Fatah accuses PA government of 'discrimination' against Gaza

Some Palestinians said that the activists’ demand could mark the beginning of a Fatah revolt against Abbas in the Gaza Strip.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting with the Palestinian leadership to discuss the United Arab Emirates' deal with Israel to normalize relations, in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank August 18, 2020 (photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/POOL)
President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting with the Palestinian leadership to discuss the United Arab Emirates' deal with Israel to normalize relations, in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank August 18, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/POOL)
Activists from the dominant Fatah faction have demanded that the Palestinian Authority stop its policy of “discrimination” against its own employees in the Gaza Strip, who have seen their salaries either cut or halted in the past three years.
The demand was a sign of growing discontent among Fatah officials in the Gaza Strip with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the PA leadership, and some Palestinians said the demand could spark a revolt within Fatah in the Strip where the faction has tens of thousands of members.
The demand to redress the salaries came after Ahmed Majdalani, the PA social development minister, complained that PA employees in Gaza had been receiving salaries for the past 13 years despite not doing any work.
Majdalani, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, said it was inconceivable that those employees should continue to receive full salaries, including payments for transportation and other privileges, while idle.
The PA government ordered its thousands of employees to remain at home after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. It wanted to prevent them from continuing to work under Hamas’s administration.
But in 2017, the PA government, facing a deep financial crisis, decided to suspend or cut the employees’ salaries and discontent grew among them because their colleagues in the West Bank have continued to receive their salaries in full.
The activists have launched an online campaign titled “Stop the Discrimination” in which they have accused Abbas and the PA government of failing to fulfill their obligations to their Gaza employees.
Fatah warned that the “discrimination” against Gaza’s employees would further deepen the rift between the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave and the West Bank, which is dominated by Fatah.
“We are being punished by Abbas, although he was the one who told us to stay at home when Hamas staged its coup in the Gaza Strip,” complained Ma’moun al-Madhoun, a Fatah activist employed by the PA government.
“In 2017, the Palestinian government cut our salaries by 25%. Two years later, it cut our salaries by 50%. At the beginning, we were told not to work with the Hamas government and to stay at home. Those who did not obey the order lost their salaries. Now even those who complied are being punished.”
Madhoun and other Fatah activists appealed to Abbas and the PA government to stop the policy of “geographic discrimination” between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“President Abbas has abandoned his Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip,” lamented Issa Mahmoud, another Fatah member. “If he doesn’t care about the Gaza Strip, he should say so and revoke our Palestinian citizenship.”
Majdalani said he had called for the payments to be stopped because many of the PA employees whose salaries were suspended had either left the Gaza Strip or had begun working in other jobs.
But several Fatah officials in the Gaza Strip condemned Majdalani’s “racist and offensive” statements and called on Abbas and PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh to fire him.
Tawfik Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee and former commander of the PA General Intelligence Service in the West Bank, called on the PA government to guarantee the full rights of its Gaza employees.
Tirawi criticized Majdalani’s remarks, noting that the PA had instructed its public servants not to report to work when Hamas seized control of Gaza.
The Palestinian Business Association in Gaza said Majdalani’s statements were unacceptable and harmful.
“The Gaza Strip is an integral part of the homeland, and no one, not even Majdalani, has the right to attack its people and its legitimate rights,” the group said. “Such statements reinforce the division between the West bank and Gaza Strip and increase the sense of injustice and oppression of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
A senior Fatah official told The Jerusalem Post that the PA government’s measures against its employees would play into the hands of Hamas. The official said that by abandoning the Fatah-affiliated employees in the Gaza Strip, Abbas was also emboldening his arch-rival, deposed Fatah operative Mohammed Dahlan, who is based in the United Arab Emirates.
“Dahlan already has many supporters who are on his payroll in the Gaza Strip,” the official told the Post. “Now, thousands of disgruntled Fatah members who feel betrayed by Abbas and the PA leadership will join the pro-Dahlan camp. Others may go to work for Hamas.”


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