Lees een interview van Amira Hass met Dr. Mamdouh al-Aker, een 68-jarige uroloog, gestudeerd in Cairo, deelnemer van de Palestijns-Jordaanse delegatie tijdens de Washington-Madrid onderhandelingen.

What is that Palestinian Authority afraid of when it bans solidarity demonstrations?

There are two reasons. Due to the close relations with the Mubarak regime, the leadership is perplexed by expressions of support for the opponents of a friend. The second reason – when a regime is insufficiently democratic, it fears that popular demonstrations might spin out of control.

There are reasons to suppose that many of the factors that drove people to protest in Tunisia and Egypt are in play here.

There is one huge difference: Here we live under Israeli occupation. We have to focus on the main goal of ending the occupation. And that’s the problem: For years we have behaved as though we have turned into a subcontractor of the occupation, so we have to return and make the occupation pay a price. Not necessarily by using arms, and definitely not by harming civilians.

People dare in several places to confront the Israeli army, but not the Palestinian police.

Yes. But that won’t continue indefinitely. The main lesson to be drawn from the Al Jazeera documents is that Israel is not ripe for a fair political agreement. So we should concentrate on our internal situation, put our home in order, enhance our steadfastness. A storm of change is soon to happen, and if we fail to change our path, we will be swept up by it.

People have quoted you as saying that the Palestinian Authority is a police state without being a state.

Generally, I don’t like expressing in Israeli media our criticism of the Palestinian Authority, even though the criticism is public and can be found in all our publications. But I consented to your request for an interview.

For three years I have been warning that certain characteristics will drag us toward becoming a police state, unless we pay attention: Arbitrary, illegal arrests. Torture of detainees – due to our complaints, there has been an improvement for several months, but now there appears to be a return to this miserable procedure. Screening of candidates for public posts by the intelligence and preventive security apparatus. Arrests of civilians by the security apparatus – there was a promise that this would end, but we will still wait for an explicit guarantee from the high political level. A lack of compliance with court rulings.

Voor het hele interview: hier.