Solving the Salaries Problem

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

This solution that I am putting forward, whose foundations I have already discussed piecemeal in various talks and articles, rests on religious and national commitment, and on the idea of solidarity and mutual responsibility. The overwhelming majority of people continually express their deep love for the homeland and their strong faith in God, and I find no great embarrassment in proposing the following solution:

First: those who draw salaries agree to give up, temporarily, 20% of their monthly salaries in favor of the general budget that pays the salaries of government employees. There are those who currently draw salaries, such as university employees, bank employees, civil-society institutions, non-governmental organizations, private institutions, and many members affiliated with the warring factions. Government employees would accept 80% of their salary. The money is returned to everyone who contributed once the siege eases.

Second: the government must adopt a new economic policy that encourages Palestinian production and bans the import of all competing goods and merchandise, and of goods we do not need — luxury consumer goods.

Third: the government opens the corruption files with the aim of recovering the Palestinian people’s money from the corrupt. The government recovers all the vehicles held by the Authority’s agencies, including the vehicles of the Presidency and of the Prime Minister’s office, and sells them at public auction. Some vehicles may be kept for the trusted police, hospitals, and civil defense. It vacates all rented buildings and makes do with simple sites to serve as administrative centers.

And here it must adopt a policy of lowering the level of consumption, and of the fees and installments that people pay in exchange for services.

The economic situation in Palestine is not equal to the demands of standing up to the occupation and to those Arabs and Franks who assist it. It is a disgrace for us to depend on our enemy for our daily bread, and it is a disgrace for us to take political steps that please the enemy so that it will resume pumping money to us. We refuse humiliation: are we not the ones who call ourselves “the people of the mighty”? Are we not the ones who have always raised the slogan “we die, we do not kneel”? Are we not the ones who always repeat “sustenance comes from God”? Now is the test.

If we adopt this solution, we will have carried out a legendary, heroic act that nations will sing of, and we will have taught the Zionists and the Americans and their allies a lesson in steadfastness and mutual responsibility. Through this solution, filled as it is with stumbling blocks, thorns, and hardships, we will have preserved our dignity, and proven that each of us truly carries the other, and that we are always ready to sacrifice, unconcerned by the enemies’ siege, or their starving us, or the sharpness of their weapons.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “حل مشكلة الرواتب” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.