During the past two days, the media and social media have talked about two very important issues, yet they did not get the public attention they deserve, because the daily concerns of citizens drain their energies and take over their interests.
The martyrdom of the late Sheikh Khader Adnan and the martyrs who are killed on a daily basis from Jenin to Nablus to Jericho, Bethlehem, Hebron, and al-Habr on the west grab people's attention in councils, streets, and public places. May God have mercy on our honorable martyrs and inspire their families and their people patience and solace, and perhaps the relief that some think is far away is closer to us than the jugular vein.
The first issue is related to negotiations on restarting the gas field on the shore of Gaza (Gaza Marine), which was a dream that accompanied our dream in the late nineties and early second millennium when we were building a state and establishing a national economy that would spare us the question of the mean, but the dream was dissipated and with it the dream of ending the occupation. And the establishment of the state, so the investor withdrew and the gas remained in the depths of the waters of the Gaza sea, and we remained dependent on the donor countries, and on what is collected from the pockets of the citizens who found themselves paying the costs of the occupation that crouched on their chests, if we take into consideration that this occupation has turned into a permanent reality and that it is responsible According to the Fourth Geneva Convention on ensuring the welfare of the people under its rule.
Yesterday, the US Embassy in Jerusalem confirmed the validity of the news of the gas field and expressed hope that an agreement would be reached regarding it soon, and that it was discussed in the Aqaba and Sharm El-Sheikh meetings.
It is noteworthy that the Israeli prior assertion that there will be no demarcation of the maritime borders between Israel and the Gaza Strip, unlike what happened between Israel and Lebanon, and that Israel considers that managing and exploiting the oil and gas fields in the sea is a prerogative of states, and that the Palestinians are not a state, and therefore it proposes that it take over Egypt to supervise, manage and implement the exploitation of the Gaza Marine gas field. There is no doubt that raising this issue in the absence of reconciliation will put the internal Palestinian situation on the barrel of gunpowder.
Fraud to steal tax dues
As for the second news, it was promoted by the Israeli media, led by the newspaper "Israel Hayom", which is funded by the Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the owner of many gambling casinos in America and the biggest supporter of Netanyahu and the Israeli right, which is distributed free of charge and has become a competitor and a threat to major Israeli newspapers. The news casts doubt on the credibility of the clearing money invoices that the Palestinian Authority provides to Israel to recover them as taxes on Palestinian imports. The newspaper claims that Palestinian merchants import goods through Israeli ports and submit clearing invoices to the Authority in order to recover taxes from Israel, but they sell these goods inside Israel and not in the areas of the Authority, and therefore the taxes they pay must go to Israel and not to the Authority. It also claims that there are Palestinian merchants who buy fuel from Israel at a reduced price according to the authority's quota, and then sell this fuel to Israeli gas stations, and this also constitutes fraud and theft of taxes due to Israel.
I do not think that this news came randomly, but one must ask what might lie behind it.
Successive Israeli governments have proven that they are trying to fabricate justifications to seize the largest possible amount of taxes that they collect on behalf of the Authority according to the Paris Protocol, so they deduct hundreds of millions of money owed to the Authority, such as claiming that it is in exchange for what the Authority provides with water and electricity, or debts to Israeli hospitals on the Authority. In exchange for transfers to Israeli hospitals, or in implementation of Israeli court decisions to pay compensation to victims of Palestinian operations against Israelis, or in exchange for allowances paid by the Authority to the families of martyrs and prisoners, or traffic violations against Palestinians in the streets of the West Bank, or otherwise.
It seems that it is no longer satisfied with the billions that have accumulated in its treasury of Palestinian funds and is looking for ways to loot more taxes due to the Palestinian Authority, so it has begun to pave the way for questioning the authenticity of the Palestinian documents that are presented to it.
The delusional state and economic peace
Talking about restarting the gas field opposite the shores of Gaza and linking it to the refusal to demarcate the maritime borders between Israel and the Palestinian state, of which the Gaza Strip is one of its territories, brings to mind what was proposed in the past to the Palestinian leadership and rejected at the time, which is accepting a solution to a Palestinian state without demarcating its borders. This has been called provisional borders, and this practically means that the Palestinians can delude themselves that they have a state and enjoy all designations such as president, minister, general, and other “kingdom titles.” This was the first and main demand of the Palestinian negotiator in the past negotiations, the last of which was during the 2013 John Kerry tours. 2014 is that the borders of Israel and the Palestinian state will be demarcated, after which it is possible to talk about the Israeli withdrawal and the evacuation of the settlements, but Israel was absolutely refusing to submit any maps or proposals for the borders between it and the lands of Palestine because it has no intention of a solution or withdrawal, but rather all it wants is Gain more time to devote to annexation and settlement.
This is on the one hand, and on the other hand, talking about improving the economic situation of the Palestinians and improving the financial situation of the Authority and seeking to find self-financial resources for that through operating the gas field on the shore of the Gaza sea is exactly what it means to talk about an economic solution or shrinking the conflict.
As a reminder, I say that we must be alert to any malicious attempt to exploit our financial need and drag us gradually and without realizing into the slippery slope of the imaginary state that has no borders, and toward the slippery slope of an economic solution that categorically denies the political and national rights of the Palestinian people.
We are living in the most accurate and dangerous phase of the liquidation of the Palestinian cause through glamorous names that run side by side with a systematic scheme to liquidate the spirit of resistance among the Palestinian people through daily killings, deepening the horizontal and vertical rift between the factions, forces and people and feeding it with temptations at one time and intrigues at another. There is no doubt that the absence of a popular mandate through the ballot boxes for those who control the fateful political decision of the Palestinian people, or economic resources, delegitimizes any political or economic agreements in advance and places them in the circle of suspicion and accusation, especially in the absence of transparency, oversight, and parliamentary accountability.





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Talking about "Gaza Marine" is tearing it apart from the inside and passing the economic solution