Jeff Blankfort writes:
I wouldn't pay much if any attention to the Al-Quds poll. It is a Fatah
[PA] organ that is not known for telling inconvenient truths. It had an English
edition until sometime
1993 when the editor, amazingly, asked his readers to
send him instances of PLO corruption. Arafat immediately closed the paper down
(just after I had renewed my subscription!) and it never reappeared.
[PA] organ that is not known for telling inconvenient truths. It had an English
edition until sometime
1993 when the editor, amazingly, asked his readers to
send him instances of PLO corruption. Arafat immediately closed the paper down
(just after I had renewed my subscription!) and it never reappeared.
An elderly Palestinian friend of mine who has a home in Ramallah and another on the San Francisco peninsula and divides him time between the two. He also has no use for religion of any sort. He was there during the Israeli onslaught on Gaza and came back claiming that Abbas and the PA, i..e., the Fatah leadership have absolutely no support after Abbas blamed Hamas for the war.
Palestinian public opinion is important but if the folks in the West Bank who see Fatah as collaborators are not likely to give an honest answer to a poll taken by its newspaper which may get your name placed on a list and turned over to the Israelis. I am sure none of your American readers know the background of Al Quds and, whether or not you take sides, I think you owe it to them to give them that historical background.
Palestinian public opinion is important but if the folks in the West Bank who see Fatah as collaborators are not likely to give an honest answer to a poll taken by its newspaper which may get your name placed on a list and turned over to the Israelis. I am sure none of your American readers know the background of Al Quds and, whether or not you take sides, I think you owe it to them to give them that historical background.
Weiss responds:
Fair enough, though I confess a little irritation here. As sympathetic as I am to Palestinian resistance to occupation and apartheid and slaughter, I live in New York. I'm an American who's trying to change my country's policy in a cycle of violence. I have spent 10 days there and I don't feel I can make determinations about what is reliable and what is not. I know American politics pretty well, but not theirs. I want to know what Palestinians want. I'm not going to dismiss anything published in Arabic and translated for me, which I can't read anyway. Etc.
So yes, Blankfort's giving you the background. And I'm trying to maintain some distance…
So yes, Blankfort's giving you the background. And I'm trying to maintain some distance…
