The Palestinian Is More Beautiful Than His Media Image

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The image of the Palestinian in regional and world media is not entirely flattering — it sometimes appears ugly and off-putting. Screens have shown images of internal Palestinian conflict and bloody infighting, images of thugs spreading chaos and assaulting people, and repeated stories of moral scandals and stolen money over the years.

Some honorable images do appear from time to time, showing the Palestinian’s ability, perseverance, patience, and strength of resolve, but these images are not the dominant ones — what dominates is images of bickering, accusations and counter-accusations, moral collapse, and disregard for the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people.

It is true the Palestinian arena suffers from moral, social, and national crises, sometimes sinking to a degree of degeneracy, and it is true that some Palestinians have paved the way for Arabs and Muslims to deal with Israel, and encouraged many states on the world stage to abandon the Palestinian people and side with Israel — but these matters do not sum up an entire people, and do not mean the Palestinian people is a partner in farces, crimes, or misconduct. The Palestinian people is far greater than these squalid images — it is a people loyal to its cause, one that has never disowned its history, heritage, and authenticity.

Media and the Event

Media does not usually report behaviors and positions that do not constitute an event, usually focusing on events that could become news, that could arouse interest. Media does not usually report a neighbor helping a neighbor, but quickly reports news of a neighbor assaulting a neighbor. It does not report news of a young man protecting a girl from an assault, but rushes to report a young man assaulting a girl. Many Palestinians stand against negotiations with Israel, but what is prominent in the media is the activity of the Palestinian negotiator; many Palestinian intellectuals stand against normalization with Israel, but the media reports the Authority’s prime minister participating in the Herzliya Conference. And so on.

Palestinians detest Palestinian infighting, but the media focuses on a Fatah member and a Hamas member exchanging gunfire, or on Palestinians arguing like wild roosters on television screens. This is not necessarily deliberate, because media, by the nature of its work, does not focus on the monotony of life, but on what breaks this monotony, or what constitutes a distinct event that draws attention or signals something that may deviate from the routine.

Some media outlets deliberately search for scandals and for what is harmful, but the prevailing trait in media interests is novelty, or what they call news worthy of reporting. In any case, setting aside deliberate media malice, respectable media does not report harmful material unless there is some yeast to it, or some smoke pointing to fire.

Palestinians Have Harmed Themselves

There is no denying that some Palestinians have harmed, and continue to harm, the Palestinian people. Here I list some matters no longer hidden from Palestinian or non-Palestinian alike:

First: Palestinians did not always behave decently when the Palestinian resistance operated in Jordan and Lebanon, and the Palestinian leadership was not careful about discipline, leaving many thugs and bullies to spread terror, intimidation, and extortion in the street, and these same disgraceful behaviors were carried over into Palestine after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.

Second: although Palestinian sacrifices were immense, Israeli security infiltration of the Palestinian ranks was extensive, costing Palestinians dearly, and the PLO’s apparatuses never worked to correct the security situation.

Third: Palestinian leaderships signed the Oslo Accords in explicit, clear violation of every Palestinian charter, opening a wide door for Arab, Islamic, and world states to recognize Israel and normalize relations with it. The leadership did this without recovering any of the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people, thereby meeting the Israeli demand for establishing a self-rule authority that would relieve the occupation of the burden of managing the civil life of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Fourth: the Palestinian leadership began security coordination with Israel, established a number of security apparatuses to carry out the task, thwarted many attempts at military action against Israel, and began arresting resistance fighters.

Fifth: the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Gaza until 2006) turned into a stage for Americans and Europeans, with the American consul, the American security coordinator, and the Central Intelligence Agency holding the reins of affairs at the expense of Palestinian will.

Sixth: the occupied territory overflowed with tales and stories of corruption and financial embezzlement, to the point that corrupt states began to outdo one another at the Palestinian people’s expense.

Seventh: the Palestinian factions engaged in infighting, and near and far watched as Palestinians shed one another’s blood.

Palestinians Have Also Done Themselves Proud

Against these ill deeds, there are great deeds that bring praise to Palestinians, keeping for them a beautiful image far removed from the leaderships’ actions. Among them I mention:

First: the Palestinian people has fought for a hundred years, and still insists on continuing until its homeland is restored. Part of this people now shakes hands with Israel, but the majority, inside Palestine and outside it, insists on remaining and liberating the land. The people endures refugee camps and continuous pursuit by Israel, Arab regimes, and many states, and endures killing, destruction, starvation, pain, grief, and the suffering of displacement and expulsion. This people, which endures all of this, is a great people deserving of appreciation.

Second: the Palestinian people has not surrendered to its leaderships, remaining loyal to the blood of its martyrs, and prepared to offer further sacrifices.

Third: the people has waged broad popular intifadas lasting over long periods of time, enduring all the pressures that accompanied its struggles.

Fourth: mutual compassion and empathy still exist within the ranks of the people, despite all the policies aimed at tearing apart the social fabric and draining the moral level.

Fifth: some of the people are comfortable being held hostage for their daily bread by Europeans, Israelis, and Americans, but the majority of the people understands that donor states’ money is used to buy political positions and abandon the people’s fixed national rights.

Sixth: most of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza reject normalization with Israel, reject security coordination, and reject recognizing Israel and the agreements signed with it.

Seventh: the Palestinian people looks to its Arab brethren, and to all Muslims and the free people of the world, as partners, extending its hand for cooperation. It is a people that rejects nationalist parochialism, rejects the state of fragmentation sweeping the Arab homeland, and looks forward to the day the nation’s ranks are reunited.

Between the People and the Leaderships

The misconduct of the Palestinian leaderships is not the misconduct of the Palestinian people, and the people does not bear the burden of the scandals, thefts, and reconciliation with the Zionist entity. It is true the Palestinian people bears part of the responsibility because of its silence about what is happening, or its failure to move against what is happening, but it is a people no different from the rest of the subjugated Arab peoples. Unfortunately, the people has managed to confront the invasion for a hundred years, and still has the energy to continue, but it has not managed to overcome a hundred corrupt individuals who speak in Palestine’s name, or appear on screens as though they represent Palestine.

Peoples bear responsibility for their silence over the atrocities committed against them, but they sometimes run up against a discouraging heritage, sometimes against temptations and bought consciences, and sometimes against repression and abuse. The Palestinian people is subjected to various kinds of policies aimed at preserving its silence, but it also suffers from an occupation that works, by force of arms, to smother any change.

Were this people to overturn its internal conditions, it would simply face hundreds of active Zionist checkpoints, would face curfews and bans on internal movement, and a ban on transferring money from abroad, and so on. In other words, the obstacles facing the Palestinian people in changing its situation and imposing its will on its leaderships, or changing them, are doubled.

The Western States

Not to mention the Western states’ establishment of the Zionist entity, and their continued support of it in every field, these states now play another role: demolishing the Palestinian people from within. Throughout the years, they have worked to keep the people weak and defeated by Israel, pursuing its resistance fighters, but now, since the late 1980s, they work to sabotage Palestinian society and control its economic, political, social, cultural, moral, and educational paths.

The resolutions of the Palestinian National Council of 1988 opened the door wide for meddling with the people in the West Bank and Gaza under the banner of peace and a two-state solution for two peoples, and this meddling was reinforced after the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.

The most important thing in this matter is tying the Palestinian people’s daily bread to the donor states’ money, whose disbursement is ultimately controlled by America and Israel. In this, Europeans, in cooperation with Israel and America, worked on the following:

First: they encouraged inflating administrative staffs in official Palestinian institutions, in order to increase the numbers of people dependent on salaries coming from donor states. I do not know the exact number of government employees now, but I estimate it exceeds 180,000, including members of the security apparatuses, and these support families in proportion to their numbers. The Palestinian people tried rebellion by electing Hamas to the Legislative Council, and most of these employees rose up demanding their salaries, forming a rope around the Palestinian people’s neck. In other words, the Western states work to enslave the Palestinian people through money, with the help of tamed, domesticated, well-fed Palestinians.

Second: Westerners provided many individuals within the Palestinian Authority with abundant money, luxurious cars, and many pleasures, moving them from states of poverty and hardship to states of bliss they had never dreamed of or imagined. These people are prepared to sell the Arab homeland, not just Palestine, in exchange for the milk continuing to flow.

Third: Westerners encouraged and funded corruption, and continue to fund it, because they know that recognizing Israel, trampling on the blood of martyrs, being lax about Palestinian rights, and dragging the people toward disintegration can only be done by the corrupt. People of honor and national commitment do not do such things, and it was necessary for Europeans to manufacture a corrupt class in order to continue leading the Palestinian people toward the abyss. Of course, the yeast already existed — Europeans only had to add more butter and honey.

Europeans grew weary of the corruption that has prevailed over the years of the Palestinian Authority’s era, but they eventually found a means for “professional” corruption. That is, corruption must continue, but in a scientific, methodical way that does not give bad impressions of the corrupt. The greatest example of this is allocating the large portion of the Authority’s budget to the security apparatuses, while neglecting the importance of agriculture and housing.

Fourth: actively contributing to besieging and pursuing any Palestinian who deviates from the rules of demeaning the Palestinian people and damaging its reputation.

This means there is a systematic international effort to harm the people of Palestine and drag it into disgraces, in order to dry up the popular support available to it in the Arab and Islamic arenas. Of course, most Arab regimes are not innocent — they are partners in implementing the policies of the Europeans and Israelis.

The People of Palestine, Like the Peoples of the Nation

The people of Palestine suffers as the peoples of the nation suffer, indeed its suffering is greater in scope and extent. It does not differ radically in its values and morals from these peoples, and it is affected by events, by leaderships, by conspiracies and foreign policies, just as all peoples are affected. But the Palestinian people falls within a circle of concentrated targeting, and there are many powers and states concerned with bringing it to its knees, killing its morale, and tearing apart its bonds. A people facing all these burdens is bound to be affected, and this effect is sometimes reflected in some of its conduct, appearing ugly in the eyes of some.

The people of Palestine is a good, generous, giving, and courageous people, and if frustration afflicts it at times, this does not mean the end of the road, nor does it mean it has turned into a mount that never rebels, or that turns however its rider wishes. There are stumbles now, but there is also a labor pang. More and more people have come to grasp the deception, and grasp what the treacherous have plotted against them, and their stature will rise again, and pride will return to their brows.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الفلسطيني أجمل من الصورة الإعلامية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.