We Palestinians Are Free To Criticize Anyone Abbas Lets Us Criticize

By Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah

Ramallah, July 10 – It is time to put to rest the notion that the Palestinian Authority suppresses free speech. Palestinians under President Mahmoud Abbas’s rule are free to say anything, criticize anyone, as long as the sentiments have been approved by Abbas’s officials.

Reports of Palestinians arrested by Mr. Abbas’s security forces for expressing views or demands not in keeping with the official PLO line distract from the main point, which is that Palestinians enjoy complete freedom of expression within the boundaries of what the PLO leadership countenances. News reports of Palestinians arrested for expressing views outside that clearly defined realm of acceptable discourse, if those reports are ever carried by Western news organizations, give the false impression that some sort of oppression is happening. Quite the opposite. No one is oppressed except by the Zionists.

It is the Zionists who create false, impossible standards of free expression to make Palestinian society look bad in Western eyes. A well-orchestrated charade gives the impression that Israeli politics and culture is replete with criticism of the government as if that is a good thing. They are right that it is good – but only because Israel deserves all criticism, not because free-flowing criticism is a value. No one should allow himself to be fooled by the Zionist ruse that freedom expression means what they would have you think it means. That freedom has limits, and those limits are defined by Mahmoud Abbas.

Patriotic, loyal Palestinians know that by nature, certain things lie beyond the bounds of expression. The Palestinian Authority and its enforcement organs merely serve the public by underscoring those boundaries. It is not a violation of freedom of expression to imprison those who have forfeited their right to freedom by attempting to undermine society with seditious speech. If one were to ask the hundreds of Hamas members currently incarcerated in Palestinian Authority prisons whether their freedom of expression has been curtailed or violated, those prisoners would inevitably answer in the negative if they knew what was good for them.

In some very specific cases, the arrests have resulted not from any supposed curtailment of the freedom of expression, but from a lack of clarity on the part of the citizens involved as to whether the speech in question was congruent with official positions. If any failure of the Palestinian Authority can be documented in these cases, it can only be that some officials neglected to inform their constituents properly of approved content. And, as we have established in multiple precedents, ultimately that blame lies with Israel, which forces us to make do with second-rate ethics.

So let us please stop accusing the Palestinian government of failing to respect free speech. We have the utmost respect for whatever free speech is sanctioned by the Muqata.