Toppling Abbas and His Aides and Prosecuting Them

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

We have seen no good from the PLO leadership since it recognized Israel in 1988, and everything its activities on the internal and external stages have produced is further failure, frustration, and damage to the Palestinian people’s morale and unity. The PLO has torn us apart, causing social and moral rifts, and led us into internal infighting and division. Nor were the various factions far removed from stirring strife and causing further fragmentation in Palestinian ranks and national and moral collapse. Many people endured the successive collapses, believing the organization would bring them an independent, sovereign state, and would return the refugees to their homelands. Now most people speak of successive disappointments and the deepening of corruption, despotism, and the monopolization of money and decision-making.

The PLO has committed various national atrocities against the Palestinian people, assaulted national sanctities, and violated Palestinian laws, instructions, regulations, and resolutions for the sake of the illusion of establishing an independent state, bringing us to humiliation, disgrace, and disrepute, and to every predicament we now find ourselves in. It annulled the Palestinian National Charter and violated its own revolutionary code again and again, turning to the enemies to search among them for a state. It gambled on the United States and its absent conscience to look with sympathy toward the people of Palestine.

The enemies went to great lengths slaughtering and killing us, confiscating our land, demolishing our homes, uprooting our trees, and wrecking our farms and factories, and life became too narrow for us despite its vastness. Finally, the organization, which claims to be the sole legitimate representative of the people, has become certain that what we have repeated in its ears since 1988 is true and proven by painful facts. America has washed its hands of the so-called two-state solution. America stalled, lied, and deceived, and the organization’s own people cannot believe their eyes and ears, which bear witness to America’s deception. Their interests lie with America, and as long as the interest keeps flowing, the liar remains truthful in their eyes.

Had the organization’s leaders been readers, they would have read about Zionist thought, Hebrew thought, and Israel’s goals, and would have familiarized themselves with the foundations, principles, and bases of American foreign policy. They do not read, and always chase after their own assumptions and wishes, hoping to achieve something for the people. They did not realize our enemies are terrorists — or perhaps they did realize it, but their own interests outweighed the interests of the Palestinian people. They turned their backs on the Palestinian fixed principles, panting after a state that would qualify them to walk a vile red carpet — but neither did the state arrive, nor did the red carpet ever extend for their feet to rest upon. And finally, Trump settled the doubt with certainty.

Now, after all these tragedies and disappointments, what shall we do? Abbas is supposed to leave us, especially since he is illegitimate, a usurper of power whose term ended in 2009, and his team, which aided him in humiliating and corrupting the people, should leave with him. Strangely, Dr. Saeb proposed, just yesterday, a new solution: establishing a democratic state uniting Muslims, Christians, and Jews. After all this failure, he still has the nerve to propose initiatives long overtaken by time.

All these failures must leave. They have ridden the Palestinian people for a long time, and still enjoy this ride. Among respectable nations, an official resigns at the first failure, but among us, twenty-four years of continuous failure are not enough to remove them from our sight. The people of Palestine must demand their departure and bring them before trial. Enough humiliation, disgrace, manipulation, and lies. We must begin a campaign, through every means, to achieve political and moral change.

Enough defending the hypocrites. The salary is not Palestine, and Palestine will never shrink down to a salary. Enough of the factions’ feebleness, sluggishness, and chasing after mirages. The factions were established to liberate Palestine, not to rush to Beirut to lend legitimacy to those who have none.

We will remain, God willing, steadfast in our national belonging and our commitment to our people’s cause and to all Arab causes, whatever it costs us in arrests, battles, and trials. We have been truthful with our people since the farces of concession and surrender began, and we will remain truthful, God willing.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “إسقاط عباس ومعاونيه وملاحقتهم قضائيا” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.