Europa & Palestine News « Kawther Salam

Europa & Palestine News « Kawther Salam:

A President Who Greets His People Without Barriers

ماذا جرى في منتدى كرايسكي خلال زيارة الرئيس عباس / أصغر صعلوك على بوابة الرئاسة يفرض الحصار على الرئيس محمود عباس / لماذا رفض السفير أن اقدم الأعتذار لقيادته؟؟؟ /تعليمات السفير الفلسطيني تقضي بإقصائي من لقاء الجالية الفلسطينية / الرئيس عباس يلتقي الجالية الفلسطينية في النمسا

Austria is a peaceful western country – whoever sees Austrian President Dr. Heinz Fischer with a big smile in the morning must feel optimistic throughout the rest of his day. In contrast, whoever sees the face of an Arab dictator or so many other Western and Americans leaders must feel hurt fear for a catastrophe on that day. There is a big difference between a peaceful President who loves his people and whose people love him, and a President or leader who claims grandiosity but who could not care less for the interests of his people but instead only brings war and disasters to his and other nations.

As in most countries, the president can be seen as an expression of the political culture and climate of the country. President Fischer, with his long political record of successful work for Austria and the Austrians, does not need barriers, heavy guns and paranoid guards between him and his people whenever he wants to meet them, shake hands and to participate in their activities.

Before the background of its own history, Austria has sought for decades to play a role in fostering peace and resolving conflicts in the Arab- and other regions. To this end, the political establishment has understood for many decades to use the neutrality of the country as an asset in its relations with other countries. It is not surprising that the State of Austria plays a silent yet active role in attempting to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while being, by example, a compass for peace. (Click on the small image to see it bigger).

On last Monday, November 28 2011, at quarter to eleven, President Fischer came to the inner Hofburg square to receive his guest, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. President Fischer was accompanied as usual by his military adjutant, some people from his team and a security detail. He arrived in friendly mood, smiling at everybody. Since he arrived some minutes early, he used the time to greet everybody – he went to a group of people, passers-by and tourists behind a barrier and began shaking hands with them, then he went to greet some of the present journalists, and finally with some of the men from a military detachment.

How great the Austrian President Dr. Fischer is, who refuses to put barriers between him and his people. I am truly astonished each time when I see the complete absence of paranoia on part of the President and the people around him. I don’t know of another country where the President, or any other member of the government, meets the people on eye level and everybody just smiles.

While waiting for his guest President Abbas to arrive, Dr. Fischer described President Abbas as a “dear friend” to the press teams on location. A few minutes later, landscape changed noticeably with the arrival of President Abbas and his Palestinian security crew, which jumped from the car as if they were expecting a war, or at least some incoming artillery rounds.

It looks that the Palestinian security staff received their training in the USA or in Israel, two places whose regimes are markedly affected by paranoia and self-conceit. The contrast in the behavior of the Palestinian security crew to the Austrian crew was obvious: while the Austrians appeared to put efforts into not being noticed, the Palestinians would constantly stare in suspicion at everybody during the troop review. I did not know how things would go downhill from here.

Two weeks before the arrival of President Abbas to Austria, I spoke several times with the Palestinian Ambassador Dr. Zuheir Al-Wazeer. Since I had asked some uneasy questions to the Palestinian delegations and to Nabil Shaat at the UN, we are not on the best of terms. He was apparently afraid that I could ask similarly critical questions to President Abbas at press meetings.

I had managed to cause major embarrassment for the Palestinian delegations, especially Nabil Shaath at the UN, by asking questions with documentary evidence about their indifference before the issue of “honor killings”, wanton murders of Palestinians by PA personnel, the growing number of events of sexual harassment against female employees of the PA perpetrated by PA staff, the issue of “security” prisoners and their torture at PA prisons and lastly the issues of corruption and constant abuse of power by PA employees and the imposition of censorship on the Palestinian media.

Dr. Al-Wazeer told me in his own grandiloquent words: “It will be written in the historical book of the Palestine if you did not ask Abbas your critical questions before the western media during his visit to Austria”. I tried to quite Dr. Al-Wazeer. I told him that I supported Abass and that I love him, but that my love for Palestine was bigger than anything else.

Despite my long clarification and our long discussion, Dr. Al-Wazeer he did not manage to get rid of his fears, especially after I requested from him to include a meeting with the Palestinian community in Austria on the agenda of the President Abbas during his visit to Vienna. Dr. Al-Wazeer did not agree to my request, but upon my insistence and because of his fear of discussing this matter in the media, he saw himself obliged to set such a meeting on Abbas’ agenda in Vienna.

The second day of President Abbas work visit to Austria was concluded by speech at the Kreisky Forum. Among other things, President Abbas said in his speech that “the State of Palestine will be a state of democracy, of respect for human rights, women rights and of private and public freedoms”. I was very happy to hear that. The only thing that made me uncomfortable and worried were the signs of anxiety and fatigue on the face of President Abbas, and the medical emergency team which accompanied him on his visit to the Kreisky Forum.

November 29 2011, 11:30 was the time supposedly set for a meeting between President Abbas and the Palestinian community in Vienna at the Hotel Imperial. I went to the Hotel Imperial after Ambassador Al-Wazeer invited me; I thought that I had succeeded in convincing the ambassador to organize an encounter of the President with the Palestinian community in Vienna.

Unfortunately, things went differently. I was faced with a violent Palestinian security thug at the entrance of Abbas’ room. He threatened me to get out and to leave the hotel before pushing me out violently. He said that he “wanted to teach me how to write critical reports in the media”. I only asked him to talk to me in a polite way, but Mr. Ihab Al-Ghoul, from the Embassy ordered me to get out of the room too.

The Austrian security people standing outside were astonished, one of them even asked me what had gone wrong. I told him that they had punishing me because of some critical reporting of mine. I asked Consul Hazem Shabat from the Palestinian Embassy why I was being denied to meet President Abbas. He said he would go and ask. He sent me another Palestinian intelligence agent to tell me that I had to leave the hotel “as punishment for reporting criticism about PA figures and their corruption in the western media”.

That same guy together with one of his colleagues had been following me around and insistently trying to get my phone number because “I have beautiful eyes” the day before while Abbas’ delegation was at the Chancellor’s office and at the Parliament, constantly commenting on my “beautiful dress” and other inanities.

The night before, at the Kreisky Forum, before Chancellor Faymann, President Fischer and at the Parliament, President Abbas had solemnly insisted that a “State of Palestine” would respect democracy, human rights, women rights, individual and collective rights and freedom of expression”.

The behavior of these thugs, “teaching me how to write critical reports about PA personalities”, kicking me out of a meeting with Abbas “in punishment for reporting about corruption in the PA in western media”, in addition to the exclusion of almost all Palestinians living in Vienna beyond certain people widely suspected of being involved in shameful illegal activities, shows how honest Abbas’ inflated propaganda rhetoric at the Kreisky Forum and elsewhere was. It shows what kind of “State” is waiting for Palestinians after 64 years of living under the Israeli occupation and the increasingly brutal dictatorship of Abbas’ PA.

Simply said, the USA and the Western community are supporting the birth of a dictatorial regime while all around in the Middle East dictatorial regimes are collapsing.

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