This week, PA economy minister reportedly met with his Israeli 
counterpart and agreed on more "economic coordination." This shows that 
the PA never learns from its mistakes.

Following the hapless Oslo Accords, the PLO promised the Palestinian 
people that the West Bank and Gaza Strip would soon become the Hong Kong 
and Singapore of the Middle East. The truth of the matter, however, is 
that the occupied territories effectively became the Somalia of the Arab 
world as poverty, economic depravity and unemployment skyrocketed as 
never before.

The former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad eventually reached the 
conclusion that it was impossible to build a prosperous economy under a 
sinister foreign military occupation.

Now, the new government in Ramallah is walking in the same path, which 
proved catastrophic, thinking that Palestinians can achieve economic 
prosperity in the absence of Palestinian sovereignty and freedom of 
movement.

Politically, the PLO-PA establishment is behaving like Alice in 
Wonderland. PA officials, including Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, continue to 
make daily statements claiming that there is still a chance for reaching 
a peaceful settlement for the protracted conflict when every observer 
and every pundit, Palestinian and Israeli alike, know well that time has 
passed peace by, due to massive settlement expansion.

So why is the PLO-PA refusing to see the obvious? Are they blind? Are 
they drunk? Are they stupid?

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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