Jefferson Corner

Both Fatah and Hamas continue to talk of armed resistance and military solutions to the Israeli Occupation when both should know better. Hamas continue to believe that its small arms resistance can end the occupation of the West Bank and end the Israeli control over the air, sea, land and even oxygen over Gaza. It is a fools dream.
Fatah trying to cover up for Arafat failure in liberating Palestine is also in a dream of its own making except its armed resistance has nothing to do with liberation and protection of the people against Israel but has every thing to do with political balance of power with Hamas not to mention its needs to keep the spoils brought on by Oslo.
What is so surprising is that both Hamas and Fatah, organizations that should know better and should have read Oslo much better and understood its provision.
One of those provisions signed on by the not so brilliant Palestinian negotiating team in Oslo is that the PLO speaking for an on behalf of the Palestinian people give up any and all forms of resistance to the Israeli military occupation, peaceful and specially armed resistance. The not so smart and not so brilliant team in Oslo gave these options up in return for a lucrative security contract with Israel, while agreeing to Israel absolute right to shoot, kill, murder, destroy any thing and every thing and to pursue its criminal policy of settlements, land theft, ethnic cleansing and of course the ever present and expanding and humiliating check points for the poor and miserable millions of Palestinians who have to travel from one town to the other or who have to attend to their farms and fields. Yet these no so brilliant negotiators made sure they and their buddies in the future Soweto have VIP passes to zip through Israeli checkpoints while millions have to wait for hours and days and face daily humiliations simply to exist.
Arafat gave up the right of both armed and civil resistance long time when he and his brilliant team when they signed Oslo. Hamas should have understood this when it read Oslo, or did it act in the same brilliant way the Palestinian Oslo team when they signed a contract they did not read. Time to sue for the UN to come and take over and manage the place and time for Hamas, Fatah and the entire PLO team to retire and save the Palestinians from their disastrous leadership.
Under Oslo Arafat to ensure he deliver for Israel, Arafat with the help of the US and Israel and with funding coming from all over the world, Arafat set up many security organizations with one of the most infamous security organizations such as the likes of Preventive Security Organizations run and initially operated by two of Fatah and Arafat thugs such as Dahlan and Rajoub. More Palestinians died in jails run by the infamous Preventive Security Organization than those died in Israeli jails. That should tell us something about Arafat, Dahlan and Rajoub and Fatah and how they ran the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas when it signed on to run in elections must have understood the rules of the games and should have understood what was needed of it. However Hamas did not do such a good job as it took over the reign of government. What Hamas should have done is to first address the issue of recognition of Israel and I think its leadership was not up to it and it should have anticipated what the world should expect from it given the fact that the US and Israel labled Hamas as a terrorists organization.
Hamas wanted to have it both ways, it could not do that. Hamas must have addressed its labeling as a terrorist organization and should have addressed the issue of Israel recognition immediately without beating around the bush. The central theme for Hamas, should have been yes, we do recognize Israel but unlike Fatah and Arafat who recognized Israel without any limitations and without any conditions. In fact, Arafat in Oslo accepted Israel not only as an occupying power but also as sovereign power over the Occupied Territories, with rights over the land, water, and people including the decision of who can come in or who can reside within the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas should have learned from the Likud when it came to power based on disagreement and in opposition to Oslo. Hamas was the same place like Likud.
Perhaps it is time for the Palestinians to admit that the time of armed resistance is over and it is time to rethink the strategy. Since Oslo was nothing but a disaster, it is time for the Palestinians to seek help from the UN to come in and take over. The Palestinian people suffered over 40 years of Fatah leadership and it proved disaster, and the Palestinians could not afford another 40 years of a Hamas mess.

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Libya’s Moamar Qaddafi is in Accra, Ghana to promote his dream of establishing the United States of Africa becoming the Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Mason, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin and George Washington of Africa. A dream, I am sure many average Africans who have been cheated out of their dreams by their leaders who are nothing more than criminals and thieve the likes of Mobuto, Charles Taylor and Samuel Doe.
The problem is that Qaddafi does not fit the bill of a founding father of modern Africa. After 34 years of absolute dictatorial leadership of Libya, Qaddafi does not have much to show for and Libya, the richest of all African nations based on per capita income (before all of the open theft of the treasury) have nothing to speak about.
Over the last 33 years, Libya’s estimated income from oil amounted to some $ 700 Billions for a country with a population not more than 5 million people. With that kind of money, Libya should be a model state in terms of development of institutions, infrastructure and living standard perhaps equal to or better than Dubai. Yet Libya is less of a developing country that its money could have done and with hardly any outstanding achievements. Qaddafi is solely responsible for the miserable state that is Libya.
Rather than lead his country and people in a fast track of human and physical development, Qaddafi lead his people through decades of irresponsible and reckless leadership.
For the kind of income Libya had for the last year, every Libyan should have a million dollar home, 3 cars, and with hospitals and universities matching that of the US and Western Europe with a network of highways unmatched any where. Instead Libya has one of the worst infrastructures of any country in North Africa, with no renowned institutions of higher learning and any known hospitals and health care facilities.
Qaddafi over the years have lead his people on a wild chase of an ideal democracy that resulted in utter failure, with popular committees running supermarkets and running health ministries. in his people committees running every thing and ruing every thing. Not to mention his forays in arming liberation and revolutionary armies all over the world with the exception of South Africa, thanks to its wise leadership in the person of Nelson Mandela, Qaddafi’s billions of dollars went down the drain similar to his other billions which were stolen by his revolutionary committee and were used by the Qaddafi family as their private funds.
Yes, once in a while Qaddafi makes some sense and he does speak on behalf of the poor and the disfranchised, but his tenure as leader of Libya is nothing but a disaster.
The embargo on Libya caused the Libyan economy more than $ 30 billions in losses to the Libyan economy, not to mention the more than $ 3.6 billions Libya had to pay as compensations to the victims of the Pan Am and UTA crashes.
Not sure if Qaddafi is any wiser now than when he came to power, but he will do his people and Africa lots of good if he simply retire from his long dictatorial leadership position and allow for free elections and an orderly transition to democracy with the building of democratic and accountable, transparent institutions in Libya instead of his one man show with thousands of clowns as chorus.
There are not too many things that I agree with Qaddafi on, however I do agree with his decision to abandon Libya’s nuclear program, which I think was a brilliant idea, and made lots of sense. The money could be used to build decent housing, hospitals and of course to train Libyan nurses instead of importing nurses from Bulgaria.
African is in a big mess, thanks to the greed and criminal behaviors of the colonial Europeans in Africa, where they were responsible for the massacre and murder of tens of millions of people, and responsible for the theft of the entire wealth of many nations, if not the continent. However, Europe and imperialism are not the only cause of misery for Africa. Its entire leadership with very minor exceptions, such as that of South Africa has been nothing but a total disaster directly responsible for the failure of Africa to develop and emerge as a continent where citizens can have some hope and some dreams.
Well, why not, perhaps Qaddafi having failed his own people can do some good in promoting the United States of African and bring hope to millions of disfranchised Africans who have been robbed of their future by incompetent, corrupt and criminal leadership. Perhaps Qaddafi can contribute some $30 millions toward the establishment of the American University of Tangier and establish a $10 million scholarship for African students.

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El-Bireh/ Ramallah/ Agadir:
I returned few days ago from my trip to my birthplace and my hometown of El-Bireh,
after 8 years of absence. I was there when Hamas decided to route Fatah warlords out of Gaza and I was there when Hamas militias went on the rampage doing every thing that is un-Islamic and behaving in the same way the thugs of Fatah behave for a long time. I was also there when the night of the Fatah routing, Fatah militias organized conveys of some 40 vehicles manned by armed masked men, guns at the ready roaming the streets of El-Bireh and Ramallah in a show of force under the protective eyes of the Palestinian Authority security forces. I was also there when Fatah gangs ransacked so many social services institutions and private homes causing millions of dollars of damages to private and public properties. Read the rest of this entry »

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These days and in a recent visit to Paris, Mahmoud Abbas head of the Palestinian Authority floated the idea of having an international security force in Gaza. Yaser Abed Rabbou, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the PLO, which has no legitimacy whatsoever, floated the same idea in an interview on Al-Jazeera. The problem is that the two floated different reasons and different objectives for the international force. Read the rest of this entry »

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