Thursday, July 9, 2009

Guess What? It is Palestinian Pundit's Third Anniversary!


By Tony Sayegh

It is hard to believe, but three years have passed by since the start of P.P. The first post on July 9, 2006 dealt with Gaza and was titled, “No, This Is Not a Warsaw Ghetto, This is Gaza Now!” Three years later, Gaza is in a much worse shape, thanks to the total, medieval, siege imposed and enforced jointly by the IOF and their new ally, the Pharaoh of Egypt.

A lot has happened in the world during these three years, but in the case of the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular, not only there has been no progress, but actually there has been regression. Not only that none of the Arab regimes are actively supporting the Palestinians, but actually many of them are actively working against them and are normalizing with the racist state of Israel as it puts into action the most racist and expansionist colonization of what is left of Palestinian land.

To make things worse, the so-called Palestinian leaders are totally incapable of even loosening the noose which they voluntarily put around their own necks. I am not only including the quisling Abbas and his Dayton army, but also Hamas which chose to be part of the Oslo process, while denying that. Instead of liberation and real resistance the Palestinian "leaders" are now after "recognition" and are chasing the same Oslo mirage while the land disappears under their feet.

One was hoping that Hamas would turn the tables against the quisling PA, but instead it became a de-facto part of the PA. We keep hearing the same nonsense about "elections", "ministries", "MPs", "dialog," etc when in reality they all live in large jails controlled by the IOF. There was a glimmer of hope that Hamas might transform itself into a revolutionary movement, but that hope has faded by now. Hamas seems to be following the same path as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt of not challenging the existing order, but instead to struggle to get a slice of the pie, no matter how meager it is.

The significance of this rather lengthy introduction is that the Palestinian people have to re-invent themselves: Fatah is finished and the way Hamas is going, it is not willing to replace Fatah as being representative of the majority of the Palestinians. A third Intifada is needed and all Palestinians, including those in the Diaspora, need to be brought into the struggle.

The Palestinians can’t and should not become a regime among regimes. We can’t afford tribalism and blind, unquestioning faith in the "leaders." This blog tries to play a small role in keeping the flow of uncensored information and to get to the bottom of the real story. We do not have our own agenda and we do not listen to any regime or movement. We let facts speak for themselves.

I know that this approach offends some readers, occasionally. However, it is only through the free flow of information and intelligent debate that the Palestinians can hope to get out of the deep hole our "leaders" have dug up for us. We have to be brutally honest with ourselves, with no sugarcoating the bitter truth.

If there is anything I can promise you during this coming year, it is my daily dedication to this task and the open-minded acceptance of any constructive criticism and comments. Please keep those comments coming!

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