By: Raif Hussein
At the beginning of the current year, the Palestinian authority announced, through many of its leaderships and foremost the minister of prisoners' affairs, that the year 2014 would be the year of internationalizing the question of Palestinian prisoners in the occupation's prisons and placing it in the first row of the authority's international media agenda.
The first step in this regard was the decision of the authority’s party, “Fatah,” to boycott the first European congress of advocacy for the Palestinian prisoners in the occupation's prisons, which was held with resounding success at the end of last week in the German capital Berlin, attended by delegates of a number of European countries and representatives of European civil society institutions that support the question of Palestine. It is difficult for the ordinary observer to understand how the decision-makers came to take such a step!
Before the ink dries that wrote the final communiqué of the congress, I, as an observer of the Palestinian situation and a participant in preparing the congress, could not but write these lines to inform the sons of our people of the hidden matters and the full truth behind the non-national boycott decision, before the propaganda machinery and fabrication of fabricated news by some idols of the authority's party begins, throwing sand in the eyes of people and spreading lies as we have known them for more than twenty years.
The boycott decision, which reached the congress organizers on Friday night – that is, hours before the start of the congress's work – did not come because the congress did not fit into the agenda announced by the authority in Ramallah, and it was not a reaction because the brothers in the authority had no prior knowledge of the congress and its program, and the boycott did not come because the congress organizers had not coordinated with the authority or because a party from the spectrum of the Palestinian political landscape was excluded from the invitation list!
The European Alliance for advocacy of the Palestinian prisoners and the alliance's spokesman Dr. Khaled Hamad informed the authority, the ministry of prisoners' affairs, the prisoner club and all the Palestinian institutions concerned with prisoners' affairs in the homeland of all the steps, and they were included in all the preparations for the congress. The alliance's coordinator traveled at the end of last year especially to the homeland and met everyone concerned and coordinated with them the preparatory steps for the congress. And coordination with them continued from Germany. Coordination with the ministry of prisoners' affairs did not remain limited to informing them of the development of events only; rather, the ministry of prisoners' affairs and others in the authority pressed insistently for changing the congress's program and the course of its work, which stirred a discussion among the members of the alliance and the coordinator, who showed boundless flexibility in dealing with the authority's pressures out of concern for the unity of the ranks and the success of the first congress of advocacy for the freedom prisoners in the occupation's prisons. The pressure on the alliance by some parts of the authority and their close associates sometimes took the form of blackmail. And despite the discontent in the ranks of the congress's preparatory committee over these behaviors, the national responsibility of the alliance's members did not break off contact despite the circumvention, manipulation and breach of promises.
And the details of the shameful event:
Since the idea of holding the congress was posed in the summer of 2013, parts within the authority's party “Fatah” fought the idea and tried to torpedo it in every way. For no reason except that the idea did not come from a pleasing Fatah-ist side. And the tempo of sabotage increased when it became clear that the alliance's coordinator, Dr. Khaled Hamad, is a comrade in the Democratic Front. As if the Front and her comrades were a party of the enemy that one does not embrace, like Livni and her ilk of dregs. If this behavior indicates anything, it indicates an arrogance and political blindness without parallel. These saboteurs – members of the central committee of Fatah – did not content themselves with the attempt to prevent the honest national sons of the movement in Germany and Europe from participating in the preparations for the congress; rather, they pressed the minister of prisoners' affairs not to participate in the congress and prevented the head of the prisoner club, one of the pillars of support for the imprisoned movement in Palestine and a son of the Fatah movement, from participating in the congress. And both appealed to a national personality of the Palestine Liberation Organization to mediate for them with a member of the central committee of the Fatah movement to allow him to permit them to participate and lift the pressure from them – it was not responded to.
The pressure of these powerful figures in the Fatah movement became more brazen and reached such a low level without patriotism that they succeeded in preventing the approval of the financial support of 10,000 euros for the congress, which the minister of prisoners' affairs had promised the alliance of his own accord without request. And these people forgot that this is the people's and the cause's money, not the money of one faction against another, although for decades they have been handling public money as if it were their personal property, away from any oversight or accountability. It is time for the Palestinian people to raise the slogan “Where did you get this?” to limit the monopoly over power, money, institutions and embassies by a single faction.
The attempt of these powerful figures in the Fatah movement to disrupt the congress took on a hostile and brazen character when it reached their ears that the federation of Palestinian communities, institutions and activities in Europe, led by Dr. Falach Salicha from the city of Budapest, supports the congress and extends a helping hand in all forms to the congress's organizers, and that it worked hard to win the support of Palestinian businessmen to cover the deficit that resulted from the ministry of prisoners' affairs not keeping its promises to the alliance's coordinator. So these people from Fatah undertook an attempt to plant news about preparations for a similar congress to support the prisoners in the city of Budapest being organized by some of their dubious idols in the city of Budapest – and the aim of planting this news was nothing but to confuse people and sabotage the honest national work.
Also, work was done on broadcasting prior rumors about the congress to deter the missions of the Liberation Organization and the Palestinian embassies from attending the congress. But these sabotage attempts did not succeed. The ambassador of the state of Palestine in Germany was the patron of the congress. The ambassador Dr. Khuloud Daibes was present and gave a national speech in which she emphasized the importance of the unity of ranks and working hand in hand away from factional zeal, especially on a matter like the prisoners on which all agree, and some Arab ambassadors in Berlin invited by the Palestinian embassy also participated in the congress.
As mentioned previously, the congress's program and the parties invited to participate were all known to everyone and were the outcome of numerous consultations among all the parties. Participating in the congress were various institutions of civil society – some independent, some openly affiliated with a national faction – no one was excluded, and those responsible for the congress took care that everyone participate, convinced by them that the prisoners' question is a national question above factionalism for everyone and cannot be exploited as a tool for the sterile factional conflict under occupation. The behavior of some in the central committee of the Fatah movement came to teach the congress organizers a lesson with the bitter reality of the Palestinian people and the decline to which the Palestinian national movement has come of extinction and wantonness.
Among the institutions that attended and enriched the congress with their information and experience are also institutions that were pressured not to attend, such as the al-Dhamir institution and the Abu Jihad institution – and the claim that institutions affiliated with other factions were excluded is nothing but fabrication and lies.
The decision of two members of the central committee of Fatah to boycott the congress and their talk of a decision by the central committee of Fatah indicates the organizational stumbling that pervades the authority's party, and this is an indication that those who do not master internal democratic party work, it is difficult for any rational person to entrust these people with the fate of the people and its future. The response of the brothers in the Fatah region Germany, who participated actively and sincerely in the congress's preparatory committee until the last day, to the call of the powerful figures in the central committee of Fatah to boycott the congress hours before its opening indicates that these brothers' word, despite their sincere intention, has no weight or value for any future joint national work, for the decision is made by other persons. This bitter truth is a blow to national work on the European arena, and the one responsible for this disgraceful work is the brothers in the Fatah movement for not standing in front of the sabotaging violations of some of their powerful leaderships, which have become a burden on the national cause as a whole.
