Just an Act

By: Kian Mokhtari

The unelected head of the Palestinian Authority went on to say, "We recognize the state of Israel, we do not seek its destruction, and we want to establish our state next to Israel."

Mr. Abbas failed to say which "we" he was referring to. As an unelected acting head of the Palestinian Authority, he does not legally represent anyone other than business interests of a bunch of his mates who are desperately clinging on to their tentative hold on power.

One only needs to travel less than a kilometer outside of Ramallah -where Mr. Abbas's Headquarters are situated- before getting greeted by the distinctive green flags of Hamas flying from every lamp post.

In fact Mr. Abbas's grasp of democracy is so poor that he has failed to realize that he cannot speak for the Palestinian people unless he is directly elected by them. And as such it is he who is not qualified to speak on behalf of the Palestinian nation.

According to Abbas, the support of the Iranian President does not serve the interests of the Palestinian people and their cause. However, over 160 countries' delegates who attended the "Durban II" conference in Geneva and stayed behind to applaud Ahmadinejad's comments on the occupied Palestine, may beg to differ.

There is another hitch to Abbas' uncalled for outburst. President Ahmadinejad was only attempting to highlight the plight of the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and daily bombardments. Nobody has come away with the impression that Iran's President was in any way speaking on behalf of the Palestinian people.

That task is left for elected representatives of the Palestinians.

The point we are making here is that if an unelected official can believe that he can speak on behalf of the Palestinian nation then, technically speaking, anyone else also can.

In a democracy nobody requires permission to voice his or her opinion -another fine point in a very long line, which has been evidently lost on Mahmoud Abbas' grasp of democratic processes.

Should Palestinians recognize Israel, from the international law's point of view at least, they would automatically become squatters on Israeli land and can be ejected legally through whichever means available to Israel.

So how could any responsible Palestinian official come up with "We recognize the state of Israel”?

Mr. Abbas has clearly been spending too much time up his own office surrounded by geniuses like himself, to realize the implications of what he is doing or saying "on behalf" of Palestine.

Palestinians in Gaza sleep out under the stars with empty stomachs and no medicines to heal their wounds, while Mr. Abbas and his team continue to munch on caviar purchased with billions of dollars worth of international aid intended for Gaza civilians.

One can only imagine that Mr. Abbas' recent remarks are indicative of the increasingly precarious position he is finding himself in.