Aggressive Intimidation

"It's a good cop, bad cop routine. The bad cops are the security services, and the good cop is the benevolent president. They want to send a chilling message, and it works."
Diana Buttu, former Palestinian Authority insider

And so, it becomes known, and anticipated, meets defiance, and the crackdown springs into action. Critics of the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas's government have it on good authority that they can expect to be interrogated, prosecuted and jailed. They have the example imposed on a number of journalists and bloggers guilty of "defaming" the Palestinian leader.

In so doing they assail his honour, his probity, his authority, and this is impermissible.

President Abbas's aids are swift to deny that their leader has any intention of cracking down on freedom of expression. Palestinian rights activists insist the intimidation that the government is imposing on those unclear about the prerogatives and priorities of the president and his governing party has a direct and distinct purpose; to silent dissent.

The campaign of intimidation, as far as they are concerned, is deepening, the assurances of the government aside. Supporters of President Abbas's political rival, Hamas, along with politically independent individuals who have written disparagingly and despairingly about nepotism and abuse of power in Abbas's Palestinian Authority are the target.

This is an issue that grates against the values of freedom of expression and freedom of the press that loom so large in importance within the democracy-based Western supporters of the Palestinian Authority, who prefer to have no knowledge of the situation. Dragging journalists and bloggers to court appears to be motivated by political insecurity.

Fatah, and specifically the Palestinian Authority have a well-aged reputation for endemic, deep-rooted corruption. During the reign of Yasser Arafat the funding generously allocated through a variety of mostly Western aid sources was looted by the former head of the PA and his close circle.

This is an honoured and quietly-pursued tradition that remains to this day, generally known and strenuously denied by the looters.

Muhammad Rashid, formerly key financial and economic adviser to Yasser Arafat and formerly head of the Palestinian Investment Fund, experienced a falling-out with the current president as an outspoken critic of Mahmoud Abbas. A court in Ramallah pronounced Mr. Rashid guilty of embezzlement and money laundering, in absentia.

Sentenced to 15 years in prison, fined $15-million, and ordered to return $34-million he is said to have purloined from the Palestinian Authority, it is not terribly likely he can be convinced to do the honourable thing and return to the Middle East. He would much prefer remaining in residence in London, where he can live in style, and continue lobbing accusations against the PA from there.

Mr. Rashid was known to control close to $1-billion in assets held for Yasser Arafat, at the time of his brief languishing in a Paris hospital. He had been at the faithful service of the PLO leader for several decades, advising him on financial matters, as it were. Advising him how best to siphon great sums of wealth meant to succour the Palestinian public and build the infrastructure for a state.

Allegations of embezzlement were quick to follow, as he and other officials were made cognizant that a general awareness of corruption both within the Palestinian community at large and their generous benefactors had led to demands that reforms be instituted. Clearly, despite Mr. Rashid's absence from the scene as the chief finance and investor adviser, the PA has not been hampered from continuing its fine tradition.

While Mr. Abbas and his allies label Mr. Rashid a traitor, a criminal, and part of an international conspiracy to slander the Palestinian Authority and Mr. Abbas, Mr. Rashid reciprocates by warning the world about secret Palestinian Authority bank accounts, their source being, among others, the United States and PA-friendly Arab nations.

Mr. Abbas himself, he insists, with his close-insider knowledge, has a net worth of $100-million. Mr. Rashid has demanded that Mr. Abbas's wealth be investigated to reveal its illegitimacy. Mr. Rashid also revealed that the Palestinian Authority generously funded Israeli-Arab political parties during Israel's general elections.

The Palestinian Authority's intelligence service was ordered to track Mr. Rashid down. And it seems that Mr. Rashid is targeted to be silenced. When a PA prosecutor campaigned against corruption within the PA in 2008, announcing his intention to probe Mr. Rashid and 50 others for corruption and embezzlement of public funds, Ahmed al-Mughni became the victim of a car-bombing.

He survived the attack, but one can readily surmise the close encounter with death stilled his desire to probe anything.