West Bank and Gaza:

Occupied Elections, Occupied Democracy and Foreign Financing!

Adel Samara, Occupied Ramallah     (01-01-2005)

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 On January 9^th of this month, presidential elections for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will take place. In fact, the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict demonstrates itself in these elections. When it comes to the Palestinian presidential elections, it should be noted that there has been a great deal of public opinion manipulation in the mainstream media throughout the world. Those, who have no access to a clear picture about the complex situation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBG), might be deceived to believe that these territories are independent. Even worse, and as a result of deceptive manipulation, some might believe that the Israeli settler colonialism is ‘democratic’, as Zionists have always pretended.[i] The official bourgeois media all over the planet is trying to present theses elections as ‘normal’ and are being conducted under ‘normal conditions’.

Immediately after the deterioration of Mr. Arafat’s health, the ruling classes in the imperialist center renewed their tutelage about the elections in the WBG. Few days after his death, led by US Secretary of State, Colin Powel, foreign ministers of colonial powers in the capitalist West ‘rushed’ to Ramallah, talking about democracy, elections and concentrating on the so-called peace and final solution. They promised the new/old Palestinian leadership tens of millions of dollars, which, by itself, is an intervention in the elections for the benefit of Abu Mazen, the candidate of the ruling regime.

But how did all that happen?

The same political climate which was created before the ‘peace for capital’ (Madrid-Oslo Accords) is being repeated now in the WBG. After the Oslo Accords (1993), the WBG Palestinians were looking for a truce after the first Intifada (Decmeber1987). That is why they agreed to the Oslo plan, aiming at ‘wait and see’ or at trying the ‘peaceful’ solution.

Today, the same people are looking for a truce because of the Zionist terror against the current Intifada (September 2000), and they believe that Mahmood Abbas (Abu Mazen) is the only candidate who is able to achieve that. Those who do not see in him the only candidate, believe that he is the ’proper’ candidate who is accepted by US imperialism and the Zionist regime. This uncovers the fact that the Palestinian presidential candidate must look for the approval of the enemies of their people even before looking at their own people! What a democracy we have in the WBG!

While presidential candidates are acting as if there will be a real Palestinian president, and later, a parliament, what is in fact going on in the WBG is ‘democracy under occupation’. The entire WBG are under the direct brutal terrorist Israeli occupation. That is why, the role of the current and future Palestinian authority is slightly over a municipal council but still much below national independence.

However, despite the fact that there is no democracy under the occupation and no real authority in the hands of the Palestinian regime, the camp of people’s enemies has created a situation of corruption, social destruction, and nepotism to the extent that the those who are opposed to the Oslo Accords realized that they must stand to fight against the total destruction of the social fabric. This struggle, they viewed, may be conducted through many means including participating in the elections. However, this participation must have a vision and must be accompanied by certain conditions: it must be limited to creating a regime, if all possible, which deals with social issues and problems, and not with negotiations with the enemy unless it declare its of the Palestinian ROR, and that any negotiations must be accepted by the Arab people. This was the program of the presidential candidate, Dr. Hasan Khraisha, who already withdrew from the elections campaign. Briefly, the camp of ‘peace for capital’ has created certain circumstances which obliged those who are opposed this form of peace to consider participating in the election campaign with a social, not a political, rescue program.

There are, in fact, many similarities among the main candidates for the elections. Since all of them promise their people a ‘just’ solution for the conflict, they, in fact, believe in ‘democracy’ of the occupation, or at least ‘democracy under the occupation’.  While Abu Mazen is the candidate of the authority and is financed by the West, Mustafa Barghouthi is the candidate of westernized NGOs which are financed by the same source, although in a secret manner. Other candidates of the so-called left are financed by smaller NGOs like the candidates of the People’s Party and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). In fact, most of the so-called ‘democratic, leftist, or third road groups’ belong to political organizations which are led by their members who own NGOs, i.e. their political organizations that depend financially on their NGOs. I call this phenomenon the NGO-ization of political parties.

While the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) did not nominate its own candidate for the presidential elections, its leadership has endorsed, and called upon its members and supporters to vote for, Mustafa Barghouthi, as the candidate of NGOs and western capitalism. [ii]

Foreign observers of the elections are supposed to be neutral. However, none of the candidates protested against Mr. Jimmy Carter, US former president, who is the head of those ‘foreign controllers’. It is an irony for a US president to be the ‘sponsor’ of democratic elections. God knows how many people in Third World countries, including Palestine, were killed by US weapons and military during his presidency! Is there really any value for Carter’s pretence of working for humanity?

But, what is actually behind the elections?

The nature and the content of the election campaign, the intervention of the western capitalist regimes, and comprador Arab regimes demonstrate that there is a plan for a final ‘solution’ of the Arab-Israeli conflict that will be imposed on the people by all means. Recent Abu Mazen’s statements against armed resistance show that the PA accepts the ‘peace for capital’ agenda. This might work for a sometime, but it will certainly prolong and renew the conflict for several decades to come.