Secretaries meeting and political arrest

After a period of the Hamas coup in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, and the cadres and leaders of the Fatah movement were assassinated and arrested, voices came out calling on Hamas to release the political detainees, i.e. the Fatahists. Hamas responded by a number of its leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud al-Zahar, that there are no political detainees and that all those arrested have criminal charges. I remembered this when I heard official sources in the West Bank these days saying that there are no political prisoners in the West Bank.

A political prisoner is a prisoner of conscience and has rights and privileges. Therefore, the ruling regimes in the countries of the Third World, and we are among them, and even in some countries that consider themselves among the civilized countries, refuse to apply this adjective to their opponents and assign them various titles, foremost of which is the accusation of terrorism! What I mean to say is that the denial of the status of a political prisoner is not limited to the Palestinian case, but rather extends to many countries, because the security services in all countries "refer to one sheikh."

Before I touch on the issue of political detention in the Palestinian arena, I would like to refer to the invitation made by President Mahmoud Abbas to the secretaries of the Palestinian factions to hold an urgent meeting, and that this call came in the aftermath of the Israeli attack on Jenin camp, killing twelve citizens, wounding dozens, destroying homes and sabotaging the camp’s infrastructure, including the electricity, water and roads network. Everyone gathered around it and everyone stands together in one trench, and that this is the goal of the Cairo meeting.

This is in theory and based on the logical conclusion that one should expect if one assumes that the call itself came in the context of logic and reality.

I do not want to discuss the effectiveness and extent of the field presence of some members of this framework, which is called the secretaries of the factions, nor do I want to discuss the validity or validity of this title, although some will, rightly, say that many of those who bear this title are today outside the temporal, spatial and struggle context with all due respect to their history, which we do not deny them, but we do not believe that it justifies their continued acquisition of the power to make fateful decisions related to the issue. And I go back and repeat what I said, which is that this talk is about some, not all.

The attack on the Jenin camp and what resulted from it is a war crime by all standards, and the response to it must be a massive and resounding response at the same level as the attack, in order to assure our people that we are not easy prey for the madmen of the occupation who like to dance over the remains of dead Palestinians or their bloodshed, like Smotrich and Ben Juffair. Is this response what the president wanted? Is the framework of the secretaries of the factions the real framework and address for such a response? I leave the answer here for the reader.

And if we assume for the sake of argument that the president really wanted everyone to assume their fateful national responsibilities, then this requires us to assume that everyone, government and opposition, each from his side, makes every effort to clear the air and create healthy conditions that provide an opportunity for the success of this meeting.

One can imagine the political and financial pressure exerted on the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and the blackmail it is subjected to under the so-called "support for terrorism". However, I believe that some of the actions taken by the PA in the West Bank were not necessary and did not contribute to creating the conditions for the success of the secretaries' meeting. I do not think that anyone can defend the arrest of members of the Student Council or a preacher in their seventies, or the refusal of some security services to implement court decisions to release detainees, or the continued detention of fighters who carried weapons at the height of the attack on Jenin camp, and there were promises to release them immediately after the president's visit to the camp ended.

From this rostrum, I call for not repeating the saying that there are no political detainees, and for the release of Sheikh Mustafa Abu Arra and all the activists who are under arrest in the prisons of the Authority, with their commitment to stop any actions that contradict the official policy of the Authority at this stage.

At the same time, I call on all factions that disagree with the authority's approach to freeze all activities that are not consistent with this approach to provide the necessary healthy atmosphere for the success of the secretaries' meeting on the 30th of this month.

Despite all of the above, I affirm that I belong to those who do not deceive themselves and do not expect that the Cairo meeting will come out with something new. Repeating the same work, using the same tools and methods, and expecting different results is stupid in and of itself. We have repeatedly watched this movie and watched the meetings, compliments, banquets and grandiose speeches, which ultimately resulted in nothing. The term political tourism has become a common currency, and the matter of these seasonal protocol meetings has become an opportunity for convalescence trips for some, and a festival that satisfies the desire of others to feel that it is still present.

I hope that the Cairo meeting will come out with new positive data that will disappoint all pessimists like myself and prove that this time we are different from what we have always been in the past, and that we have preferred the interest of the country and the people over narrow factional and individual interests.
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