MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

FOR ISRAEL’S 60th anniversary celebrations next year, a national bird will be chosen for Israel to call its own. According to Israeli officials, “This is part of the culture of nature-loving nations and a tool to generate local identification. It is also a way to raise the issue of environmentalism and animal protection.”

The director of the Jerusalem Bird Observatory has suggested that the Israeli public be a partner in choosing a bird to represent and be identified with the country. The bulbul, a festive songbird that is common in Wadi El Bazan, Wadi Al Qilt and Ein Qeenia, and the Palestine sunbird, a small black bird with glittering iridescent colors prevalent in desert areas, were considered, but its English name kept the latter out of the running, according to Haaretz.

While this discussion on birds was taking place among Israelis there was an internal revolution provoked by some Palestinians on another bird: the one in the title of Speak Bird, Speak Again, an anthology of Palestinian folk tales. The book was ordered pulled from school libraries by an official in the Palestinian Ministry of Education, reportedly over sexual innuendo and “shameful expressions” to which, according to the ministry decree, students should not be exposed.

Although Minister of Education Naser-Al Deen Al Shaer clarified that the book can remain in the hands of teachers but not of schoolchildren, the controversy resulted in several protests and demonstrations on Palestinian streets and was used as an opportunity to describe the government as “the radical Hamas militant government,” “people of darkness” and “the Taliban of Palestine.”

Of course these calls were trumpeted by the mainstream Western media. Although this press reports few if any of Israel’s daily atrocities against all Palestinians, it suddenly is greatly concerned about “Palestinian intellectuals angered, oppressed and worried that Hamas [is using] last year’s election victory to remake the Palestinian territories according to its hard-line interpretation of Islam.”

The Western media fail to mention, however, that Speak Bird, Speak Again is not the first book banned in Palestine. The late Edward Said’s books were banned throughout Palestine by the same Palestinians who are making such a big fuss today, and their house “intellectuals” remained silent. Nor is it only in Palestine that the Ministry of Education censors what is allowed in the hands and minds of its pupils—similar controversies arise in France and the United States.

In the midst of this foul propaganda, neither the international media, the “Palestinian intellectuals” nor the government on the defensive paid any attention at all to the poor bulbul and the Palestinian sunbird that are being hijacked by Israel for its own use.

Among other things, Palestine is experiencing a crisis between a Western-supported class of elite Palestinians that has its own associations and institutions and is self-identified as the cultural face of Palestine, and ordinary Palestinians, many government employees, who are growing increasingly weary as they struggle to earn a living. Their voice is heard neither locally nor internationally. Although many do not realize it, the distance between the two classes is increasing, and the resulting fragmentation in Palestinian society continues to spread like a plague among our people.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ study of the demographic and socioeconomic status of the Palestinian people at the end of 2006, the Palestinian elite class grew wealthier, despite the embargo and the widespread poverty it has caused. Income distribution in 2006 was reshaped in favor of rich households at the expense of the middle class. In fact, the share of income earned by the richest 10 percent of Palestinian households increased by 24 percent during 2006 (from 25.1 percent in 2005 to 30.6 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2006). On the other hand, middle class income declined by 12 percent, while the share of income earned by poorest 20 percent of households did not change.

Washington’s Favored Few

Just as Washington, through its punitive embargo, taketh away with one hand, however, it also giveth with the other to those in its favor. The U.S. State Department has set aside a huge budget to “protect and promote moderation and democratic alternatives to Hamas,” and provides money to NGOs and other groups with ties to Palestinian political parties “not branded as terrorist groups.” The money is used to train politicians and secular parties opposed to Hamas—“to create democratic alternatives to authoritarian or radical Islamist political options”—and also is given to journalists who snipe at the government and manipulate public opinion.

According to reports, private Palestinian schools will receive $5 million in order to offer an alternative to the government-funded public education system—meaning the brainwashing will start from childhood.

Western money is helping create political and civil society elites, domesticated Palestinians who bend their language to their masters’ requirements. Acting contrary to our values and our reality, they alienate us—yet are allowed to speak in our names. As long as they are willing to sell out and divert the Palestinian national agenda, the international community is willing to give them every right, and the right to everything.

Yet they espouse the same dogma of the people they look down upon—the same fractional, tribal, and regional mentality—and run the same one-man show, with a central person in the position of power regardless of others’ education or level of professionalism. They have a monopoly on the job market and the power to hire and fire. Those they hire come from the same political and ideological background.

They see their mission as being to civilize the jungle dwellers called Palestinians and to teach us about ideals that sell very well abroad: peace and democracy education (in theory only), gender issues and women’s rights (as if all other Palestinians enjoy their human rights), and dialogue and partnership (a de rigeur subject these days).

Western donors are most unlikely to fund a Jerusalem-based Palestinian NGO, or one working for Palestinian prisoners’ and refugees’ rights.

When I attend workshops and conferences on mental health in Palestine, I hear about incest—which is extremely rare in Palestine, and when it does happens it is the result of a psychologically pathological situation—more often than I hear about the problem of mental retardation, which is so tragically prevalent and for which we have no decent institutions. But demonizing our men and condemning Palestinian patriarchy is a good cause for those seeking funds and the donors who want to reinforce our stereotypes. Yes, there is patriarchy in Palestine—a patriarchy that protects women and provides a resolution for disputes in the total absence of a state. If my car has a flat tire, 10 men I don’t know will come to help fix it. In Paris, on the other hand, a woman was raped in the Metro and no one intervened. Let’s be fair to our community and focus on the norm rather than the exception, and learn how to prioritise instead of always competing for foreign funds. Between Western donors and their favored recipient organizations, many local birds find no nests in Palestine.

Samah Jabr is a psychiatrist practicing in her native Jerusalem.

 
 
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