Abbas Torches Office Of NGO Working To Make Palestinians Not A Parody Of Selves

“The group in question was operating to undermine the values and political system we have in place.”

Ramallah, March 20 – An organization that aims to help Palestinian society and government defy the stereotype of them as backward, violent, repressive, and self-defeating has been declared illegal in Palestinian-controlled areas, a spokesman for the group said today.

Representatives of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Service stormed the Ramallah offices yesterday of Stop the Madness, a group established four years ago to encourage Palestinians and their institutions to adopt modes of thinking and expression that do not further reinforce the perception that they are antidemocratic terrorist bigots. The PSS personnel removed computers, documents, cash, and personal items, then piled furniture and office supplies together and set them alight. The PSS then rampaged through the office, damaging the walls, plumbing fixtures, decor, and windows. Upon completing their task and roughing up the staff of three volunteers, they sealed the door and hung a sign warning that StM had been deemed illegal by presidential order, and anyone who associates with representatives of the group would face torture, imprisonment, and crippling fines.

A spokesman for the organization’s office in Tel Aviv told reporters that the three volunteers were still being held at an undisclosed location by the Palestinian security apparatus, and they have been unable to establish contact or ascertain their welfare. “We are still waiting for word on our volunteers’ condition,” said StM director Ahira Mess. “This incident serves to demonstrate exactly why our work is necessary, unfortunately.”

A representative of President Abbas’s administration denied that any inappropriate action had taken place. “Our forces acted on information that the group in question was operating to undermine the values and political system we have in place,” explained Nabil Shaath. “Any country would do the same in this situation.”

According to its promotional literature, StM seeks to train Palestinians especially those in key societal or communal positions, to stop confirming the worst stereotypes about them harbored by Israel and the West, and thus to make peaceful coexistence with Jews more possible and palatable. Its most recent fundraising brochure points to behaviors and attitudes symptomatic of the current state of society, including honor killings, political repression, terrorism, entitlement, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and subordination of basic human values to dubious political ends. The brochure also mentions indicators of these symptoms such as an inability to distinguish ironic mocking from sincere expressions of support for Palestinian violence, as when they take articles lampooning their hypocrisy at face value and share them widely on social media.