Until When Mr. President!

Abdaljawad OA Hamayel

            Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas proclaimed from the chambers of the United Nations that we have been “waiting for 60 years”, waiting for our imagined Palestine, for return, for freedom and for basic human dignity.

            The matter of the fact is that Palestinians have been waiting in disarray, confusion, perplexity and a heavy and growing sense of disillusionment with both main political parties, the rival brothers, Hamas and Fattah. Patience is virtue that’s what we are told since the infant age, but in Palestine, it seems patience is eternal.

We waited in 1948, but the promised Arab forces never arrived, we waited in the camps of Lebanon and on the streets of Amman, we waited and still wait between the ever shrinking olive groves of Palestine. We shed blood, tears, created poetry and lullabies. We waited in melancholy and waited in euphoria, we dared to hope, but hope betrayed us. And yet we still wait. 

Mr. President until when shall we wait for our leadership to stand up for our rights, to move away from empty slogans, into a culture of resistance. Until when shall we wait for you to end the downward spiral in corruption, oligarchy and dependency? Until when shall we be patient with repeated failures, and the illusion that which you hang to more than anything else, you know what I mean, the illusion of the “peace process”.    

We have been patient you’re Excellency, we have closed our eyes when Billions of dollars disappeared, we were cautious yet hopeful 20 years ago when you signed that secrete deal. We were patient when those red bricked houses built on our confiscated land were erected, We were patient when our grandma’s, brothers, fathers, mothers, and even our children were humiliated on what they call checkpoints managed by 18 year old’s.

We are patient now, as you’re Prime Minister Jumps from one village to another, promising roads to be built by the beloved US-AID. But can you tell us what is you’re back up plan? Can you inform us where we will be as a people and as nation 5 years from now?

We are patient Mr. President, but it’s getting dryer every day. And we have become thirsty for change, for a different kind of politics and a different kind of vision. We need leadership, not rhetoric, we need substance and not symbols. We need a metamorphosis into a new kind of Palestine. Where we can hope and believe, where we can have faith and not be deceived.

Mr. President we are sick and tired of factional talks, of Hamastan or Fattahstan, we need a way to move forward from the movement backward that we have been experiencing for so many years.

Forgive me Mr. President if I have been too harsh, but when you wait for too long, you’re sanity is all gone. 

The writer is currently studying at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies