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Mahmoud Abbas: Speech Announcing Resignation from the Palestinian Legislative Council

(September 6, 2003)

Peace be upon you,

I did not ask for a secret or confidential session, I asked for a closed meeting to present the PLC with matters that I do not want to reach to the media although I am sure that they will reach the media with all details while we keep hearing every hour about official and unofficial spokespersons launching statements without their names mentioned and they request that their names are not to be mentioned.

At first, I extend my apologies to the PLC for the insult launched to it because of my visit which led to the breaking of glass and to attacking some members of the cabinet and the acts of riots that were performed by some and caused other things, since my presence here caused all this, I extend my apologies.

It is very regrettable to see that those who performed those acts did them as part of incitement and pushed to do such attacks against us in our capacity as a government - the government of Abu Mazen - and in our capacity as normal people and unfortunately, they carried slogans that talk about betrayal and collaboration and connection with the foreigner and other slogans that they launched and incited for, but there were slogans and chanting saying: Where are the prisoners? Why does the Wall continue? Why settlements continue? And why and why as if the 100-day old government is the party that brought all calamities to the Palestinian people; they were instigating and many talked about the refugees and the right of return and other slogans which are lies and fabrications and aggression.

In addition to all this, the demonstrations were nothing but a call for bloodshed and luckily we asked from the police not to interfere because if they did, God only knows what would have happened; I really would have preferred to be treated as ordinary guests to the PLC and to be offered some dignity and protection.

Many talked about the loss of Palestinian constants; did this government lose the Palestinian constants? Did it lose the state, the right of return, Jerusalem, the settlements? Did it give up the rights and constants? All these are illusions in the minds of those who launch such accusations.

There is also an issue that we must end for the last time which is that we came to power with American-Israeli desire and will, such an idea is also expressed by some of the PLC members. It seems that everybody forgot that I was commissioned by the PLO Executive Committee unanimously and by Fatah Central Committee unanimously and I was commisioend by the Central Council unanimously and 51 votes of your respectful council voted for me, so who is the American? Who are the Americans who brought us to this government? Then they say: This government has no saying even if it wants to resign because it is connected with the Americans. This is shameful; this is the least one can say.

I presented to you a report on the achievements of this government and I requested from my brothers the ministers to present their achievements. There was no room to make all the achievements possible despite all obstacles and despite the difficulties and despite all insults, I believe they were humble achievements; I am not saying they are major achievements but humble; this is what we could achieve.

They say in the media that either we take everything or we want nothing; these are lies; we do not want anything beyond what you commissioned us to perform and what was commissioned to us by the political leadership nothing more.

Some look at this government as the scapegoat and want to put all the blame on it. We will not be scapegoat to anyone and we will not allow anyone to blame his mistakes or his aspirations or dreams on us; we wont be scapegoat for anyone.

My relation with brother Abu Ammar is a historical one; this is not the first time that we disagree and I hope it will be the last time, but I don’t hate him and he doesn’t hate me. I do not know if he hates me but I do not hate him, we lived together for 40 years eating, drinking, struggling, bearing, and living with each other; we are human beings and we are not copies of each other and we will never be, he has his own opinions and positions that I respect and he has own decisions that I respect but I am not a copy of him; therefore, I know the limits of the relationship between me and him but it is not a personal relationship at all; if we disagree, it is not regarding a personal matter and the same applies when we agree on a matter; it is never personal.

I am not the type who likes to have a certain circles of people around me and I have never been a person who would cause or call for any split or grouping; I was the first to fight the signs of split until this very day and I am the sole person who still fight the split that took place in 1982. I am part of the legitimacy. I am one of the founders of this legitimacy and I cannot go astray and I cause make any split and I will never stand against the legitimacy that Yasser Arafat represents. If we disagree, all I do is to leave alone and if you do not know this, I hope that you know it now.

Regarding the council, it has and owns its own decision; there are 18 persons who demanded to withdraw the vote of confidence from this government; this is up to the council to decide and I respect and take pride in this institution.

There are many things being said and not rumors but statements and stories told deliberately and with determination; they say I took over the Palestinian negotiations and that I monopolize them; these are lies, all lies. The party in charge of the negotiations is the PLO from the start until now. The PLO negotiates and decided and makes agreements regardless of the levels. no one in the cabinet or the authority or any other party can negotiate on behalf of the PLO. this is the business of the PLO; we have been defending this since Oslo until now.

When I went to sign the agreement, I went because our Foreign Minister and the Head of the PLO Political Department refused to go and refused to accept and did not recognize Oslo. He was the person supposed to sign because he is the Head of the Political Department and he is the Foreign Minister but he refused and he stayed away and sat far refusing the agreements from the start and said that the agreements do not match with his ideas. I do not want to say more than this.

When we formed the government, I handed the negotiations department to Brother Saeb Erekat and he became the head of the negotiations department after me since I was the Secretary of the PLO Executive Committee. He assumed the post and became an observer member in the Executive Committee in order to separate between the negotiations and the authority because the authority does not negotiate.. members in the authority can be members in the negotiations committee but there is a higher committee responsible for the start and end of negotiations and there is an executive committee which decides with the decision of all its members.

All matters going on in the negotiations are done upon orders from Yasser Arafat. no single word or letter or issue raised or agreed upon unless there is approval from him; therefore, the negotiations is not our affair and is not the affair of the government; it is the affair of the PLO that draws up the policies while the negotiations committee executes those policies.

Some say that we exclude the PLO and that we want to destroy it and that we want to surpass it. This is ridiculous and the proof is that the PLO Executive Committee meets with full quorum and over and above here in the homeland and the Central Council convenes here with full quorum inside the homeland and the PNC met in 1996 with its quorum - more than two thirds - also in the homeland. Therefore, the PLO is here in the homeland and one or two persons absent does not really matter that much and does not really mean that this might strike the legitimacy of the PLO. No, the PLO exists here and the proof is that since the authority entered here, the PLO convenes on a regular basis and some times irregularly in the homeland. The PLO exists and assumes its responsibilities and when Abu Ammar decided to form a new government and a new PM, he summoned the Central Council and the Central Council came here and gave its position and viewpoint away from the pressure and will of the Americans.

There is a problem that we face based on this, since we entered the homeland, who represents us? Is it the Planning Minister then or is it the Foreign Minister brother Abul Lutof (Farouq Qaddumi) and the matter was settled in one time in 1996 when it was said: the Palestinian delegation is headed by Abu Ammar and the delegation of the Presidency consists of Abul Lutof, Abu Mazen, Yasser Abed Rabbo and Suleiman Najjab and others, and the delegation of the Foreign Affairs is Nabil Shaath; after that the matter was left unsettled and embarrassing and the most embarrassed was Abu Ammar because the complaints were coming to him from all the people; they told him: We have at the official meeting table two foreign ministers and we have two badges (identification cards) and two seats and two cars and two suites are required because we have more than one head of the delegation; in addition to that, we have two contradicting political speeches; so who represents the PLO? Who speaks on your behalf? Who represents your politics? Abu Ammar was always complaining and saying: This is a scandal.. this is a scandal; how can we handle this situation? Finally, we reached to a point where the matter has to be dealt with in its proper place since the PLO Executive Committee is the party that gave the decision and it is the party that must decide on this matter because this is dualism in speech and position and seat and this cannot go on like this.

Abu Ammar called for the convening of the PLO Executive Committee more than one year ago and presented the matter to it and the following proposals were made: either brother Abul Lutof is Foreign Minister or Nabil Shaath a state minister or to have Farouq Qaddumi as Foreign Minister or Nabil Shaath as Foreign Minister or to have them share the responsibilities. After a long discussion, it was agreed to divide the jurisdictions between them and the members started to discuss the jurisdictions and it was said: regarding the Arab League Council and its institutions, Nabil Shaath will represent us there and regarding all matters dealing with Europe. As for Qaddumi, he will represent us at the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Countries Conference and the UN and the African Summit, meaning that that duties were restricted between the two and the letter was written to be informed to Abul Lutof and to settle the matter which Abu Ammar used to described as shameful and a scandal. It was also said in the session, and all members who were present in that session are still alive, to brother Yasser Abed Rabbo: Yasser go and inform Abul Lutof about this letter; I don’t know if brother Yasser did go and informed him the message.

When I formed the government, It was said: what is the post of Nabil Shaath? I set the following position: Minister for Foreign Affairs. Nabil Shaath went to Abu Ammar who said: This is wrong.. it should be Foreign Minister why the "Affairs"? Nabil came back to me and said that Abu Ammar wants that I take the post of Foreign Minister; I said then: Why not.. Foreign Minister or Minister for Foreign Affairs, it is all the same. In the Central Committee meeting as far as I remember, they said: No, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Abu Ammar said: Minister for Foreign Affairs. I said: I do not mind. I am responsible for every word I say here and you can talk to me about these things even after 10 years.

Therefore, it came in the list of the cabinet as Minister for Foreign Affairs, then I want to Abu Ammar and I asked him: Did you inform Abul Lutof about this? And I repeated the question once again and he said: Yes. I told him: then, I will inform the Arab League that Nabil Shaath represents and I sent a letter to this effect and the storm came then from Tunis and other places. Why this? We said that according to the decision of the terms of reference which is the PLO Executive Committee and Abu Ammar informed me that he conveyed the message to those concerned and now we had to implement it. I met with Amro Musa and he told me: I am in a puzzle; who is the representative? I told him the whole story, but, and Amro Musa is still alive, if you receive anything different in writing from Abu Ammar, he is the President of the Authority and his decision is effective, and till now the problem still exists because it is not known who is following up the Foreign Ministry and the sole victim of all this is our diplomacy and our ambassadors and embassies abroad since we cannot do anything and our brother Abul Lutof is doing nothing about it and our brother Abu Ammar is doing nothing since he is the person in charge of the embassies and he is doing nothing and Nabil Shaath is doing nothing and we have 89 embassies spread all over the world while Jordan has only 45 embassies.

Recently, bother Abul Lutof announced that he formed his delegation consisting of several members, including Nabil Shaath, the state minister for Foreign Affairs. This issue affects the whole Palestinian diplomacy and has not been solved yet and this is exactly what happened.

Financial issues:

We tried to take some financial decisions, some of the decisions were implemented, and other decisions were not implemented. Some passed peacefully and easily and others with many obstacles; we said the law of retirement or the retirement decision must be implemented and a storm hit us.. "has the phase of national liberation ended?" "America wants to get rid of the PLO" although in all countries there are retirement laws. The decision might be incomplete and might need amendment but it does not that we get insulted just because we want to implement it, such as saying, "America hopes to get rid of the strugglers"!! in all countries, there is the system of retirement, till when we will have the grandfather, his son, and his grandson in the ministry at the same time while we have 18,000 graduates and despite this nothing changes because we cant be traitors and we cant get rid of the strugglers. The matter was presented to the Executive Committee and I do not know what the Executive Committee has to do with this matter, but it is the higher command and it said: this decision will be halted. By the way, there is not only the Executive Committee but there is also the unified Palestinian leadership and with all frankness, I do not object against the formula but on the implementation. This is not a unified Palestinian leadership and I do not want to get into details of who attend and who represent and who sit on the table to decide the destiny of the Palestinian people.

Before that, we issued a decision on the cuts which used to be deducted from the salaries of the employees and which reached to 15% in some cases. Personally, I do not know where those deductions go. Despite this, and this is not important, what is important is that this action harmed the employees who reached 150,000 and some financial capabilities were provided so that those deductions would stop but some protested and said: You are striking the Intifada; what is the relation between the Intifada and the deductions? Why do we always look for a "national reason" to strike any procedure and to strike against any decision? Despite this, the decision was passed, in addition to the monopolies and petroleum and companies and tobacco and others. Why those monopolies? And for whose interests? When they were canceled, people felt relief, especially in the field of petroleum which was cheated upon an official decision, and the result was like I said in my report, the difference was vast between the income in May and in July, meaning between the last month the commission was there and the first month in which the Finance Ministry assumed control over the finances of this commission. The difference reached 6 million US dollars per month, which meant $72 million per year which were stolen.

Civil servants get their salaries from the banks and the Finance Ministry proposed that salaries for all are received through the banks for all civil and military personnel, they launched against us a vicious attack: "How can we reveal the names of thesecurity men to the banks"; in fact, all names of security men were handed to the Israeli side upon an official order and was handed by brother Saeb Erekat. When we entered the homeland, every person who entered, whether civilian or military, was to be known, in addition to the rifle and the bullets; all were registered. The Israelis and Americans have all information. Now, when we ask to place the salaries in banks, they say, "No it is prohibited; this is not a national action". The Police, the preventive security, and the intelligence in the Interior Ministry accepted to have the salaries of their men in banks while the rest of the security services remained getting the salaries in the bag, why? All we wanted was to organize this so that every person will receive his salary with respect from the bank and to have a checque book and an account in the bank in order to give them a chance to deal with banks and get loans, but the bag!! One of them told me: The US navy receives by the bag! Unfortunately, this is a silly excuse and a cover up for theft. Till now the issue has not been solved. Why? The result is that those who benefit move here and two demonstrations were organized against the Finance Ministry and the Ministry is broken into and its contents and properties stolen in Gaza; I don’t want to say where they came from or who pushed them to such an action. If they do not like a decision, they go armed to prevent the decision by force. Salam Fayyad was very sad when he was attacked because they said two words. He said: They could have used any term, but to say that I am a spy or traitor, I would have accepted other accusations but I am no spy or traitor or collaborator.

The Basic Law:

I do not want to explain to you the Basic Law since you set up this law and I am fully committed to it in text and spirit and if disagreements took place, I want the council to solve them. I have said this to you on more than one occasion; I want you to tell me where are we? What do we have and is required from us? What are our jurisdictions and what are not our jurisdictions? We want to know. But every day I get a decision from Abu Ammar and I really don’t know; the embassies are not our jurisdictions, so what is the job of the Foreign Minister? We don’t know, and the governors are not part of our jurisdictions, then what is the job of the Ministry of Interior? The airport is not our jurisdiction; the seaport belongs to the PLO and the PECDAR to the PLO and the Diwan of Personnel belongs to the PLO; this means that any minister has no authority over any employee who comes or leaves or who is appointed or who is promoted; he has no right to say anything in this; everything comes from the presidency; I don’t know of any country where ministries and ministers are not responsible for their employees; I know that the minister can have jurisdictions less than an undersecretary or assistant undersecretary who cannot appoint or replace unless there is a decision but to have general directors “B” and “C” appointed in his ministry from outside the jurisdictions of his ministry?? How and why??

In the last meeting of the Cabinet, a decision was taken to appoint Sakher Bseiso instead of Abu Sharia; it is a decision regardless whether it is correct or wrong, but to stop the implementation of the decision by force? The Brigades of Abu Sharia cannot barge in and occupy and stop and strike and order that Abu Sharia be seated in the Diwan by force.. how can this happen? I assume that the decision is incorrect but this is not the way to handle matters. When we took the decision, I sent a delegation of three persons to the President consisting of Yasser Abed Rabbo, Azzam al-Ahmad and Nabil Amro and I sent him a letter (Brother President, we took decisions first in the Diwan of Personnel and second on appointing State Minister Abdul Fattah Hamayel as Minister of Youth and Sports and we seek your blessing) he wrote to us: this is none of your business; this is the business of the PLO and a decision from the President; there are even incitement against Hamayel and he was prevented from performing his duties; normally he was not authorized to enter the ministry before he gets the confidence of the PLC or at least this is how I understand it.

The TV and Information Minister:

I understand that the TV belongs to the government and I understand that I am the PM and I also understand that the first media side to cover our news and conferences and meetings are our media apparatuses.. when I met Colin Powell, the Palestinian TV came and got exclusive rights to transmit the press conference .. all news agencies and TV Channels broadcast it except our TV, and days pass by, the speech that I delivered in front of you was transmitted live by 3 or more TV stations but not our TV. I say the TV stations transmitted it live and I asked the Minister of Information – and I seldom watch or follow up mass media, and he said that there are instructions from “me” (and he means the President) to broadcast and show cartoon films during the delivering of the speech!!!

Many say that I want to place the security services under my control and to take them away from the control of brother Abu Ammar; these are lies and this never happened; I don’t want the security services under my control and there is a long story behind this. The Basic Law says: the internal security services are under the control of the Cabinet or Minister of Interior and I believe that this is clear.

The roadmap says: all security services are under the control of the PM, but I didn’t even ask for the unification of the services; when I was asked, I said the unification of the efforts of all security services and not unify all security services; thus, what we demanded was coordination and nothing more between the security services, and when the Americans used to tell us the unity of the services, we used to tell them we don’t want this.

Here, I would like to say: It was not me who agreed to the roadmap and it was not my government which accepted the roadmap, it was accepted on December 20, 2002, and the first to launch statements was brother Saeb Erekat in the name of the PNA and the former cabinet on the acceptance of the roadmap as is and the roadmap talks about the unification of the security services but we overcome this obstacle; the roadmap talks about striking and uprooting the factions and we overcome this obstacle too because we will not fall into this trap; we don’t want a civil war and we cant unify the services because brother Abu Ammar is placing under his control three quarters of the security services and refuses any kind of coordination between them with the rest of the apparatuses.

After this came the meeting of the Palestinian leadership, which I mentioned and I started to feel there was unprecedented incitement and the meeting moved into the meeting of the Central Committee and there I heard all kinds of accusations, the least was that how could the government accept to keep brother Abu Ammar under siege? We had only two months of work and Abu Ammar has been under siege for two years and we did try all international circles and arenas and all institutions and all figures and we approached everyone unless they are demanding from me other means; I felt then that the party that I belong to and which gave me the commissioning is the party that is inciting against me; this party was also talking about the negotiations and criticize monopolizing them and that we had no strategy and that there were ministers who were thieves.

In response to this, I wrote 4 letters; in the first letter I said for the thousand times that the negotiations are not our jurisdictions and not my responsibility but the responsibility of the PLO and that I am a member in the Negotiations Committee because I am the Secretary of the PLO; the second letter was that the accusations from the Central Committee, or from some members so that I wont be unfair with anyone, against the minister, I hope that you bring to me the evidence and then I will transfer those accused to the attorney general immediately and I already told you this that any corruption you hear about, please write to me about it and I will immediately send it to the attorney general and I believe that I will not retreat on this issue.

The third letter: the Central Committee said: We want to set up a strategy for you and you have to implement it. I say: place whatever you want in terms of political and nonpolitical strategy and I ready. If I can implement it, I will implement this policy and if I cant, let someone else implement it because this is a decision from the leadership. Any person who can perform those tasks, let him come to implement them.

The fourth letter: I submit my resignation from the Central Committee because this committee, which commissioned me, is the same party which is stabbing me from the back and I am not accusing all members of the committee.

The good people of virtue who care for the public interest and unity and love between us tried to bridge those disagreements and 4 points were reviewed: the first point is that the negotiations committee consist of the following names and this was a decision from Abu Ammar; 9 names and if Abu Ammar wants to reduce the number or increase it, I have no objection and I never had any objection or veto against anyone to be in committees decided by brother Abu Ammar; Akram Haniyye wrote the list and Abu Ammar agreed to the list and it was shown to brother Abu Ala’ and brother Ghassan Shak’a and brother Saeb Erekat.

The second point was the security council or the security committee consist of Abu Ammar and Abu Mazen and Mohammed Dahlan and Amin al-Hindi and Haj Ismail and al-Majaydeh; I have no objection against any of the names and no objection against the formula.

The third point is that when disagreements arise on the implementation of the Basic Law, this committee will take the responsibility of solving the disagreements (referring to the four names mentioned above).

The fourth point is the story of Fatah Central Committee and my resignation from it and my insistence on the resignation.

I don’t know why each time the issue of the negotiations keeps being raised. I have never had any objection on the negotiations committee because it is not my business; it is the business of Abu Ammar and the PLO, and therefore, it is to my best interest to have separation between the negotiations committee and the government with its tasks limited to the running of affairs of the daily life of citizens but does not exercise politics or negotiations. But, if the need arises to need anyone with potentials and capacities, whether from the cabinet or from outside the cabinet, we welcome this because we are in need of all potentials to be present in this committee and you always objected against the presence of Abu Ala’ in the negotiations committee. I tell you that the negotiations need as a necessity to have Abu Ala’ to be present; you object and others object; this is your right but this is the negotiations committee as Abu Ammar and I see it. As for the security, I did not object to any name, regardless of the name, 5 or 6 I don’t mind. The issue of the Quartet Committee is not a problem. As for the issue of the Central Committee, I don’t want to return to the Central Committee and this is a personal decision. I am not attacking anyone and I don’t see myself better than anyone and I am not trying to be unfair to anyone. I came to the cabinet upon a commissioning from the Central Committee and if the Central Committee decides to withdraw this commissioning, the government will fall. This is correct and a right, for example, the committee can say: Since you boycott the committee and since you don’t want it, the committee will end its backing to you and your government and this is their right and I heard this from brother Sakher Habash and I respect his opinions and he opposes me on many matters but I respect his opinion and he doesn’t have to agree with me on all things.

Days passes and the negotiations committee was formed but not in the form that was posed and I didn’t object; the security council have never convened and I sent letters to the Quartet Committee and the Committee has not responded so far.

Jerusalem incident:

We reached a truce to protect ourselves from a civil war because the alternative is that the authority has to strike; I don’t want to strike. We made this truce with all the factions and for the first time in the history of the Palestinian people and we said this is the truce and we want to implement it and it was implemented but Israel kept violating it, just like it did in Nablus and other places. I maintained my relation with Hamas and Jihad and the rest of the factions, especially in Gaza, because I used to consider that the relationship of the government with the factions is not a relationship of a truce, it is a relation of a Palestinian society with its entire spectrum and all its social and political doctrines and norms. We want everybody in the context of this society.. Islamists, atheists or nationalists or others; we are a society created by God, so we must find a formula that gathers and unites these people and this is why the meetings continued and they were not for the sake of the truce, but we used to say: come brothers let us think how we can live in one society with multi ideas and approaches and trends; we actually started listening and listening and we found interaction and response from Hamas and Jihad that we must find a way and this was the best way for us and is still the best for any one who wants to come and govern or be in the government; this is the safest way to protect our unity and protect our people from internal fighting; and the truce came which was rejected by the Israelis and the Americans and then it was imposed on them and they were told that there is no other solution although the roadmap, which we accepted, it says that the terrorist factions must be struck and uprooted and we overcome this or we tried to overcome this tragedy in which we could have put ourselves in if we listened to them.

I was in Gaza in a meeting with Jihad Movement and we started talking and brother Ziad Abu Amro was with me and we were talking about society issues; they have societal demands that we must talk about in conclusion of the previous sessions and we started to talk for about half an hour or so when the surprise came which was the big operation in Jerusalem.

There was confusion and I called on the cabinet to Gaza and the cabinet listened to the latest developments and we agreed on 3 points:

First: either this government takes cover from the political leadership and that it is not a puppet or settlement plantation, according to Maher Masri.. are we a government or opposition; if this government is the result of the institutions; let them give it the political covering.

Second: there must be a coordination formula between the security services so that they can face on the ground if something happens because it is illogical that the security services do not agree on anything and I called on the security services to remain alert so that we can protect the situation and they said: we cant. Third: there must be measures on the ground.. measures of an authority that affirms its presence on the ground.

These three points were mere recommendations to the Palestinian leadership convening in Ramallah where the person who can arrive can convey those recommendations to the leadership, and a meeting was held and I sat with some brothers and long discussion took place and we agreed that we need to give political back up to the government and a statement was issued by the leadership but this is one of many statements that are issued and which sometimes mean nothing.

The issue continued and Osama al-Baz came and talked to us and he said that something has to be done regarding the security services because there are many commitments and nothing is happening and now how can we handle the issue of security; the Central Committee convened and two proposals were presented: the first from Nabil Shaath in person that brother Abu Ammar appoint brother Nasr Yousef as his deputy in the national security, and that he can coordinate with the rest of the services and I believe that this proposal did not get general approval, so for the second proposal, it was to appoint Yousef Nasr as Interior Minister to be in charge of the national security and they told him to go to Abu Mazen and inform him. Minister Nabil Shaath came to me carrying the two proposals and I answered him with one sentence "both are good; both proposals are acceptable". He asked: No discussion. I said yes, no discussion, if they agree to this, this is good, so he returned to Abu Ammar and called me on the phone after 15 minutes saying that Abu Ammar refused and said: I don’t want preconditions from Abu Mazen. I started wondering if I was the person setting preconditions? I just said one sentence and that both proposals are acceptable. And the result was that the decision was discussed in the PLO Executive Committee and in the Central Committee then the proposal was changed to appoint Nasr Yousef as Minister of Interior only without national security, and I was not present in those meetings or sessions but I was told that they did not reach any decision.

Matters started moving where 4 brothers wrote six proposals to end the problem; they were Akram Haniyye and Nabil Amro and Ahmad Abdul Rahman and Hakam Bal'awi. As for the six points, they were 1- the negotiations committee and I asked if this was ever a problem or point of dispute? 2- a reduced security council, we also agreed on this that this is not my problem or cause and this was not my business; 3- appointing a PM; 4- the administrative issues will not be touched unless in consultation between the President and the PM and these are issues pertaining to the Basic Law; 5- monthly joint meetings between the Palestinian leadership and the government when there is a need for that; 6- my attendance at the Central Committee and a reconciliation between me and Hani Al-Hasan because this is one of the problems that must be solved.

Of course, these matters were discussed and everyone talked and expressed his ideas but no results were reached.

The real problem my brothers is that we face Israeli rejection to any of the requests that we used to ask and which I explained to you and which we convinced the Americans about and which were mentioned by John Wolf and which were simple matters, even the prisoners, had they given us the convicted prisoners and had they stopped the wall on our land and lifted the siege.. but they offered nothing and every time they say they want the government of Abu Mazen; I am not an employee working for them or for others; if you want this government, help it, and this is proof that they don’t want this government.

The Americans talk day and night about supporting Abu Mazen and giving him support; we do not accept or allow; either they help.. but nothing.

It seems my brothers that my style and method of work is not satisfactory and my plan is not getting the approval, maybe because this is me. I am not accepted. Israel says he is good and strikes us; Hamas says this man is honest with us and strikes us; the Palestinian leadership sends clubs and sticks to be beaten with them at the doors and gates of the Palestinian legitimacy.. I am not demanding anything; I do not want anything; the person who says that I want either everything or nothing is lying; I never said this and I always used to ridicule the person who would say this; in fact, the person who says this does know nothing.

Unfortunately, the Arab and Palestinian satellite channels contributed in the misinformation and misleading; I have seen several episodes where they exploited us and spread poisons against us against ourselves; every person comes to those channels and starts issuing statements and positions; they cover hours and hours with advertisements and we publish the dirtiest laundry at their channels; there is no doubt that the satellite channels abused our conscience and souls and cause.

Finally, let me tell you a story; the story goes like this.. one day, Abu Ammar was under the siege and the siege started to get tighter and tighter and I was asked by Hani al-Hasan to talk to anyone so I spoke with Minister of Defense then Benjamin Ben Eliezer and told him: what is happening; I want to go and see him (Abu Ammar), and he said: I will get back to you. The brothers in the Muqata' used to call me by phone every half hour wondering and asking about the developments… I used to answer and tell them to wait and I would say: How would I come out? I cannot leave my home; Ben Eliezer was late in replying and I thought to myself that the best thing is to ask to be allowed to go and see my brothers who live together to hold consultation with them before going to Abu Ammar. So, I went to the building where the brothers were staying and I found there 10 persons who were either members of Central Committee and Revolutionary Council and other brothers.. I said my brothers "I am asked to go and see Abu Ammar so please advise me what to say so that you will not then come and say that I went and came back alone; what do you want me to say?" so I started to hear and listen to proposals and after a discussion, specific proposals were set; I was not allowed to go and see Abu Ammar, so I sent the proposals to him by fax and told him that the brothers suggest the following matters (1, 2, 3 and so on) and we are waiting for your answer, and in case I am not allowed to come and see you, we are waiting for your answer by fax, and the answer came from the Muqata': the slogan of the "Building of Shame" and it was launched by Hani al-Hasan in person and said that what happened in the building was a conspiracy to topple Abu Ammar, so that you will remember only, armed men came and opened fire towards the home of Nabil Amro since he was the person who announced the proposals and since he was "one of the conspirers to topple the Palestinian ruling system"!!! …and history repeats itself…

Today I sent the letter of the resignation of the government to brother Abu Ammar

Peace be upon you


Sources: JMCC