PA libel: Israel has been working to make Christian Palestinians emigrate, says PA daily op-ed
Excerpt of an op-ed by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “The [PA] president’s orders: The State of Palestine’s democratic messages”
“We think that when [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas issued the two presidential orders on strengthening freedoms in the homeland and allocating no fewer than seven seats in the new [PA] Parliament (Legislative Council) to Christian citizens, he proved to every patriotic Palestinian citizen who believes in the principles of liberation, freedom, justice, and equality that democracy in Palestine is not just elections, but rather a political lifestyle that is organized by a cultural vision and cultural civil values…
The governments of the occupation system have been working since the establishment of the [Zionist] entity (Israel) [parentheses in source] to slowly empty Palestine under cover of darkness of the roots of its people and its unique cultural qualities, and to increase the pressure on the aspects of life. This is in order to cause the Christian Palestinian citizens to emigrate and to weaken their presence and their participation in political life specifically…
But the leadership of the Palestinian national liberation movement has understood the Zionist plot and worked to deepen the roots of the Palestinian man in his homeland, Palestine, without discrimination between believers. It has focused on having everyone be represented at the Palestinian [PA] Parliament, the PLO Executive Committee, and the departments and bodies that are subordinate to it – in other words, essential affirmative action as part of implementing the democratic way…
This all completely fits in with the principle of existential struggle between the people of the holy land, Palestine, and the system of colonialist and racist occupiers and settlers who have used Judaism and the world’s Jews to execute their plans: taking control of the center of the Middle East in general and the Arab homeland and its resources after completing the occupation of Palestine and the dissolving of the national identity of its people. The occupation system has been unable to do this since the beginning of the great plot in 1917 and to this day.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 23, 2021]