jeg klipper noe fra Al-Ahram Weekly, no. 410, 31. desember - 6 januar 1999:
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An incitement to revolt
By Edward Said
....=A0=A0The main burden of the Wye Accord, therefore, was neither to give
Palestinians more freedom, nor to allow the US and Israel to "help"
Palestinian independence, but quite the contrary: with the Authority's
help, to increase the restrictions and conditions under which Palestinians
live so that they remain docile and taken care of in the best colonial
manner. A perfect symbolic example of this is the promulgation on 19
November of a presidential decree by Arafat entitled "to strengthen
national unity and forbid incitement". Obviously the result of Netanyahu's
remorseless obsession with Israeli security (and Arafat's reciprocal
neglect of Palestinian security), the decree states that its legal
references and precedents derive, among others, from "the Palestinian penal
code number 74 for 1936 and its amendments".
=A0=A0For the uninitiated, this code is nothing less than the Emergency Defence
Regulations issued by the British Mandatory Authority as a way of punishing
Palestinian resistance; it was then adopted by the Israelis after 1948 for
the same purpose. And now Mr Arafat uses it to threaten his own people. For
what? To interdict incitement to violence, insults, racism. The decree also
forbids "illegal organisations" as well as "undermining the quality of
life, agitating the masses to bring about change by illegal methods of
force, incitement to civil strife, incitement to violate agreements made
between the PLO and Arab and foreign countries". Implementing this
remarkable new law will be a committee made up equally of Palestinians,
Israelis and (the number varies according to reports) one or more Americans
who might, or might not be members of the CIA. Their mandate is nothing
less than every utterance -- written, spoken, printed or broadcast -- made
by Palestinians and, as a West Bank friend explained it to me, his voice
alternately sad and cheerful, school text books, newspapers, and magazines.
=A0=A0This bizarre document has yet to be noted by the US, Arab, or European
media, who are falling all over each other in prophesying the advent of
Palestinian statehood. Never mind of course the total absence of
territorial contiguity for areas of Palestinian self-rule. Never mind that
Arafat has refused to ratify either the constitution or the basic law
proposed by his Legislative Council. Never mind, that thanks to US and
Israeli pressure, Palestinian life is governed by state security courts
which forbid the presence of witnesses, defence lawyers, or audience. Never
mind that the large sums of money pledged by European and American donors
are still controlled by Arafat, who answers and is accountable to no one,
despite widespread evidence of massive corruption. But that Israel and the
US should require Palestinians to submit fawningly to a law against
incitement -- with a Stalinist-type committee to decide unilaterally what
is or is not incitement: this is scarcely a forward step in the search for
peace or Palestinian self-determination.
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Hilsen Knut Rognes