Jefferson Corner

Every year at this time, the Palestinians remember the “Nakba” or catastrophe and mourn their failings, while Israel celebrates its independence and success as regional and world power. No one can doubt the power and influence Israel and the world Zionism play in shaping domestic and international policies of major world capital such as Washington, London, Paris, Moscow, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, New Delhi, even Peking.

A power and influence that put the Palestinians and behind them the 380 million Arabs at a disadvantage, however that should not be an excuses for the failings and incompetence of Palestinian leadership past Hajj Amin Hussaini, Yasser Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Mishal.

One can understand and appreciate the power Israel and its Fifth Column play within the United States of America with power and influence over every aspect of life emerging as clear and present danger to the domestic and international security of the country.

While Israel leadership always had a focused mission of total and unconditional commitment to the safety, security, existence and expansion of Israel by all means including blackmailing, false flags terrorists attacks and penetrating the inner circles of the highest level of national security of Western democracies, the Palestinian leadership past and present continued to be bogged down with its own self serving and perpetuation and have lost focus on Palestine, on the Rights of Return and Jerusalem long long time ago.

Too bad for the Palestinians under the continued Jewish Occupation and in the Diaspora. The Palestinian leadership certainly of the PLO have proved over time that it is incompetent to lead, unfit to manage, too corrupt to have any credibility and simply if not an agent of the Israeli Occupation at least manager of the Jewish Occupation, a criminal mafia at best.

While the British Mandate was meeting its mission of helping and facilitating the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine and was doing all it can through arrests, executions and suppressions of civil demonstration, the Palestinian leadership of the time was simply inept and hardly knew what was going on and with no vision or focused credible policies for resisting both the British Mandate and the emerging powerful Jewish terrorists groups.

No one can deny the sacrifice of the many who took up arms, who died and who were executed and imprisoned resisting both the Mandate, and the ever increasing Jewish Occupation, the Palestinians leadership like the present one was more concerned with perpetuating its powers and influence rather than meeting the challenge coming from Europe and the US. Simply the Palestinian leadership and the population of the time were no match to the Zionist leadership and the well educated and well trained Jewish immigrants with focused mission to set a Jewish state no matter what are the costs or consequences for the Palestinians.

The late Yasser Arafat was no match for Ben Gurion, not in vision or dedication to the cause, While the latter made good use of close inner circles of smart professional people to help him build a new state, securing financial, military, political and technical support for the new emerging state, Arafat on the other hand gathered around him a bunch of misfit, unfit, incompetent, corrupt, a mafia of self serving cadre of followers committed and loyal to his leadership and securing their private privileges that Arafat was master at dispensing using blackmail to make sure every one is in line and never challenge his leadership. The Palestine National Congress was nothing but a shameful body and a disgrace failing the Palestinians as the leadership of Arafat and his cronies.

That is why after so many years of same leadership, and with hundreds of thousands of dead and martyrs and tens of billions disappeared, wasted, looted and remain unaccounted for, Yasser Arafat and the PLO having failed at every thing (liberation and establishing a state) he and his failed corrupt and incompetent entourage came back to manage the Jewish Occupation as a way to save a failed leadership.

While Israeli leaders travel the world succeeding in suppressing complaint about continued expansion of Jewish settlements, expropriations of land for the Apartheid Wall and Jewish Roads only, and an ever expansions of so called security checkpoints, and constant violations of international law, Palestinian leadership is traveling the world earning traveling miles, enjoying the finest in hotel and dinning, without ever achieving any material change for the people under the Jewish Occupation, with a very speedy rate to disfranchise and ethnically cleansing Arab Palestinians from Jerusalem. Land swap, not the return of the refugees, not Jerusalem is the agenda for continued negotiations.

While the Israeli and Jewish leadership looks after its own around the world, discovering even inventing lost tribes, seeking and enticing such lost tribes to immigrate to Israel, the Palestinian leadership of Arafat and Abbas totally abandoned, gave up any credible efforts to look after and serve Diaspora Palestinians. As we have seen in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Kuwait, in Syria among other countries.

While the Jewish Agency was looking after Jewish communities around the world, the Palestine Liberation Organization as the claimed “representatives of the Palestinian people” overlooked even disregarded the needs of all Palestinians in the Diaspora, specially those under attacks in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

The Jewish Agency working together with international Zionist organizations like the American Jewish Congress organized and sought and succeeded in total recovery of Jewish properties in Europe, the PLO did not bother to organize an alliance of international organizations to document or build a data base and filing the necessary legal challenges and proceedings to recover All Palestinian properties confiscated by the newly arriving Jewish immigrants. In fact it stands in the way of such efforts because it seeks compensations to go its own coffer to dispense with it as it chooses with majority of recovered funds ending up in private bank accounts.

Now that the Palestinian leadership claimed a one time success of having Palestine recognized as an observer state at the UN, it promised in exchange for sitting down with the Israelis to negotiate and give away what is left of Palestine, it will not file any international legal charges against Israel for its criminal actions of the wars on Gaza, the building of the Apartheid Wall, the continued confiscations and expansions of Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinians lands, the policies of administrative arrests without trial or evidence that saw more than 700,000 Palestinians guests of Israeli jails. I guess to the Palestinian leadership there is a price for its continued existence and that price is Palestine and its people. If the past is a guide to the future I doubt if Palestinians will ever take charge of their own destiny and throw this failed leadership out once and for all, and give themselves an even chance.

The meeting that took place in Nablus on Sunday the 4th of November 2012 between Palestinian Oligarchs and officials from the office of Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli investors and businessmen, mainly those heavily invested in Jewish Settlements, was not out of the blue. It set the pace for Secretary John Kerry of “economic initiative” in lieu of ending the Jewish Occupation.

Contrary to public claims, the Palestinian leadership past (Arafat) and present (Abbas) was never interested in liberation, let alone ending the Jewish Occupation. Oslo and subsequent actions since then can only confirm this. It is all about business and the windfall the continued Jewish Occupations brings to the Palestinian leadership, leaders and cadre of “Fasa’el” and of course to the Palestinian Oligarchs.

The Palestinian leadership never put in place a popular plan (civil disobedience and popular civil uprising) that will help bring about the end of the longest occupation in modern history. Rather the Palestinian leadership is working hard to perpetuate its existence even if more and more land is taken over for Jewish settlements and security areas.

While the likes of Dr. Mohmoud Ishtayeh, Fatah leader in Nablus denounce such meeting with the likes of Rami Levy, the owner of the largest supermarkets in Jewish Settlements, his boss Mahmoud Abbas dispatch his top economic aid to attend such meeting, a meeting that also saw the attendance of Amr Mousa of Egypt and Abdesalam Almajali the former Jordanian foreign minister and Robert Serry the UN coordinator.

The meeting that took place in the home of Palestinian billionaire Munib Almasri was dubbed” breaking the freeze”, with the idea of creating a” coalition of Arab and Israeli ‘Notables’ working together to move forward the Arab Peace process.

Last April 25, 2013 Secretary of State John Kerry announced such plans after receiving the green light from Bibi Netanyahu. The “economic initiatives” is to induce big international corporations to invest in projects in the “occupied territories” in infrastructures, high technology and transportation in addition to telecommunications.

Not so sure how this plan will work when Israel have over 550 different security check points almost every few kilometers where Palestinians are horded like Texas cattle’s as they are processed through metal revolving gates and where many women died while waiting to go to a clinic on the other side and where Palestinians have to wait hours if not days to pass through.

Israel not only hinder Palestinians access to their homes and farms it does not allow a G3 applications and signs pointing this issue went up during President Barack Obama brief visit to Ramallah.

When Arafat and the PLO leadership came back to Ramallah to manage the Jewish Occupation, Arafat unlike drunken Yeltsin, a sober Arafat gave the Palestinian Oligarchs the run on all key economies and went further by giving certain security officials a monopoly on certain energy sectors resulting in the milking of hundreds of millions of dollars from poor consumers. Arafat corrupted the entire economy of the Occupied Territories.

More troubling is the lack of any credible plans by the Palestinians leadership to disengage from the Israeli economy. Dr. Nabil Sha’ath who negotiated the Paris Agreement did not do such a good job perpetuating the overwhelming control of Israel of all economic aspects in the Occupied Territories.

Over the years and since Oslo and with a lack of both a political let alone economic plans, the Palestinian leadership and authority made the rich richer and the poor much much poorer.

The biggest beneficiary of the budget goes to the Palestinian Security forces (35%) much more than the combined budget for health, education, transportation and social services. Keep in mind that such security forces could not and dare not protect Palestinian villages from the daily attacks by armed Jewish settler terrorists. Who come as they wish vandalize mosques and churches, destroy farms, uproot century old olive trees and poisoning water well, all under the closed eyes of the Palestinian security forces established to protect the Occupation and the Ramallah regime.

Prior to the Second Intifada, Israel became the largest single employer of Palestinian labors and the Palestinian leadership was only too happy for being the largest and key labor suppliers of unskilled labor to Israel and never thought of an alternative plans.

The Palestinian leadership failed at every thing it set out to do. It failed at liberation, it failed at ending the occupation, failed at building governing institutions, failed at disengaging Palestinian economy from the Israeli economy, failed at ending the continued expansion of Jewish settlements, failed at bringing down the Apartheid Wall (though it had a court ruling), failed at creating a transparent and clean government with corruption, “connections and nepotism” and fleecing of citizens at the different key agency continue to be the rule.

The only beneficiaries of such “breaking the freeze” or “economic initiatives” are the Palestinian Oligarchs who already have chocking hold on key economies while hundreds of thousands of people remain below poverty lines and with hundreds of thousand remain hostage to the monthly salary and the monthly mortgage and consumers loans.

Not so sure what would be the economic benefits to the people when Coca-Cola commits to investing a billion dollars and who but the owners of the franchise are the beneficiaries.

Already the Arab League is behind such an “economic initiatives” and recently gave Israel added incentives allowing the trade off of prime Palestinian territories in exchange for toxic waste dump. With this present leadership there is no hope forever ending the Jewish Occupation.

The leadership, its allies in the business community and in the NGO networks are the prime beneficiaries of the continued Jewish Occupation and the “economic initiative” is an added reward to a Palestinian leadership that failed at every thing.

More troubling is the commitment made with the approval of the Palestinian leadership that “Palestine” will never file legal charges against Israel for past, present and future crimes.

It seems the tens of millions the United States injected in Egypt to promote democracy went down the drain, with most of the beneficiaries of such funding are now undermining the first free presidential election in over 7,000 years. Unless Arabs; left and right, Islamists and Secularists, nationalists and independents accept the principals of “democracy” of one person one vote, free and transparent elections, citizens not government funded parties, accountability and transparency, there is no hope for democracy in the Arab world.

If the world and the Arabs think the “Arabs” are ready for democracy they better have a second look and a second thought. What is happening in Egypt now is nothing short of deliberate undermining of the fledging and infant democracy in Egypt with the opposition (National Salvation Front) and the trio of (Hamdeen Sabahi, Amr Moussa, Mohamed ElBaradei) determined to drive President Morsi out of office and bring a quick end to democracy in Egypt.

Of course President Morsi and the Muslims Brothers also share the blame for the anarchy and the collapsing of the Egyptian state having failed to understand the priorities of the Egyptian people and the priorities of those who faced Mubarak’s bullets to bring down his dictatorship. The priorities are not of rebuilding state institutions but addressing the pressing needs of a failing economy, poverty, hungers, broken down if existing infrastructures, high unemployment, personal dignity, civil and human rights abuses standards at police stations, security agencies and the courts. A new constitution was the last thing on the mind of Egyptians and this is where Morsi lacking political acumen and smarts failed and failed miserably.

The opposition, “sore losers” taking advantage of Morsi failings, lack of political experience and shortcomings not only are determine to make his presidency short one, but are active in enticing and promoting violence and anarchy in the streets of Cairo and other cities to make up for what they lack in wide popular support. Together with Mubarak “fuloul” they are working hard to have a second revolution to replace and undermine the first revolution.

President Morsi and the Muslim Brothers ignoring the “pulse” of the Egyptian streets for jobs and dignity and recognizing the “State” institutions are for the most part untouched and unaffected by the “revolutions” wrongly were determined to remaking the “state institutions” in their own image, a task that will take decades and not months or years and once again, it was not the priorities of the revolution. The fear of the Brothers complete take over of “state institutions” even if not the objective is a serious threats that Egyptians are not willing to substitute one party state with another one even if this party is the Muslim Brothers.

However Egypt is not the first country to experience undermining of a fledgling democracy and free elections. The Palestinians leadership of the PLO and Fatah were the first ones to undermine and abrogate free elections, the first and perhaps the last free elections in the Arab world.

In 2006 the Palestinians under Israeli Occupation went to the poles in the first ever-free election held in the Arab world, an election that all international observers testified to its transparency. Hamas won that election defeating long time decadent and corrupt Fatah and the PLO.

The Palestinian established leadership of the PLO and Fatah did not accept the result of the elections and decided to conspire with Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the US to undermine such transparent election, actions that lead to the bloody routing of Fatah out of Gaza and the take over of Gaza by Hamas and a division that had dire consequences if not criminal consequences for the leadership starting with the Israeli siege of Gaza and subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza and the murders of thousands of people and the repeated destruction of Gaza.

However Palestine and Egypt are but few examples of the failings of Arab democracy. In Iraq the American invasions and the end of Saddam dictatorship did not bring democracy to Iraq but brought anarchy and sectarianism. Many thanks goes to the American legal experts who helped draft the Iraqi constitution that, rather than bring about transparent and accountable democracy and government established and entrenched evil “ sectarianism” as we see today with Almalki’s government and the start of the disintegration of the Iraqi state as we know it thus achieving the objective of the American Zionist Neocons behind the war.

Tunisia and Libya are not doing any better. In Tunisia the post revolution government so far failed to address pressing issues that lead to the uprising with priorities to economic and regional development, employments and improvements of the daily lives of people. The “Salafis” who were not in the front lines of the revolutions are now bent on transforming the civil state to a “theocratic state” in their own image and the “secularists” thus far failing to have a vision of the new state one that can accommodate “Islamists” and “secularists” or make a dent in the failing Tunisian economy and regional development.

Libya continues to suffer from armed “anarchy” with national government under constant threats from armed militias that having fought Qadafi dictatorship are now pushing to establish their own anarchist’s dictatorship. Very few in Libya are willing to put aside their weapon and spend badly needed time and talents to rebuilding state institutions, a process that needs the good will and support of all Libyans.

The recent elections in Jordan were nothing but a rerun and repeat of past elections with no real and material changes that truly and practically addresses key failings of the state, specially corruption, failing and inefficient state institutions and keeping Jordan as an international welfare state.

Perhaps Hilary Clinton is right when she stated “lack of experience” of emerging political leaders as a shortcoming. However perhaps Lt. Col. James Lacey is more accurate in describing the status in the Arab world with his prediction of the collapse of “Arab Civilizations”. This prediction came in his published article “ The Impending Collapse of Arab Civilization” in the Naval Institute: Proceedings. Concluding that it is the Arabs that are failing not Islam as predicted by Bernard Lewis and Samuel P. Huntington.

It is so ironic that the Arab world with so much natural resources, many internationally renowned thinkers and intellectuals is unable to bring about a civil change in dictatorial governments rather than bloody revolutions and uprisings. It is also unable to bring about real and material reforms in existing governments that are badly in need of reforms before the streets goes bloody.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its leadership never had any legitimacy deriving from Palestinians under Occupation or in the Diaspora. The PLO and its leadership past and present incompetent to liberate, unfit to lead, failed to build and organize a modern nation state, always self serving, a political, financial mafia if not a criminal racketeering organization, a perpetual fraud and lie must disband now.

Mahmud Abbas, the head of the Palestine “liberation” Organization, head of Fatah and the president of the Palestinian Authority chose the 95th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration to renounce on Israeli public television the “Right of Return” of the more than 6 millions Palestinians living in exile.

Perhaps Mahmoud Abbas is desperate to save the political, financial if not criminal mafia that runs and operate the Jewish Occupation from Ramallah. Hostage to salaries of an army of functionaries and civil servants managing the Jewish Occupation not to mention providing security to the Israeli army and armed Jewish settlers to the tune of $1.4 Billions annually in expenses for the Palestinian Security Forces.

Since Oslo, ending the Jewish Occupation was never a priority and was never the objective of the PLO/Fatah and the Palestinian leadership. Perpetuating the Palestinian Authority and the personal and financial interests of the leadership was and remains the only objective for the leadership and the PLO.

By renouncing the “Right of Return” for the Palestinians Mahmoud Abbas gave full recognitions to the Right of Return for all “Jews” kosher and non-kosher, authentic and suspect Jews. Confirming the fraud and lies perpetuated by the PLO and its leadership and the Zionist movement.

For over 45 years the PLO and Fatah leadership past (Arafat) and present (Abbas) have made the Right of Return a fundamental and basic issue in any peace settlement with Israel. Well it seems that Mahmoud Abbas decided to expose the fraud and lies of the PLO and renounce any rights to represent Palestinians of the Diaspora.

If one is to look at the history of the PLO and the leadership of Arafat, Abbas, Qurai one will see nothing but fraud, lies, and looting, with mafia like behavior of many of the leadership within the PLO and Fatah. What we see now in Ramallah from abuse of power, nepotism, lootings, civil and human rights abuses has been going on since the group first established military presence in Jordan and subsequent move to Lebanon where it ran the “Fakahani Republic”. Oslo is nothing but an ingathering and collections of thugs, incompetent and failed cadre that return with Arafat to run the Jewish Occupation and loot the treasury.

Desperate to save his narcissist leadership, that of the PLO and Fatah, the late Yasser Arafat decided to enter into secretes negotiations with Israel undermining the post Madrid public negotiations lead by the late Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafi. Arafat and key members of the PLO/Fatah were afraid that Dr. Abdul-Shafi might emerge as the Palestinian leader that can potentially challenge Arafat leadership.

Having lost much of his credibility after siding with Saddam, having presided over the looting of tens of billions of people’s money, and having caused irreparable harm to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Gulf and around the world, Arafat turn to Israel to recover all that he lost and he was able to do that when he negotiated and signed the Oslo Accord. Arafat and the PLO turn to Israel to regain legitimacy lost among all Palestinians.

Oslo was nothing more than legitimizing the continued Jewish Occupation by giving full and unconditional recognition to Israel an Israel without defined borders. In exchange Israel gave full recognition to the PLO as representative of the Palestinian people thus Arafat was able to secure a perpetual role for the PLO and its leadership and as long as there is an Israeli Occupation. Arafat and the Oslo team left out all key issues to an Israeli veto including Right of Return, Jerusalem, compensation and ending the Jewish Occupation. Under Oslo the Palestinian leadership gave Israel the right to “veto” any and all issues put forward. The Palestinian territories occupied in 67 were referred to as “disputed” not “occupied” territories subject to international law, thus the attempt to go to the UN.

As a consequence of these fatal if not criminal failures, Israel was able to build and expand Jewish Settlements on 58% of the “territories”, was able to build and continue to build the Apartheid Wall, continued to rob and steal water from aquifers located in the “territories”, continued to maintain and expand more than 550 “security” checkpoints that subjects millions of Palestinians to daily humiliations. In exchange for all this give away, Arafat and the Oslo team were granted a Palestinian Authority to manage and pay for the Jewish Occupation through money begged from donors and few thousand VIP passes.

More troublesome is the leadership failed solutions to a Palestinian economy that is hostage to Israel and its total control over the entire economy of the “territories”, suffering from Israel’s economic downturn while not benefiting from a robust Israeli economy. The Palestinian economy under the PLO became one of begging and looting, drowning ordinary Palestinians in debts, mortgage and consumers debts. While ordinary Palestinians become more and more poor, Palestinian leadership and Oligarchs tied to the leadership are racking billions.

The PLO and its leadership failed the Palestinians at every turn and at every level and everywhere from Kuwait and the Gulf to Lebanon and Syria, to Jordan and Egypt. It looted tens of billions that remained unaccounted for. Oslo was nothing but deliberate collaborations with the Jewish Occupation. It rendered the Palestinians people powerless reducing those under Occupation beggars and thieves and undermined any chance for the Palestinians in the Diaspora to have a so say in any final settlement. Diaspora Palestinians have no choice but organize and have their own organization that derives its legitimacy from the people not from Israel as the case with Abbas and the PLO.

Disbanding the Palestinian Authority should not be an Israel demand, but a Palestinian demand. Time to disband not only the Palestinian Authority and the PLO and bring an end to this long chapter of failures, fraud and lies.

Time for every one to sober up and come down from their highs. I do not want to throw cold water on the UN vote last week, nor do I want to dismiss the good will of the majority of the world that voted for “Palestine” as an observer state. However time for the Palestinians under Jewish Occupation and in the Diaspora to take a second look at 45 years of a failing national project and a failing leadership and make a difference for the future.

Every Palestinian should remember, Mahmoud Abbas who returned to Ramallah to a hero’s welcome after the UN vote is the same man who with Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Qurai negotiated and signed the Oslo Accord, which legally and permanently perpetuate the Jewish Occupation and created a management company (Palestinian National Authority) to manage the Jewish Occupation.

Arafat and the PA corruption and incompetence and the security cooperation with Israel were the main cause for factional divisions between Fatah and Hamas with the PLO/Fatah aborting the first transparent and democratic election under Jewish Occupation.

Oslo Accord gave Israel a “veto” power over “Final Status” made it impossible to ends the Jewish Occupation, return the Palestinian refugees, leaving Jerusalem beyond the reach of hundreds of thousands of native Palestinians subject to continued ethnic cleansings.

Before Palestinians go out and celebrate it would them good to go back and revisit the performance of the PLO, its PNC and leadership during the last 45 years. Revisit Oslo Accord and all subsequent agreements like Taba, Waye River and the Hebron Accord to see the criminal failings of the PLO and leadership.

While Oslo Accord placed 1.5 millions in Gaza and 2.5 millions in the West Bank under a virtual prison, the Hebron Accord placed over 100,000 in permanent house arrest in favor of 5,000 armed Jewish settlers and terrorists.

Over the last few days I had a good chance to read much about the UN vote and what it means written by many legal scholars, many politicians and intellectuals, Israelis and Palestinians.

Bibi Netanyahu reduced the vote to “nothing changes” and ordered the immediate building of 3,000 unites splitting the West Bank between North and South. Israel continues to occupy, shoot and kill, steal and confiscate land, demolish homes at will.

Mahmoud Abbas, (worried about the next pay check), promised he will not go to the International Criminal Court unless there is a new Israeli “aggression”. As if the War on Gaza I and II, the Apartheid Wall, the ever-expanding settlements, land theft, house demolitions, targeted killings and arbitrary arrests are not violations of international laws and not aggressions.

It is helpful for Palestinians to remember this new state was declared way back in November 15, 1988 when the PLO’s Palestine National Congress declared the state of “Palestine” in exile. Now 24 years later Mahmoud Abbas stand before the UN and declare the same state “under occupation”. What a waste of time? Much much of the land since 88 disappeared in favor of Jewish settlements.

The people should remember that Arafat in 1977 as sole decision maker and dictator shifted the Fatah national project from a liberation and “One democratic state” to a negotiated settlement on any “liberated land”. Hence Jericho First.

Hundreds of thousands of people died during those years as a result of an ‘armed liberation” that never was and massacres in Lebanon that went unchallenged and never investigated. Arafat and the PLO leadership were setting up the Palestinian people to scale back their hopes of ever returning home and a One Democratic State. Those under Occupation had to scale down their ambition to a “Palestinian Provisional” state under continued Jewish Occupation.

Arafat and Abu-Jihad aborted the First Intifada, which was perhaps the first and perhaps the only credible uprising in the history of Palestine. The First Intifada produced a partnership among all people, among all factions, rich and poor, street activists, intellectuals, famers; shopkeepers all joined together resisting the armed Jewish occupation with stones and slingshots.

Arafat afraid of the challenge to his leadership was bent on aborting such challenge, pumped millions of dollars to Fatah operative to abort the uprising. After Madrid he went into secret negotiations with Israel ending the First Intifada and concluded Oslo Accord as manager of this Jewish Occupation.

Other than offering lucrative jobs and assignments with international organizations to many of the PLO and Fatah incompetent corrupt operative, the UN vote means nothing on the ground.

Israel will continue to and expand settlements and Mahmoud Abbas will continue to ask for a permit to go back and forth between office and his house.

Question that should be on the minds of All Palestinians under Occupation and in the Diaspora what is next and how can the Palestinians continue to trust this leadership sitting in Ramallah to make a difference.

Time for the Palestinians to take matter into their hands. Those under Jewish Occupation organize a national civil and legal uprising that will end both the monopoly of failing incompetent unfit unqualified leadership, demand immediate revocations of Oslo Accord and disbanding of the PA as manager of the Jewish Occupation. A good start will be to burn and destroy All Israeli issued security and ID cards. The leadership should have the decency to return or burn all its Israeli issued VIP passes and cancel and revoke any and all security arrangements and cooperation with Israel.

To those in exiles time to line up behind a One State Solution, organize a new representative body to replace the much discredited and illegitimate PLO and give the necessary support to those challenging the leadership and the Jewish Occupation.

I can understand if the US and European nations fund the Israeli Occupation. What I could not understand is why Arabs of all people are contributing to and funding the Jewish Occupation? Funding the PLO/Palestinian Authority is funding and perpetuating the Jewish Occupation. Thus the announcement from Doha that the Arab League decision to fund the Palestinian Authority to the tune of $100 a month ($1.2 Billions annually) did not come as a surprise

When the Palestinian leadership of (Arafat, Abbas & Qurai) negotiated and signed Oslo, they did not do so to end the Jewish Occupation but they came back to manage it. The Palestinian leadership of the PLO/PA has been managing the civil, administrative and security needs of the Jewish Occupation since 1993 and paying it for it too.

Before the PLO/PA decided to take over from Israel the civil and administrative functions of the “disputed” territories according to Oslo” Israel was fully responsible for all financial and administrative costs including transportation, infrastructure maintenance, health, schools, and police. Israel as an occupying power was responsible for all of these costs.

Oslo Accord changed all that. Now the PLO/PA are fully responsible for the financial costs of all of these operations. Oslo shifted the financial burdens of the Jewish Occupation from Israel to the PLO/PA while Israel retained all the benefits and privileges of its occupation including land and water theft, arrests, targeted killing, ethnic cleansing, ever expanding security checkpoints and the right to raid any homes and offices within sights of Abbas office. Israel did just that this past week when it raided NGO offices in Ramallah. A clear act of contempt for the Palestinian leadership and authority.

On top of that the PLO/PA is committed to secure funding for a Palestinian Security Force whose main function is to ensure safety and security cooperation’s for the IDF and Jewish armed settlers. Providing civil safety (police) for Palestinians is only a byproduct of such obligations. Frankly this is the main issue for Israel. Oslo was nothing but a security coordination and management contract.

Over the years and based on my own estimates of the average budget for both civil and security operations the PLO/PA have saved Israel over $55 billions, money saved that Israel made sure to put to good use by building and expanding settlements.

Oslo as negotiated by the Palestinian leadership has nothing to do with freedom and independence or ending the Occupation or building state and governing institutions. It has every thing to do with a business and financial deal between Israel, the PLO and international community mainly the US and the EU.

Under the pretence of a “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinian leadership, the US and EU were only too happy to help Israel with its occupation costs by contributing the money to the Palestinians and funding the “peace process” that was going nowhere. The Palestinian leadership was only too happy to get funding to replenish the tens of billions looted over the years, and was only too happy to go out beg the money with a chance to loot part of it. The Palestinian leadership turned a proud Palestinian people to beggars and thieves.

One can see all of the lootings all over the place in Ramallah from multi-million dollars homes for members of the leadership and their cronies to fancy government buildings owned by members of the leadership and leased back at exuberant prices to the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian oligarchs in partnership with key members of the leadership took over the economy and wealth just like the days of Yelstin. Key corporations almost owns everything there is to own in the Occupied West Bank.

We all need to remember the missing hundreds of millions from the PA operating budgets that remained missing notwithstanding the many commissions and investigations set up by the so called “leadership”. Senior members of the leadership became multi-millionaires with some key members becoming successful businessmen with corporations and assets exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars. The PLO shifted from a liberation organization to a looting organization.

In the good old days, Arab governments under the threats of blackmail and incitements from Yasser Arafat used to send checks and donations worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Arafat private bank accounts without ever daring to ask for or seek any accountings of how the money was spent.

The Palestine National Congress (PNC) a useless worth nothing parliament not so different from Saddam, Bashar or Mubarak parliaments never looked into the books and never made any efforts to be the custodians of the people’s money and allowed Arafat to dispense funds as he sees fit, buying favors and loyalties from people and associates willing to sell their mothers in exchange for financial favors. And the results we can see every day and over the years since the PLO came to manage the Jewish Occupation.

Now the Arabs one more time are stepping in and provide a safety net for a failed corrupt incompetent leadership that has failed at every thing. Failed at liberate, failed at credible and transparent negotiations, failed at building sound credible governing institutions 20 years after Oslo.

By donating money and saving the PLO/PA the Arabs are not doing the Palestinian people any favor. They are doing favors for Israel and the PLO/PA cadre of 180,000 civil and security staff and employees dedicated to Oslo and in the service of the Jewish Occupation.

We all now can see the first results of the UN vote. Saeb Erekat just announced that the Palestinian leadership would within the next 6 months put forward a plan to move ahead with direct negotiations betweens the PLO and Israel. It seems that Arabs countries just like the PNC are nurturing corruptions, incompetency and failures. There will never be an end to the Jewish Occupation as long as the PLO/PA remain managers of the Jewish Occupation. Thanks but no thanks.