Shabana and National Duty

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

In our country, who is the criminal: the one who steals the orphans’ money, or the one who says of him that he steals the orphans’ money? Naturally, it is the one who says so, not the thief. Who tears down the homeland? The one who collaborates with the enemy, or the one who calls the collaborator a spy? Naturally, the one who says so, not the spy. Who destroys institutions? The corrupt man of connections and favoritism, or the one who criticizes the dysfunction? Naturally, the one who criticizes the dysfunction.

Mr. Fahmi Shabana came forward with some of what he knew, and accusations of treason and collaboration rose up against him. Naturally, those who accused him are themselves the traitors, the collaborators, the corrupt. This, to a great extent, is how things stand in our country: whoever tells the truth is the criminal, because the truth may spare no one, and it is capable of bringing down many heads. Or as Sheikh Taher, who called Shabana to persuade him to stop publishing the scandals, put it: “there’s a million scoundrels, all tied together.” The sheikh meant to tell Shabana that Sheikh Tayseer was not the only one — there are many others cut from the same cloth.

The goal, certainly, is not scandal for its own sake, but the spreading of the truth, in the hope that the people of Palestine might stand up in their own defense against those who are eating away at its body from within.

These are the men the occupation protects, the men the donor states shower with favor, the men whose brand-new cars run on the blood of Palestine’s martyrs. These are the whoremongers who play the lion over us with their apparatuses of repression, under the umbrella of the occupation, with rifles the occupation supplies them or licenses them to carry. They are agents of the enemy, and agents of Satan.

Shabana spoke out, and we found an assault mounted against him. But where are those who praise what he has done, in private gatherings and among friends? Why does not one of you dare to stand with him firmly and courageously? You who hide away out of cowardice and fear are nothing but an aid to the oppressors, the corrupt, and the enemies of the homeland. The overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people support what Shabana is doing — but where are the raised voices that proclaim the truth openly?

Mr. Shabana: you are doing great work, and it is your national, religious, and moral duty to lay the truth bare before the people of Palestine, exactly as it is. I am one of those who have long been certain that Palestinian leaderships were brought into being in order to liquidate the Palestinian cause, and that most of their members are directly tied to the enemy. But the documented information you are presenting marks a turning point that may yet help resurrect the Palestinian cause anew, and free it from the hands of those who cannot be trusted with the entrails of a dead chicken.

You surely receive many calls urging you to stop what you are doing, but you carry a historic trust, and it is a heavy one.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “شبانة والواجب الوطني” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.