Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Best Ways To Prepare For A Heavy Drinking

Corruption, incompetence, collaboration, or all three?

The scandal of the surrender in open country of Mahmoud Abbas as the Goldstone causes a deep crisis. After my post yesterday (translation of a ticket for Electronic Ali), it seems interesting that you comment further on this matter.

In particular, ticket Saree Makdisi remarkable offers three possible explanations:
Corruption, incompetence, collaboration: Oh, The Agony of Choice.
As he says simply, treason is serious
can hardly wait other states to resist U.S. pressure and support a resolution in support of Palestinian rights that the Palestinian delegation itself renounces support - why Venezuela, Nigeria and Pakistan should be more Palestinian than the Palestinians?
Regarding the corruption of the Palestinian Authority, Saree Makdisi essentially repeats information already present in the ticket of Electronic Intifada I translated here yesterday: the direct involvement of the clique Abbas in a telephone company funded by Gulf businessmen and blackmail Israel to "liberate" frequency band for the launch of the network telephone.

I would like to make an aside.

The issue of corruption in Palestine has always seemed problematic: it is a topic typically operated by the Israelis to delegitimize their interlocutors and to pretend they have no "partner" to negotiate (in so, obviously, the economy of their own corruption problems). Wholesale: Arafat is corrupt, it can not negotiate with him, the resistance organizations, they are "Islamic", "anti-Semitic," "terrorists" we can not negotiate with them. Comfortable situation for those who do not seek peace ("we have no partner for peace »...).

importantly, can anyone seriously surprised by the existence of corruption in Palestine? Sixty years of occupation, the issues of permanent power (since in a non-state power obviously can not be purely democratic legitimacy, but only be the result of issues, negotiations, to "balance" diplomatic , history of armed struggle ... to the point that where democratic legitimacy is finally emerging after the elections, it is immediately drowned under the bombs and blockade), the constant need to lubricate the legs (in occupied Palestine and abroad), attendance continues to pharmacies using security themselves to corruption, the long association of Lebanese system (hey hey), the need to finance a gaggle of occult stuff (weapons, communications), the obligation also to establish structures for occult does not serve as a target for Israeli actions, legal money poured into a non-state structures without control or power-cons, and the secret financing from all those involved in Palestine to further their interests or their idea of "peace" (the "Quartet", Israel, Gulf countries, etc..). The Israeli political system, which presents itself as a modern democracy with the powers-cons, is totally botched by corruption. How imagine that Palestine, which has no characteristics of a State, to escape corruption? Corruption, in this situation seems both inevitable and, in part, indispensable.

short, the system Arafat has always been corrupt and has always made use of corruption. But the problem is that is very difficult to use this single argument for denying its legitimacy. There are many other aspects to criticize Arafat era, but the problem of corruption seems naive and (too) easily used by the Israelis refuse to negotiate.

However, with Abbas and the "young guard" symbolized by Dahlan, it is not impossible to consider that corruption became the sole engine of the Palestinian Authority, the central aspect explaining the other two Saree Makdisi points made by the incompetence and collaboration.

The second explanation possible, according to Makdisi, is incompetence.
One explanation is simply incompetent: Abbas and his associates lack so much intelligence, imagination and political skills they have simply missed the whole thing. This is certainly not out of the question: Abbas himself is a man extraordinarily bland and deeply compromised, and his inner circle - including men like Muhammad Dahlan and Saeb Ereikat - inspires even less confidence that Abbas himself . Apart from their deep disdain for Palestinian suffering in Gaza (redress such suffering should be their top priority), it should be clear that a participant in negotiations that voluntarily throw out the window a rare trump card while trying (or pretending) to negotiate is, to put it mildly, not qualified to negotiate from the outset let alone claim to be "lead" a rebellious people like the Palestinians and undefeated. If the direction of Ramallah is also hopelessly incompetent in this scenario is reason enough to withdraw their mandate, if not to dissolve the Palestinian Authority itself. (It is difficult, however, to "withdraw its mandate" to someone like Abbas, who has in any way pas de «mandat» [...].)
L'option de l'incompétence est celle soutenue par Rami G. Khoury dans un billet du Daily Star :
The total emptiness in the Palestinian presidential chair is a problem that has a solution; in one move Abbas can help rebuild the credibility of the Palestinian presidency while simultaneously strengthening overall Palestinian national unity and political cohesion.

He should simply call early elections for the Palestine Authority presidency, not stand as a candidate, and instead devote time to using his other position as head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee to achieve A Critical Need absent from Palestinian life for decades: Namely, building a national consensus by Giving Voice to all groups of Palestinians and Especially to Refugees living in camps Throughout The Middle East.
But the most interesting article by Saree Makdisi, in my opinion, his third option: it explains why and how the Palestinian Authority itself, and how this authority has only one function: collaboration.
Another possibility - which I find more plausible - is that Abbas, the Palestinian Authority and PLO essentially dead are not (and never been at least since the death of Yasser Arafat) interested in genuine negotiations with Israel that could lead to the creation of a genuine Palestinian state in the occupied territories. After all, a major criticism of the Oslo accords of 1993-1995 who gave birth to the Palestinian Authority is that, far from putting an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, they have mostly served to transfer the load and the daily cost that represents the occupation in newly founded PA, while allowing Israel to continue to demolish Palestinian homes, to expropriate Palestinian land and building Jewish settlements in the occupied territories in contravention of international law. Oslo formally divided into three parts the Palestinian territory Israel has occupied since 1967 (Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem), separated from each other and the outside world and, moreover, has divided the West Bank itself into three zones A, B and C. Only in Zone A (approximately 18% of total) that the PA has any real presence on the ground, and in Zone C (60% of the West), the PA has no role nor any presence - and that is that Israel has spent (and still is) to demolish, construct and expropriate. Oslo and the Palestinian Authority, in other words, far from putting an end to occupation and lay the groundwork for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, actually enabled Israel to consolidate its occupation and strengthen its hold on Palestinian land. That is exactly why the population of Jewish settlers in West Bank and East Jerusalem doubled during the Oslo era and continued to increase since then - until the current half a million people.

As recent experience amply demonstrates, the PA serves Israel facilitating the occupation - something Israel was originally coined in the same way that, historically, the colonial powers have always tried to create or exploit local elites to help them manage a large population : an approach nicely summarized by Macaulay in his Minute on Indian Education 1835 ("We must now do our best to form a class who acted as interpreter between us and the millions we govern, a class of individuals, Indian in blood and color but English in taste, opinion, morals and intellect "). Why would she want the Palestinian Authority the end of a system it has? As the French intellectual Régis Debray points out, the status quo elites foune PA in Ramallah "a lifestyle, status, dignity and purpose, and probably (for example, if all rumors on the mobile phone contract proved) more through fees incurred.

Even if we wanted to give the Palestinian Authority, Abbas and his associates the benefit of the doubt and say they are truly the best interest of their people at the center of their concerns, it remains in all cases that the Authority, even in the most optimistic scenario, can not claim to represent a minority of the Palestinian people, since only a minority of Palestinians living in the occupied territories: the majority live either in exile them was imposed by force in the creation of Israel in 1948, or (in the case of those Palestinians who survived the ethnic cleansing of that year and stayed home) as second class citizens in a state that is Jewish and who would systematically discriminate because they are not Jewish.
is a point particularly interesting and important in that it questions the very existence of the Palestinian Authority, set up only to allow Israel to get rid of the management of a minority of the occupied Palestinians (who Ramallah, in practice , managing only a tiny minority of the Palestinian people). In fact, the very purpose of the Palestinian Authority is to be a collaborative structure, "in which case it is no less than the collaborationist" government "of Vichy in occupied France by the Nazis in the 1940s."

As stated Yves Gonzalez-Quijano in his short day ticket, another rumor, fueled by the Israeli daily Maariv, circulates. Reproduced by Palestinian media (although, for once, particularly the need to take conditional), we can not doubt it will have a significant impact), it also fuels the criticism of a "regime of collaboration "
The Palestinian press (http://www.arabs48.com) relays Arabic news" data "(?) by the Israeli daily Maariv that officials in Tel Aviv threaten Abu Mazen to make public a where video can be seen pleading with the latest energy to the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, in favor of an intensification of the bombing on Gaza. It would - it emphasizes the conditional - the disclosure of these images from certain UN delegations which would have led the Palestinian position ...
Angry Arab, he sees already profile is an attempt to end the crisis (which, incidentally, would the logic of the ticket Daily Star): put all the blame on Abbas and be replaced by one of his closest aides (including Dahlan): It seems
that the United States and Israel are going up something: the expression the opposition to Abu Mazen (Abbas) by people such as Muhammad Dahlan and Nabil Amr could indicate a plan to get rid of Abu Mazen in order to save the team collaborationist Fatah. The Egyptian government has just announced a date for signing a treaty of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas on Oct. 25. Hamas should be blamed for the rescue of Abu Mazen.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

How To Colour Beard India

Abbas helps Israel to bury its crimes in Gaza

The information was, again, not the front page of our media: the Palestinian Authority has agreed to postpone by several months to make a formal request submitted to the Council on Human Rights UN findings the Goldstone.

Yves Gonzalez-Quijano has raised this matter in a recent post :
We talk about (yet?) Bit in the press non-Arab, but the postponement to next March at the earliest, the vote by the Council for Human Rights United Nations report written by Justice Richard Goldstone about the war in Gaza, lack of support from Palestinian officials , has not finished reactions. Certainly, the Palestinian Authority says it is a tactical withdrawal to achieve a greater consensus, and it also explains it has undergone enormous U.S. pressure and the threat of a vote now weighs, like the sword of Damocles over the head of the Israeli government that we imagine this event ... terrified

Abu Mazen and others have nevertheless very difficult to accept their decision by international organizations, like Human Rights Watch, have fought to try to condemn the "international community" war crimes committed in Gaza.

And it mildly that such a position gives ammunition to all those in Palestine, feel they are represented by puppets worthy of Puppets Info.
Alain Gresh also returns on the case in his blog Diplo and quotes a dispatch from AFP that says:
President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas is the target of sharp criticism, including in his own camp, following the postponement of the vote on the controversial UN report condemning the attitude of Israel during the war in Gaza. This crisis threatens to undermine Mr. Abbas when the United States is trying to revive peace talks with Israel, are observers. In Ramallah, seat of the Authority, hundreds of Palestinians on Monday denounced the support of their management to the postponement, while others spoke in Jerusalem a "stab in the back and the heart of all the martyrs' . "We want President Abbas to apologize and if the government has anything to do with this decision, we want him to resign," said Mohammed Jadallah, the leader of a coalition of Palestinian NGOs.
interesting they are, these two tickets unfortunately do not really understand the decision to tracks Mahmoud Abbas, and the anger of the Palestinians and their supporters. Should be consulted this very interesting article by Ali Abunimah (Electronic Ali ") to understand the gravity of the situation. For As'ad Aboukhalil ("Angry Arab") is a new record of baseness that just beat the Ramallah regime.

So I give you a personal translation of the article of Electronic Intifada. That its conclusions are correct (I think they are) or false is an important article anyway: when Abbas and Dahlan spend the Israeli border in underwear in the middle of the night (fate Israel by its own employees), when they are shot down, crumbled or hanged (spells which escapes almost no puppet of the West), when the Palestinians persist to vote so-called "irrational", is what kind of charges widely known there, ignored here, for understanding.

Abbas helps Israel to bury its crimes
Gaza Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada , October 2, 2009

Just when it seemed that the Authority Palestinian (PA) in Ramallah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas would not go lower in their complicity with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of deadly Gaza, Ramallah just inflicted a new blow to the Palestinian people.

Abbas delegation to the UN in Geneva (which is officially an Organization for the Liberation of Palestine moribund) withdrew a resolution asking the Council for Human Rights transmitting the report by Justice Richard Goldstone on War Crimes in Gaza to the Security Council to get UN sanctions. Although the PA has acted under American pressure, there are strong indications that the commercial interests of Palestinians and Gulf businessmen closely linked to Mr Abbas have also played a role.

The Goldstone report this in 575 pages the evidence of Israeli war crimes and shocking crimes against humanity committed during the aggression of last winter against the Gaza Strip, which killed 1,400 Palestinians, vast majority of non-combatants, and hundreds of children. The report also accuses the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas war crimes for firing rockets into Israel killed three civilians.

The Goldstone report was hailed as a turning point for Palestinians and supporters throughout the world, the rule of law and requested that suspects are held accountable in international courts if Israel fails to prosecute them. Yet Israel has never in its history, given its political and military leaders legally responsible for war crimes against Palestinians.

Understandably, Israel has been terrified by the report, mobilizing all its diplomatic and political resources to discredit him. In recent days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that if the report was acted on, it would be "a serious blow to the war against terrorism" and "deal a fatal blow to the peace process because Israel would not be able to take further action and take risks peace if its right to self defense was denied. "

Unsurprisingly, one of the first allies in the Israeli campaign for impunity has been the Obama administration, including Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, expressed "very serious concerns" about the report and the mandate Goldstone denounced as "unbalanced, unilateral and fundamentally unacceptable. "(Rice has faithfully fulfilled his word: In April, she told the newspaper Politico that one of the main reasons that motivated the Obama administration to join the Council of Human Rights of UN was to fight against what she called "anti-Israel crap").

Goldstone, which has publicly described her daughter as a loving Zionist Israel, is a former judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa, and a highly respected international lawyer. He was the chief prosecutor of war crimes tribunals of the United Nations for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.

That Goldstone is a severe blow to Israel's ability to commit with impunity in future war crimes is no doubt this week, based on the report, lawyers in the United Kingdom asked a court to issue an arrest warrant against the Israeli Minister of Defense visits, Ehud Barak. This action failed, but the Israeli government has taken extraordinary measures in recent months to try to protect its staff against lawsuits, fearing that the arrest occurred is a matter of time. Parallel to the growing international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, the fear of ending up in The Hague seems the only thing that can push the Israeli government and his company to reconsider their destructive adventure.

One would think, then, that self-proclaimed representatives of the Palestinian people do not neglect such a weapon. And yet, according to Ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi Abbas, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has dropped its action to the American request, arguing that "we do not want to create an obstacle for them."

Excuse Khraishi of that resolution has simply been postponed until spring is not convincing. If no action is taken now, the Goldstone will be buried by then and the evidence of the crimes of Israel - necessary to prosecution - may be more difficult to collect.

The latest surrender came less than two weeks after Mr. Abbas appeared at a summit in New York with U.S. President Barack Obama and Netanyahu, despite the abandonment of its demand that Israel stop building settlements Jewish only on occupied Palestinian land. Already under U.S. pressure, AP has abandoned his promise not to resume negotiations without stopping settlement, and agreed to participate in "peace talks" with Israel under U.S. mediation in Washington this week. Israel, meanwhile, announced plans to build the largest colony in the West Bank since 1967.

What is even more exasperating is the real possibility that the PA is trying to help Israel to wash their hands of the blood he spilled in the Gaza Strip, for reasons also lower than the financial interests of businessmen closely linked to Mr. Abbas.

The Independent (United Kingdom) reported on 1 October:

Shalom Kitale, an aide to Defense Minister Ehud Barak said today that Israel will not free from the radio spectrum that has long been sought by the Palestinian Authority to enable the launch of a second mobile telecommunications company, unless the Palestinian Authority to abandon its efforts to challenge the Israeli soldiers and officers about the Israeli operation. " ("The Palestinians denounce "Blackmail" by Israel against the telephone service " The Independent, 1 October).

Kitale added that the fact that AP abandoning its efforts to advance the Goldstone was a "condition" specific. The phone company, Wataniya, was described last April by Reuters as "a company promoted by Abbas' which is a joint venture between investors from Qatar, Kuwait and the Palestinian Investment Fund in which the One of the son of Abbas is closely involved. In addition, Reuters has revealed that the company birth does not apparently suffering from a shortage of capital to investors through the Gulf, receiving millions of dollars in "aid of the United States in the form of loan guarantees for Palestinian farmers and other small and medium enterprises" (see " U.S. aid goes to the telephone company backed by Abbas " Reuters, April 24, 2009).

Just one day before the delegation Abbas withdrew his resolution in Geneva, Nabil Shaath, the "foreign minister" of the PA has condemned the Israeli threats about as Wataniya a "blackmail" and vowed that Palestinians do not cede.

The betrayal of the Palestinian people by the AP about the Goldstone and the pursuit of its "security coordination" with Israel to crush the resistance and political activity in the West Bank, we must make it absolutely the shadow of a doubt that this is an active arm of the Israeli occupation, acting in a tangible and increasingly against the Palestinian people and their just cause.