American Money: Blackmail and Pressure to Liquidate the Cause

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

There are those complaining about America’s decision to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority and to UNRWA, believing that this cutoff will affect the level of services provided to the Palestinian people.

There is no doubt it will affect the services the United Nations provides to Palestinian refugees, but its effect on the Palestinian Authority will be minor, since the Authority is always reaching its hand into people’s pockets to make itself a partner in their money. In other words, the American decision will simply mean more harm inflicted by the Authority on the general public.

The crime of depending on others. Instead of complaining about American measures, Palestinians — and all Arabs — ought to learn that depending on others to provide security and to provide people’s daily bread is a grave, unforgivable crime. Any ruler who resorts to this approach places his people’s will at the mercy of others, and fails to fortify himself and his people against whatever measures others might take. How many times over the years have we cried out against the financial arrangements set up by the Palestinian Authority, and with every outcry they told us we were “a bunch working for Syria and Iran,” accusing us of not wanting a Palestinian Authority at all. These are politicized, foolish statements, betraying nothing but ignorance and shallow understanding. Now things are being laid bare and becoming clearer to everyone.

A ruler may need financial aid to run the state or to see to people’s affairs, but he must do two things: exercise strict discipline in spending — neither squandering nor overspending — and commit to investment and to developing production. In Palestine, the Palestinian Authority has thrown its doors wide open as if it possessed the treasures of the earth. It went on hiring people in a reckless, almost frenzied manner, even though the population does not need this enormous number of employees.

Multiple security apparatuses were established, even though the people need only a single police force to maintain civil order. There is no need for the rest of the security apparatuses, and no need for jobs whose holders provide no service whatsoever to the Palestinian people. The Authority set aside so-called “petty cash” allowances, pension funds, and vehicle expenses covering fuel and maintenance, and so on — not to mention financial corruption and cost manipulation, and the like.

The Palestinian Authority has burdened itself and the Palestinian people with financial arrangements as if it were a real state with a flourishing economy able to cover its own expenses, and the result has been crushing tax burdens and high transaction fees imposed on the people. In other words, the “Singapore” that people were promised after the Oslo Accords has turned into a tool for extorting people so they can finance the Authority.

This is why we have always insisted that dependence on others is an unforgivable crime, especially since no investments have materialized that would create job opportunities for people. It is true that the Zionists obstruct investment, but officials always use this excuse as cover to remain wallowing in theft and embezzlement, and to keep damaging the moral fabric and the social fabric of society.

The taint of American money. The Americans were not free of bad intentions when they allocated funds to UNRWA and to the Palestinian Authority. As for UNRWA, the Americans voted in 1948 in favor of Resolution 194, and agreed to establish an agency for the relief and works of refugees, but they believed the Palestinian people would lose consciousness of their cause within thirty years, after which Israel would feel secure and no one would remain to challenge its existence. That American vision never came to pass, and the refugees have remained a persistent complication for the colonial Western world. And since the goal was never achieved, America concluded there was no longer any point in continuing to fund an institution that sustains global awareness of the refugee cause. America wants to liquidate the refugee cause, and so do the Zionists and the rest of the Western colonial powers.

UNRWA never made investments to create jobs for people, and its employment remained confined to the various services it provided over the years. But what did we ourselves do to avoid future pressures? Nothing. We left the refugees to manage their affairs with the international agency, and we carried out no activities that would meet even the minimum of refugees’ daily needs. Some of them are no longer even engaged with the cause of return. As a Palestinian intelligence officer once argued with me, whoever wants the right of return does not want peace established in the region. American financial pressure now aims to squeeze Palestinian refugees even further, especially in the camps, which represent the most prominent symbol of the Palestinian cause.

This squeeze may increase young Palestinians’ desire to leave the camps for Arab or European countries. Such emigration would reduce the number of refugees, particularly among the demographic that would carry the cause into the future. This is why America is expected to pressure European countries such as Norway and Sweden to facilitate Palestinian immigration to them, and it will pressure Canada, Australia, and Arab countries to adopt the same policy. If scattering the Palestinians by force is not possible, then it becomes necessary to scatter them further through deprivation, hunger, and deteriorating conditions.

For our part, in order to prevent states from facilitating refugees’ departure, we must encourage Palestinians everywhere to organize and unite so they can have an influential presence within the domestic arenas where they live. It is important for Palestinians to have security arrangements that can affect the decisions of these states. Then these states will find that facilitating emigration will backfire on them, and they will stop obeying the United States. The Palestinian Authority will not carry out this task — it remains the responsibility of the factions.

As for the Authority’s side of things, America has not been innocent there either. America pushed to inflate the number of official employees within the Palestinian Authority in order to achieve several purposes:

1- Increasing the number of Palestinians whose livelihoods depend on salaries, thereby forming an army to defend the notion of dependence on others and the abandonment of free political will.

2- Increasing the Authority’s expenditures, making it easier to dissolve it or steer it according to the will of others. The more the Authority depends on money controlled by others, the greater its subservience grows.

3- Weakening Palestinian production, since salaries and jobs pull young people away from their farms and workshops toward positions that require neither hardship nor effort — a pattern that applies even more to the security apparatuses, which are utterly incapable of defending national security.

4- The Americans were convinced that the Oslo Accords would only ever be implemented by the corrupt, and that money is the best tool for corrupting Arabs in general — with no objection to using women, or at least dangling them as bait. And indeed, enormous corruption took hold in Palestine and continues to this day.

Corruption destroys people’s morale and eliminates trust among them, making collective action and mutual cooperation impossible. In truth, this money ruined the 1987 intifada, ruined the Palestine Liberation Organization, and turned national struggle into material profit, and so on. It has ruined a great deal, and pushed away honorable people of genuine loyalty and commitment from contributing to building a strong society capable of facing challenges.

Breaking out of the shell. After this squeeze, is it possible for the Palestinians to reconsider their calculations, starting by laying out plans and strategies for self-reliance? I am doubtful, because the Palestinian leadership currently in place is not fit to build anything. It demolishes; it does not build. They will say that self-reliance requires a long time, and that it is better to remain as we are. The question is: which is better — investing however much time it takes to stand on our own feet, or remaining at the mercy of others? The PLO has always rejected long-term solutions, which is precisely why it has repeatedly led us into defeats, disappointments, and humiliations. We have been afflicted with ignorant leaderships skilled in empty bluster, who make no effort to develop their own intellectual capacities.

Government vehicles ought to be withdrawn and their costs saved; petty-cash disbursements should stop; government jobs should be trimmed; and the corrupt and the thieves should be dragged before the courts. It is also necessary to get rid of those who have engaged in corruption, fine them, and stop paying them pensions. Also required is the promotion of the agricultural sector in all its forms, so as to provide job opportunities and sources of livelihood. This is a people’s future, and the manipulation of it must stop. The Authority and those wielding influence within it have played games with it for too long, and the time has come to reorder these matters in ways that serve the interests of the people of Palestine.

Source: Originally published in Al Jazeera on 2018-09-17. Translated from the original Arabic, “المال الأميركي.. ابتزاز وضغوط لتصفية القضية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.