Elections, or Ending Security Coordination?

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

As usual, the masters of the Oslo authority in Ramallah have failed to face the truth as it is, and have failed to acknowledge the national, political, and moral crimes they have committed against the Palestinian people over the past twenty-three years, since the Palestinian National Council’s recognition of Israel in 1988. They have tried to create the impression that they bear moral responsibility by calling for political elections before September 2011. Faced with the Arab peoples’ will now beginning to emerge, these men could find nothing in their arsenal to respond with except the promise of holding elections. And they have not even answered the basic question: can they hold elections without the approval of Israel and America?

Instead of fleeing to the gateway of elections that may or may not happen, the Palestinian Authority is called upon to do the following, if it wants to contribute to fixing what it has corrupted over time:

First: the immediate release of all political detainees from the various Palestinian factions and parties. All the sweet talk of the men in power is worthless in the face of a Palestinian being arrested because he harbors intentions of resistance, or because the Zionists demand his arrest.

Second: canceling security coordination completely and finally, never to return to it, and halting cooperation with the American security coordinator and his American and European aides.

Third: pursuing the corrupt, those who corrupt others, and those who enable corruption, and establishing an independent judicial committee to work on cleansing the Palestinian arena of them, and then compensating everyone who has suffered material and moral harm as a result of political pressure, acts of thuggery, and assaults on persons and property.

Fourth: dismissing the current government, since it rests on no legitimate foundation, whether national or electoral, and then seeking new sources of funding from the Arab and Islamic states in order to address the predicament of paying salaries to the enormous number of employees.

In general, the Palestinian Authority, and those who call themselves the Palestine Liberation Organization, are required to apologize to the Palestinian people and to the Arab and Islamic peoples for the harm and pain they have inflicted on the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause, and to disappear from view after all these long years. Zine El Abidine sat upon his people’s chest for the same number of years that you have sat upon ours. Enough of you.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الانتخابات أم إلغاء التنسيق الأمني؟” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.