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Politics of Resentment in the West Bank

(Toronto Sun) Salim Mansur - I am struck by the construction boom across the city as I visit Ramallah, the legislative and political center of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. There is money here, plenty of it, and those who have it are not hesitant to flaunt it. New cars, beautiful residences, fancy stores and restaurants will startle any outsider arriving here with his head filled by the mainstream media in the West about the misery of the West Bank. The politics of resentment spill over any conversation with ordinary Palestinians fed on a diet of half-truths and endless lies by their leaders. But visiting with Palestinians is also an invitation to hear their bitterness about Arab leaders, and of their experience with discrimination and violence in places such as Lebanon and Kuwait. They speak of how the Palestinian leadership resembles Ali Baba and his 40 thieves robbing the people of the money that has poured in as aid from the West. The term limit of the president and the legislative assembly has expired, and no new elections are scheduled to provide Palestinians with any say on how they are being governed. In effect those in authority have no mandate, and their fear that Hamas will likely win an election whenever held underscores the contempt of ordinary Palestinians for Mahmoud Abbas - the president of the Palestinian Authority - and the men around him. If it were not for Israel in the middle, the war of words between the two Palestinian entities, or putative states, would become a ghastly shootout between the Iranian proxy in Gaza and mafia dons receiving protection money from the West and its Arab allies in the West Bank.
2010-08-09 09:18:43
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