Why the Silence, O Palestinians

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

For long years now the people of Palestine have groaned under the weight of corruption, which has piled occupation upon occupation and grief and sorrow upon pain, and for years there have been those who try to confront it because of the terrifying consequences it carries for the people, the homeland, and the whole of the cause. The cries go out, and the people do not move: they do not protest, do not demonstrate, do not defy, do not avenge. A people falls silent while the violation of its rights, its honor, and its wealth continues, with recklessness and mockery. The corrupt push their corruption further, as if saying to themselves and to us that the Palestinian people have surrendered and turned into individuals each seeking only his own private interests. They mock us and hold us in contempt.

Corruption scandals go on unabated, and most of us find nothing to do but amuse ourselves with tales of corruption in our gatherings and salons. The image of the Palestinian is being sullied, his dignity dragged through the mud, and the peoples of the earth look at us with derision and mockery. And we remain hiding, fearful and terrified, from hired cowards who violate the sanctity of the homeland in broad daylight.

Dayton controls the course of our lives in cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency, the American consul draws up our policies for us, governments are installed over us by the Americans and the Israelis, and the Europeans enslave us with their money, turning us into beggars who sell themselves, their land, their holy places, and their honor for crumbs. Thanks to the renegade corrupt, these people have turned Palestine into money, national rights into cars, and the blood of the martyrs into fuel.

We watch our honor and our rights violated before our very eyes, we watch the bride of cities being Judaized and turning into a stranger to us, we watch the people being torn apart and fragmented, we watch morals deteriorating and the social fabric breaking apart, and yet we content ourselves with whispering about corruption and the corrupt. Cursed be whoever thought the corrupt would build a state, and disappointed be whoever entertained doubt that Israel would liberate him. The corrupt are Israel’s tools, they are its eyes upon us, and it always relies on them to accomplish what it has been unable to accomplish itself. And what matters most is that they do not hesitate to accuse others of treason, nor do their financially benefiting hangers-on hesitate to defend them.

We must return to ourselves, and carry our cause with our own hands. Let us all know that he who is silent about the truth is a mute devil, and that he who is silent about the truth aids the oppressor in his oppression and the corrupt in his corruption. The cause must be taken out of the hands of the corrupt, and the people must remain the trustee and guardian of their own cause. This will not come about through silence, nor through indulging the corrupt. They spread fear and terror through our ranks, and this is a disgrace against a people that has resisted for a hundred years.

One of the corrupt said to another: do not embezzle the money of the martyrs’ children wholesale; his companion replied: this is a flock of sheep that knows nothing but sniffing the scent of the slain.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “لماذا الصمت أيها الفلسطينيون” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.