The Palestinian [Non-] Authority…

Is it only me who finds something strange about the following sequence of events?

Stage One: The cabinet of the unelected Palestinian Authority, led by Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, resign.

Stage Two:  Unelected Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas re-appoints Salaam Fayyad to form a new government.

I have always felt a certain disdain for the way people in power allow themselves to become so disconnected from reality, but the so-called “Palestinian Authority”, who only have authority due to the aid dollars of international donors, are taking the concept to new levels.

Firstly, it is important to recognise that the PA do not represent the Palestinian people, as their title may suggest, and their facade of a mandate is limited to the West Bank.  They do not represent the millions of Palestinian refugees, whose right to return is enshrined in international law, but they are so happy to ignore.  They do not represent the Palestinians of Gaza, who they condemned for electing Hamas, their political opponents, and whose misery they had prior knowledge of months before Operation Cast Lead was launched, yet remained silent.  They do not represent the Palestinians of Jerusalem, whose neighbourhoods they were happy to give away as Saeb Erekat, the first to resign this week, offered Israel the “biggest Yerushalayim in history”.

The PA also announced this week that they would seek legislative and presidential elections by September.  Do you not have to be an elected body before you call new elections?  Or do “democratic values” not apply in this instance?

This is not an argument about the political policies or ideologies of Fatah and Hamas – the make-up of the Palestinian government is the choice of the Palestinian people – but it is completely hypocritical of our government to support a government in the West Bank that is unelected and has little support amongst its people, whilst condemning a government in Gaza that has been democratically elected.  Sadly, it is indicative of the divide-and-rule policies Britain has pursued for so long.

The release of the Palestine Papers last month could not have come at a worst time for Abbas and his cronies.  The Tunisian people sent Ben Ali packing, the Egyptian people finally ended Mubarak’s three-decade dictatorship, and the ripple effect continues to be felt with demonstrations in Algeria, Iraq, Bahrain and Yemen, to name a few.

Unless the Palestinian Authority want to see a Tahrir Square in the centre of Ramallah, they need to seriously think about who’s interests they are serving.

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• mjlewis

  Palestinians in Gaza have had a far, far worse life since Israel removed itself lock, stock and barrel in 2005. We left them thriving greenhouses so that all they had to do was rollup their sleeves, so to speak, and get to work. Instead they ran rampage, smashing every last one of them, so as not to leave even a small vestige of anything Israeli. since then, hamas has ruled with an iron fist, bringing in sharia law, still dedicated – as per its charter – to the destruction of Israel, still screaming hatred, bloodshed and a rule of “from the river to the sea ” (= from the Jordan river to the Med. Sea). Hamas is dedicted to terrorism, still fires almost daily rockets into Israel with the aim of killing as many civilians as possible. so yes, Israel will go after them – and make no bones about it, our Intelligence Services know who the masterminds are, know where the rockets are fired from, where the bomb factories are and we will go after them with everything we have. I believe Britain would do the same as would the U.S. if they were suffering almost dailyattacks in their h omeland. Oh, nearly forgot – one of the casualties of war is the unintentional (onIsrael’s part; not on Hamas’s part, though) of innocent civilians. Gaza is a prison of its wn making. Stop the terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist and there would be peace tomorrow.
  As for the “millions” of refugees, something like 600,000 – 700,000 Arabs were displaced, many no longer allive today. We won’t give a home to 2nd and third generation refugees, most of whom have been kept that way as a political pawn by their own people and with the complicity of the U.N.