17th Day: Hashtag Revolutions and the Patriotism of Rejecting Your Own "Statehood"

How patriotic would it be for a nation to overthrow their government within weeks, or even during the early years of statehood? Probably not patriotic at all. It would be recorded as an imminent failure to them and a mark that will forever stain their history of struggle and self-determination. I believe this could be a major drive behind the PA's insistence on gaining a seat in the UN as a State of Palestine after two weeks, which will suppress any opposition the PA may be facing with the wave of revolutions spreading across the Arab World. 

I remember back in high-school how I eagerly read about the Battle for Algiers and about the Algerian revolution. I remember how I watched the Arabic movie "Djamila Bouhired" with enthusiasm. I also remember how disappointing the Algerian history unraveled later on as Algeria was becoming a closed society and how terrorism and civil strife took the lives of tens of thousands if not more Algerians who were once viewed as a beacon of hope to all revolutionary nations. Yet, Algeria could not afford a second revolution. Typically it takes ages to forget about a revolution and start a new one. It comes once in a "modern" history. You either win it or you don't. Unless a second phase in your history comes that completely and fundamentally reshapes the country and that is when people forget about their first revolution and join a second with a new generation that rejects their parents decisions/ failures.

What I call the Hashtag revolutions (courtesy of Twitter's hashtags) are revolutions against all the mistakes committed by previous generations. The Hashtags have so far been widely used during post-modern revolutions, and were successful during a number of them: #Dec18 for Tunisia, #Jan25 for Egypt #Feb17 for Libya...etc. 

On the other end, Palestinians attempted so many of them, none were successful and none seem to be serving their purpose no matter how rightful their motivation sounds and how much justice it does serve. The reason? None of these Palestinian revolutions demand true justice which should be the rejection of the PA as an entity which does not serve the Palestinian national interests. 

There is a quite revolution going on, however, which has been extremely powerful and only growing in gaining international support. It is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, or hashtag #BDS.

One of the many BDS campaigns is the Stop Funding Apartheid. Most of these campaigns are run from abroad successfully. The latest campaign shows a typical Palestinian woman who probably appeals to a Westernized eye. A woman who does not look European, yet modern and looks familiar enough to gain sympathy in a society that judges people based on their resemblance to it. Her face, if it only had a smile, would be a perfect face for a University campaign billboard on any US highway. So far, the campaign has gained numerous success. "I am not allowed on Israel's segregated roads". The sentence is down to the point and is strikingly clear about it: you are not allowed because Israel is an Apartheid. So what do I do to help this woman, and any one who is not allowed on Israel's roads? I'd have to stop funding Apartheid. This cannot get any simpler than that. Using the term segregation does not go as far away from the American mind-set as would the word Apartheid which brings back memories of the most recent Apartheid: South Africa. Segregation, however, brings back the American Blacks history of segregation and struggle for equality. Both words were used and the history of both nations is now presented to the readers telling them that "your history is repeating itself, don't allow it to happen again to us."

It is only a campaign such as this one that will be successful. This is a revolution. BDS hashtag is Palestine's post modern revolution which needs the entire World's support for it to be successful. It is also the only successful Palestinian movement that retains both our dignity, our rights and dismisses all claims for a two-state solution without being too straight-forward about it. Soon, the move should become more obvious about demanding equality and that is when their campaign should shift to Arabic and not only English. 

The only Arabic language attempt against a two state solution I've seen in Ramallah was quickly absorbed and was viciously attacked by everyone. It was in 2010 when a huge billboard that said: "Two state solution =  Failure. One State, Two people = Only Hope" was attacked with red paint and markers. A comment that was left on the billboard said "How dare you forget about the martyrs blood?". I could not help but assume it was a PA supporter who wrote the sentence blindly without giving a though to what the martyrs actually would have wanted and how much the PA served their memory. Still, I believe it was too early to present the new approach to Palestinians without previously preparing them to accept such a notice and building a strong ground to support it even amongst PA enthusiasts. 

The wording was horrible as well. The perfect time for a billboard like this woud have been September 13th, 2013, on the 20th anniversary of the failed Oslo Accords or more accurately termed Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. The billboard should have only been presented after years of mobilization and exposing lies and corruption by the PA. Exposing how much Oslo has failed us as Palestinians. And on September 13th, a billboard in Arabic that reads "On September 13th, 1993, the PLO signed Oslo, 20 years later how better off are you?" or a more creative approach such as a familiar-looking Palestinian 20-year old who declares: "I was born when Oslo was signed. 20 years later the West Bank shrunk by 60 percent, my family became poorer, and my rights have diminished" etc.

The new generation has to be dramatically far more self-aware and far more conscious about their national politics. They should also look far more different than their own government: In 2011 Egypt, those demonstrating out on the street were waves upon waves of impovrished and "sarcastic" individuals who looked nothing like their ultra-rich and "stern-faced" government. In 1979, the Iranian revolution changed an open and Westernized society into a conservative one that simply wanted to end the old ways and corruption into a revolution they believed was their only hope; in 2009, the youth attempted a revolution that was crushed and accused of working for a foreign agenda. It'll take probably another 30 years before Young Iranians who were not shot or killed and have no memory of their parents failed revolution in 2009, to attempt to change the system.

In Palestine, a UN bid will serve the following purposes: It will put a seal on a long Palestinian nationalist struggle for independence, thus ending the unofficial struggle with Israel. It will be almost like a CPR to elongate a seemingly short-life for the current PA. The PA will change from being the Palestinian Authority, to the Government of Palestine. A different name that serves the same purposes of protecting Israel and providing means for the Palestinian population to grow within their Israeli-imposed borders while still negotiating for an ever diminishing possibility to acquire the entire 1967 territories.

On the morning of September 20th, me and hundreds of thousands of  Palestinians will still not be allowed to drive on segregated roads that were made for Israelis by Israelis. We will still be going through checkpoints and we will still be at the mercy of teenaged soldiers who can stop us for any reason whatsoever as we drive through their check points. They will ask us for Hawiya-National ID. We will be too afraid to say "Sorry, this is our land and you have no right to ask us for our National ID", and if one was brave enough to do, he'll be left out as most of those other passengers inside a run-down bus between any two places in the West Bank will have a wedding to attend, a husband who waits at home, a sick mother, or food to be prepared. He will be persecuted and found guilty at Israeli Army courts. He will serve time in Israeli prison, and his name will merely make it to the data-base of the PA's Ministry of Detainees' Affairs, but the MOD will have no power to force Israel's occupation forces from freeing anyone. When was the last time the PA was capable of anything that was in disagreement with Israel after all? 

So, how patriotic would it be for a Palestinian to quickly reject a Palestinian state? Probably not patriotic at all. He'll have to wait for another 30 years before it becomes less shameful to overcome your pride and have little memory of the blood that was strained in a strife for independence. The PA recognizes this, and 30 years does sound like a lot of money to be generated from the donor community, despite the fact that the Palestinian citizens of the state will live under the mercy of their factual occupier. 

24th Day: Compared to other Middle Eastern regimes, the PA ain't much different

There is a saying that Palestinians started using, even those most enthusiastic about the PA, that has become a big open secret: "What the Arabs dispose, we use". It does not sound as lowly in Arabic as it does in English. The saying is not a proverb, but it certainly rhymes in Arabic as it does in English. The saying refers to the entire legal, political and even cultural aspects of the Palestinian Authority. It mostly resembles the English proverb: " One man's trash is another man's treasure".

Long before the Arabs started revolting against their own governments, and way before anyone realized that the archaic regimes of the Middle East have rotten so badly that new trees were ready to replace them, Palestinians, including the most enthusiastic supporters, were already mocking everything about the PA.

From an incompetent legal system, to the hoards of useless police officers smoking and chitchatting on the sideroads as cities were in chaos, and even from the time we lost track of the number of security forces that aided one PA subsidiary or even individual. The first name I recall people using to refer to the PA  was "Salata", meaning Salad, which sounds closest to the word "Sulta" meaning Authority. In reference to its chaotic and disorganized nature.

Coming of age when the Sulta were trying to establish their roles as the sole authority in the land (despite being under occupation) I could see the disappointment everyone was suddenly experiencing towards the same people they welcomed with flowers and rice sprinkles in 1994 following the endorsement of the Oslo Accords. 

The Returnees or "al-Ayedoun" mostly disappointed the Palestinians with their inflated egos and their sudden wealth which was unrightfully and corruptly distributed between each other. One of the confirmed stories that happened at the time was never documented and this may be the first time to be revealed in writing. It happened with Yasser Abed Rabbo, PA official who held several posts following his return to Palestine which was permitted by Israel and who currently serves as an adviser to the head of the PA. The story goes that a Palestinian who has endured much hardships during the first Intifada, and has lost most of his wealth to closures and the shattered economy has had heard enough stories about financial corruption practiced by the PA officials and semi-officials at the time, and has had heard enough repulsive roistering stories about sex, drugs and alcohol in Beirut and Tunisia by his childhood friends who had joined the PLO and were driven out to Tunisia after Israel's invasion of Beirut in 1982 but have returned home following Oslo. 

The narrator of the story, in an effort to assist his friends in trying to gain the acceptance of the local society, told them that Palestine lacks infrastructure, has no hospitals and was segmented due to the lack of paved roads, he urged them to show their decency by beginning to work for the people, and not appear as crises-beneficiaries and war profiteers. 

Ashamed of boastfully recalling their stories and their satisfaction with their current financial corruption, they promised to speak to Yasser Abed Rabbo, who was a prominent cabinet member under Arafat. Few days later one of those friends came back with an answer: "inti 7mara?!" was Abed Rabbo's answer, which literary translates as "Are you a moron (female)?!" Yasser Abed Rabbo continued to serve many posts under Arafat, he is considered to be one of the godfathers of the Geneva Accords which agreed to allowing Israel to determine the number of Palestinian refugees allowed back, and the location to where they will be allowed back into. The priority was given to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who were suffering the most. The location was close to Israel's major landfill in the Negev Desert in what seemed like a surrealistic depiction of Palestinians being dumped into the ash heap of history.

Abed Rabbo, also responsible for the rise and fall of the satirical TV show Watan ala Watar in 2011 which criticized the PA, the PLO, Hamas, social and cultural aspects of Palestine but was shut down after it remotely touched on the sanctity of Arafat in one of it's episodes, also appeared in one of the infamous propaganda videos as one of the perpetrators of the Geneva Accords, videos accessible if you click here.

This is not Cairo nor Amman (despite similar outfits
riot-bats) these are PA anti-Riot police, "containing a riot"
which appears to consist of a single old man who opposes
the Geneva Accords, in Hebron. - [Agence France Presse]
caption by local PA-run news papers.

The videos, part of the PA's PR/ reach out campaign to improve the PA's image infront of the Israeli society was mocked by a poster which was heavily distributed amongst the youth in Palestine, and was heavily cracked down on its distributers. The poster showed the men appearing in the videos above with their pants down proclaiming "I am your partner, are you my partner?" Some of those accused of posting it on their Facebook accounts were called in for questioning at the offices of the Palestinian Intelligence Services, whose name "al-Muxabarat" now brings shivers to the spines of Palestinians who no longer feel capable of freely speaking under a growing oppressive regime that still does not have an official state. The Services are now an all-time favorite hosting compound to anyone who dares criticizes the PA, its policies, agreements, or even individual official.

Today, I met a veteran who worked at the Palestinian-Israel Coordination and Liaison who recalled a story that  happened to him during the 1990s. His role at the time as a coordinator according to him was to "limit or deny Palestinians on this street or that road" he claimed that the Liaison was integral for the security of Israel and the Palestinians and he has done his role perfectly. The veteran with a strange combination of a very healthy body, decent sense of fashion, and an extremely old face, recalled one time when a young Israeli official at that Liaison office insulted the Palestinian officers by making his orders disrespectfully then walking out in an uncivil way. The narrator of the story goes on to say that he stopped the Israeli officer, humiliated him but in a well-mannered fashion telling him that his young age and lack of "experience and proper home education" has clearly demonstrated themselves in these short moments since he made his entrance. The Palestinian officers then left angry and insulted.

The next day the narrator was called into the office of Yasser Arafat in al-Muqataa headquarters. People were already making speculations that Arafat was going to shoot him in the head (lack of law and security, anyone?). Arafat, however, was very proud of the narrator for making that stand to the Israeli officer. "What I did was the least my patriotism calls for" the officer declared. Arafat gave him one of his infamous kisses, then passed a small envelope that carried five thousand US Dollars. The narrator, proud of Arafat's move yet prouder of his own response, turned down the "gift" saying "It is not my position to refuse for I shall not turn down a king's gift, but I am a patriot and my patriotism has no price". End of story.

Did I hear him say a "king's gift?" I almost laughed at this patriot's lack of knowledge about basics of democratic elections and, oh, corruption. As I was least-shockingly listening to the story, I recalled a TV report that appeared a month after Tunisia ousted it's former president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The report was showing one of his palaces filled with cash that was directly sent to him from the central bank of Tunisia. Millions, maybe billions, the report estimated. The money was everywhere, inside drawers, desks, pantries,   even cup-boards! The report then filmed thousands, if not tens of thousands of envelopes, some of which already had names of people written on them, and most were almost on their way as "bribes" and "illegal benefits" according to the report.

I smiled to myself, the Palestinian officials have seen their share of international corruption, and as the Arab World disposes its corruption, the PA found its treasures there. you know, like the saying goes " One man's trash is another man's treasure".