Not for sale, Palestinians Won't accept a Puppet Government

Palestinians won’t accept a Vichy government

By Khalid Amayreh

06/18/07 "ICH" -- -- - Occupied Jerusalem, 17 June 2007 -- -The vast bulk of Palestinians, at home and in the Diaspora, will not accept a quisling government in Ramallah that might be at Israel’s beck and call. This is precisely what the Bush administration and Israel expect the new government, headed by Salam Fayyad, to be.
Of course, it is entirely up to Fayyad and his cabinet to prove the falseness of Israeli bedding and American expectations.

Unfortunately, the new government seems to offer a little promise for a better tomorrow for the thoroughly starved, exhausted and tormented Palestinians.

Indeed, the deafening silence by Abbas and Fayyad, et al, in the face of widespread thuggish behavior by well-known armed hooligans who have been vandalizing and burning down buildings, institutions and businesses throughout the West Bank, is very telling.

True, the government is still a few hours’ old. However, the absence of even a verbal condemnation of the orgy of terror and vandalism against suspected Hamas supporters and their families and businesses doesn’t augur well for the future.

Predictably, the US and Israel have been heaping wholesome praise on the Fayyad government. Moreover, the US and Israel have already signaled their enthusiastic willingness to lift all financial sanctions against the occupied West Bank, apparently to strengthen the Dahlan-Abbas camp against other Palestinians who refuse to be bribed or intimidated into giving in to Israeli insolence and arrogance of power.

The Fayyad Government may be temporarily pleased by the American and Israeli support. However, it should understand that American and Israeli backing is like a poisoned chalice.

Experience proved that in the Middle East any government or faction or organization backed by the US will be reviled by the masses. This is especially true in the occupied Palestinian territories where collaboration with Israel, which controls America’s politics and policies, is seen as ultimate treason.

The Palestinian masses know very well what the US symbolize for them, their children and their enduring cause. It symbolizes oppression in its ugliest forms. It symbolizes mass murder, land theft, dispossession, deprivation and ultimate mendacity and hypocrisy. America is the enabler, sustainer and justifier of 40 years of Israeli Nazism whose ultimate goal is the obliteration of Palestinians as a nation, by arrogating their homeland for them and making their future as precarious as possible.

In short, America to the Palestinians is very much like what Nazi Germany was to the Jews. Hence, any government agreeing to throw itself into the American lap will lose its legitimacy if not its very existence. This is probably the reason why Palestinians in the Gaza Strip didn’t fight for Muhammed Dahlan and his men.

During the past 18 months, the US, through people like Keith Dayton, gave us a lot of money and weapons to kill each other in the service of Israel, which doesn’t really distinguish between this or that Palestinian group, as long as they reject the occupation and insist on freedom.

That happened while the US and Israel (and also the hypocritical EU governments) made sure to starve and impoverish ordinary Palestinians in the hope that they would revolt against Hamas and abandon Palestinian aspirations, in return for bread and American money.

Yes, America gave us weapons to kill each other, while making sure to starve and torment us, as if the Nazis of our time wanted us to kill and be killed hungry.

These are not allegations or unsubstantiated claims but well-known facts. US officials and media have been openly speaking about igniting civil war in Gaza and the West Bank. Elliot Abrams, who is answerable to AIPAC, even boasted about his success in setting Palestinians against each other.

Unfortunately, President Abbas never bothered to tell the Palestinian people why and for what purpose he was amassing all these American-supplied weapons? Was it because he wanted to fight the Israeli occupation? Or was it to decapitate Hamas in one full swoop when the opportunity arose? And if the latter was the reason, then can we say that Hamas was justified in its preemptive action in Gaza?

Honest Palestinians knew from the very inception what was going on. The writing was on the wall for a long time, and the national apostasy on the part of certain Palestinian leaders was getting starker and starker.

There is no doubt that any close identification of the new government with the Israeli occupier will invite its demise, and that could happen sooner rather than later.

More to the point, it is wrong and misleading to assume that the Fatah movement in its entirety would back a government that says “yes” to Israel and the US.

A government as such would be a treacherous government, a quisling entity.

Therefore, the new government should watch its steps very carefully and refrain from reaching any agreement with the Zionist regime that could compromise our national rights.

This is not a matter of Fatah vs. Hamas. This is a matter of Palestine and Palestine is not for sale.