A Letter to the Nonexistent Palestinian Representative

Dear ------------

When we went home together in a taxi after classes finished on Saturday, the radio blared out that Saeb "Shalom to you in Israel, we have failed you" Erekat had resigned as Chief Negotiator, a position no one really elected him for. The grins on our faces rivaled that of the Cheshire Cat, as it proved that for all of his flustering and blustering and stammering and overriding defensive statements and accusations of being the subject of the most UNJUST smear campaign in the history of journalism, the Palestine Papers were in fact leaked from his office. Stalled peace talks? Stalled pea stalks.

Then came the news that the PA announced elections to be held in September. Ah, the repercussions of people power in Egypt. Facebook friends have been full of admiration of the Revolution, musing that it was time for Palestine to initiate one. Perhaps we're all caught up in the giddy aftermath and sweet notion of finally being proud of being Arab, but we entertained the idea for about an minute or two before concluding that the odds were overwhelmingly against us because if the PA forces didn't get us then the flying checkpoints hindering people's movement and right to congregate would, not to mention the effervescent mass arrests. Sadly, we don't number 80 million. We don't even number 10 million. Still..elections! A small hope for unity!

But then Hamas quickly dismissed any talks of elections, branding them as illegitimate and that they won't recognize them in the Gaza strip. Talk about being a party pooper. Hamasikins, darling, we fully understand the injustice of not being able to rule after being democratically elected just because the US and Israel objected to this kind of free and fair democracy. And we abhor how the US instigated and backed a Fateh coup that drastically backfired in Gaza, at the expense of brothers and compatriots torturing and killing each other in abominable ways. And to top it all off, a siege was imposed on that tiny strip of land you finally commandeered, thus limiting your ruling power to just 1.5 million people. But your demands of seeking elections after another 4 years in charge properly carried out over the Occupied Territories and Gaza is presumptuous, absurd, and selfish. This is a chance for Unity, a word that has become so hoarse and faded after repeatedly yelled out over and over again by the rationals, and you'd do well not to stand in the face of it. Anyway, you're just as bad as Fateh so there isn't much chance of either of you getting elected again- if the elections are not triggered of course.

If the calls for elections came from Hamas, then no doubt Fateh would have outrightly rejected them, since they are backed by the US which entitles them to look down their noses at their political bad boy Iranian backed rivals. But we are counting on Hamas to show more maturity in this case for THE GREATER COMMON GOOD. Imagine, a united front fighting against the occupation, as we should have been all along.

Fateh-we understand their leaders as corrupted ruthless mercenary quislings who favor "pea stalks" over resistance to the occupation and who have their very own foreign trained and supplied Special Police Force to clamp down on any dissenters. Hamas are just as ruthless and corrupt, which predictably happens to any resistance group that enters the dark soul-selling world of politics. Those pea shooters aimed at surrounding settlements are not gaining them any sympathy or admiration, even though they are technically legal in the sense that hey, they're doing some kind of resisting. Albeit firing blindly on Israeli settler civilians-a human race that make our skin crawl. You don't fight fire with fire, it makes you no better than the enemy. It's becoming all the more obvious that this is really a power struggle between Hamas and Fateh, and for that we hate them both. In fact, if Hamas really somehow did agree to election, it won't be because of their huge hearts and compassionate nature. They have both undermined the Palestine cause, forgetting about the usurper of land and despicable occupier Israel and becoming entrenched in finger pointing and rabid shouting on such Arabic talk shows such as Al-Itijah Al-Mu'akis. In fact, elections would actually pose the perfect opportunity to further and propagandize their own detrimental interests at the expense of the Palestinian people. Plus the finger pointing-we can't forget that!

Yet news of a cabinet reshuffle today on Monday by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who was American appointed and parceled if you please, burst through our floating bubbles of national unity. We try so goddamn hard to be positive, yet the negativity one again seeps in destroying our happy outlooks on life complete with fluffy bunnies and daisies. It's all so fishy, carrying with it assumptions that this reshuffling will serve the function of purposefully royally screwing up/complicating elections in September.

Hold up-what elections? Both Fateh and Hamas must agree to them (come ON Hamas, we'll build a Talmud-like institution just for you, a big one!) otherwise they serve no function other than to save Abbashole's hide from the wrath of growing dark muttering from the West Bankians. When we simplify everything all together, if it wasn't so sad it would have been so laughable: The Gaza Emirate, complete with rippling green flags who claim to resist the occupation by enforcing their version of a grossly distorted and mythologized semi-Islamic rule where women can't ride on motorcycles or smoke some good old shisha, and the West Bank Swiss Cheese, who enthusiastically carry out systematic arrests of rival politicians/supporters, complete with on again/off again peace negotiations against a backdrop of everlasting fraternization with the enemy-the same one who skirts around and fashions the cheesy holes by building territorial superior settlements and lovely Palestinian-clean settler only roads that connect like capillaries to the big heart that is Israel.

We must have missed the memo that announced Palestine to be an enclosed Gaza Strip and an obstacle-ridden West Bank. Sorry Haifa, Akka, Yafa, Safad, Majdal, Besan, and the other hundreds of villages turned kibbutz and Jewish only land.

In copycat style from the Egyptian youth leadership, we too have a list of seven demands, if you, oh Representative, would so kindly endorse and adopt:

1) Get rid of Abbashole and the pious Haniyeh. We're not benefiting from either of them.
2) The permanent dissolution of the PA
3) The stepping down of the Hamas government
4) National Unity
5) A caretaker coalition government comprised of respectable individuals and intellectuals with no political affiliations until fair elections are held. We'd gladly nominate a couple of our Cultural Studies professors. And, why not-Mustafa "All Eyez On Me" Barghouti. And Haider Eid.
6) Suspension of any talks and normalization with Israel.
7) Advocating nonviolent resistance including the imminently successful implementation of BDS to get the world on our side.