Jefferson Corner

A Palestinian Spring; When?

One would think that out of all the countries and people, albeit “invented” in the Middle East, the Palestinians would be leading the way to a full Arab Spring, Fall, Summer and Winter until the armed and colonial Jewish Occupation comes to an end. Surprisingly, this has not been the case.

More surprising is the fact that after meeting in Cairo a couple of weeks ago, Palestinian leadership, both Fatah and Hamas, had talks of holding elections! As if the elections of a government in the service of a Jewish Occupation is the most pressing issue at hand for Palestinians—more pressing than ending the Jewish Occupation.

The Oslo Accords, an outcome of the so-called ‘peace process’ not only killed any chance at ending the longest military and colonial occupation in modern times—it also killed and snuffed out the First Palestinian Intifada, truly the first Arab Spring.

25 years later, the Arab Spring has swept across the Arab world, bringing an end to dictatorial and criminal regimes in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia and soon in Yemen and Syria—regimes that are no less ruthless and criminal than the Zionist regime in Israel that maintains a brutal occupation on the Palestinian people.

The late Yasser Arafat and his lieutenant Khalil al-Wazir (Abu-Jihad), and perhaps the entire PLO leadership, were caught off guard when Palestinians in Gaza ignited the First Intifada in 1987 with civil uprising and general strikes spreading to the West Bank surprising Israel with its army of informers and Shin Bet. What was not so surprising was the merging of interests of both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership—both wanted to see an end to this popular uprising.

Yitzhak Rabin—the man who won the Noble Peace Prize promised to break the bones of all Palestinians who throw rocks at the Israeli army, and so he did with cameras rolling. Yasser Arafat who too won the Noble Peace Prize was desperate to take over the Intifada and ride the wave of survival after leaving the debacle of Beirut.

Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership spent years neglecting Palestinian needs and interests, squandering tens of billions of dollars, with efforts characterized by failure and defeat to Palestinians in the Diaspora. With the First Intifada, Yasser Arafat noticed those Palestinians living under Jewish Occupation and a chance to go for another ride—a chance to stay in business.

Money poured in to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to hijack the Intifada, recruit membership into Fatah, to take over and influence the uprising. Millions were also passed on to run and operate media and newspapers in support of Fatah and the PLO. All that paid off well in Oslo for both Israel and Palestinian leadership.

The Oslo Accords with its false hopes and lies killed any and all chances for the people to take to the streets in massive civil disobedience and uprising and put an end to the Jewish Occupation. Oslo was the product of an incompetent, corrupt leadership that was unable to negotiate an end to the Occupation. 20 years later, they are still at it, and the Occupation continues to be further entrenched, with no end in sight.

As a result of Oslo, the Palestinian Authority took over the civil and security functions of the Israeli Occupation, and the Palestinian people, particularly those in Ramallah and those connected to the Palestinian Authority, became enslaved to monthly salaries, drowning in massive personal debt thanks to a housing market and an consumer economy funded by Palestinian Oligarchs who had vested interests in Israeli settlements to the tune of $2.5 billion.

The Palestinian leadership is making sure there will be no Third Intifada—no Palestinian Spring—as this would bring an end not only to the terms of Oslo, but also to the Palestinian Authority, PLO, Fatah, Hamas, and to the many NGOs that are beneficiaries of the ongoing Jewish Occupation.

Many key people within the Palestinian Authority, the Oslo Team, its civil and security arms were recruited during the First Intifada and will not jeopardize the benefits and the VIP privileges they have under Oslo. They will not jeopardize these by helping to organize an Uprising…they are too busy spreading corruption to maintain their own survival.

The late Yasser Arafat thought he could outfox his Israeli partners and masters when he encouraged the Second Intifada, which was ignited after the provocative visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque by the leader who now rests in a permanent vegetative state, Ariel Sharon. The Israeli Army killed scores of Palestinians in September 2000 and an armed conflict ensued until 2005 when a truce was reached between Israel and the PLO leadership.

In contrast to the First Intifada, the Al-Aqsa Intifada saw the active and reckless mismanagement of Fatah and the PLO leadership, who led an uprising without a master plan, without objectives, and without discipline. Rather than challenging the Jewish Occupation and leading the uprising and organizing a march of millions of unarmed Palestinians to Jerusalem, the Palestinian leadership retreated behind the walls of cowardice.

For sure someone from within Fatah and the PLO leadership knew the whereabouts of Marwan Bargouthi and led the Israelis to his arrest. The Second Intifada was nothing short of total disaster.

Israel—with much vengeance—went on to destroy the entire infrastructure of the Palestinian territories, destroying every thing that donated and built by international donors. The whole world witnessed as Israeli tanks came rolling into Bethlehem, driving over parked cars and driving over light poles just for the hell of it. The Palestinians lost so much and continued to lose much as a result of the mismanaged Second Intifada.

The biggest loser was Yasser Arafat who went into hiding in his headquarters, abandoned by almost all of his Israeli, American, European even Arab friends, putting his fate and life in the hands of the very few friends he had left. There is a lingering question about whether his close associates slowly poisoned him or he died of natural causes? Perhaps the truth of his death would not serve his memory well. Yasser Arafat proved once again, he is the not a leader who leads, but a leader who manipulates for his own survival.

If the world expects the Palestinian leadership or the elites that are heads of the NGOs to lead the Palestinian Spring, it will have to wait for a long a time. All of these groups have too many vested interests in the continuation of the Jewish Occupation. A Palestinian Spring would bring international funding from donor countries to an immediate end. Too many would lose their VIP passes, chauffeurs, body guards, cooks, and house servants.

Palestinian Oligarchs who made financial killings out of their partnership with the Palestinian Authority and the Jewish Occupation would find themselves the big losers—as much of their investments are in the housing projects and in factories within Jewish Settlements.

The choice for the people could not be clearer. Either they wait for the leadership to take them through another 50 years of negotiations and futile international maneuvering, or they can decide to take the matters into their own hands and force both the Israelis and the Palestinian leadership to end this self serving game, and let them know that their time has simply run out.

The other night I had late dinner with a friend visiting from out of town. I went home and crashed after a long day. What a night it was—I had America’s nightmare!

I had America’s nightmare, and I almost had a heart attack from the shock of the unexpected events. Believe it or not I dreamt that Israel finally agreed to peace with the Palestinians. I dreamt that Israel agreed to a two state solution. Read the rest of this entry »

America has great attributes and achievements to export to the Arab world such as advances in medical, science, and information technology, excellent systems of higher education, and a truly generous population that contributes hundreds of billions to social causes.

However, when it comes to the exporting of the American political system and process, I am not so sure.

Given the nature of American politics (Conservatism vs. Liberalism), and its unique democracy driven by money and special interests groups, I am not so sure what the intentions were of US Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson when she announced the distribution of $40 million to Egyptians NGOs since the revolution. The question must be raised about whether America is exporting democracy or mediocrity?

I am not so sure if the American political system and process, which produces the likes of Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, is the kind that the people of the Arab Spring want to emulate and copy. I am not so sure that the people of the Arab Spring want parliaments driven by narrow ideology and special interest groups, famous for brinkmanship and gridlock like the US Congress.

I am not so sure if the people of the Arab Spring want a ‘liberal’ society that allows a hands-off policy towards financial institutions and corporations that fleece people of their investments, retirements, properties, and rights to decent honorable livings. Policies that do not even leave people with a basic social and medical safety net, and that allow multinational corporations to get away with tens of billions of dollars without paying a single dollar in taxes.

I am not so sure if the people of the Arab Spring want to adopt financial and economic institutions that allow for shameful Ponzi schemes as we saw with Bernard Madoff who orchestrated investment fraud that took in an estimated $65 billion without the government knowing a thing about it. I am not so sure if the people of the Arab Spring want to adopt institutions that follow the example of a Federal Reserve Bank that engages in the biggest of all Ponzi schemes buying and selling US Treasury bonds.

In the Arab world, the US has never made any attempt to push for, let alone support, democracy and free elections. Instead, it has always supported ruthless Kleptocracies. The US has continued to overwhelmingly support the claim that Israel is the ‘only democracy in the Middle East,’ a claim that has been used to justify lopsided support for the state of Israel, even while it engages in military blunders that wreak havoc, killing tens of thousands of innocents, and oppressing millions.

Over the years, the US has supported ‘Islamist’ movements as a way to preserve checks and balances, to undermine ‘Arab nationalist’ regimes and movements as were the cases in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, in Bashar Assad’s Syria, and in Hassan Turabi’s Sudan. The US has continued to support Israel while it looked the other way as Hamas rose in power to become a highly effective social movement, and a real challenge to a secular PLO. Then, when Hamas won elections through democratic process in 2006, the US responded by isolating Hamas and trampling on the democratic principles it claims to support.

Now many ‘Arab Nationalists’ and ‘liberal’ intellectuals are accusing Islamist parties in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria to be following orders from Washington and Israel. They are accusing Islamist parties of going along with an American agenda that supports Israeli justification of their claim as a Jewish State, and one that supports a new Arab world divided along sectarian and religious lines (more on this in a separate essay).

When the ‘Islamists’ were on the verge of winning the first free election in Algeria in 1991, both the US and France intervened to abort the elections resulting in the death of over 100,000 Algerian civilians and the offset of a “civil war” that lasted decade and leaves behind a haunting memory.

The US was caught off guard by the power of the Arab Spring, and has moved fast to ride the wave and influence its outcome in countries like Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and let’s not exclude Syria.

I am not so sure if the Arab world is ready for America’s export of a democracy that produces at best mediocrity—a system of government characterized by gridlock. A system of government characterized by congress and legislatures that are owned, bought, and sold by money and special interest groups, forcing members of Congress to spend some 60% of their time seeking re-election funds and corrupting the form of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

The US electoral process, especially the presidential race as practiced now, leaves much to be desired. The process fails to reflect the will of the people, and instead is determined by the active participation of the minority in alliance with special interest groups such as AIPAC, Koch Industries and the NRA, who make initial decisions on front-runners, and on who is ‘electable,’ as we have seen in the cases of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary.

America’s democracy and political system suffer from the crippling and undue influence of big money and big business on politics, as we have seen with Koch Industries funding the Tea Party and American Zionists funding Barack Obama.

The influence of money and special interest groups on politics has done irreparable damage on America, corrupting the will of the people. To add insult to injury, the US Supreme Court last year sided with money in its ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission prohibiting governments from censoring political broadcasts that are funded by corporations and unions, thus allowing corporations and unions to raise and contribute unlimited dollars to corrupt democracy.

I am not so sure that those who died to ignite the Arab Spring and the millions who have sustained it want to see corporations and oligarchs in the Arab world sponsoring their candidates as is the case in the US. I am not so sure they want to see their votes give way to candidates who sway to corporate dollars, and corrupt their hard won rights to freedom and democracy.

I a not so sure if the people of the Arab Spring countries want to undermine the very ideals that many of them have died for, and follow the US model of sound bite elections, with expensive pollsters and media consultants who create misleading if not misleading political ads.

I am not so sure if the people of the Arab Spring want to see an elected government that continually fails to solve the problems and address the concerns of its people, including, but not limited to, unemployment, poverty, lack of health care, corruption and corporate fraud and an empty treasury.

No, I think it is best for the people of the Arab Spring to learn from the failures of the world’s ‘leading’ democracy, and instead develop their own democracy, one that truly represents the collective will of the people.

America has great attributes and achievements to export to the Arab world such as advances in medical, science, and information technology, excellent systems of higher education, and a truly generous population that contributes hundreds of billions to social causes.

However, when it comes to the exporting of the American political system and process, I am not so sure. Read the rest of this entry »

We have paid an obscene price for the so-called war on terror, which has benefited none other than 1) Israel and 2) American energy corporations. Were the costs of human lives and the damage to our economy worth it? I do not think so, not one life, not one dollar. Read the rest of this entry »

We all know who “invented” the Palestinians, what we do not know is who “invented” Newt Gingrich?

This is typical political season, where presidential candidates out bid each other and will do every thing they are capable of doing, and since they have no moral or ethical scruples, they stoop so low they become indistinguishable from crawling worms, and are ready to sell their mothers, their country for a ‘fist full of dollars”.  Read the rest of this entry »