A Letter to Mr. Mahmoud Abbas Your Silence to the Massacres is Deafening

Sir,

--- I am writing this letter to ask you to leave your barren position as President of the Palestinian Authority (PA). You have had ample time to pursue your “two-state” peace process that your predecessor Yasser Arafat kicked-off during the signing of the now-defunct Oslo agreements. Are your people liberated? Have the illegal settlements stopped encroaching on your lands? In short, did your negotiations help alleviate the pain and suffering of the occupied? The answer is a big colossal “no” to each of the posted questions.

As an institution, a government should have jurisdiction over a defined geo-political area. How could you call yourself a government while there is no Palestinian state? How could you maintain a constitution when Palestine is not defined?

Alas, your “authority” has complied with UN resolution 242; by recognizing the state of Israel while the reciprocal response was not of the same weight. Israel “recognized” the PA as the sole representative of the Palestinian people and it had not, as of yet, retreated to the 1967 borders that you wish to establish your rule over. Since the “peace” process began, terra nullius was being adopted by Israel at an ever-increasing rate and the colonization of the West Bank grew exponentially. Sir, you abandoned 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza for your own political gain. While people starve and are being massacred in Gaza, you still speak in terms of sectarian politics.

As a leader, your silence to the massacres is deafening. As a leader, your inept attitude is demoralizing. Therefore, I ask you to resign from your post, dissolve the PA, and make demands from the occupiers to ensure the welfare of the occupied (as stipulated in the 3rd and 4th Geneva Conventions).

Rashid Abu-Ghazalah
Toronto, Canada