Money between employment for liberation and investment in tragedy

Every time a case is brought against a Palestinian in American or other courts, the old-new question resurfaces: Who holds whom accountable? How did Palestine, the perpetual victim, become a perpetual defendant? And when will this global schizophrenia and hypocrisy, which views the victim as a threat and the executioner as a legitimate partner, end?

In recent years, we have witnessed a wave of lawsuits filed against Palestinian individuals or institutions, who describe themselves as "victims of Palestinian terrorism," under various pretexts. The most recent of these was the accusations against Bashar al-Masri of involvement in financing infrastructure that "served" Hamas in Gaza or was "used" in the October 7 attack. Regardless of the details of the case, its timing, and its purpose—important as all of that is—the bigger picture remains that the same countries that are prosecuting Palestinians on flimsy charges are the same countries that are supplying the occupation with weapons, the latest technology, and intelligence and political support, without any lawsuits being filed against them.

So what about the American weapons that tore apart the bodies of Gaza's children? What about the "smart" bombs that targeted hospitals and killed aid workers? What about the Western governments that openly fund the occupation and grant it diplomatic cover to escape punishment? Isn't this direct support for terrorism, even by their own standards? Why doesn't the Palestinian Authority utilize all its legal and diplomatic tools to hold these countries, their leaders, and their companies accountable, as the occupation does when it sues Palestinians? Why aren't lawsuits filed on behalf of every drop of blood spilled? Why aren't lawsuits filed on behalf of every family wiped out, every child dismembered, every woman buried under rubble, every journalist burned on camera, every prisoner slaughtered? And on behalf of the hospitals, universities, and institutions razed to the ground based on mere "suspicion"? Why isn't an army of lawyers and volunteers around the world recruited to flood the courts and the international judicial system with tens of thousands of lawsuits? Where is the Palestinian legal and political defense system around the world?

At the heart of this equation, another, more cruel paradox appears: Zionist money versus Palestinian money, and Zionist businessmen versus Palestinian businessmen, not to mention Muslims and Arabs. The former has been transformed - for decades - into a strategic weapon, supporting settlements, financing Judaization, and being used as a bridge to normalization and a means of pressure, with the media and political systems it owns and operates. It builds political influence, blackmails decision-makers, and harnesses all its capabilities to serve the occupation with ferocity and consistency, until it has become an actual partner in it and in building a "Greater Israel." They are not ashamed to support it or finance settlements, but rather boast about it, are rewarded for it, and are received with great enthusiasm in the capitals of Arabs and Muslims.

On the other hand, we find in the Palestinian scene a class of businessmen - some of them old, many of them new - who have exploited our people's crises, and ridden the wave of their suffering, turning it into a means of making money without any consideration. What happened and is happening in Gaza today is the best evidence of that. Some of them have immersed themselves in our people's blood, their sustenance, and their medicine, breathing from the lungs of their catastrophe, and feeding off their pain and suffering. They have turned the tears of children into booty, and the groans of the bereaved and the suffering into a "selling" commodity.

Before that, Palestinian money was – in many cases – hostage to personal interests, networks of favoritism and corruption, benefiting from “privileges” offered by the occupation on the one hand, or through rapprochement with circles of political influence on the other, which led it towards “safe” investments, far from the dream of our people and the essence of our national project. Some of its owners were involved in projects that directly served the occupation, and some participated, silently or openly, in establishing infrastructure that “revived” the settlements, or provided logistical services to them, without any religious, moral or national scruples. While our people were being driven to unemployment and groaning under the burden of the siege in Gaza and the West Bank, its workers were “forced” to build what we are supposed to be working to demolish and uproot, because alternatives are not available. This is not a reading of justification, but rather a description of a complex reality with its details.

This reality was not merely a coincidence. The occupation has long worked to create an economic "system" that has made Palestinians "renewable" fuel for it, a factor in its occupation "project," a consumer or promoter of its settlement goods, and even an actor—whether willingly or unwillingly—in the service of its own survival.

But it would not have succeeded in this without the absence of a Palestinian economic resistance policy, in action, not words, which politicians have repeatedly spoken about, and which was the subject of public speeches that inflamed our emotions, when they presented us with dozens of plans and promises, the last of which was the eighteenth government, when it “told us,” in its first months of pregnancy – for the concerns of our people – that is, in October 2019, that it had actually begun implementing the model of “gradual disengagement” from the occupation, in all areas. We stood for a long time and applauded a lot, but it quickly evaporated at the first test, and turned into mere slogans, raised at festivals and forgotten in decision-making rooms. It “left” the day it left, after five lean years, leaving our economy more fragile and exposed than before, and even more “connected” and “dependent.” This is because it – and the seventeen governments that preceded it – over the course of three decades, did not build an alternative national economy, did not support agriculture and industry, and did not promote the culture of boycott and self-reliance as it should have. It left our workers prey to unemployment and poverty, vulnerable to bargaining, and the homeland became a map drawn by aid.

Therefore, every Palestinian, today and every day, refuses to be the only one in the dock while the killers and their supporters escape accountability, or to have justice exploited to serve the "powerful," or for international courts to become tools for legitimizing the occupation, rather than exposing it and its crimes.

Even if it is belated, what we need today is a comprehensive awakening, in which funds are redirected toward liberation, in which legal tools are built to prosecute the occupation and its supporters—individuals and governments—across every land, under every sky, in every court and country, and in which the fig leaf of a global system that supplies the killer with weapons and then condemns the victim because she is still breathing or alive is dropped.

Why isn't an army of legal professionals and volunteers around the world recruited to flood the international courts and judicial system with tens of thousands of lawsuits? Where is the Palestinian legal and political advocacy system around the world?