Abu Mazen only represents a small part
of the Palestinian people.
Interview with Khaled by Silvia Cattori.
Translated from French by Robert Thompson.
5th February 2005

Khaled lives in the refugee camp of Jabaliya as if in a prison. Forty years old, Khaled is a member of no political or religious movement. He is representative of this generation of Palestinians who returned to Palestine in 1994, who has no status and who, having no papers can go nowhere. It is thus impossible for him to go to see members of his family in the West Bank. The Gaza Strip is entirely encircled and controled by the Israeli frontier police. If he fell into their hands, he would be arrested or expelled from Palestine. Despite his hard life, Khaled says that he is happy to have a small salary which allows hil to feed his family.
Silvia Cattori

How do you see the success of the Hamas in the municipal elections at the end of January in Gaza ?

- The fact that the Hamas has won 75 % of the votes is no surprise here. Its popularity does not date from yesterday. It is due to the hard work of its militants, who during all the years when the Palestinians had no government took the trouble to better the lot of the poorest, and to bring them some means of survival. The Hamas took on tasks which the Palestinian Authority is incapable of taking on. It put in place a netwrok of social, educational and health assistance.

Outside the country, is not the Hamas considered as a harmful extremist movement ?

- We are under occupation. The Hamas fights on both the political and the military levels, by negotiation and by the armed struggle. It is a movement which, with other democratic forces, is part of the Palestinian resistance. It is Israel which makes the armed struggle necessary. It is Israel which makes an armed reply necessary. The Hamas has no interest in violence. I think that there is an erroneous vision abroad of our struggle and of our Muslim religion. People should come to see the quality of the teaching at the Islamic University in Gaza. Youngsters come out of there well prepared academically, economically and politically.

What do you expect from the negotiations undertaken by President Abu Mazen ?

- We hope that he will obtain from Israel a lasting cease-fire and the opening of the frontier so that workers can go back to work. Each time that truces have been declared in the past, Israel has always broken them. The Hamas and other resistance movements agree to a truce, on condition that Israel should stop its targeted killings of their members and their leaders ; and should stop attacking families and children.

Are you worried about tomorrow ?

- We hope that there will be, from outside, strong pressure on Israel to stop stifling us. We hope to move into a periode of calm, without competition for power. The risk of civil war is the thing which we fear at the moment.

Do you fear disagreements between Palestinians ?

- We hope not. But when Abu Mazen wishes to negotiate with Israel, what does he want to negotiate? Our demilitarisation ? Our surrender ?

But have you not elected Abu Mazen to be President on the basis of that programme ?

- Abu Mazen does not represent all thepeople. He was elected by a tiny little proportion of thePalestinians : one quarter only of the electorate of the territories voted for him. (1) Three quarters of the ccountry either abstained or voted for other candidates. quite apart from the millions of Palestinians who live abroad. Peace in Palestine is only possible if Israel begins by starting to withdraw from the occupied territories.

Is your hope mixed with fear ?

- Arafat or Abu Mazen, for us there is no change. Israel continues firing on us, killing our children, locking us up. What is the point in negotiating ? Israel must be forced to respect international law.

So the peace promised during the elections is not for tomorrow ?

- The peace which has been flashed in front of us is a bone thrown to seem to change. How can the world believe that a people on its knees, under the boot of Israel, can negotiate with it ? The Palestinians have nothing left to give. All that they can do is fight to defend their rights.
End

(1) Khaled's analysis of the presidential election of Abu Mazen - said to have been elected with 62 % of the votes and which heads of state, blindly followed by the media, have take to be a success for democracy - is confirmed by the researcher at the CNRS Jean-François Legrin. According to the latter, it appears from the elections of 9th January 2005 :

- that out of one million one hundred thousand registered voters, 775,000 people voted, i.e. 71 %.

- the 71% of those who voted only represented in fact 60% of the one million eight hundred thousand potential voters.

- thus the real participation only represented 43 % of the potential electorate. This means that Abu Mazen's score was only 62%. In reality he only represents 27 % of the potential voters.

- the figure of 27% shows the value of the success attributed to Abu Mazen. This shows that the mobilisation of Palestinian society was very feeble. Thus, Abu Mazen, with his party the Fatah, which represents no more than a quarter of the electorate, is today negotiating the future of all Palestinians. This is full of danger.

silv...@yahoo.it