RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Palestinians seem to be marching towards establishing a regime that is remarkably reminiscent of the despotic and corrupt Arab and Islamic governments.

By failing — or, more accurately, refusing — to hold the PA accountable for its crackdown on public freedoms, American and European taxpayers actively contribute to the emergence of another Arab dictatorship in the Middle East.

Palestinian professor Abdel Sattar Qassem, who teaches political science at An-Najah University in Nablus, is facing trial for “extending his tongue” against PA President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior PA officials.

Many Palestinians used to say that their dream is that one day they would have a free media and democracy like their neighbors in Israel. But thanks to the apathy of the international community, Palestinians have come to learn that if and when they ever have their own state, its role model will not be Israel or any Western democracy, but the regimes of repression that control the Arab and Muslim world.

A novelist, a journalist and a university professor walk into a bar. Sounds like a joke, but it stops being funny when these three figures are the latest victims of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) crackdown on public freedoms, above all, freedom of expression.

The crackdown is yet more proof of the violent intolerance that the Western-funded PA has long shown its critics.

It is also a sad reminder that more than two decades after the foundation of the PA, Palestinians are as far from democracy as ever. In fact, the Palestinians seem to be marching in the opposite direction — towards establishing a regime that is remarkably reminiscent of the despotic and corrupt Arab and Islamic governments.

PA officials like to boast that Palestinians living under their rule in the West Bank enjoy a great deal of freedom of expression, especially compared to the situation under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, a good look at the actions of the PA and its various security branches shows that they are not much different than those enforced by Hamas.

Sometimes it even seems as if the PA and Hamas are competing to see which one of them can most successfully silence critics and cracks down on journalists. This is the sad reality in which Palestinians living under the rule of these two parties have found themselves.

While it is understandable why an extremist Islamic movement like Hamas would seek to muzzle its critics, there is no reason why a PA government funded by Americans and Europeans should not be held accountable for persecuting dissidents and throwing objectors into prison.

By failing — or, more accurately, refusing — to hold the PA accountable for its crackdown on public freedoms, American and European taxpayers actively contribute to the emergence of another Arab dictatorship in the Middle East.

Hundreds of Western-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), operating in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, pay scant attention to the real problems facing Palestinians as a result of the actions of their PA and Hamas governments. The same applies to Western mainstream media and human rights organizations and advocates.

This willful neglect by the West encourages the Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to continue repressing their own people. There are times, however, when the international community pays attention to the plight of Palestinians: when the complaints concern Israel.

The PA government bans a Palestinian novel and confiscates copies from bookstores. Where is the outcry? There is none to be heard from the international community – because Israel was not behind the incident.

This is what happened last week when the PA Prosecutor-General issued an order banning the novel “Crime in Ramallah” by the author Abbad Yahya under the pretext that it contained “indecent texts and terms that threaten morality and public decency, which could affect the public, in particular minors.”

Yahya said he was summoned for questioning and his editor, Fuad Al-Aklik, was detained for 24 hours. PA policemen raided several bookshops in a number of Palestinian cities and confiscated all copies. The author, who is on a visit to Qatar, has since received multiple death threats and is afraid to return home.

The decision to ban the novel prompted 99 Palestinian writers, academics and researchers to sign a petition criticizing the PA authorities and calling for rescinding the ban. The petition called on the PA to cancel its punitive measures, which “cause harm to the Palestinians and their struggle for freedom from oppression, dictatorship and censorship.” The petition warned that the ban was a “grave breach of freedom of expression and creativity” and creates a situation where authors are forced to practice self-censorship.

The petition signed by the prominent Palestinians does not seem to have left an impression on the PA leadership in Ramallah.

Undeterred, PA security forces arrested journalist Sami Al-Sai, from the city of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, for allegedly posting critical comments on Facebook. The PA has accused Al-Sai, who works as a correspondent for a private television station, of “fomenting sectarian strife.”

This is an accusation that is often leveled against journalists or authors who dare to criticize the PA leadership. A PA court has ordered Al-Sai remanded into custody for 15 days. Protests by some Palestinian journalists against the arrest of their colleague have thus far fallen on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Palestinian professor Abdel Sattar Qassem, who teaches political science at An-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, is facing trial for “extending his tongue” against PA President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior PA officials. He is also charged with spreading “fake news” and “fomenting sectarian strife.” The decision to prosecute Qassem came following a TV interview where he strongly criticized Abbas and commanders of the PA security forces. Qassem has long been a vocal critic of the PA leadership and as a result he has been arrested on a number of occasions; shots have been fired at his home.

How come, then, that John Bercow did not think it advisable to oppose the Emir of Kuwait’s visit due to its “sexism” and “immigration ban”? No, Bercow granted the Emir a speech in the Queen’s Robing Room.

It is evidently acceptable to be a representative of some of the world’s most repressive dictatorships, with policies far worse than President Trump’s, and yet visit Parliament, but a democratically-elected leader in the free world and a key ally, who may hold some views with which Bercow disagrees, makes him unacceptable.

What is it that the people trying to keep Trump from speaking are afraid others might hear?

When Theresa May announced, to the gathered press at the White House, an invitation for Donald Trump to make an official state visit to the United Kingdom, there were some in Britain who apparently oppose his views — and, in a democratic and free society, express their opposition. There also were, however, concerns that these critics may have been acting hypocritically, as well as without considering due process.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May meets with US President Donald Trump at the White House, January 27, 2017. (Image source: UK Prime Minister’s Office)

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow declared that he would not invite Trump to make a speech before Parliament due to the president’s alleged “sexism” and “racism,” and the British Parliament’s opposition to those stances, as well as, further, due to Trump’s temporary restrictions on immigration until better procedures for vetting applicants can be put in place .

Bercow, however, never adhered to due process: he should first have consulted the Speaker of the House of Lords or the Lord Chamberlain.

If Bercow thought that a ban from addressing Parliament would stop Trump from addressing the British people, he seems to have been wrong. Press reports suggest that Trump is planning massive stadium events. Perhaps that is the repeated failure of Trump’s opposition: to see his appeal to the masses.

Furthermore, where was Bercow when Emir of Kuwait visited? Kuwait has a poor record on women’s rights, and refuses entry to those with Israeli passports. Kuwait Airways and even dropped its flights between New York and London not to “break the law” by possibly carrying Israeli passengers.

How come, then, that Bercow did not think it advisable to oppose the Emir of Kuwait’s visit due to its “sexism” and “immigration ban”? No, Bercow granted the Emir a speech in the Queen’s Robing Room.

The screaming match between Jacqui Lambie and Yassmin Abdel-Magied on Q&A was great television, but the same could be said of train-wreck footage. Its real value came later, when 49 Muslim organisations and sympathisers spelled out a presumptive right not merely to respect but deference.
Multicultural amity was in short supply on Monday night’s Q&A, which saw Tasmania’s Senator Jacqui Lambie doing the one thing at which she always excels, making herself deeply unpleasant. For starters there’s that voice, which rises at times to the guttural shriek of the last water going down an old bathtub’s plughole. When it drops an octave, there is the needless belligerence of a public bar blowhard. In terms of general comportment, you wouldn’t have her at your daughter’s wedding, not if it could be helped.

Sometimes, though, even the most wretched amongst us serve the cause of the common good, and such was the case when this small and loud explosive device detonated in the face of fellow guest Yassmin Abdel-Magied. For once Senator Lambie was being rude to the right person in the right place and for the right reason.

Briefly, Ms Abdel-Magied, who already has her own ABC cable show and was sent off on a recent taxpayer-funded junket to hijabber in some of the world’s worst despotisms about the joy of being Muslim in Australia, spent much of Q&A talking loudly and to little point about any number of topics about which she either knows nothing or chooses not to acquaint herself. From baseload power to the tenets of her religion and, of course, the imminence of catastrophic climate change, Ms Abdel-Magied streamed random cliches and pseudo-factoids rooted only in her imagination. When she suggested sharia law implied nothing more than praying five times a day and, further, that women are happy as Larry under Islam, what little in the way of good manners Senator Lambie had embraced on the night were flung aside. The exchange is segmented and analysed here by video blogger Progressing Backwards, whose clip would have been embedded for display on this page but for the narrator’s vulgarity in punctuating his thoughts with the procreative verb.

As a consequence of the women’s encounter, gripes the Australian Islamic Mission and 49 groups and individual signatories to an online petition, multiculturalism’s gorgeous mosaic is being pulverised, not merely by Senator Lambie but — and this bit is delicious — the ABC as well! According to the petition, compere Tony Jones should have gagged the garrulous Taswegian because, well, Muslims must not face, not ever, pointed questions about their creed and its compatability with hard-won Western norms like, for instance, the equality of women. More than that, the petition’s text all but demands that Islam be treated now and forever with a conspicuous and courteous deference. The petition is reproduced in full below, but this paragraph is especially worthy of note (emphasis added):

If Q&A wants to invite Muslim individuals to its forum, it should be able to guarantee a safe environment for them based on trustworthiness and comfort to speak in a platform that is rarely afforded to them, especially on issues concerning them.

muslim theologiantasmania intellectual IIThe irony is that the ABC has been doing just that since the Prophet was a lad, leading one to suspect — and please pardon the cynicism – that Ms Abdel-Magied owed her place on the panel as much to a winning smile and the glib giddiness of her manner than any wisdom she might then or previously have poured into the wells of human insight. Opinions may differ, and the applause of the typically unbalanced Q&A audience for Abdel-Magied’s defence of sharia’s alleged innocence suggests they very much do. But the inanity of her theological pronouncements might well lead others to conclude she is no better than an airhead whose prime credential is, you know, a photogenic otherness. Were she to team up with Waleed Aly and do the Leagues Clubs, they could be the Islamic George Burns & Gracie Allen. She’s the fun face of Islam, the girl with the lampshade on her head, the life of what the ABC in its habitual celebration of tokenism imagines to be the perfect multi-culti party.