The Palestinian Dialoguers Are Liars

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

For ninety years the Palestinian people have fallen victim to the deception and duplicity practiced by their leaders, of every stripe and color, and to their own hopes, which they dream will one day turn into reality. Since 1917, Palestine’s leaders have thundered and raged, threatened and promised, delivered resounding speeches, led thunderous demonstrations, and issued fiery statements, promising the people goodness and blessings, worldly happiness and the bliss of the hereafter. And most of the people, in good faith and trusting in “God’s blessing,” have marched along cheering behind these leaders who have perfected the arts and methods of lying. A people marches along cheering and hoping, offers enormous sacrifices, and wages battles filled with heroism and pride — yet its efforts are squandered in vain, and its garments fall away from it piece by piece. That is because its leaders betray it or broker it away. The leaders before 1948 promised independence by day and sold land to the Zionists by night, and the leaders since have boasted of one victory after another while the homeland is sold off wholesale.

Since 1996 Palestine’s great and mighty have been “dialoguing,” distracting the people with this disgusting, absurd subject, trying to convince people that they are serious, that they stay up through long nights and cross great distances out of concern and devotion. Your devotion is a lie, and you bring the people nothing but more disputes and illusions. The history of peoples who fell under occupation has never witnessed such an adolescent pattern of confronting occupation. Shame on you.

And why must you deceive us further by traveling off to Mecca? Are there no places in Gaza where you can sit and discuss matters calmly, in free Palestinian will? Does Gaza feel too small for you, or is it you who feel too small for free, proud Gaza? The homes of the poor, the martyrs, and the prisoners do not suit you, it seems — the embrace of the chiefs of the Arab intelligence services is apparently warmer and far richer in money.

What is it you say in these dialogues? If you were honest, you would conduct your dialogues live on air, before the people and before the media. We want to know what you say and how you converse with one another. We want to know this astonishing magic over which you disagree. If you imagine that we look to you as role models of ability, then let me assure you that you are mistaken. We see you as children toying with the fate of the people and the homeland. We know that you lie, that you play the hypocrite, that you mislead people and falsify facts, and that you are leading the people toward more sorrow and more pain. You have turned Palestine into a loaf of bread, and you traffic in the blood of martyrs, the tears of mothers, and the groans of orphans and the destitute. And on top of that, you spill the blood of the Palestinian people, and your rightful place is prison, until it becomes clear to us which of you should be led to the gallows.

I call upon the people to raise their voices against this recklessness, and to gather together to create a popular movement that forces these reckless men to stop toying with the fate of the Palestinian people. We must be a living people who submit neither to an oppressor nor to a traitor, for there is no life for a people that must beg others for its security and its bread.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “المتحاورون الفلسطينيون كاذبون” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.