Support for Defending Palestinian Constants

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Palestinians have announced the formation of a body to defend the Palestinian constants in the face of the policy of concession and the futile approach to negotiations that is draining the Palestinian people morally, nationally, emotionally, socially, and ethically. Palestinian conditions have deteriorated to the point of recklessness — not only toward the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people, but toward even the simplest ethical values and decent norms — and to the point of a fierce assault on Palestinian consciousness, especially the consciousness of the younger generations who are supposed to carry Palestine’s pains and sorrows toward salvation and freedom, and to the point where the enemies of the people and the nation are the ones deciding matters for the Palestinian people and arranging its leadership, political, social, and economic conditions. The Palestinian people are no longer only under the weight of occupation or the suffering of displacement, but are also suffering from the ignorance of many leaders, their narrow-mindedness, and their immersion in what blackens faces, stains history, and uglifies the picture.

The people of Palestine ought to rise up against their own kinsmen who are dragging them into the abyss of fragmentation, disintegration, factionalism, concession, and abandonment. The flood has burst every one of its banks, and the Palestinian arena, inside Palestine and outside it, groans under the behavior of the ignorant and the thuggish. There must be action to turn the clock’s hands back, or to set them right again. We have left behind a repugnant legacy that began in 1988 with the resolutions of the Palestinian National Council that recognized Israel, and we must kick it out of Palestinian history.

It is likely that the initiative of the brothers outside Palestine will contribute to efforts to rebuild Palestinian society and restore moral and social solidity to its ranks, and it is important that we lend it our support so that it may succeed. Our thanks go to the initiators, but it is now our duty to stand with them, back them, and offer whatever we can toward their success, which will certainly be a success for the Palestinian people.

We do, however, recognize that the task the initiators have taken upon themselves requires effort, time, exhaustion, courage, and sacrifices. We now live in a world that sees a danger in every Palestinian movement that insists on the Palestinian constants and attacks the Oslo Accord and its annexes, and we do not think that Arab and Western regimes, or Palestinian, Arab, and other intelligence agencies, will be merciful or offer support and backing. The initiators can certainly expect persecution and obstruction, abuse, arrest, and accusation, but patience and diligent work will bear fruit in the end. I imagine the initiators are fully aware that spies and agents will level accusations of treason against them, as is their habit toward anyone who speaks the truth.

We do not expect miracles from the initiators, but the popular momentum behind them, and the support of wide sectors of the Arab and Islamic nation for them, will certainly bring about what we aspire to.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “تأييد الهيئة الفلسطينية للدفاع عن الثوابت” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.