Burdening Palestinians with Taxes

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The Palestinian Authority has recently been active in collecting taxes, cracking down hard on taxpayers, and inventing new categories of taxation — to the point that it may well end up taxing an old woman carrying a pair of chicks to sell in Nablus or Hebron, or even taxing the act of having children. Of course, the matter has been plain since 1994, when the Palestinians’ daily bread was tied to the donor countries, in the sense that these countries would carry the people right up to the edge and then kick them off to fend for their own bread. These countries worked, in cooperation with certain Palestinians, to destroy whatever remained of the Palestinian economy by battering the various sites of production, inflating the number of public employees, and raising the level of services out of all proportion to production — and now the moment has come to force the Palestinian to rely on himself. It is rather like forcing a nursing infant to bear responsibility for himself, or an old man too feeble to lift a cup of water being asked to water the neighbors’ trees, or like a man thrown into a well and told to climb out without a rope.

The people are being asked to pay off the debts run up by our illustrious leaders, and to bear the burden of their misdeeds and the corruption of their policies. The people must pay more taxes, and must bear far more than lies within their own means.

Of course, the Palestinian Authority will argue that it is acting in the people’s interest. Here I say: whoever truly wants the people’s interest does not do the following:

He does not place the people’s daily bread in the hands of the very enemies who created Israel and displaced the people, and who to this day do not recognize the right of return or the right of self-determination.

He does not throw open the doors to imports from abroad in a way that idles the work of farmers, tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and so on.

He does not hire vast numbers of people merely to win political support. Huge numbers have been hired with no real work to do, when it would have been far better to place them in productive posts, so they might eat by the sweat of their own brow and produce something real that benefits the Palestinian economy.

He does not devote the greater part of the budget to the security services. The Arab is sick to death of security services, especially the Palestinian, who is tracked by every security apparatus in the world.

He does not make a security officer’s salary larger than that of a schoolteacher, man or woman.

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He does not hand out privileges to men of capital to toy with the economy, when what Palestinians need is to build a resistance economy, or at the very least, an economy of steadfastness.

He does not allow Israel and outside powers to meddle in school curricula, nor does he throw open the universities to Western states’ interference.

He does not engage in security coordination with Israel, nor does he expose individuals’ security and national security to constant, escalating danger.

He does not intellectually suppress people, does not persecute them for their opinions, and does not employ one Palestinian to write reports on another that damage national security. Nor does he work to monopolize the media.

He does not hire people on the basis of their political affiliation.

He does not throw people out of their jobs, nor does he pursue them into their daily bread in private companies and economic enterprises.

And the list goes on. So I would ask that no one try to sell us patriotism. What is unfolding in the way of general policy is about as far from patriotism as can be, and most of it, in the end, works against the national interest. Whoever wants to build a state through deeds like these will find it hard even to secure himself a burrow.

If we are truly searching for a solution to our economic problems, seeking to ease the people’s suffering and spare them the burden of taxes, then we must search for policies alternative to those currently followed. At the very least, there are tens of thousands of employees who do no work at all, and who draw salaries in exchange for doing nothing whatsoever, whether at the level of the Authority or at the level of the municipalities and quasi-governmental institutions. These people ought to be redirected into productive posts, and the people should not be made to shoulder the burden of their salaries. The people are not obligated to pay the salaries of those who do not deserve them. There are also plenty of dignitaries — directors, directors-general, ministers, and so on — drawing high salaries, and we are not obligated to cover their salaries, their car expenses, their mobile-phone bills, their spouses’ travels, or their dogs’ veterinary care.

The path of reform is clear, and whoever chooses to walk it will find the people no obstacle to his way; but whoever chooses the crooked path must not make the people carry the burden of his own deeds.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “إثقال الفلسطيني بالضرائب” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.