Without doubt, Mr. Abdul-Bari Attwan stands out as a professional journalist, dedicated Arab nationalist and a powerful and articulate voice for Palestine in his newspaper “Alquds Alarabi” and in media interviews. However Abdul-Bari Attwan got it wrong, terribly wrong when he published his column on September 25, 2009 titled” Abbas Next Move”. I say the next move should not be Abbas, but the people, the more than 7 million dead silent Palestinians who chose and for the last 60 years to be marginalized and disfranchised by a failed political leadership that brought nothing but disaster to the Palestinians and the cause of liberation.

Mr. Attwan got it wrong when he raised the expectation that Mahmoud Abbas rethink his strategy of “continued negotiations” when in fact this strategy is tied to a financial and political dependency on the continued Jewish Occupation. It is very unlikely that a leadership that made fortune out of the misfortunes of millions of Palestinians is unlikely to change course, and it is unlikely that a leadership that gave up every thing when it signed Oslo and committed itself to full security cooperation and civil and administrative support for the Jewish Occupation would walk to walk from commitments it made under Oslo and the Road Map, it will be committing a political and financial suicide.

This leadership committed the PLO to continued negotiations with Israel until there is nothing left to negotiate. Saeb Eurikat and the PLO negotiating team that failed to remove one single check-point or stop one single house demolition or stop the forced exile of one single Palestinian from Jerusalem is not expected to negotiation the removal of the settlements, or the Apartheid Wall and regain East Jerusalem. Too bad for the Palestinians, negotiations with Israel under Oslo or the Road Map is not negotiations but total acceptance of Israeli dictates. The team simply sits there like “dummies” receiving orders and dictates only to appear on television repeating the same thing we heard for the last 15 years. Saeb and his bosses simply lost all sense of shame and self respect and continue to have the audacity to step before the cameras and repeat demands they had no courage to state in close meeting with their Israeli masters. The PLO and Fatah leadership that negotiated Oslo and the Road Map and Annapolis and Sharm Elshiek, Hebron and Gaza Access is simply unfit, unqualified and with too much vested interest in the continued Jewish Occupation to make a difference, let alone seek the return of millions of Palestinians and the removal of the Apartheid Wall, let alone Jerusalem.

Perhaps Mr. Attwan should have asked the question what the people should do with such a failed leadership and failed negotiations. I tell you what they should do. They should go out in the hundreds of thousands, in every town and in every city and march toward “Moqatta” in Ramallah demanding the immediate disbanding of the Palestinian Authority and demanding the immediate disbanding of the PLO as failed and illegitimate organization. Yes, they should all rise in a civil uprising not seen in the Arab world and take charge from such a miserable failed leadership. Abbas, Hamas, Fatah and the PLO all lack legitimacy, with expired terms of office and of course the absence of any direct mandate from the people, and here I mean both those under the Jewish Occupation and those in Exile, in the Diaspora.

The demand for the disbanding of the Palestinian Authority and of the PLO will put the ball back in the Israeli court with Israel taking full financial and administrative responsibility for the Occupation. The PLO, Fatah and the PA as envisioned by the Palestinian Trio of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai did not plan and work toward ending the Jewish Occupation and never had a plan for the return of the refugees and the only thing they achieved is create a business and financial opportunity for themselves, members of their families, senior members of the PLO and Fatah and of course fleecing the national treasury to keep alive Fatah and the PLO though financial monthly payments to cadres who contribute absolute nothing to society or provide public service. Oslo was a business deal and it had nothing to do with refugees, Jerusalem or the land.

Beside why waste precious donors money on “security forces” when the sole function of the PA Security Forces is the protection of the Israeli Occupation (read today’s headlines of the Israeli army and PA security forces forming a joint operation in Bethlehem) the Israeli army and the armed settlers. I am not aware of a single instant when the well funded and well financed Palestinian Security ever stopped an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian house. I am not aware of a single instance when the Palestinian Security Forces stopped or intervened in Israeli planned targeted killings or stop armed Jewish thugs from destroying farms, uprooting trees, poising water wells and killing live stock, let alone stopped the building of a single unit in the ever expanding settlements. This is the kind of vision Arafat, Abbas and Qurai had for their Palestinian Security Forces. Such force was never ever to protect the people from the daily harsh and humiliating treatment even murder committed by the Jewish Occupation. The sole purpose of such a security force is to protect the business contract the leadership have with the Occupation and provide additional security cover for the Jewish Occupation.

Perhaps Mr. Attwan should join my calls on the likes of Hanan Ashrawi, Mustafa Baroughti, Zahi Khouri, Munib Almasri, Hassib Alsabagh, Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, and Sari Nusseibeh among the many hundreds among leaders of civil societies and business to lead the way toward a sustainable well managed “civil uprising” that will bring the Jewish Occupation to an end. A civil uprising that will free the Palestinians from the legal shackles of the PLO and terminate the business and financial contract between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, removing once and for all the legal cover the PLO and the Palestinian Authority gave the Israeli Occupation under Oslo and the Road Map. One thing for sure, things could not get worst for our people than it is now. For sure it will put so many people out of business with the Jewish Occupation.

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