I recently spoke to an American (from a Jewish descent), and he asked the following question: "When I privately admit Zionist crimes against Palestinians, Zionists accuse me of aiding the enemy; they accuse me of aiding the new Holocaust." My answer was: "that this is a common Zionist tactic to silence their critics; and indirectly that aids a crime and I wonder which is worse!" Not long after that encounter, I discovered that we Palestinians do the same exact thing. Rarely, we're critical of each other because we fear division; we fear losing critical family and friendship ties. I believe we have reached a critical point in our national struggle where the enemy has become deeply embedded amongst us, and purging this cancer has become a priority. I shall argue in this article that confronting Zionists has been always the easiest option; and confronting the enemy within will be much harder.

The Oslo Agreement between the PLO and Israelis has been used as the tool to slowly infect the PLO's leadership with Zionist lice, which has been sucking the blood of our national cause for two decades. As an avid historian, I can recall a period in our Palestinian history with similar decline that happened during the first Intifada of 1936! Sadly at the time, there was wide scale collaboration with the British Occupation (under the banner of the so called Peace Bands) that actually resulted in a lot of Palestinian on Palestinian killing. Once the Intifada was crushed in 1939, the British disarmed the Peace Bands and they were left defenseless. Soon after, their leaders were liquidated one after the other! Of course, this part of our history is usually suppressed for the same reason we often ignore the lice currently amongst us; we all know them; we all know the harm they have done to our national cause, but we oddly prefer to ignore them!

We often call the Palestinian National Authority a corrupt institution, I am sure we even can find many from within the PNA who think so as well. However, I believe calling those lice (especially within the PNA's leadership) corrupt is an unfair compliment! Some may argue that this is an unfair charge, and here I will list few of the traitorous charges I lay against them:

• The complete abandonment of our right of return, and using it as a tool in their bankrupt negotiations with Israel. For those who doubt me, read the Palestine Papers project that disclosed how the PNA completely abandoned the right of return. Here is a confrontation between Aljazeera's Ahmad Mansour and Sa’eb Erekat (the so called chief & only negotiator) on this subject. If you haven't seen it, I am sure you'll find it entertaining! Similar thing could be said about concessions made about East Jerusalem as well.
• Direct collaborating with the enemy and foreign powers to undermine Palestinian democracy soon after the 2006 election.
• Becoming a direct military tool for the enemy. I find it amusing now collaboration with the enemy has a civilized name called: Security Coordination! Ironically, it was Fateh itself who called the Village Leagues (which was founded by Mustafa Dudeen) traitors and killed many of its members in the 1980s for doing the same thing with the Israel! It is a treason of course unless security coordination is done by Fateh in the name of National Security!
• Aiding, abetting and cheering the enemy before and during the war on Gaza early 2009.
• Collaboration with enemy in Yasser Arafat's murder and the subsequent cover up of the crime. I wonder what would happen if the Israeli government knew that the Palestinian leadership was behind poisoning Ariel Sharon? A complete annihilation the PLO may be an understatement. In my opinion, this is major proof that PNA's lice are only good for itself!
• Financial embezzlement at all levels; don’t you find it amusing that lice recently decided to prosecute Muhammad Rasheed (Arafat’s financially advisor) for embezzlement?

Frankly, I am sick and tired of those calling for reconciliation between Fateh and Hamas. This is a mirage; this is fiction because

• Fateh as a political party ceased to exist; it doesn't have any national political program; sadly it has become more like a corporation but a corporation without accountability.
• No two Fateh members can agree on the borders of Palestine? Palestine’s borders are a moving target depending on the price of course! And most importantly
• Fateh’s honorable members are either dead, or in jail, or mute who fear the lose of their beloved salaries and pensions!

Here is the way I see it:

• Reconciliation is impossible because there is no division to begin with. Both sides have completely orthogonal political programs. What I find amusing when I talk to Fateh supporters that often their sentences always refers to the Fateh’s patriotic past, such as Fateh started the arm struggle? But they can never tell you what they’re doing? Or what they’re trying to do? Most importantly Fateh's glorious past is often used to justify anything including ruining our national cause! In a nutshell, Fateh is an intellectually bankrupt party and without the Dollar and Euro this corporation will crumble under its own weight.
• Reforming the PNA (or at least purging it from its lice) WILL NEVER be acceptable to the Israelis, Europeans, and the Americans. Israelis and its surrogates prefer to deal with lice because they are not accountable to any elected body.

Therefore, I (as the editor of PalestineRemembered.com) propose the following personal initiative

• I call upon all Palestinians (especially the ones who live in the West Bank) to mobilize peacefully at all levels and to demand the immediate dissolution of the PNA; it has done tremendous harm to our national cause.
• I call upon all Palestinian political parties to convene our Palestinian National Congress as soon as possible, and to demand to either create a new PLO body or to purge the lice from the existing one.
• Since our people in the occupied territories voted for Hamas during the 2006 election, I call upon Hamas to rise to its responsibilities and mobilize our people in the West Bank for a new non-violent uprising to topple lice. Hamas (as an extension of the Muslim Brothers movement) always enjoyed its role in the opposition; it has been always reluctant of taking the leadership, and since they seized power in the Gaza Strip it has shrunk it political ambitions to the Gaza Strip, and made its survival (in Gaza only) part of "Palestinian National Interest"! In other words, Hamas has to either step-up or step a side. The way I see it; we are paying a tremendous cost to Hamas' lack of leadership outside of Gaza. Just in case if they have forgotten, Palestine is much larger than Gaza, and the Palestinian people are 12 million rather than the 2 million under its direct control!
• Start a civil disobedience campaign against PNA; I was so happy to hear about the spontaneous protest against the planned visit by Sha’ul Mofaz to Ramallah.

Some may argue that calling the corrupt elite within the PNA by lice is an insult and really way over the line. Frankly, I have given this a lot of thought and I concluded that lice is the perfect description because lice sucks the blood of its victim and gives nothing back. However, in the case of the PNA's lice are much much worse; they have actively destroyed all of our national institutions within the PLO, and now they run it as an exclusive corporation without any accountability, therefore; we are better without them. This article is the first in a series of articles against lice.

Please be free to circulate among your friends and loved ones.

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* The author and administrator of PalestineRemembered.com