What Is General Omar Suleiman Up To?

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

General Omar Suleiman keeps paying us repeated visits, which the official media and political circles describe as missions for peace. Of course, welcome to the great people of Egypt, who will remain a strong support for all the Arab and Islamic peoples, but it is difficult to welcome the head of an Arab intelligence apparatus. To us, Omar Suleiman does not represent the people of Egypt; he represents a failed Arab regime, like the other regimes.

The tours by officials of the Egyptian regime have brought no good to the Palestinian people, and have made no contribution whatsoever toward easing their suffering. This regime, which claims to represent the largest Arab state, has been unable to earn any respect from the American president or from the head of the Zionist government, yet it still presents itself as a fair mediator for peace. All this regime has done is entangle the Palestinians further in the labyrinth of the “peaceful solution,” which aims at nothing but surrendering to everything Israel wants.

Intelligence men are not fit to be mediators, because by the very function of their job they stand against the people and the nation. As for Egypt, it must not be a mediator; it must stand within the Arab ranks.

Certainly the general comes to survey the Authority’s security capacity to pursue the resistance factions and implement the Road Map and Sharon’s Gaza initiative, and certainly he did not come to mobilize forces in defense of Rafah, or to rally Arab energies in support of Fallujah and Najaf.

We assure the general that the Palestinian people do not want to surrender, despite the suffering and the pain, and that we will not accept the American-Israeli conditions, however harsh circumstances become. We need to set our internal affairs in order, so that we may carry one another and distribute the burdens, making them easier to bear. And if the general wishes to know the Palestinian people’s view of his tours, he is welcome to go and ask the people themselves.

With respect.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “ماذا يصنع اللواء عمر سليمان؟” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.