FFS Free Palestine

[Balanbam00]

The PLO would not live up any of the agreements, and came to be seen more and more as a state within a state in Jordan.
Accordingly, their growing power was accompanied by growing arrogance and insolence

''They drove noisily around Amman in jeeps with loaded weapons, like an army of occupation; they extorted financial contributions from individuals, sometimes foreigners, in their homes and in public places; they disregarded routine traffic regulations, failed to register and license their vehicles, and refused to stop at army checkpoints; they boasted about their role of destiny against Israel and belittled the worth of the army. Their very presence in Amman, far from the battlefield, seemed like a challenge to the regime''.
In the summer of 1970, the Jordanian army was on the verge of losing its patience with the fedayeen.

In the September fighting, the PLO lost its main base of operations. Fighters were driven to Southern Lebanon where they regrouped. The enlarged PLO presence in Lebanon and the intensification of fighting on the Israeli–Lebanese border stirred up internal unrest in Lebanon, where the PLO fighters added dramatically to the weight of the Lebanese National Movement, a coalition of Muslims, Arab nationalists and leftists who opposed the rightist, Maronite-dominated government. These developments helped precipitate the Lebanon Civil War, in which the PLO would ultimately be expelled to Tunisia

[Balanbam00]

In the eyes of the chairman of the Arab electricity company, his company's failure to pay its debts to Israel is an issue that needs to be brought before the UN. Obviously, Omari did not tell the UN officials he met with about the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have not been paying their bills or who are stealing power from the JDEC.
Omari revealed that "large Palestinian consumers" owed his company 100 million shekels (about $28.6 million). He said that Palestinian consumers' total debts to his company were estimated at 800 million shekels (about $229 million). More than half of the debt belongs to Palestinians living in refugee camps, where consumers have long been stealing electricity and refusing to pay their bills, he said.
Attempts by the JDEC to collect money for unpaid bills in West Bank refugee camps have been met with violence. JDEC employees who entered the camps to collect debts or cut off power to consumers are often threatened and beaten. The Palestinian security forces have done almost nothing to help the company or its employees.
Omari also criticized Palestinian courts for failing to deal with Palestinians who are stealing electricity and refusing to pay their bills. "Some of the Palestinians [in the refugee camps] place private guards near electricity generators to prevent the company employees from cutting the power," he said. "Others block the panels with chains or rocks so that we cannot open them..."

The Arab company's message to Palestinians who are stealing electricity and refusing to pay their bills is: "If you find yourselves without electricity, you should blame only Israel."

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based on the Middle East.