Sami Jamil Jadallah – Diaspora Palestinians: Act Now Before It Is Too Late!
By Sami Jamil Jadallah • Jun 8th, 2009 at 22:19 • Category: Action Alert, Culture and Heritage, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
If no actions are taken and taken soon, the Diaspora Palestinians – all without exception – would have forfeited their inalienable rights to qualified and professional representations in the final peace negotiations that will take place soon between the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian Authority Israel and the United States.
I understand and know there are many Diaspora organizations out there working for Palestinians rights and the “Rights of Return”, such as “Al-awda” and “US Committee to End the Occupation” among others, and I also understand and know there are no Diaspora Palestinian organizations working on the “legal” representations of Diaspora Palestinians outside the realm of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
If we are to be honest with ourselves, at least once and in private, we have to admit the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization is nothing but a failed, corrupt, incompetent organization with reckless leadership that after 45 years, tens of thousands of martyrs and tens of billions, gave us Oslo with its Jewish Settlements, Jewish Roads, ethic cleansing of Jerusalem Arabs, house demolition, destruction of farms, water thefts, seizure of Gaza, targeted assassinations, Hill Top Jews, 650 Checkpoints, expensive villas and cars for the leadership, hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships for the children of the leadership and 3,000 VIP passes, with the highest unemployment in the world, with poor education and health care and absolutely nothing for the people but miserable life.
We had a PLO leadership that failed at everything, failed at liberation, failed at accountability and transparency with tens of billions of the peoples’ money unaccounted for, lost in the personal bank accounts of the leadership so much vested interest with status quo, a leadership that never felt it is accountable to the people. It is true, the leadership was never accountable to the people since the Palestine National Congress which was supposed to be the “people’s voice” forfeited its rights as the people’s representative by never, ever holding anyone in the leadership accountable for any of the many failures and reckless decisions that costs tens of thousands of lives in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Kuwait, not to mention the conclusion of Oslo as nothing more than a management contract between the PLO and the Israeli government where by the Palestinian Authority became in fact and action the Israeli Civil Administration Authority.
I also think by now, we all should learn the hard lessons of Oslo that those who negotiated Oslo simply were and are ignorant, reckless, and certainly incompetent with so much personal financial and economic interests vested in Oslo and the Israeli Occupation. Oslo was the leadership choice, not the people’s choice.
If we are to look at the present leaderships we have in Ramallah and Gaza, we have to admit that this kind of leadership is simply unfit and unqualified to represent the more than 5 million Diaspora Palestinians. In fact they simply do not even represent all of the people under Jewish Occupation. True, Hamas was elected with a majority to run and manage the Palestinian Authority as an agency of the Occupation, but Hamas was never elected by the Diaspora Palestinians to represent them or their agenda. The same holds true for Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah. It is true that Mahmoud Abbas won the majority votes of Palestinians under Occupation as president of the Palestinian Authority, however neither Abbas nor his Fatah were ever elected by the votes of the Diaspora Palestinians. Even the PLO which claim “legitimacy” to represent the Palestinians was never voted on by the people. It was the Arab League choice but not the people’s choice.
President Barack Obama made a commitment to bring about peace with Israel based on two states, one Palestinian, the other Israeli (we hope a Palestine, not a Jewish Settlers State of Judea and Samaria). Senator George Mitchell is in town in Jerusalem with a promise and commitment to get the “final status” negotiations going defining borders, and with that defining the rights and legitimacy of those Palestinian exiles, you and me.
Israelis have been getting ready for the day when they will have to sit down with the Palestinians and negotiate a final status and will work and argue very hard to exclude the millions of Palestinians from ever returning home and deny their rights to their properties in Occupied Palestine. Israel for sure will argue, debate and challenge with Talmudic meticulation the rights of each individual Palestinian, since they have access to records and are much better organized than the Palestinians. Israel and for some time, through government and civil societies, has been working very hard on documenting the legal and property rights of every single Jew who left Arab countries and immigrated to Israel and has set up private and group claims in the hundreds of billions, that for sure will use to offset the rights of Palestinians. Worse yet, we have no documentations for the rights of Palestinians in West Jerusalem. Are we ready for that challenge, we are not!
Neither the PLO nor the Palestinian Authority, certainly, neither Hamas nor Fatah ever bothered since 48 to develop a database or a documentation center, documenting the specific legal and property rights of all Diaspora Palestinians. Yes, true there are databases available on the aggregate property rights in Palestine but there are no data base specific “to people matching them with their specific properties” in Occupied Palestine, hence the idea of the Palestine Agency; Palestine Documentation Center. The closet thing we have is UNRWA, which only documents some refugees receiving assistance, but no Palestinian agency or organization.
The Palestine Agency was established and incorporated some years ago in the United States as a not for profit organization dedicated to organizing the Diaspora Palestinians into a legal force to be reckoned with; by Israel, by the Arabs, by the US certainly by the PLO, Fatah and Hamas. The US was chosen as a place of incorporation to allow “legal” standing for Palestine Agency to sue in American and international courts; Israel, Jewish organizations, groups and individuals responsible illegal occupation of private properties in Haifa, Yaffa, Haifa, Lod, Ramle, Safad, Jerusalem among others, and for the funding of illegal settlements, and illegal trespassing and take over of private properties, responsible for funding Jewish Settlers terrorism, synagogues marketing stolen properties to membership, and seek the filing of war crimes and charges of murders against Israeli politicians, citizens, military officers and members of the IDF and members of the Jewish Settlers Groups and Jewish hate groups in the US.
The mission and vision of the Palestine Agency is to organize a team of experts, Pro-Bono in all needed fields; legal, economic, social, statistics, anthropology, history, international public and criminal law, and finance among others and form a virtual “one hell of a legal and consulting firm” with qualified professionals from Australia, to the US, Canada, Europe, Middle East to represent the Diaspora Palestinians at the table in any final status negotiations.
With so many Palestinian professional around the world, and with so many committed friends of the Palestinians, the Palestine Agency seeks to organize and establish this legal and consulting firm with hundreds of professionals to give the people the best possible legal and economic representations way beyond what we have seen in poor, incompetent and unprofessional representations from the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.
However seeking the support of Diaspora professionals to come and join the team is only part of the task ahead. We also need the financial support of philanthropists who can commit the needed money and funding to collect the specific data and establish a team of researchers and field staff, well equipped with computers and laptops to canvas every single Palestinian community around the world especially those in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and the Gulf among others and do it door to door, family after family. I did in fact contact a couple of Palestinian well to do businessmen who gave an initial commitment to fund such a task; however they all backed away out of fear for their own business and vested interests with the Palestinian Authority. It is very understandable, since the Palestinian business leadership was and is or the most part beneficiaries of the corruption with the PLO leadership and now the corruption with the Palestinian Authority.
I am sure with only 300 hundred professionals committed to be part of this team; we will be able to raise the needed funds of some $1,000,000 to do a complete the thorough documentation and canvassing of all Palestinians in the Diaspora.
I invite all of you to take a close look at what we have done so far in terms of organizing the website for the Palestine Agency; Palestine Documentation Center. Keeping in mind that both membership and leadership of the Palestine Agency is open to all. There is simply no monopoly on leadership, certainly no monopoly on knowledge and wisdom. The Palestine Agency; Palestine Documentation Center, needs your involvement and commitment now, before it is too late. Keep in mind the Palestinian leadership when outside ignored and forgot those inside, and when inside forgot and ignored all those outside. Thank you.
http://www.jeffersoncorner.com/diaspora-palestinians-act-now-before-it-is-too-late/#more-465
Sami Jamil Jadallah is Palestinian-American born in El-Bireh, Palestine, an international business and legal consultant, and a veteran of the US Army. His comments are posted at his website http://www.jeffersoncorner.com.
Email this author | All posts by Sami Jamil Jadallah
An excellent initiative! By collecting all these data and facts the real extent of the losses of the whole Palestinian people would become visible not only for the world but also for the Palestinians themselves. And Sami Jamil Jadallah is absolutely right when he says that: "Israel for sure will argue, debate and challenge with Talmudic meticulation the rights of each individual Palestinian, since they have access to records and are much better organized than the Palestinians. Israel and for some time, through government and civil societies, has been working very hard on documenting the legal and property rights of every single Jew who left Arab countries and immigrated to Israel and has set up private and group claims in the hundreds of billions, that for sure will use to offset the rights of Palestinians." The Westerners have always been experts in arguing with "legal" claims and facts to steal and plunder the riches of the peoples and even deprive them of their own countries. Therefore: Unite, unite!
Thank you Einar. Of course we have a lot to do a lot to learn. Last summer I was in Vienna with my wife as she participated in a conference sponsored by the Austrian government. We met one of the participants, an Austrian/Australian Jew with the name of Marianne Schultz. We had dinner together on the outskirt of Vienna and on the drive back to the hotel; she stopped on a beautiful side street in a more beautiful neighborhood and pointed to the second floor of an apartment building. She informed us that her mother stands to collect few thousand dollars, the value of furniture owned by Marianne’s grandparents, thrown out of the balcony by the Nazi. She told me that smart, professional meticulous diligence will pay off, and it is paying off after some 70 years. That is the difference between Zionist and Jewish organizations and the Palestinians. One does the work, the other do the talk. Three copies of the Ottoman land deeds are available and an official of the PLO put one copy on sale for ONE million dollars, to collect for himself. This is the kind of people we have representing us at the table. They will sell entire towns and villages and have no shame to deposit the money in their own bank account. How many senior members of the PLO and the PA became multimillionaires out of and as a direct result of dividing the areas into A, B and C.? How many senior PLO officials made tens of millions building Jewish settlements and building Jewish Roads to protect these Jewish settlements? How many PLO officials have exclusive rights to distribute Israeli products, including those from Jewish Settlements? We do have very very serious problem with the leadership we have in Ramallah. Yesterday the security guards of one of the PLO leadership shot and almost killed a car driver in Ramallah who took over and pass the motorcade of this insignificant PLO official. Our problem is not only Israel and Zionists; our problem is our own stupid, corrupt, reckless and criminal leadership.
[...] source [...]
May I remind all Diaspora Palestinians that the writing is on the wall. Bibi made it clear he will not accept Palestinian refugees back in Israel, he also made it clear there were Jews from Arab countries. With this in mind, wait and see, there will be a swap, and the Palestinians will be on the losing end as ususal. The Oslo team is unfit and unqualified to lead the negotiations. Lieberman meeting with Clinton did not even mentioned the Occupied Territories, he refered to it as Judea and Samaria. That should tell us about Israel's intentions. Are we ready for the challenge. I do not think so.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1040797.html
Shas will demand Jewish compensation as part of the overall settlement. It already started to documents the rights listing names and properties of some 850,000 Jews who left the Arab world. One has to wonder why the PLO, Fatah and Ramallah leadership never thought of doing the same. Of course they all expect to receive the compensation so they can take their own cut.