Tackling Corruption
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 11 Nov 2024
Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service
3 Nov 2024 – I give talks and interviews on Palestine daily. I also travel the world giving talks; in one recent trip to Australia and New Zealand I gave 212 talks in 17 cities (average four per day). The most embarrassing question I get asked frequently is along the lines of “with the most just cause in the world and the most ruthless colonizers, why do you Palestinians have such incompetent corrupt leaders?”
My late friend Edward Said wrote about the Palestinian authority extensively and prophetically write a scathing article about the Oslo Accords in October 1993. His books and writings were thus banned in the Palestinian areas for a while by the late Yassir Arafat. I was not as strong a critic as he was. But after returning to Palestine in 2008 I learned so much more about the inner workings of the hooligans who signed this “surrender document” and were placed by Israel and the US to run the civil affairs of our people under occupation so I became more critical and less forgiving.
My life’s work over the past 40 years of activism was focused against the Zionist onslaught on our people and our environment. I wrote hundreds of research and other articles, over 30 chapters in books, and several books. I discussed in these and some interviewed shortcomings including corruption, collusion with occupiers via security coordination, incompetence and removal or marginalization of Fatah people of good will and importance (people like Afif Safieh, Ihab Bseiso, Marwan Barghouthi, Nabil Saath). I started to compile data. I befriended critics like Nizar Banat (who was killed by the Authority) and Basil Al-Araj (jailed and mistreated by the authority and killed by Israel). The data and material I accumulated corruption is voluminous and I may end up putting it in a book later. 98% of my time remained focused on fighting colonial racist Zionists. But I also was harassed by governments (including Israel, Jordan, USA, and indeed the Palestinian authority). The older I get, the more experience tells me I need to speak out more.
When I researched my book on popular resistance in Palestine, I understood how much damage the authority caused and still causes to all forms of resistance including popular resistance (unarmed). But I also learned increasingly that their biggest sin is “ego”, not being willing to admit their mistakes (be it in Jordan, Lebanon, or the biggest mistake of all: Oslo agreements). Oslo as Edward Said labeled it was our second Nakba. If the Zionists do succeed in liquidating the Palestinian cause, you can squarely put the blame largely on the signing of Oslo and its ramifications. The second mistake was not leaving Oslo after the interim 5 years “transition period” of Oslo ended in 1999. But an equally important mistake (sin) was not using the opportunity of governance to develop a system of governance based on law which respects all segments of our society rather than promote those who kiss ass to the leader regardless of their corruption or incompetence.
Thus, year after year the corruption and incompetence grew worse especially in the areas most critical for our Palestinian cause. For example, the foreign service appointments: “ambassadors” who are appointed for political purposes and who know very little and harm the cause rather than help it. This is a generalization that applies to 99% of our representatives. Exceptions like the brilliant (and friend) Husam Zumlot our representative in the United Kingdom actually prove the failure and incompetence of others. But other areas clearly saw corruption and nepotism become systematic and malignant. Even in areas like the environmental protection where good people were removed and subservient individuals promoted regardless of competence. Government contracts are handed out not on meritocracy on kleptocracy.
I, like Edward Said and millions of Palestinians, disagreed strongly with the choices made by this Oslo group to build the Palestinian administration that relieved Israel from cost of occupation and from international isolation based on not even promises of freedom or return of rights. But I also can’t help but feel sorry for those who took that path. It must be very painful for a human being to go down a tunnel where there is no possibility of a light at the end and during this trip into the depths of darkness feel the leaches crawling up his back sucking his blood and voices from behind calling him back (some of them his political enemies, others ex-comrades in Fatah). Palestinian negotiators are fearful of going back because they think it might give political opponents a PR tool. They are just fearful of losing face; I am always grateful to a wise advisor who 30 years ago convinced me to drop this fear of admitting mistakes. They may also be fearful of losing a job, or fear that the alternative to Fatah maybe just as bad, fear of Israel, or fear of the US or just simply fear of their own power. But ultimately fear is a lack of self-confidence to take another course. And their fear should be balanced by the fact that people are literally dying for justice and wanting leaders to care about them and not about themselves
The leaders had many chances to admit mistakes and reset the course:
- the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and elections of the right wing Netanyahu government in the 1990s;
- the murder of Yasser Arafat in 2004;
- the Palestinian elections in 2006;
- the opportunity created by the Gaza Ghetto uprising and the ongoing genocide.
The latter is particularly important since it may be the last chance to reset the course. How do you reset the course: get rid of corruption, reform the judiciary to be truly independent, end the unilateral decisions, bring the masses of Palestinians with intellectual abilities to replace all the corrupt people, leverage our only golden asset: our people. Yes, this is not going to be easy, but you can start. Palestinians do not have to line-up with governments. We do have to 1) speak truth to power, 2) build something positive despite incredible odds, 3) try to find and encourage the goodness in ALL humans.
Briefly, we must challenge corruption and greed that leads to war and conflict. We see both large scale greed and corruptions: Trump, Biden/Harris, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and General Sisi of Egypt, and our own corrupt Palestinian “leaders”. How do we make sure that people we know do not continue down that path (addictive/destructive)? Fatah and other factions can redeem themselves if we get strong intellectual leadership. But this must emerge from the bottom and go up. People can make a difference. With courage and conviction, Palestine can rise like the Phoenix from the ashes.
You/we owe it to over a quarter million martyrs, a million injured, we ow it to the millions of refugees. We owe it to our children, grandchildren and generations to come. We owe it to the dismembered bodies of Palestinian children. We owe it to the fidayyeens who paid the ultimate price of resistance. We owe it to the hundreds of millions around the world who declared in the streets of every city in the world “in our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.” We owe it to Palestine and to the world. Let us work hard NOW to start a dialogue and start organizing…
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Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East. Qumsiyeh is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, author of Sharing the Land of Canaan and Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem. http://palestinenature.org
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Tags: Corruption, Egypt, Israel, Palestinians, Politics, Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA
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My name is Lorena. I live in Spain but I am not Spanish- not any nationality really- by choice. I used to teach human rights at a university in Tokyo. I really admire your work for Palestine. It seems like the present Israeli government is doing what was done to them during the holocaust rather than having compassion for those suffering immensely. My heart and thoughts are always with Palestine to the point that sometimes I cannot sleep at night thinking of their unbelievable suffering. I often want to hug the Palestinians in Gaza and show them they have a friend. Pls tell me what I can do from this end. Here many people do not know or do not care about Gaza. Some even think hat Gaza is a person when I ask them to pray for Gaza. Mass apathy, egoism and narcissism are social evils which one has to deal with in modern society. That is why we need people like you. Keep up your wonderful work. Your friend Lorena