Palestinian dissent and crackdown exposes neo-colonial rule by MC12 Twenty Palestinian intellectuals and political leaders created a stir in November, when they signed a declaration criticizing Yassir Arafat's leadership and the state of "peace" negotiations with Israel. After the statement was published, a number of the signatories were arrested, and several subsequently went on a hunger strike. The statement read in part: "The Palestinian leadership promised after Oslo a Palestinian state with Jerusalem being the Capital of it, the return of refugees, the demolishing of settlements, the release of prisoners, and the preparation for an economic revival that will lead Palestine to be the Singapore of the whole region. ... But, after six years of Oslo, we see more land confiscation, the building of more settlements beside enlarging the existing ones," in addition to the continued imprisonment of many Palestinians by Israel. "On top of that, the Palestinian Authority has followed a systematic methodology of corruption, humiliation and abuse. As if the Oslo agreement was a trade of the homeland for the richness of some corrupted people. The president of the PNA [Arafat - ed.] has opened the doors widely for some opportunist to spread corruption in the Palestinian community. The economic status has deteriorated, the communal relations had weakened and the moral standards have demolished, and many health educational and judiciary institutions have been destroyed. The alarm bell is [tolling] in every city, village, refugee camp, and every bend and corner, even in every shop, house and office. The homeland is being let down and destroyed. Let's stand together against this tyranny and corruption."(1) Palestinian frustration with the neo-colonial leadership of the Arafat group has increased. In November, Palestinians demonstrated against price increases for bread, fuel, and bus fares. Their demonstration was directed against the Palestinian Authority and its members, who profit from a local monopoly on these goods.(2) Arafat was reportedly enraged that the statement included personal criticism of him and his leadership, and was signed by some members of his own Fatah movement. Arafat's own frustration came out when he was giving a literature award to Palestinian poet Samih al-Qassem. The poet warned Arafat that he would still use his pen to correct mistakes the Palestinian leader made, at which point Arafat took a pistol from his bodyguard and handed it to the poet, saying, "Not only with your pen. You can also correct me with this."(3) The recent crackdown is by no means the first by Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Previously, they have rounded up members of Hamas and other nationalist organizations that Israel and the U.$. demanded be shut down, even as these groups provided basic services to many Palestinians. As MIM Notes reported in 1998, "The neocolonial solution proposed by the PLO proves its own futility more and more each day."(4) MIM takes this opportunity to reiterate our conclusion following a similar crackdown in 1997: "The Palestinian Authority is defined as a comprador regime by the fact that it depends on the imperialists, and not the people for its power and its survival. Israel and Amerika have Arafat doing their dirty work for them -- repressing the Palestinian people and depriving them of the rights due to independent nations. Unfortunately for lackey Arafat, the Palestinian people see clearly through his collaborationist tricks to the imperialists who hand him his orders. The people reject imperialist interference in their lives and see alternatives to collaboration active around them. Arafat has no right to political leadership that is not granted to him by the Palestinian people, and he faces a power struggle as the masses continue to look toward and work for their own national liberation."(5) Notes: 1. Statement translation posted by the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, http://www.lawsociety.org/press/1999/nov_28.html. 2. Economist, December 11, 1999. 3. Associated Press, Dec. 5, 1999. 4. MIM Notes 175, Dec. 1, 1998. 5. MIM Notes 147, Oct. 1, 1997.