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Open Letter to Chairman of the PLO and President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas
Domestically, we are in a dire situation.
It would be inaccurate to see them, wildly misguided as they may be, as amateurs: Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, and U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, the real architect of the entire fiasco known in the media as the “Deal of the Century.” These are powerful actors with a despicable strategy who have access to massive state resources and, more importantly, they have the world’s superpower wrapped around their pinky finger.
Reflecting on the entire Trump presidency as it relates to Palestine, particularly the recent Peace to Prosperity Economic Workshop spectacle in Bahrain, I find myself obliged to address the Palestinian political agency, represented today by Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas. Hence this open letter.
Dear Chairman and President Abbas,
I write to you in my private capacity: as a Palestinian, a lifetime activist for Palestine, born into the Palestinian diaspora; although born in America, I relocated to Palestine after the Oslo Accords were announced and have been active in economic development here for the past 25 years, as a Palestinian resident of Al-Bireh living in my ancestral home. Here my wife and I raised two daughters, both products of the Palestinian education system, one recently graduated from MIT and another currently a sophomore at Harvard. I was one of your appointees to the General Assembly of the Palestine Investment Fund, before resigning last year after ten years of volunteer service. More recently, together with a group of other professionals, I co-founded NAZAHA, the Palestinian Academy for Integrity — because, although NGOs are closing, we remain committed to building a future generation that is free from the corruption that has dominated our past. I will be glad to tell you more about my activities some other time, but this letter is not about me, it’s about us, all of us.
During my volunteer efforts over the past several weeks to publicly address the U.S.’s Peace to Prosperity Economic Workshop held in Bahrain in June, many important issues emerged. The workshop was a circus and its clowns were many. The only thing missing…
