The Palestinian Prime Minister was interviewed by DW German TV channel last week, in what appeared yet another time a flashing light in the continuous scandals in the Palestinian decision making \governmental \PA level.
I don’t know what the recipe for such failures is.
I am wiring this, and I am not proud. It ‘s nice to criticize, to be self-critical to oneself and his government, but when you see this in international media, there is not much left to criticize. It becomes an embarrassment.
Each time a Palestinian believe-to-be-a BIG man appears on international interviews, it backfires big time. I don’t know what do they think or expect. In written interviews I understand that some of them hope that we the absentee population doesn’t reach, believing that we still live in the controlled media era. But with TV interviews chances are that we see. The other reason should be that they don’t control the interviewer and the questions. It is probably likely that when they conduct local interviews, it is prepared and adequately controlled.
What happened in the Prime Minister’s interview with the interviewer of conflict zone of DW has many concerns. On top of them is this state of no respect to the Palestinian authority represented by someone as high as the Prime Minister himself. It wasn’t an interview; it was an investigation. Of course, it felt well to see it. The man, after all, was saying what the Palestinian street has been discussing in whispering circles and circulating anonymously on the Internet for the last months if not years. Too many scandals are popping in a dangerous way with no consequences, starting to form the leaks of the legal documents that included nepotism and corruption and to the recent protests within the strike of the teachers.
Each time we think that a scandal appears to make a change at least, things only get worse. Instead of holding people responsible, things are covered, and corrupt people get promoted. From the wiki documents to the murder inside the embassy in Bulgaria, to the protest. Each time the dealing with the matter took a direction that made people lose hope for any proper fixture and only proved that corruption is the address of the ongoing situation.
Instead of dealing with the documents that were leaked, people were traced, and excuses were given. When a parliament member is holding herself as a refugee inside the parliament in order not to face arrest as a result of her discussing a corruption matter in the media, what would a regular citizen expect? When people are threatened if they post a word or a like on their Facebook pages. When protesters are detained. When journalists and academics are arrested for their words. When protesters are not allowed to reach the Prime Minister courtyard. And no rights are claimed, and Israel continues to knock on the walls of our security and publicly execute are people with not even a condemnation from the PA officially maintaining a safeguarding position to the occupation.
Of course, such an interview would be an embarrassment to every Palestinian, including the Prime Minister himself. I would be skeptical about him being embarrassed because I am sure he thinks he did a great job. After all, the man believes that the whole nation is standing behind this government, and what he saw from the protests was teachers giving flowers to the security people.
Of Course Mr. Prime Minister they would give roses to the security people. Your attempt to suppress a nation of students who became your safety guard cannot contain their teachers who are protesting for their minimal rights.
When we witness corruption from all directions, and we see decrees of promotions and the teachers are treated in such ways, where they are the poorest in this government, what do you expect?
The controversy of having a Palestinian teacher to win the prize of the best teacher in the world should have at least ignited something, but yet, nothing. They tried to acclaim the victory of the woman who was as well a protester as every other teacher, and instead of promoting teachers, they insist on dealing with this population as if we live in a feudal era.
The Prime Minister tried to convince the interviewer who came to him from the real world that he seems to refuse to see. The real world of Palestinians. And instead, he kept talking about achievements that don’t exist and blaming the occupation like a schoolboy in a detention threat for rude behavior.
The whole level of the discussion was an embarrassment. He failed in every question. The interview turned into an investigation that proved him guilty.
This whole thing in the official Palestinian discourse is sarcastically embarrassing. I wonder how do they get their consolations. Who advises them on what they say, when and with whom? It is all so catastrophic that brings us each time steps backward.
Not to mention the English. It is not that it is new that Palestinians have a problem with the p and b letters. But the Prime Minister is an English professor at Al Najah University who is as well still its president.
Of course, the Prime Minister had an answer to every pushy question: it happens elsewhere. That is unfair. Look at Israel.
Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News.