<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[ei: The ascent of the Palestinian&nbsp;pharaoh]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p><span class="text14">Abdaljawad Hamayel, <em>The Electronic Intifada,</em> 9 February 2011</p>
<p><span class="content"> </span></span></p>
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<td><span class="text11">Palestinians in the Dheisheh refugee camp  in the occupied West Bank demonstrate in support of the Egyptian  people, 6 February. (Luay Sababa/<a href="http://www.maanimages.com/">MaanImages</a>)</span></td>
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<p><span class="text14"><span class="content"><br />
&#8220;They are marching to freedom, while we march to surrender.&#8221;</p>
<p>These were my mother&#8217;s words as she reacted spontaneously, but intensely  to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions and lamented over  Palestinians&#8217; self-inflicted wounds emanating from the Palestinian  Authority and its numerous failures.</p>
<p>Economic dependency and an oppressive security state is the recipe that  many dictatorial, one-person, or one-party regimes apply across the  region. This model was followed by the once American-supported, and then  American-deposed Saddam Hussein, to Libya&#8217;s Muammar Qaddafi, who was  first a pariah in the West and then became its darling, to Tunisia&#8217;s  Zine El Abedine Ben Ali who was overthrown by his people, among others.</p>
<p>And while the Egyptian people stand steadfast in an effort to overthrow  their own Pharoah, a similar &#8220;pharoah regime&#8221; is steadily being built  for Palestinians in the West Bank. It is not only surrender we are  marching to, but we are marching &#8212; under PA tutelage &#8212; toward a  typical one-party, pseudo-security state.</p>
<p>&#8220;Pseudo&#8221; because it is not even a state &#8212; this entity exists under  Israeli occupation. And the &#8220;security&#8221; is increasingly repressive  towards dissenting voices, groups and political parties.</p>
<p>Recently, the PA suppressed a march in solidarity with the Tunisian  uprising and repeatedly questioned one of the organizers in an attempt  to intimidate him and his colleagues into canceling a planned protest  near the Egyptian diplomatic mission meant to show that Palestinians who  are in constant struggle for their own freedom also support others who  seek theirs (&#8220;<a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/01/30/palestinian-authority-disrupts-egypt-solidarity-protest-ramallah">Palestinian Authority Disrupts Egypt Solidarity Protest in Ramallah</a>,&#8221; Human Rights Watch, 30 January 2011).</p>
<p>On Saturday, 5 February, the PA, frustrated with an inability to  confront a march by 2,000 Palestinians in Ramallah&#8217;s city center, waited  until the crowd started to head home, to send in their own agents  dressed as civilians in order to arrest and intimidate the remaining  protesters, as was documented in a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HTEmUCti-U">video shared on YouTube</a>.</p>
<p>The Egyptian model which is crumbling on the banks of the Nile is being  applied to the occupied West Bank with the vehement support of the  European Union, the United States, Israel and a segment of willing  Palestinians. Most of the small Palestinian GDP comes directly from  external aid provided by the aforementioned countries. And much of the  touted &#8220;economic growth&#8221; of 8 percent in 2010 stems not from foreign  direct investment or productive economic activities, but from this  injection of aid, and rent-seeking economic behavior by elites.</p>
<p>The public sector in the PA is the biggest and single largest  contributor to GDP growth and to the over-inflated job creation. Some  economic growth is generated by infrastructure projects, including  controversial road networks, which many accused the PA of building in  preparation for the annexation of huge parts of Jerusalem by Israel  after the signing of an agreement along the lines recently disclosed in  the Palestine Papers, <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/691.shtml">detailed records of Israeli-PA negotiations leaked to Al Jazeera</a>.</p>
<p>An &#8220;economic package&#8221; recently proposed by Israel and Quartet envoy Tony  Blair for the West Bank &#8212; which includes an extension of PA &#8220;security  control&#8221; to seven towns, and provides more economic help to  Palestinian-dominated areas in occupied East Jerusalem and villages  surrounding it &#8212; is no more than a signal of appreciation for the work  the PA has been conducting on behalf of Israel.</p>
<p>Alongside the facade of &#8220;economic development&#8221; which in and of itself is  a noble venture, if done appropriately, the PA has for the past five  years been building an effective, efficient and ideological security  apparatus. The ideology espoused by the security apparatus has nothing  to do with Palestinian Basic Law as in any other rule-bound state, but  has to do with personal and party loyalties to the PA president and his  political line.</p>
<p>This pseudo-security state is maintained and strengthened through the  high salaries of those in the highest echelons of the varying security  organizations, salaries that are funded through foreign aid.</p>
<p>By providing them with financial comfort, those heading these  organizations are economically, politically and socially dependent on  the president and his entourage. This process is not limited to the  highest echelons but trickles to the smallest intelligence informants  who are given financial compensation for their work. This complex  security network includes taxi drivers, so-called students, regular  workers, coffee shop owners and others.</p>
<p>Their role is simple, acting as an information stream, providing  detailed data relating to the smallest personal details of regular  Palestinian citizens in order to intimidate them, if they ever dare to  move from the increasingly restrictive private sphere to an active  political one. This oppressive and intrusive network is the &#8220;foreigners&#8217;  gift&#8221; to us &#8212; US <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11203.shtml">General Keith Dayton</a> along with the <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11565.shtml">European Union Police Mission in the occupied Palestinian territories</a> have rewarded Palestinian acquiescence by helping us build our &#8220;own&#8221;  Palestinian Special Police Force and security forces, who are not  educated in the limits of law or the respect of human rights and  dignity.</p>
<p>Instead, they know how to infiltrate and subdue big and small  demonstrations, and are trained in the newest techniques of torture and  they are more than ready to apply the axe of repression if commanded to  do so.</p>
<p><em>Haaretz</em> reporter Amira Hass, who witnessed the suppression of  the 5 February demonstration, writes &#8220;one could not help but notice the  European, mainly French, scent that wafted from al-Manara Square in  Ramallah where the Palestinian Authority once again suppressed a  demonstration of support for the Egyptian people that evening.&#8221; What  Hass notes is that the PA police forces that are now being used for  political repression have been trained and funded by European Union  countries, especially France (&#8220;<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/otherwise-occupied-jewel-in-the-crown-1.341722">Palestinian security suppressing West Bank fervor over Egypt protests</a>,&#8221; 7 February 2011).</p>
<p>Contrary to the PA president&#8217;s and his appointed prime minister&#8217;s claims  that such forces are meant to provide security to the Palestinians  themselves, the training of this police and the way they conduct their  affairs, specifically after this month&#8217;s events, show that their sole  and ultimate role is the preservation of an oppressive regime capable of  protecting and dealing with Israel, with or without popular Palestinian  approval.</p>
<p>After all, Israeli anxiety over Egypt and the prospect of the erosion of  the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty as a result of the democratic  revolution still taking place shows their vested interest in creating a  Palestinian &#8220;pharaoh&#8217;s regime&#8221; here in Palestine. A pharaoh who agrees  to the creation of a sub-state, completely dependent on Israel, lacking  actual sovereignty. A pharaoh who is capable of giving up large parts of  Jerusalem, abdicates the right of return and has in his hands a mix of a  security, media and economic tools to willfully or forcibly impose such  a deal on Palestinians in the West Bank and later Gaza, while excluding  the majority of Palestinians who live in the diaspora.</p>
<p>This process of &#8220;double occupation&#8221; will eventually give rise to  Palestinian fury. Those who have revolted endless times against the  Israeli occupation, who have paid in blood and tears and who remain  resolute, will not stand silent as they see their own leadership lead  them to absolutism of tyranny.</p>
<p><em>Abdaljawad Hamayel is a Palestinian commentator completing his MA in  the Johns Hopkins Schools of Advanced International Studies, Bologna  Center.</em></span></p>
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