Manipulating the PLO

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

How did Abu Mazen, Mahmoud Abbas, become secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and what qualifications did those who placed him in this position rely on? No one knows, and whoever appointed him never explained the man’s qualifications and competencies.

Abbas sulked, at the end of Arafat’s era, in protest, and stopped taking part in Executive Committee sessions, and had to face a broad smear campaign from members of his own movement, who described him as “Palestine’s Karzai,” a reference to the Afghan Karzai’s betrayal of his own people’s cause. Suddenly, Abu Mazen became chairman of the Organization, installed by the very people who had stood against him only yesterday. How did that happen, and who recruited, funded, or helped them choose him as chairman? Something was happening under the table that the Palestinian people never learned of.

Yasser Abed Rabbo was appointed secretary-general of the Organization without anyone knowing why this particular person, and no one else. Abed Rabbo was recently dismissed without anyone knowing why. He has not resigned to this day. And we have heard that Saeb Erekat was recently appointed secretary-general. Why Erekat specifically, even though his failure in the negotiations, which stretched across more than twenty years, has been proven?

The leadership of the Liberation Organization has never, on a single day, been sound or upright, and the leadership always deliberately used it as a tool for lending legitimacy to its own decisions. The Liberation Organization has never been a legislative or a genuinely Palestinian struggle-oriented council — it has been merely a fortress embracing the whims of the political leadership, for passing decisions concerning the Palestinian cause without accountability. The Palestinian leadership has always deliberately formed the Palestinian National Council in a way that guarantees it a majority within it.

It has always deliberately practiced selectivity in forming the Council, particularly regarding the membership of those called “independents.” The leadership was biased in selecting members from unions and bodies whose leadership is chosen by election, but the appointment of independents was always the leadership’s greatest concern, and through it, the leadership assured itself of a majority it could use to pass any decision it wanted.

Money has, over time, played a prominent role in buying consciences, and it has proven that the number of people ready to sell themselves for money is not small. The leadership has mastered the games of buying consciences, and has always managed to turn the Liberation Organization into a house for bargaining over the Palestinian cause.

The situation regarding the Executive Committee has not differed from that of the Palestinian National Council. The Executive Committee is supposed to be elected by the Palestinian National Council, and since the leadership controls the Council, it has always been able to choose the Executive Committee’s members according to its own whim.

There has never truly been an Executive Committee accountable to a Palestinian National Council accountable to the Palestinian people — there have always instead been councils and committees accountable to the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Abbas does not differ from his predecessor in managing the affairs of the Liberation Organization. Media outlets are now reporting on Abbas’s intention to reshape the Organization’s Executive Committee, even though this is not among his powers under the Organization’s own bylaws and internal regulations in force.

But he can convince or threaten some members into submitting their resignations. Note that the presence of all the Executive Committee’s members on the Committee is itself illegitimate, entirely inconsistent with the internal bylaws governing the Committee’s work. Even the National Council, which is supposed to choose the Executive Committee’s members, is itself illegitimate, having violated the provisions of the Palestinian National Charter in 1988 by recognizing the Zionist entity, reaching the peak of this violation in 1996 when it demolished the Palestinian National Charter that is considered the very source of its legitimacy.

I have never seen, anywhere in the world, a legislative council or parliament destroy its own state’s constitution — the very document organizing the question of legitimacy within the state and its various internal and external relations — except in Palestine. The Palestinian National Council was supposed to be the guardian of the Palestinian National Charter, not its broker. What the Council did was a disgraceful act, constituting the height of contempt for the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause.

Ramallah is now witnessing behind-the-scenes activity among a limited number of people, led by Abbas, over arranging the affairs of the Palestine Liberation Organization, without disclosing to people what is happening. There are unnourishing concoctions about to be injected into the Palestinian people, to keep it dizzy, incapable of regaining its balance.

They want to arrange the Organization’s affairs in a way that guarantees them continued control over it and drives the Palestinian people into the Zionist square. There is now a Zionized Palestinian leadership, and there are vast numbers of Palestinian intellectuals and academics who have become Zionized, and it seems this is not enough — the Palestinian people itself must be Zionized too.

The Organization has betrayed the Palestinian people, betrayed the blood of the martyrs and the pain of the wounded and the prisoners, and trespassed against the tears of children, the moans of the sick, and the cries of widows and orphans. The Organization has stabbed the Palestinian people in the back, from every side, and betrayed the trust it was supposed to carry. For this reason, we need to rearrange the Organization’s affairs, independent of the leadership’s aspirations to continue controlling it.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “التلاعب بمنظمة التحرير” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.