WarSclerotic

When I was new to the United States, a so-called “moderate” Muslim scholar pulled me aside and gave me some “friendly” words of advice:

“In the West, there is a trend unfolding. If you follow it, you will find great success, more than you can imagine. It is very easy, all you have to do is stick to a few simple rules. No matter what your personal views are, you must be a Muslim apologist — an apologist for radical Islam — and present yourself as a ‘moderate’ Muslim scholar. If you can accomplish this, they will lap it up. You will never want for anything again. You will easily gain wealth and become the most in-demand ‘moderate’ Muslim scholar in the West!”

It sounded reasonable enough. “As you have the advantage of being from the region,” he continued, “you will come across as authentic.”

His advice was accurate. There is a huge industry of so-called “moderate” Muslim scholars, who are actually apologists for Islam. This industry began to grow after the catastrophe of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and from there, expanded.

There seems to exist a symbiotic relationship between the mainstream media and liberal organizations on one side, and the “moderate” Muslim apologists on the other.

It is these “moderate” Muslim apologists, commentators, and organizations that are creating — directly or indirectly — the rise of Islamic extremism and with it, terrorism. They provide a window for all sorts of acts of evil to take place: from raping women and children to blowing up public places or running people over with vans. These are the people who are preventing any positive changes or reforms from taking place. By not criticizing these extremists, they are not only failing to address the underlying problem of extremism and Islamic terrorism; they are also stealing attention away from the root of the problem.

If you scrutinize the uptick in recent terrorism, their approach leads to even more radicalization. There appears to be a direct correlation between the expansion of this “moderate” Muslim apologist industry, and the increasing rate of terrorist attacks in the West. If officials were actually interested in saving lives — rather than just in cozying up to the Muslim vote to keep their jobs — they should jump at the chance to reveal the truth behind fundamentalist Islam and Islamic terrorism. If not, they should be voted out of their jobs.

The West, unfortunately, encourages these “moderate” Muslim apologists to keep on advancing these false views: that one must not blame extremists, that nothing is the fault of the Islamic teachings, that all of these radical and that Islamist terrorist attacks “have nothing to do with Islam.” More doors and opportunities keep opening for these apologists to get cash. The Muslim apologists are handed megaphones, invited to international forums, handed book deals, given scholarships, and offered jobs with elite but false titles such as “Islam and Counter-Terrorism Expert.” With such incentives, why would anyone ever stop?

Meanwhile the real scholars of Islam, such as Robert Spencer, who are trying to warn the public about these apologists, are called “Islamophobes,” poisoned, often fired from work, censored on social media and barred from entering democratic countries such as Great Britain.

It does not even matter that many of these so-called “moderate” Muslim apologists in the West may never have lived in an Islamist state or experienced first-hand what it is like to be ruled by extremists. The majority of them seem to have been born and raised in the West under a democratic system of governance where they can freely voice their opinions and practice their religion without fear of prosecution. The concepts they talk about — such as sharia, jihad, or the “true” interpretation of Islamic teachings — are as foreign to them as they are to any other Westerner.

I have lived for years in these places in the Middle East and seen with my own eyes the cruelty and abuse that takes place under extremist Islamic law. I have heard the screams of families as their loved ones were tortured and slaughtered for the simplest acts — singing, dancing, voicing an opinion, or simply being a non-Muslim — all of which are crimes.

If we play the game of misinforming and misleading people about Islamism, by making irrelevant analogies to whitewash the violence and terrorism which are generated by Islamic fundamentalism, we are indoctrinating the literally millions of innocent children who will be either the perpetrators or victims of the next radical Islamic terror attacks — including Muslims.

With the lure of money and fame tempting so many, unless we begin to wake up to the damage they are doing to their victims, their families and the whole of society, it will not stop.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a business strategic and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

On March 30, an attempt by tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to infiltrate the border with Israel launched a six-week campaign of mass protests — called the “March of Return” — organized by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other radical Palestinian groups.

The groups encouraged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to head to the areas adjacent to the border with Israel. The protesters were also encouraged to try to infiltrate the border, thus putting their lives at risk.

Hamas and its allies told the protesters that the “March of Return” marked the beginning of the “liberation of all of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.” In other words, the Palestinians were told that infiltrating the border with Israel would be the first step toward destroying Israel.

Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yehya Sinwar, who joined the March 30 mass protests along the border with Israel, did not hide the real goal behind the “March of Return” — to destroy Israel and thwart US President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East.

The two Hamas leaders told the protesters that the March 30 demonstrations marked the beginning of a “new phase in the Palestinians’ national struggle on the road to liberating all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.” Haniyeh and Sinwar also made it clear that the “March of Return” had another goal: to foil any attempt by the Arabs to make peace or normalize their relations with Israel.

Based on statements made by Hamas leaders, the “March of Return” campaign is not about improving the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Nor is it about finding ways to solve the “humanitarian” and “economic” crises in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas and its allies did not send the protesters to the border with Israel to demand jobs and medicine. They did not encourage Palestinians to risk their lives at the border with Israel because of the lack of electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip.

Instead, the organizers sent the Palestinians to the border after assuring them that this was the only way to flood Israel with hundreds of thousands of Palestinian “refugees” as part of the “right of return.” The “right of return” refers to the Palestinian demand that Israel allow Palestinian “refugees” and their descendants to move to Israel.

As Zaher Birawi, one of the organizers of the “March of Return” explained, “The right of return is sacred and a red line not to be crossed. The Palestinians will do their utmost to achieve this right.”

His words, together with those of the two Hamas leaders, prove that the mass protests are aimed at forcing Israel to accept millions of Palestinian “refugees” as a first step towards turning Jews into a minority in their own country. The next step would be to kill or expel the Jews and replace Israel with an Islamic state.

Crucial here is the fact that what we witnessed along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel on March 30 was not a protest by poverty-stricken and miserable Palestinians against a blockade of any kind.

If that were so, why didn’t the organizers ask Palestinians to march toward the border with Egypt? The real blockade on the Gaza Strip is being imposed by Egypt, and not Israel.

In 2017, the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was open altogether for less than 30 days; by contrast, the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip was open for more than 280 days during the same year.

Israel enforces a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip that is meant to prevent Iran, Hezbollah and other terror parties from smuggling weapons into the coastal enclave controlled by Hamas. At the same time, Israel has kept its border crossings with Gaza for the movement of goods and individuals.

Israel permits Palestinians to enter and leave the Gaza Strip through the Erez border crossing. Last month, the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister entered the Gaza Strip through the Erez border crossing, only to have his convoy targeted by a roadside bomb once inside Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel also allows foreigners to enter the Gaza Strip through the same border crossing. They include journalists, diplomats, and hundreds of foreigners working for various international aid agencies, including the United Nations.

All this while the Rafah border crossing with Egypt remains closed. Since the beginning of this year, the Egyptians opened the border crossing intermittently only for two or three days each time. Egypt also continues to bar foreigners from entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah terminal. Even Arabs who want to help the people of the Gaza Strip are forced to enter through the Erez border crossing because the Egyptians do not give them permission to use the Rafah terminal.

In 2017, Egypt opened its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip (pictured above) for less than 30 days altogether; by contrast, the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip was open for more than 280 days during the same year. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Take, for example, the Qatari envoy to the Gaza Strip, Ambassador Mohammed Al Emadi. Each time he leaves and enters the Gaza Strip, he uses the Erez border crossing with Israel. The Egyptians will not allow him or any other Arab seeking to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to enter through the Rafah terminal.

Given this reality, the question is: Why aren’t the Palestinian protests directed against Egypt? The answer is obvious.

The Palestinians know that messing with the Egyptian army will cost them a heavy price. If Israel used snipers to stop the March 30 protesters from crossing the border, the Egyptian response would undoubtedly have been much tougher. The Egyptians would have used artillery and warplanes against the Palestinian demonstrators. The Palestinians are well aware that the Egyptian army would raze the entire Gaza Strip if the Palestinians breached the border and undermined Egypt’s national security.

Besides, the “March of Return” is intended as part of the Palestinian national struggle against the “Zionist entity” — Israel — and has nothing to do with the closure of any border.

It is part of the Palestinian jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel, which they see as a “colonialist project” imposed on the Arabs by Western powers after World War II. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a rare moment of honesty, admitted earlier this year that this is precisely how Palestinians and Arabs perceive Israel.

The organizers of the “March of Return” have made it clear that besides flooding Israel with millions of Palestinian “refugees,” the campaign has two other objectives: to foil Trump’s “deal of the century” and stop any form of Arab normalization with Israel.

The Palestinians have proclaimed a wholesale rejection of Trump’s plan because they know it will not advance their goal of turning Jews into a minority in their own country. Trump’s plan, they believe, does not recognize the Palestinian “right of return,” which means that “refugees” and their descendants will not be allowed to move into Israel, turning it into an Arab-majority state.

The organizers of the “March of Return” have clearly stated that this is a driving force behind the mass protests — to send a message to the Trump administration that Palestinians will not accept any deal that does not facilitate their dream of replacing Israel with an Arab Islamic state.

The “March of Return” is also aimed at sending a warning to the Palestinian Authority and the Arab countries not to make any concessions to Israel or collaborate with the Trump administration.

Again, this is not what political analysts are saying. Instead, these are the exact words and phrases used by the organizers of the event. Their ultimate goal: to prevent Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority from returning to the negotiating table with Israel and to threaten Arab countries not to sign peace agreements with Israel.

Now, the organizers are telling us that the “March of Return” will continue and reach its peak in mid-May, on the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Israel.

The “March of Return” is yet another phase in the Palestinian attempt to wipe out the presence of Israel in the Middle East, not about any blockade. The “March of Return” is an anti-peace campaign designed to thwart any attempt to achieve peace between Israel and the Arab countries.

The leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other groups that organized the mass protests are now complaining about the high death toll and accusing Israel of opening fire at “unarmed and peaceful” protesters. These are the same leaders who urged their people to head to the border with Israel and to try to force their way into Israel. These are the same leaders who encouraged their people to damage the security fence along the border with Israel. Did they expect the Israeli soldiers to greet them with flowers?

As for Mahmoud Abbas, he has supplied yet more proof of his towering hypocrisy. Hours after the violent confrontations along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, Abbas appeared on Palestine TV to hold Israel “fully responsible” for the violence and death and injury of the protesters.

This is the same Abbas who recently told us that Hamas was a terror group that was behind the March 13 botched assassination attempt on his prime minister. This is the same Abbas who last year imposed sanctions on the Gaza Strip by suspending payments for electricity supplied to the Gaza Strip by Israel and suspending payments to thousands of civil servants there. Instead of condemning Hamas for sending the Palestinians to clash with the Israeli army and endanger their lives, Abbas chose to denounce Israel for protecting its border.

The Palestinian “March of Return” is being mistakenly referred to by some journalists and political analysts as a “peaceful and popular” drive by Palestinians demanding freedom and better living conditions.

Palestinians’ living conditions in the Gaza Strip could be improved if the Egyptians only opened the Rafah border crossing and allowed Palestinians to leave and allowed Arabs and others to come and help the people there. Their lives could be improved if Hamas stopped building terror tunnels and smuggling weapons.

But, as has become evident by now, the “March of Return” is nothing but a declaration of war on Israel and the Trump administration.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.

Does the appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser indicate President Trump’s determination to formally renounce the so-called “nuclear deal” concocted by his predecessor Barack Obama?

The common answer of the commentariat is a resounding yes. Long before Trump promised to tear-up the deal, Bolton was on record denouncing it as an ugly example of appeasement.

Thus, next May, when the “deal” comes up for its periodical renewal, President Trump’s idea of “tearing up a bad deal” is likely to have broader support in his administration. And that seems to be exactly what Tehran is expecting.

In fact, just days after Bolton’s appointment, the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, Behruz Kamalvand, broke a year of silence to boast about ambitious new plans for speeding up and expanding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear project.

The buzz in Tehran is that the ruling establishment expects Trump to refuse to sign another waiver linked to the “deal” and, perhaps order a tightening of the existing sanctions. However, Tehran seems determined to continue its formal commitment to the “deal” as part of a strategy to drive a wedge between the Europeans and a Trump administration already unpopular in the old continent.

Tehran’s calculation is that the mid-term elections in the US may deprive Trump of crucial Congressional support and pave the way for his defeat in the following presidential election. Thus the wisest course is to keep everyone focused on the nuclear issue that the Europeans, and part of the political establishment in the US, believe they have solved thanks to the “deal,” while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues its 20-year long equivocation on the issue.

Only Iran really knows its own intentions on that score.

Iran is right in saying that it is not producing nuclear weapons. What Iran is doing is to set up all the technical, industrial and material means needed to produce such weapons, if and when it decides to do so.

While not producing nuclear weapons now, Iran has a program designed to make such weapons within months. It is like a chef who brings in all that is needed for making a soup but does not actually start the cooking until he knows when the guests will be coming.

While Iran sets up all the technical, industrial and material means needed to produce nuclear weapons, it seems determined to continue its formal commitment to the “nuclear deal” as part of a strategy to drive a wedge between the Europeans and the Trump administration. Pictured: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini smile during a 2015 photo-op. (Image source: European External Action Servic/Flickr)

In the past three decades Iran has trained and deployed the scientists and technicians needed, built the research centers required, and set up structures for a complete nuclear cycle, from raw materials to the finished product.

Part of the Iranian national defense doctrine is based on the capacity to produce and deploy nuclear weapons within a brief time span.

Before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran regarded its northern neighbor, the nuclear “super-power” Soviet Union, as the sole serious threat to its national security. The assumption was that in case of a Soviet invasion, Iran should be in a position to use tactical nuclear weapons while waiting for the great American ally to ride to the rescue.

After the mullahs seized power, Iran’s national defense doctrine was based on the assumption that it will, one day, fight a war with the United States plus its Arab allies and/or Israel.

The central assumption of Iranian strategists is that the US cannot sustain a long war. It is, therefore, necessary to pin down its forces and raise the kill-die ratio to levels unacceptable by the American public.

In the meantime, Iran would put its nuclear-weapons program in high gear, and brandish the threat of nuclear war as a means of forcing the US to accept a ceasefire and withdraw from whatever chunk of Iranian territory they may have seized.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani publicly evoked the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Washington’s regional allies, especially Israel.

“In a nuclear duel in the region, Israel may kill 100 million Muslims,” Rafsanjani said in a speech in Tehran in October 2000. “Muslims can sustain such casualties, knowing that, in exchange, there would be no Israel on the map.” Iran’s top military commanders also speak about a military clash with the United States as the only serious threat to the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.

They believe they have three trump cards to play.

The first is that Iran has a demographic reserve of some 20 million people of “fighting age” and is thus capable of sustaining levels of casualties unthinkable for Americans. The second is that Iran is already the missile superpower of the Middle East and could target all of Washington’s allies in the region.

Iran’s third trump card is its nuclear program. Without it, the other two cards will not have the desired effect, especially if the US unleashes its new generation of low-grade nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use.

The real issue, as far as US and its allies are concerned, is that the regime in Iran has been, is and most likely will remain, a threat with or without nuclear weapons.

Iran did not seize the US diplomats as hostages with nuclear weapons; nor did it massacre 241 US Marines in Beirut with an atomic bomb. The mischief that Iran is making in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain is not backed by nuclear power either.

So the real question is: How to deal with a maverick power that has built its strategy on fomenting discord and instability not only in the Middle East but anywhere else it gets a chance?

Washington hawks, among them Bolton perhaps, believe that the only realistic policy towards Iran is one of regime change before the Khomeinists build their nuclear arsenal. They believe that could be achieved with a mixture of military and diplomatic pressure, combined with moral and material support for a pro-democracy movement in Iran.

The Europeans, however, fear that any attempt even at soft regime-change may push the Khomeinists on the offensive in Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, the Caucasus, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories.

Could a realistic policy be developed through a sober assessment of both positions? If yes, that would requires far more sophistication than the “to waiver or not to waiver” debate over what is; in fact; the fading ghost of an accord wrought from dangerous illusions.

Amir Taheri, formerly editor of Iran’s premier newspaper, Kayhan, before the Iranian revolution of 1979, is a prominent author based on Europe. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.

This article first appeared in Asharq Al Awsat and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

A report published this week offers a rare glance into the secret world of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was established in 1994 in accordance with the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO.

Headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has since received billions of dollars in aid from the US, EU and several other donor countries.

However, the failure of the donors to demand accountability and transparency from the Palestinian Authority has deprived Palestinians of a significant part of the funds. It has also encouraged Palestinian leaders to continue pocketing millions of dollars, enriching their private and hidden bank accounts.

One would have expected the Western donors to have woken up and noticed that Palestinian leaders are misusing the taxpayer money they send.

One would have expected the Americans and Europeans to come to Abbas and his cronies, bang on the table, and demand that they start using and investing money for the welfare of their people, and not for their friends and family members.

The report, published by the Coalition For Accountability And Integrity (AMAN), established in 2000 by a number of civil society organizations working in the field of democracy, human rights, and good governance, shows that the Western donors have learned nothing from their past mistakes.

The report also shows that the Palestinian Authority remains the same corrupt body it has been since its inception more than twenty years ago.

Under Yasser Arafat, the PA was plagued with widespread corruption and mismanagement. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has followed in this tradition and, despite his repeated promises, the Palestinian Authority remains as corrupt as ever.

Why should Abbas and his associates work to improve the living conditions of their people if those who are pouring billions of dollars on them continue to turn a blind eye to financial and administrative corruption in the PA they are funding?

Entitled “Integrity and Combating Corruption: Palestine 2017,” the AMAN report reviews the status of corruption and lack of transparency and accountability in the Palestinian Authority during 2017.

It is one of the most comprehensive reports looking into the widespread corruption and squandering of public funds by the Palestinian Authority leadership.

The report found, for example, that the Palestinian Authority had invested $17.5 million in building a “presidential palace” for Abbas. The palace is built on an area of 4,700 square meters.

After facing criticism over the project, Abbas decided to convert the palace into a huge national library.

Here is what the report had to say about the grandiose project:

“Honorable as it may sound to convert the presidential palace into a public library, it remains to be the epitome of misuse of public funds as well as a bad example of lack of prioritization. And although the idea of building a hospitality palace for official foreign delegations is not evil in itself, it is not and never was a priority for Palestinians, given the urgent need to finance vital services such as health and education. This is apart from the chronic financial crisis plaguing the Palestinian Authority. And while recognizing the importance of a national library, the idea of converting the palace to one is detrimental, since it would cost more than building a new library from the start due to the construction and re-construction details it involves.”

The 83-year-old Abbas could have invested the $17.5 million in building a new hospital or creating new jobs for his people, but he chose to build a palace for his cohorts and himself on a hilltop on the outskirts of Ramallah.

Was the palace part of Abbas’s plan for a quiet, comfortable and luxurious retirement? The idea of converting the palace into a national library is equally ridiculous. For the Palestinians, a new school or hospital is more urgently needed than a library. Besides, at this point, the Palestinians hardly need a library that looks like a royal palace.

Pictured: Mahmoud Abbas’ $17.5 million “presidential palace” near Ramallah. After facing criticism over the project, Abbas decided to convert the palace into a huge national library. (Image source: Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction)

Here is another example provided by the report concerning the Palestinian Authority’s practice of squandering public money: paying the salaries and expenses of a non-existent airline called “Palestine Airlines.”

It said that “hundreds of employees of this company continue to receive salaries and allowances from the Palestinian Authority, although the company is not registered as a company in accordance with Palestinian law.“

The budget for this company, the report found, is included in the budget of the Palestinian Ministry of Transportation, but with no specific details of how the money is spent.

The “Palestine Airlines” employees are not the only civil servants who are paid despite not working and their being employed by a company that does not really exist. According to the report, members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the Palestinians’ parliament, have also been benefiting from monthly salaries, despite the parliament having been paralyzed for more than a decade as a result of the dispute between Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction and Hamas.

“The continuation of the dysfunction of the PLC, in 2107, posed the biggest challenge to formal accountability and oversight of the government’s performance in terms of management of public funds and public affairs in general,” the report stated. In 2017, the report revealed, the Palestinian Authority spent more than 39 million shekels (about $11 million) on the PLC. Half of the money went to salaries for the Palestinian lawmakers even though they have not been working for more than a decade. The report continued:

“It is the right of citizens to inquire about the feasibility of these expenses without tangible results of the role of the PLC, and its failure to hold sessions that include members of Parliament in the West Bank and Gaza, in accordance with the law… Results of the government’s plans did not show restraint in the continuing financial crisis of the PA, nor rationalization of public expenditures, or control over procurement and administrative and operational expenditures. In addition, talk of austerity continued without carrying out any serious implementation steps.”

The report also found continued flaws in the structure of the Palestinian Authority security apparatus. The increase in the number of high-ranking officers had a negative impact on the performance of the security forces. In addition, this increase in the numbers placed an added burden on the public budget. The percentage of officers in three security apparatuses accounted for 50% of all officers in the Palestinian Authority’s eight security forces.

The report found that corruption has also extended to the purchase of vehicles for Palestinian officials and their family members and friends. “Influential persons in senior positions were granted tax exemptions with legal basis for approval,” the report found. “The amount of wasted funds is enormous.” Here, it is worth noting that the Palestinian Authority law allows Palestinian terrorists who spent more than 20 years in Israeli prison to receive, one time only, a free car. This, of course, is in addition to the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying salaries to families of Palestinian prisoners and “martyrs.”

According to the report, “political corruption has deepened in the Palestinian case due to the presence of two authorities, one in the West Bank and the other in the Gaza Strip.” This division, which is the result of the Hamas-Fatah power struggle, has harmed Palestinian lives on many levels and negatively affected public funds, human rights and freedoms, and development as the two governments took decisions and measures to weaken each other.

In 2017, the Palestinian Authority’s Anti-Corruption Commission received 430 complaints, but only 21 were referred to the prosecution’s office, the report noted. “This indicates that the commission, its staff and follow-up mechanisms are slow,” it added. “As for the nature of the cases, they ranged from embezzlement to abuse of power to fraud to breach of trust and bribery.” The largest proportion of those accused of corruption crimes were employees in the governmental public sector.

The report also took to task the Palestinian Authority for the way it approved its 2017 budget. The full version of the budget was not made public; only revenues and expenditures were presented with no details as to allocations for each ministry. Nor did the budget law include a table illustrating the Palestinian Authority’s debts and loans or propose a plan for the collection of payments of these debts and loans. In addition, contributions and investments of the Palestinian Authority in local and non-local companies were also not clarified.

The Western media completely ignores such reports. By doing so, Western journalists are betraying their own people by failing to inform them how their foreign-aid money is being embezzled and squandered by corrupt Palestinian leaders. The Palestinians, of course, are the primary victims in this story. They live in poverty as their leaders scrabble to misappropriate public funds. The lives of the Palestinians could have been much better had their leaders been held accountable for their actions.

For Palestinians, to confront the dictators in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip means nothing short of putting one’s life on the line. Yet the same is not true for the international community, including Western mainstream media.

Why, then, do they continue to look the other way as Abbas constructs gilded mansions for himself and his buddies? Perhaps because they are too busy digging up dirt about Israel. But when journalists close their eyes and ears, enabling the theft of American and European taxpayer money by despotic Palestinian leaders who continue to injure their own people, the tinsel begins to tarnish on the golden world of the Palestinian Authority.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.