Saturday, September 22, 2012

Who's Going to be the First to Fall [of the Palestinian National Authority]


This article is not the result of paranoia, but merely a look into a possible scenario that could change the general atmosphere following the 19th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Who’s going to fall next? By falling I literary mean assassinated. This week marks the 19th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords, an agreement that was thought of as having ended decades of struggle between the Palestinians and their Colonizers (of course it goes without saying that the agreement equated between both parties, never treating the Palestinians as the oppressed, nor dealing with Israel as the oppressor.)
What was different about this anniversary is that almost two decades later the Palestinians suddenly became aware of how destructive the agreement has been to their case (and it only happened when the results of Oslo severely touched their livelihood). Prior to that most Palestinians disregarded the agreement as one step towards their statehood, but only this year did masses of Palestinians took off to the street demanding an end to the Oslo Agreement; however, this time they specified which annexes they were mostly angry about: the Paris Agreements.
The Paris agreements were a number of agreements that accentuated the future economic relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. Having already agreed to form a self-governing body for the Palestinians, or Bantustanizing the situation in Palestine, the potential Palestinian government also endorsed a plan that asserted the colonization of the economic reality between Israel and the Palestinians.
Yet on the 19th anniversary of Oslo, the Palestinians found themselves dungeoned deep inside an ugly reality: an oppressive Palestinian government that is highly armed, a police-run semi-state that controlled most of the resources, a paper-castle of an economy that was completely controlled by donor temperament on one side and Israel on the other, a low-income and probably one of the highest costs of living anywhere in the world. Most Palestinians, including the wealthy, felt poor. Salaries at the end of each month became the only aspiration of any typical worker starting on the first of each month; other ugly realities included an increase in population vs. an inability to grow out of these Bantustans which left a huge mark on the Palestinian centers of “Semi-Governmental Units” including cities and villages; an increase in prices of fuel, bread, food, electricity, rent, the list goes on and on.
But then the demonstrations stopped abruptly the way they started. The Palestinians were once again observing to see what will happen next.
Israel has been observing what will happen next.
The Donor nations (EU, USAID, World Bank…etc) have been observing what will happen next.
Everyone, for years, has been observing, merely moving a Pawn in a chess game one step to the front to keep the game going.
On the eve of the first demonstration that called for the downfall to the Fayyad-run government and Mahmoud Abbas, the latest took the time to join the demonstration [online] claiming that “the Palestinian Spring has begun!” also affirming that Palestine has one ruling body (the Fatah-run PA), one President (himself) and one prime minister (Fayyad)!
The Fatah-run Palestinian Authority suddenly sets a date for the local elections in the West Bank (an election which will be completely boycotted by Hamas and other factions under the conviction that such elections will further assert the Palestinian division). But Fatah is more than looking forward for such a move which will reinforce their dominance in the West Bank.
Prices went down a fraction, Diesel-fuel down one shekel, and the VAT down one half (still up one half from its previous value at 14.5%).
The streets in Palestine were quiet again, cautiously observing.
But something enormous must/ will happen because a pawn in a chess game cannot keep moving indefinitely.
In my opinion, the West including Israel, has been quite keen on Hamas. Hamas is the adverse of the well-hated Palestinian Authority, with very little history in mass-corruption. Hamas also took hold of Gaza years before the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) in traditional peace broker, Egypt, took power. It is likely that the West wants to see how well Ikhwan will do in Egypt: if they succeed then there's no reason to keep the utterly unloved PA in power, which is already creating reasons which are threatening the security of the rest of the World and Israel (None is talking to Hamas which has been a big mistake, and everyone is in support of the a government that functions despite the Palestinians' full approval). I assume the West would rather try their luck with Hamas or perhaps something completely new.
Donors have almost completely froze their funding to the various PA-run institutes to the point where the PA made it public that they are practically at the edge of going completely broke, this has demonstrated itself in the PA's inability to pay the Salaries of almost one third of the working population, whom happened to be the working bees of the Paper Castle created by the PA.
Yet everyone is still observing, waiting for the other side to make a move.
Ultimately someone will.
Either the PA will make a genius move that will completely shift the game back into their favor (this includes a magical potion to instantly revitalize the Economy); or Israel will come up with a sinister plan to root out the PA and have them replaced (perhaps they would suddenly start talking to Hamas out of the blue and when no one sees it coming).
In this last case, everyone in media all across the globe will bring out the dark and unholy history of the Palestinian Authority: news will be all about their corrupt 19 years going over their history one person at a time. The media will shed the light on the suffering of the Palestinians under the PA rule, it will create a new face for their suffering and it will give it a name. The world will be sympathetic and in support of the dismantling of the PA. Perhaps then the PA will be dismembered one person at a time as each person will be a target of systematic assassinations by Patriotic Palestinians (those who either do it out of their own motivations or in support of a foreign agenda).
It will start from the top all the way to the bottom. In this case, I can see Mahmoud Abbas to be the first to fall, followed by the most burned-out Fayyad (perhaps the weakest link). Then the game is on: it will sweep everything in its way: the media politicians and figures (Abed Rabbu), the dumb religious Fatah figures (Habbash), perhaps even randomly all the way down to the most insignificant of the Fatah enthusiasts.