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By Sami Jamil Jadallah • Jun 8th, 2009 at 22:19 • Category: Culture and Heritage, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
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
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