By Khalid Amayreh

The apartheid Israeli regime decided last week to freeze the transfer of tax and customs revenue levied by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The illegal and immoral measure, which Israel resorts to rather routinely, is intended to bully the Ramallah leadership to capitulate to Zionist whims and blackmailing tactics.

Israel never stopped threatening to strangulate the PA economically and financially if the latter didn't succumb to the Israeli will.

The systematic Israeli blackmail of the PA is a disgraceful expression of the Oslo Accords and other subsequent accords and understandings between the pseudo autonomous authority and the Nazi-like Israeli occupation regime.

Needless to say, these scandalous agreements which effectively reduced the Palestinian regime-from the supposed equal partner envisioned in these so-called agreements-to a vanquished supplicant begging for virtually everything from the Israeli side, from travel permits to basic commodities without which any modern society wouldn't be able to function.

But the story doesn't end here, which reminds us of what the legendary Arab poet, Abu'ttayeb al-Mutannabi, said about slaves who cling to their masters while crying out for freedom:

The great Arab poet said:

wa'inna domo'a la'yni ghodron berabbeha Itha konna ithra al ghadereena jawariya

(The tears of the eye betray a man if they keep running after the traitors)

The PA does possess numerous cards which, if used properly and forcefully, can force Israel to treat the Palestinians with a semblance of respect and dignity.

For example, there is strong ongoing security coordination between the Israeli occupation army and Palestinian security agencies.

This security coordination, which is actually no more than a mere subordination, subjugation and subservience by the PA security apparatus to the Israeli occupation army, covers the entirety of the West Bank and commits the PA to protect and safeguard Israeli interests, including guarding hundreds of Jewish settlers, most of whom indoctrinated in a Nazi-like ideology that teaches that non-Jews, e.g. Palestinians, living under Jewish rule, must submit to the Chosen People or master race and resign to a status of water carriers and wood hewers.

If the goyem (or non-Jews) don't submit and continue to demand human rights and civil liberties, then they must be either expelled or killed.

As mentioned above, Israel had resorted to withholding the transfer of Palestinian monies several times for the purpose of forcing the PA on its knees, with the PA doing virtually nothing to respond to the hostile provocation apart from issuing statements of denunciation and condemnation.

The estimated $100 million dollar which Israel transfers to PA coffers per month constitutes the lion's share of the Palestinian monthly budget. Hence, PA inaction and ostensible indifference with regard to this issue must invite the strongest condemnation from the Palestinian masses, especially those tens of thousands of civil servants and wage earners who receive their income from the PA regime.

The scandal becomes even more clarion and shocking when we know that a good part of the money withheld is used to pay salaries for those very soldiers and officers tasked with coordinating security matters with Israel, or, more correctly, guarding the Nazi-like settlers.

What can the PA do?

Without making a short story long, the PA can and must terminate all forms of security coordination with Israel. To begin with, this coordination is a stigma upon the forehead of every Palestinian political and security official, because in its simplest form, security coordination means collaboration with the enemy against the forces of resistance and freedom.

Moreover, it is amply clear that Israel accords "security coordination" with a pliant PA a paramount importance since that very coordination allows Israel to maintain its enduring occupation with minimal costs.

During the heights of the first and second intifadas or uprisings, Israel maintained a heavy security presence of more than 80,000 troops in the occupied territories.

Hence, a genuine threat by the PA to terminate security coordination with the Zionist regime is very likely to sound alarm bells in Tel Aviv and Washington. Needless to say, it is the latter than finances that security coordination and bribes the PA with more money to maintain that sinful relationship with Israel.

In any case, it is illogical and unethical to keep the Palestinian loaf of bread hostage to the rapacious and cannibalistic instincts of Talmudic sages who view all non-Jews as subhuman creatures whose lives have no sanctity and who have no human rights or dignity.

It is these so fuehrers of Zionism who control rather tightly the present Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu.

This throws the proverbial ball rather squarely onto the PA court.

In addition, I believe the PA should immediately revoke the scandalous Economic Protocol of Paris which made the very lifeline of the Palestinian economy subject to Israel's whims and haphazard, sadistic fantasies.

The PA regime did commit an unforgivable blunder in 1994; it is time the Ramallah leadership rectified and corrected that blunder which has cost our people dearly.

Finally, the PA and other Palestinian forces ought to do their utmost to get friendly Arab, Muslim and other states involved in enabling our people to withstand Israeli bullying and blackmail.

For example, the PA ought to press the new rulers of Egypt to make the Egyptian commitment to honor and uphold the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty subject to Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people.

The same thing applies to all new governments and regimes in the Arab world. This is what everyone would call smart politics.

Otherwise, the Palestinian people should wait to seeing a mere reproduction of the same futility and same failure characterizing PA performance over the years.

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By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem