The New Palestinian Leadership

[Oppy]

A brilliant article that is 100% on target. I am glad this was written by an arab and also published in an arab newspaper. I hope to GOD many of these ideas listed actually occur. Then muslims will not have an excuse any more about Israel being their biggest problem (which it never really was) and focus on buliding their society in a democratic and representative form.


The New Palestinian Leadership Must Not Make Populist Decisions, but Must be Courageous and Think of the Country's Best Interests'


Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi, a progressive Jordanian intellectual living in the U.S., recently published an article in the Qatari daily Al-Raya titled "'Mahmoud Abbas' - Not 'Abu Mazen,'" in which he claimed that the death of Yasser Arafat - who he describes as "a bone in the throat of the Palestinian cause" - constituted a breakthrough for the Palestinian cause, and that Mahmoud Abbas, unlike Arafat, should refrain from making populist decisions, should rely upon the constitutional institutions, and should incorporate intellectuals and businessmen in the building of the Palestinian state. The following are excerpts from his article:(1)


"The Arab Media Must Stop Using the Nickname 'Abu'"

"First of all, I ask the Arab media to stop repeating the nickname 'Abu Mazen.' This nickname is [one] of the leftovers from the revolution stage and its 'Abu's, which ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, [and gave way to] the stage of the building of the Palestinian state, [a stage] that required brains and realism, and not fists and 'Abu's.

"Today Mahmoud Abbas is not a revolutionary or the leader of a gang war. He is a political leader and a statesman. He has not come to lead a revolution for the eradication of Israel, but to build a Palestinian state and to reach an understanding with Israel on this issue.

"Following the 'Aqaba and Sharm Al-Sheikh summits in 2003, [Abbas] made a courageous statement that the Palestinian problem is a political problem, requiring a political solution. This is the only realistic statement made in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which no [other] Arab leader - not even [Egyptian President] Abd Al-Nasser - dared to make. The price [of this statement] was the sacrifice of Abbas's political future for some time, when Arafat pulled the red carpet out from under [his feet]..."


Why Was Arafat 'A Bone in the Throat' of the Palestinians?

"There were many reasons for this, primarily the following:

"* Arafat's personality remained at [the stage when he was] the leader of a gang war, and did not move to the stage of becoming the political leader of a nation with a complex, intricate, and long history.

"* Arafat was sick with mythomania, the condition of compulsive lying, one of the symptoms of hysteria, [a symptom] that causes people to lie unconsciously, just like breathing.

"* Arafat was one of the Third World leaders who used to surprise the decision-makers in the region and the world with unexpected [actions], such as the establishment of the Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which increased the militarization of the Intifada and drove the peaceful solutions to the Palestinian problem further away...

"* Israel, the West, and the U.S. did not believe Arafat's words, statements, or decisions. These were not institutional, but individual, temperamental decisions, which surrendered to the will of the Palestinian masses. Arafat constantly demanded, and never gave a thing. As a leader, he was a tactician, not a strategist.

"* Arafat was a populist, irrational leader, like any Third World leader who succumbed to the will of the public that created and crowned him, and [who] did not [work to fulfill] the needs of the public, present or future. His main concern was to please the public, which succumbed to his impulses, suffering from his bleeding, narcissistic, religious, national wounds.

"* Arafat and a group of Palestinian poets, headed by Mahmoud Darwish, his cultural advisor and speechwriter for over twenty years, Samih Al-Qassem, Haroun Hashem Rashid, 'Izz Al-Din Al-Manasrah, and others, converted the Palestinian problem since 1948 from a purely political problem to an imaginary lyrical problem that made them poetic superstars. That is what Arafat did when he refused all the political settlements that were offered him, which he viewed through the binoculars of the poet Darwish, and not through those of the realistic politician...

"If [Arafat] had been like Nelson Mandela - as he would have liked - he would have signed the peace agreement at Camp David in 2000. But he did not, because he was Arafat, not Mandela.

"* Indeed, Arafat is the one who put the Palestinian problem on the world map, but on the other hand, he did not help this problem in the domestic [Palestinian] arena. He did not build the institutions of the Palestinian Authority, and did not formulate the Palestinian laws. He let the country become [full of] corruption and anarchy, which ensured the stability of his regime while being a disaster for the Palestinians...

"* Finally, Arafat was a schizophrenic leader. He waved the olive leaf in the U.N. and among international circles, all the while brandishing the rifle in Amman, Beirut, Gaza and Ramallah. The international community could not place him within the peace camp or within the camp of war. This aimless wandering - in relation both to this matter and to other matters - led the Palestinian problem in various, complex, and intricate directions, all as a result of the succumbing of the Palestinian problem to the personal political temper of the leader, instead of to constitutional institutions."


Since Arafat Died the Doors Have Opened

"There is no doubt that Yasser Arafat's death opened most of the doors that had been closed to the Palestinian state. Within a month of Arafat's death, there has been progress, the likes of which the Palestinian Authority has not undergone from 1994 to this day!

"After Arafat's death, Israel has become more flexible, and Israeli public opinion has become slightly more flexible [too]. Their ears have opened, even slightly, to the call for peace. This is despite the attempts of armed Palestinian religious fundamentalism, with all its factions, to close these ears by means of suicide operations ... and by means of declarations of 'bravado' issued by the leaders of these factions over the Arab satellite channels. They are playing with fire without knowing the extent of its danger, in light of the great continuous changes that have taken place in the world...

"After Arafat's death, the Arab-Palestinian reconciliation took place, restoring Arab-Palestinian relations, which were destroyed by Arafat's 'tales of bravado,' and by his irresponsible and unbalanced political positions. Moreover, the doors to Damascus, Kuwait, Beirut, Riyadh, Doha, Amman, and other Arab capitals have been opened to the new leaders of the Palestinian state.

"After Arafat's death, the Europeans and the Americans were relieved. They began to come in their masses to the offices of the PA in order to support the new regime and to participate in the establishment of the democratic Palestinian state by paving the way for elections, by removing all obstacles [to elections] and by supporting the new political trend of the Palestinian leaders...

"We see that Arafat's death has opened a [new] window for the Palestinians. What the Palestinian people, the Arabs, the Europeans, and the Americans did not manage to do, was done by the heavens, which intervened at the right time and the right place and removed this bone wedged in the throats of the Palestinians, which obstructed Palestinian breathing and almost suffocated the Palestinian cause to death..."


Abbas's Path to the Palestinian State

"* Abbas must put an end to the unrealistic illusions that Arafat promised the bleeding, revolutionary public, and must confront them with the bitter truths. One of these truths is that the return of four million Palestinian refugees to Israel is an utterly impossible [demand], which spells out the destruction of the State of Israel. If there is a right of return for the refugees, the only place that can absorb them is the land of the Palestinian state.

"* Palestinian decision-making should not be carried out by the leader, but by the constitutional institutions, the elected legislative authority, and the advisors in educational and research institutes.

"* Political decision-making [must be carried out] on the basis of the interests of the Palestinian people, and not on the basis of its desires and hopes. The populist decisions adopted by the Arab political leaders were the cause of the Arabs' disasters and their regression to their current situation. The Palestinian leadership must be courageous and not think about itself and its fate while making a political decision, but [must] bear in mind the interests of the homeland, the nation, and the future of the generations [to come].

"* A collective Palestinian decision must be taken to stop the militarization of the Intifada and the anarchy in the carrying of guns. The militias and military gangs must be turned into political parties, [and they] must be incorporated into a political Palestinian entity and be allowed to express their opinion in political, not military, ways.

"* All the intellectuals and businessmen should participate in the political building of the Palestinian state. Intellectuals should participate [in the building of the state] by means of [political] awareness, a call for political rationalism, and by fighting against suicide operations. Businessmen should participate [in the building of the state] by means of support of Palestine's economy and by building the institutions of a civil society. These should replace the social institutions which were established by the armed religious factions and through which [they] have managed to rake in the support of a large sector of Palestinian society."

[Roshan]

Why Was Arafat 'A Bone in the Throat' of the Palestinians?

Peace Oppy

Because he sold the Palestinians out in order to maintain his own position.

He did a lot for the Zionists, enabling them to further occupy Palestine (Oslo accords).

Your reading of events mainly mimics the shallow right wing media. The Palestinian side held by intellectuals (including Jewish people) is never mentioned, never mind rebutted. Intelligent zionists also say much the same. Don't think, however, that they believe it. They know what their cause is about.

Roshan

[Oppy]

Peace Roshan

Actually only the words in bold are my own the rest are all written Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi. I agree with him on everything he wrote.

Last time we discussed this. The jerk was still alive and you were telling me about why the US did not want to meet him. In just the short two months since GOD took him away from earth, look how dramatically things have changed. Now you know why.

Because he sold the Palestinians out in order to maintain his own position.

Not really. The reason Palestinians are in the position there are in is because of the general mentality of arabs and muslims in general based on their culture and way they practice Islam and their history of intolerance to outsiders for the last 1400 years.

Thery are in different position than the rest of muslim world where people are controlled by dictator like Arafat and they do nothing about it and accept it since to them democracy or change in leadership is a foreign concept. It only comes by force or from father to son. That is the way it has been for hundred of years. Same lousy leadership and no one ever says a word.

The US insisted on elections and representative government and open society to debate the issues and people vote. Imagine if Palestinans were able to vote as to whether to accept the UN partition plan or not, accept a country on Gaza/WB alone or not, accept refugees not returning to Israel or not, etc. No one person should be empowered to make those decisions on behalf of the millions of people that he controlled. But arab dictators did that on behalf of the Palestians

All those wasted years for nothing. Lets hope the learned that they could have all the weapons on the world and it would still not get them back 100% of what they want.

Oppy

[Roshan]

Peace Roshan

Actually only the words in bold are my own the rest are all written Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi. I agree with him on everything he wrote.

Last time we discussed this. The jerk was still alive and you were telling me about why the US did not want to meet him. In just the short two months since GOD took him away from earth, look how dramatically things have changed. Now you know why.

Nothing has changed in Palestine. One of the main problems with your cognition on this issue is that you are deliberately so ill-informed that you submit to the pathetic and racist zionist arguments that the sole job of the Palestinians goverment is to protect Israelis. Well the last time I checked Israelis had killed many more Palestinians and pretty much every Palestinian suffers directly as a result of the Israeli government. And by the way, the Palestinian elections have always been a sham anyway. Israel is so complicit in the Palestinian leadership it is shocking (the candidates are screened by the Israelis for suitability and I am not sure if every adult Palestinian has the right to vote).

Not really. The reason Palestinians are in the position there are in is because of the general mentality of arabs and muslims in general based on their culture and way they practice Islam and their history of intolerance to outsiders for the last 1400 years.

Thery are in different position than the rest of muslim world where people are controlled by dictator like Arafat and they do nothing about it and accept it since to them democracy or change in leadership is a foreign concept. It only comes by force or from father to son. That is the way it has been for hundred of years. Same lousy leadership and no one ever says a word.

The US insisted on elections and representative government and open society to debate the issues and people vote. Imagine if Palestinans were able to vote as to whether to accept the UN partition plan or not, accept a country on Gaza/WB alone or not, accept refugees not returning to Israel or not, etc. No one person should be empowered to make those decisions on behalf of the millions of people that he controlled. But arab dictators did that on behalf of the Palestians

Rubbish. You know something, I used to believe Arafat was a good man, but an incompetent one. Now I believe he was a terrible man, a dictator like most of them in the middle east who would have been nothing without western/zionist (zionist with regards to Palestinine only - it was they who chose to appoint the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians. At the time the PLO was nothing) backing. You know why I believe this? Because I inform myself. Like I did with Islam, I look at which arguments are superior. You have never answered any of my questions. You merely duck them. Your cognition has not reached the stage where it wants to comprehend truth in a mature way. I had assumed, because of the nature of this forum, that this was the case. I am sorry for over-estmating you.

Furthermore, you are of the type that wants to take human beings as your god. What you want is the stage where those filthy Arabs are looked at as being 'good little natives' by western European countries. Well guess what, they don't care about Arabs. Palestinian deaths are simply not covered proportionally in the media. This unfortunately conditions people with dysfunctional brains into believing that those poor zionists are being bullied by those filthy, smelly and hairy Arabs.

Yes, Arab societies are backward, but this has nothing to do with the Zionist claim that they and their descendants have eternal rights over the Holy Land (you are persistent with your dementia when it comes to a response to this most fundamental of issues). Everything Israel does is designed to consolidate their posistion there. This is what Oslo did. I had not realised this until recently.

Sorry. Again I apologize for lapsing back into treating your response with too much dignity.

So to summarize, your floors are that you take humans for a god and your arguments are superficial nonsense disregarded by those who have been most powerful amongst the zionists (Rabin openly admitted in his memoirs to ethnically cleansing Arabs, Ben-Gurion has freely admitted the intrinsic immorality of zionism).


Roshan

p.s. 1 question which you may answer if you wish : Why do 'Jews' (zionists) have an eternal right to settle in the Holy Land?

[Oppy]

Nothing has changed in Palestine. One of the main problems with your cognition on this issue is that you are deliberately so ill-informed that you submit to the pathetic and racist zionist arguments that the sole job of the Palestinians goverment is to protect Israelis.

When did you see me make this claim or did you see any words to that effect in the article?

Well the last time I checked Israelis had killed many more Palestinians and pretty much every Palestinian suffers directly as a result of the Israeli government.

Would you be happier if Palestinians where in the same shape but killed more Israels and made them suffer more? How would that help with anything?

And by the way, the Palestinian elections have always been a sham anyway. Israel is so complicit in the Palestinian leadership it is shocking (the candidates are screened by the Israelis for suitability and I am not sure if every adult Palestinian has the right to vote).

How come there was never any elections prior to Israel or US coming along? How many elections were held in the muslim or arab world for the many hundred of years? So now the election is not free and the people that win are only because Israel picks them? How does it make the indiviual voter go out and vote for the one it picks

Rubbish. You know something, I used to believe Arafat was a good man, but an incompetent one. Now I believe he was a terrible man, a dictator like most of them in the middle east who would have been nothing without western/zionist (zionist with regards to Palestinine only - it was they who chose to appoint the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians. At the time the PLO was nothing) backing.

I never belived any arab/muslim leader was good man (only men) since they all are incompetent. They had no one else to compete against them to show how stupid they are and what failers that they are. Before 1914 (start of WW1) there was no Israel and the US was not a world power and what were the arabs and muslims doing?  The same thing, dictator after dictator doing the same thing as today.

You know why I believe this? Because I inform myself. Like I did with Islam, I look at which arguments are superior.

How much history (books, articles, etc) have you read about the middleast ? Did you take classes on history about the various periods of the muslims?

You have never answered any of my questions. You merely duck them.

Why does each person that I have a discussion with on this board alway make  this statment. I have been discussing this issue with you for many months and I dont recall ducking a questions

Your cognition has not reached the stage where it wants to comprehend truth in a mature way. I had assumed, because of the nature of this forum, that this was the case. I am sorry for over-estmating you.

I am not sure I follow what you mean. I can't tell if this good or bad

Furthermore, you are of the type that wants to take human beings as your god.

No clue what this means or how you got that impression from me.

What you want is the stage where those filthy Arabs are looked at as being 'good little natives' by western European countries. Well guess what, they don't care about Arabs. Palestinian deaths are simply not covered proportionally in the media. This unfortunately conditions people with dysfunctional brains into believing that those poor zionists are being bullied by those filthy, smelly and hairy Arabs.

I come from that part of the world and I live in the USA and I heared so many time from Jews how also say the Palestinians are given so much sympathy by the liberal media. It goes both ways.

Yes, Arab societies are backward, but this has nothing to do with the Zionist claim that they and their descendants have eternal rights over the Holy Land (you are persistent with your dementia when it comes to a response to this most fundamental of issues). Everything Israel does is designed to consolidate their posistion there. This is what Oslo did. I had not realised this until recently.

Mixing apples and oranges. Yes arabs have failed as a society but that is not my argument for Jew making a claim to any part of this earth.

p.s. 1 question which you may answer if you wish : Why do 'Jews' (zionists) have an eternal right to settle in the Holy Land?

No one religion or race or group has an eternal right to any piece of land on this earth. Given that people have moved around through migration, immigration, wars, etc. over thousands of years I can not see how any group is entitled to a specific geography.

There two issues here. One is ownership of land where one lives  using their own religious rules and applies that to to their community or group and the other is having all the land be part of a country that is setup to follow a certain group or religious rules.
or laws. The first issue is addressed in the West and USA by allowing many people of different faiths, races, etc to come and live and become citizens and own land and apply their own religious rules to their community wich is what I advocte for the muslim world to do. Tell me when arabs or muslims did this since the start of the religion?

The second issue is setting up a nation that has it rules not follow one group or relgion. Had their been a Palestinain state all these years then Israel would be dealing with this issue as the main problem. Many do not want a religious state and want a secular state. That is a big debate going underneath the surface that is only hidden because of the focus on the arabs threating their security. I think Israel would have become a secular state had it not been for arabs constant threat to destroy it and hate against their reglion.

The orthodx and extreme jewish groups become strong in their views after every win against the arbs since they saw that as God siding with them and giving them what they wanted but in reality it was just the incompetence of the arabs doing that for them. They were happy in 1948 to get what was allocted to them by the UN w/o all of Palestine.

[omar_e19]

Salaam Poppy,

All I have to say is that in case you actually believe that the elections in Palestine were "fair and free" then think again,

Mr. Abbas, Israel's lackey, was given free reign to move through the occupied territories as he pleased during his election campaign...Where as his contender Dr. Mustapha Al Barghouti (not to be confused with the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti)  who is a grass roots human rights activist, president of one of the largest medical relief efforts in the territories and who has called for democratic reform within the PA and an agenda based on International law and Human rights, was beaten up, forced to lie in the dirt for hours at checkpoints humiliated choked by Israeli soldiers pulling him by his neck tie, detained for a few days and denied access like Mr.  Abbas, Israel's man of peace... What is most disturbing is that such direct and blatant tampering by Israel in the election process was totally ignored by the larger media.

Not only that... YOu really think the elections were free?  Why dont we compare the situation to Iraq?  In Iraq all citizens living outside their country were given the right to vote... Not only that, but even Iraqi Jews whom Saddam had kicked out decades ago and who became Israeli citizens were given the right to vote!! Compare this to the millions of palestinians in the diaspora who were given no right to elect their leadership.... Its time that the people wake up to this sham...


Peace,

Omar

[Oppy]

Peace omar_e19

My sign in name is Oppy but I guess Poppy also will do.

How many "free and fair" elections were conducted in the muslim world before before Israel and the USA came along were no lackys of Israel were elected in ?

Do not spend too much time looking, I can give you the answer qucikly to save you time?

You are so smart to figure out that he is a lacky but the majorty that voted for him must be stupid. Just like the stupid Americans that voted for Bush and Afghanies that voted for Karzi.

I guess Israel must have sprayed fumes in the air during on election day to make Palestinians vote for Isreal's lacky or maybe they fooled them by giving them special paper that changed the name later to Abbas  :roll:

So if Barghouti won then what was he going to do that Abbas can do. Was he going to get things done for the Palestians that Abbas can not.

In a democarcy the leader is not a dictator and can not just make decision on his/her own and not consult with anyone. So no matter who the Palestinians elect as President, he or she will have to consult with many in parliment to get laws passed and or refrendum and let people themselvs vote on issues. It does not matter who is president at any given time.

Oppy