Chaos Creeps into Palestine

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The Gaza Strip is witnessing chaos marked by armed men storming Authority headquarters, assaulting citizens, clashing among themselves, and fighting with families. This is nothing strange or sudden — I had already foreseen it in articles I published earlier. The traits and characteristics of the Palestinian leadership over the years, and the manner of its performance in various fields, foretold what is happening now; indeed, they were aimed at producing what is happening now. Over the years the Palestinian people have suffered from a policy of opportunism, clientelism, buying loyalties, and trivialization, until matters reached what is now shown on television screens: clashes that bring nothing but shame upon the Palestinian people.

The chaos now prevailing is as old as the Palestinian Authority itself. A kind of chaos prevailed under direct occupation, but it seems that self-rule has proven more skillful at sowing division and corruption among people, and at planting rancor, hatred, and encroachment upon others. From the outset, the Palestinian leadership has been keen to distinguish among people, sorting them into the loyal and the disloyal, the sincere hypocrite and the hypocrite liable to rebel. It opened the door for Israeli weapons to fall into the hands of the debased, who describe themselves as wanted by the occupation, and gave them scope to assault sanctities and property; it cooperated on security matters with the occupation, and under it the number of spies and collaborators with Israel grew; it used money to buy loyalties; and it relied on people of low understanding with no competence, distinguished by the ethics of thievery and lawlessness, and so on.

From the outset, the Palestinian leadership worked to tear apart the social and moral fabric of the Palestinian people, with the aim of weakening it and turning its ranks into scattered fragments. Why? The answer would take long to explain, and I wrote it out in a 300-page book; this article has no room for it. I was among those who confronted this terrifying project, and my share of it was bullets, arrest, harassment, and assaults on my property. Others who saw in the Palestinian leadership a danger to the people and the homeland did not escape it either. Many were those who rejected this analysis at first, but unfortunately, many people learn only after the fire has already caught in their own hearts.

An entire Palestinian generation has been sabotaged through the spread of a culture of recklessness, opportunism, and hollow machismo; weapons and ammunition were leaked into its hands, and it was used for extortion and settling scores. A fair number of Arafat’s aides possess private militias, which they use to intimidate others. It is well known in the Palestinian street that so-and-so has his own thugs, and someone else has his own rival thugs. They have wronged everyone, and now they trade wrongs among themselves.

Ugly are the headlines in the news. What we watch on television is the news of those who broker the homeland, or open fire on the innocent, or seize headquarters and issue threats. As for those who struggle honorably, we hear nothing of them until after they are martyred.

The dysfunction is widening to encompass every sector and circle of the people. Let me cite here an example from my own very recent experience. I wrote an article about the spread of weapons at An-Najah University, warning against it and calling on everyone to stand against it. My colleagues among the faculty close to the Authority responded by issuing a statement against me, saying that I wanted to ignite the fire of sedition. As for the head of the campus guard, who belongs to the “Takhikha” (those who carry weapons for purposes that have nothing to do with resistance), he sent word to me verbally, in front of university officials, calling me a spy. If university professors make their peace with the spread of unaccountable, non-resistance weapons and support it, then let the reader imagine the state of the Palestinian street.

The great problem is that there are many people who cannot keep their jobs or secure a decent income except through the persistence of chaos and the protection of the Takhikha. The fate of thousands is tied to the continuation of chaos and the breakdown of security, and such people can do nothing but shelter this phenomenon. As for the Palestinian factions, they watched the tragedy take shape over the years and contented themselves with issuing statements. The factions never held a unified position on this phenomenon, and not a single faction ever took any real action to correct the situation beyond sending appeals to Arafat to intervene.

As for the media, and especially the major Arab satellite channels, they rendered very great service to those who wished ill upon the Palestinian people. Many people went to correspondents and satellite channels asking them either to tell the truth or to stay silent, but these outlets insisted that their duty was simply to report the news. To this day they continue to report news that may contain a fragment of the truth while steering clear of stating the facts — this while a number of correspondents were receiving gifts and financial rewards from the Palestinian leadership. The media has contributed to reinforcing illusions among ordinary people.

Will these people succeed in the end? My conviction is that the Palestinian people will be able to contain this phenomenon. This is a people that has been fighting for a hundred years, that has managed to escape many hardships and harsh chapters, and that still enjoys a flowing, ever-renewing youth. America wanted corruption and chaos, and so did Israel, out of a desire to sabotage the Palestinian people from within. Palestinians cooperated with them and succeeded to some degree. And yet, Palestine is full of decent people, strugglers, fighters, and good people, and these will surely be able to gather the means of strength to set out anew. There are Arabs and Muslims who feel sorrow at what things have come to, but we have a lesson in history: a people that has stumbled again and again and risen back up will surely not let matters slip from its hands.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الفوضى تدب في فلسطين” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.