| Posted By Khalid Amayreh October 26, 2008 I have no doubt that the Palestinian Justice system, if allowed to function properly, will nullify and reverse the recent decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mukhabarat (General Intelligence) to fire hundreds of highly-qualified school teachers because of their suspected Islamic political orientations.
Similarly, I have no doubt that the Palestinian Teachers' Union, if allowed to function properly, will identify with these wronged teachers who continued to carry out their required tasks rather assiduously until the day of their dismissal despite the disrespectful treatment they were receiving from the American-backed regime in Ramallah, including the unlawful freezing of their salaries. (the teachers have not received their full salaries despite their dismissal).
Needless to say, the decision to fire these hard-working teachers is plainly wrong, politically motivated and starkly contradicted the most elementary principles of fairness and justice.
The flagrant decision is not based on any legal or moral grounds, which really insults human sensibility and shows that there are certain people within the security agencies who take harmful decisions undermining our national interests under the rubric of safeguarding national security.
Indeed, firing teachers or other public servants from their jobs in such a haphazard manner suggests that we are effectively becoming a police state whereby the rule of law disappears and the repressive police-state apparatus becomes "the law of the land" and society itself begins to degenerate and disintegrate.
In the Palestinian context, the PA seems worse than a police state, since we don't really have a state or even a quasi-state , given the ubiquitous and all-encompassing Israeli occupation. Hence, what we really have is a police state without a state.
True, the Palestinian law allows for the dismissal of public servants from their jobs in certain cases, including collaboration with the Israeli intelligence against Palestinian interests, indulgence in a manifestly immoral conduct unbecoming of a public servant and breach of public trust.
However, it is amply clear that the dismissed teachers committed none of these violations and were fired solely because of their alleged political views, although the vast majority of them had no formal or informal political association.
Another scandalous aspect of this sorry affair is the fact that the PA government in Ramallah has been deafeningly silent on this matter, with no government spokesman or minister saying anything in this regard as if this despicable witch-hunting of Palestinian public servants by the American-backed security agencies were just another banal development warranting not even a token statement to the press.
But in any country such an issue would be the ultimate test of government performance. After all, the ultimate test of a true government worthy of the name lies not in embracing supporters and followers, but rather in treating justly its opponents.
The Fayyad government, therefore, should have spoken up against the Mukhabarat decision to fire these teachers. The fact that it hasn't underscores the poor national credentials of the government and the urgent need to replace it with a responsible administration that will safeguard and protect the rights of the weak and vulnerable strata of society.
But then it may be naïve to expect the Fayyad government to uphold the rule of law and shield Palestinian teachers and public servants from the vindictiveness and vengeance of the security agencies. It was this government, after all, that allowed the security agencies to rape the rule of law and paralyze the entire justice system under the rubric of upholding law and order.
The unjustified and unjust incarceration, torture and occasional murder of mostly religious people by the security agencies, amidst shocking government silence and inaction serves as an irrefutable evidence illustrating the moral bankruptcy of a government that prefers to draw its legitimacy from Washington and Tel Aviv than form the Palestinian masses.
I have been pleased with statements by the head of the Palestinian General Union of Public Servants, Bassam Zakarneh, who has condemned the Mukhabarat decision as "illegal and unacceptable."
I do hope that Zakarneh will soon act on his statements and expeditiously nullify the decision, if necessary by declaring an open-ended strike covering the entire public sector.
That may cause some harm, but whatever harm caused by a general strike in the public sector remains insignificant compared to the demise of society brought about as a result of the gradual decimation of the rule of law at the hands of young and megalomaniacal people who think too much of themselves and what they can do.
Moreover, I hope that the dismissed teachers themselves will sue the Palestinian government and the General Intelligence before the High Palestinian Court.
Such a legal action against the Palestinian Authority is not only vital for doing justice to the teachers themselves, but is also crucial for upholding the rule of law and shielding the entire Palestinian society from the peril of degeneration and disintegration.
Indeed, if such a wanton disregard for the rule of law is allowed to persist unchecked, then one is prompted to ask where the end-line will then be drawn?
Finally, I call on all unionist leaders, politicians and public opinion leaders as well as journalists and intellectuals to carry out their moral and human responsibility to speak up against the dismissal of these voiceless teachers and to pressure the PA government to reinstate immediately and apologize to them and compensate them for whatever moral and material damage they have sustained.
This is the right thing to do, or else let us be frank and honest about ourselves, namely that the PA is a hapless junta of self-serving profiteers and thieves masquerading as a national authority that is falsely claiming to be striving to gain independence and build a state.
A true national authority just doesn't behave in this manner. |
