Attendance at Herzliya Exposes the Betrayal

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Palestinian and Arab parties have criticized the attendance of some Arabs and Palestinians at the annual Herzliya Conference, which Israel holds to assess its strategic situation, its future, and the future of its security. It is clear that the criticism is seasoned with a flavor of betrayal, or with branding those who attended as traitors — knowing that Palestinians have attended this conference for many years now, holding senior posts in the Palestinian Authority government, in non-governmental organizations, and in Palestinian universities: politicians, academics, and men of letters among them, may God reduce their manners. Every year Palestinians contribute to this conference out of a certain nobility of theirs toward Israel, toward its security, and toward its ability to continue occupying the land, displacing the people, and liquidating the cause, the national culture, and belonging. May God disgrace them, and disgrace those who stay silent about them and offer them the loftiest expressions of hypocrisy, flattery, and servility.

We betray Palestine and the people of Palestine. We betray ourselves, and we betray our mothers, our sisters, our fathers, our spouses, our children; we betray the blood of the martyrs and the bones of our dead, the pain of the wounded, the moans of the orphans, and the sighs of the widows; we betray the wheat, the olives, the grapes, and the palm trees; we betray the plains of Palestine, its mountains, its valleys, and its hills. We betray God and the Messenger and all the prophets, the truthful, and the righteous saints. And we prattle on about patriotism and its cheapened slogans, outbidding every huckster on earth.

…We betray when we decide that our academics and intellectuals should be brokers of knowledge, handing information to the enemies so that they can devise the policies that exhaust us, tear apart our ranks, and turn us into mere individuals panting after our own private interests.

We, O world, guard the kingdom of Israel — out of fear for it, out of obedience to it, in service of the poisoned morsel of bread its allies hand us, and also in exchange for the facilities it grants us to move about, to travel, to visit its bars in Tel Aviv and Netanya, its brothels, and the dens of its thugs. We coordinate security matters with Israel, we hand it information about our own sons, and we devote ourselves to hunting down a weapon that might be meant for resisting it, or a speaker who might incite against it. We are the leaders of normalization in the Arab homeland. Some of our universities normalize; political, academic, economic, and social leaders normalize and boast of cooperating with the sons of Zion. Indeed, normalization with the Zionists has become a wide gate to leadership — a gate through which only those the Zionists permit to lead may pass. We consume Israel’s goods, whatever is needed of them and whatever is not, whatever benefits and whatever harms, whatever has an alternative and whatever has none — for how else could Israel’s army remain mighty, flush with abundant money?

Who is this “Herzliya” you keep speaking of? It is merely a conference for those of the highest rank, whose acts of betrayal form the essential foundation for all the traitors of Palestine. Every rank has its own betrayal, and the higher your rank climbs, the loftier your betrayal grows, while the lower the rank, the greater the harm it does. May the devil bless every traitor and every wretch among them.

So do not begrudge us Herzliya, for we carry out our historic disgrace in the best possible manner. I ask only that God set upon us a bold, trustworthy Arab-Palestinian generation that annihilates us, leaving not one of us behind whose lips might still move in regret.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “حضور هيرتسيليا أضعف الخيانة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.