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Articles
By
Khalid Amayreh
Accredited -
Associated |
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The
Joke Of Palestinian “Democracy” Under
Fatah, Israel |
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Posted By Khalid Amayreh September 19, 2008
Jockeying for an advantageous public
posture vis-à-vis Hamas, the Fatah movement
has been calling for the organization of
presidential and parliamentary elections in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The proposal is being touted as the only way
to resolve the enduring crisis between Fatah
and Hamas, following the latter’s counter-coup
in Gaza in June of last year.
The proposal, however, seems to be more of a
propagandist gambit than a sincere effort
aimed at achieving inter-Palestinian
reconciliation.
And it doesn’t suggest that Fatah, now
solidly backed and financed by the United
States, has undergone a true democratic
transformation.
Indeed, Fatah today remains the same Fatah
that only reluctantly and under American
pressure agreed to allow general elections to
take place in 2006- and only because Fatah
leaders seemed then certain they would win.
However, when Hamas won the polls by a wide
margin, Fatah couldn’t swallow the bitter bill
and decided to embark on every conceivable act
of sabotage in order to undercut Hamas and
destabilize its rule. Some observers believe
that Fatah took a secret decision to bring
the would-be Hamas government down as soon
as elections results were announced.
True, some Fatah leaders publicly accepted the
results of the election. However, in reality,
they sought to narrow Hamas horizons by
effectively and actively joining the
American-led open war against Hamas, a war
that is yet to come to an end.
A few years ago, I remember I listened to a
secret audio-taped briefing by Muhammed Dahlan
to his supporters at al Hurriya radio station
in Gaza. In that infamous briefing, Dahlan
swore to make Hamas regret the day it decided
to take part in the election.
“I will make them eat…expletive, and if any
Fatah guy dares participate in the Hamas
government, I will know how to deal with
him.”
Dahlan added that “ I will send a few jeeps
here and there and give the impression that
Gaza is on fire.”
Dahlan made more horrifying remarks that one
would refrain from mentioning to maintain the
dignity of language.
Subsequently, Fatah, or more correctly the
American-empowered camp within the movement,
actively collaborated with the CIA and Israel
to “make the Hamas experiment fail” lest it be
repeated elsewhere in the Middle East and the
rest of the Muslim world.
The idea was very simple: Impose draconian
economic and financial strangulation as much
as possible on ordinary Palestinians to make
them not only regret their erstwhile decision
to vote for Hamas but also actively turn
against the Islamic movement in ways analogous
to the many CIA-induced coups in Latin and
Central America.
Earlier this year, the American magazine
“Vanity Fair” published an extensive
investigative report titled “How the Bush
Administration Lied to Congress and Armed
Fatah to Provoke Palestinian Civil War Aiming
to Overthrow Hamas.”
The report pointed out that the White House
tried to organize the armed overthrow of the
Hamas-led government after Hamas swept
Palestinian elections in 2006.
According to the report, the Bush
administration lied to Congress and boosted
military support for rival Palestinian faction
Fatah in the aim of provoking a Palestinian
civil war they thought Hamas would lose.
Vanity Fair dubbed the episode “Iran Contra
2.0?—a reference to the Reagan
administration’s funding of Nicaraguan Contras
by covertly selling arms to Iran.
A former top Bush administration official said
he believed Hamas’s seizure of power in Gaza
last year might have likely been a preemptive
measure against the anticipated US-backed
coup.
The official, David Wurmser, served as Vice
President Cheney’s Middle East adviser until
he resigned in July of 2007, a month after
Hamas took over. Wurmser said, “There is a
stunning disconnect between the President’s
call for Middle East democracy and this
policy. It directly contradicts it.”
Clearly embarrassed, Fatah, as expected,
belittled the credibility of the report,
dismissing it as “grossly inaccurate.”
So now Fatah is asking for early elections
while being completely oblivious to a host
of important questions pertaining to the
elections. Such questions include the
following:
First, Will Israel and the American
administration, which consider Hamas a
“terrorist organization” (not for the violence
but for insisting on Palestinian rights,
especially the right of return for Palestinian
refugees), allow free and transparent
elections to take place in light of the
“disastrous experiment” of 2006?
Fatah leaders may argue, mostly for the sake
of argument, that that the elections are an
internal Palestinian matter. Well, this is
true, but we all know that the PA is not a
state, let alone a sovereign one. We also know
that the PA is 150% subservient to the US
which is in turn subservient to Israel. So why
speak to the monkey when you can speak to
organ grinder?!!
Second, let us argue, at least for the sake
of argument, that Hamas won the elections, so
would Fatah accept the results this time?
Would the tens of thousands of
American-trained and American-paid anti-Hamas
soldiers in the West Bank accept the
jurisdiction of the new Hamas-led government?
In fact, it would be more than naïve to think
that they would. We are talking after all
about security forces whose raison d’être is
to fight and annihilate Hamas as is evident
from the vindictive campaign against suspected
Hamas supporters and Islamic institutions now
underway all over the West Bank.
Third, let us imagine that Fatah would accept
the results, even if these results proved to
be not to its liking. But would Israel?
Indeed, are there guarantees that the Israeli
occupation army, which controls every corner
and every street in the West Bank, wouldn’t
round up the “wrong candidates” and the “wrong
winners” and dump them in Israeli dungeons
and concentration camps all over occupied
Palestine as it has done the last time
elections were held?
Israel, for those who have forgotten,
continues to detain for the third consecutive
year hundreds of elected Palestinian
officials, including mayors, local council
members, and, especially, as many as 40
elected lawmakers and former cabinet
ministers.
The main “crime” committed by these elected
Palestinian officials, people like Professor
Aziz Duweik, the Speaker of the Palestinian
parliament, is that they took part in an
“illegal election”! Well, this is really a
big lie since the 2006-Palestinian elections
were okayed by both Israel, under the
premiership of Ariel Sharon, and the Bush
Administration.
This scandalous and gangsterly conduct by a
state that calls itself the only democracy in
the Middle East is a clarion proof that
democracy under a foreign military occupation
is a big farce.
To be sure, this is a message that all
Palestinian factions, particularly Fatah and
Hamas, ought to comprehend and internalize.
Failing to do so will make us the
laughingstock of the world. |
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