Normally I try to avoid incoherent attacks from other web sites, especially those modeled after the marginalized domains of dictators in the Arab world. But I can't avoid responding to the vicious attack against palestinenote.com by the Electronic Intifada, a place where hypocrisy is the norm, factual inaccuracies are common place, and anger and hatred drive their mission.

The Electronic Intifada symbolizes everything that has played a role in the failure during the past century of the failure of the Palestinians to achieve statehood. The Electronic Intifada operates from under a rock of conspiring to bring down anyone, especially other Palestinians who dare to express views that challenge the failed rejectionist zealotry.

Although they have never done one thing to help the Palestinians, they are quick to tear down the efforts of other Palestinians who refuse to live by their narrow, misguided, and failed mission.

Recently one of their writers reached out to palestinenote.com asking for information. Palestinenote.com is a journalism blog site, not a partisan activist site like the Electronic Intifada. It is Palestinian-American and works with other professional writers, many of them in Palestine and even in Israel (where a lot of Palestinians, by the way, happen to live). The editors responded that they are open to contributions from everyone and they even pay their writers to publish "original" columns.

The writer replied back that he was misunderstood. He didn't want to write for them because, and in his words: "basic human decency prevents me from blogging for a website that does not honor Palestinian civil society's call for a boycott of Israeli apartheid."

Wow. Suddenly, the writer and the Electronic Intifada, the virtual nation of one dictator and tyrant, is the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." 

The Electronic Intifada stands upon the injustice committed by Israel's governments to benefit themselves. They are self-proclaimed centurions of the Palestinian Holy Grail, not distracted at all by the hypocrisy of their lives as they tour the World like spoiled "rock stars" on their lecture circuits and university speaking circles.

But while they pretend to snub "normalization" with the "entity," the reality is that the tragedy-burdened Palestinian society has to deal with Israelis every day.

 When I was growing up, I saw this hypocrisy firsthand. It hasn't changed one iota in 37 years since I first became an activist for the Palestinian cause for statehood and debated, as a youth, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban on national American TV.

I believed in the mission of the Palestinian revolution - of which the Jabha rejectionists were never really a partner - the goal to establish a "secular Palestinian State where Jews, Christians and Muslims could live together in peace and equality."

Yet somehow when the words "Jews" and "Christians" and "secular Muslims" come up, people like the Electronic Intifada start throwing around words like "apartheid" and separate people based on race; actually writing in an email that they are "horrified" that one of the editors is an - OMG! - an Israeli.

Because in the rejectionist world, we're not supposed to become friends with any Israelis.

The Electronic Intifada's attack also is driven by the ridiculous notion that palestinenote.com pays its writers and actually has a budget to cover its expenses.  palestinenote.com is a public forum, that makes no money, and is completely funded by Masri and Farouki to serve as an open place for people of any race to share constructive opinions.

Yes, the Electronic Intifada asserts indignantly that palestinenote.com is "profiting" on the backs of Palestinian suffering.

Are you telling me the Electronic Intifada and its founder don't profit from the suffering of the Palestinian people? Without that suffering, everyone at the Electronic Intifada would be out of jobs and standing in the unemployment line for out-of-work activists.

Most hypocritically, on the very same front page in which the Electronic Intifada slanders palestinenote.com, the Electronic Intifada makes a hard sell appeal to readers to give them money.  Oh, it's not for them, of course. It's for the "Palestinian people." Which people exactly? They don't need to say.

Hani Masri, the Palestinian philanthropist who launched and funded palestinenote.com with  Huda Farouki, has done more for the Palestinian people in the past few years than the Electronic Intifada could ever do in a lifetime.

Among his many philanthropic achievements, Masri founded and launched a center in Nablus to help Palestinian children  survive the occupation and build real lives. Just visit his web site at www.TomorrowsYouth.org and witness what genuine concern for the well-being of the Palestinian people can accomplish without attacks or anger.

Masri, along with Huda Farouki have no business in Palestine. Yet, they have donated huge sums of money to help promote the Palestinian cause through dozens of charities. Recently, Farouki donated $1 million to help bring 22 Arab Art teams from 22 Arab countries, including Palestine, to present at the Kennedy Center for a performance series that ran one month. Marcel Khalifa was one of the artists.

Why pick on Masri? Because he "profits" from Palestine or because rejectionists like the Electronic Intifada and their associates have never been beneficiaries of his philanthropy?

The Electronic Intifada is a bully-pulpit that the rejectionists use to silence anyone who dares to challenge their claim to leadership.

They respond to suffering by feeding people anger and hatred. They distort facts in order to make their case. And they are the first to denounce the killing of Palestinians, but never denounce the killing of Israelis. To them, the issue isn't that killing is wrong; it is that killing the wrong people is what is wrong.

 I don't agree with that and I know the majority of Palestinians don't agree with that either. Palestinians are not bloodthirsty people bent on the murder of anyone. We believe in the sanctity of life, whether it is Palestinian, Israeli, Muslim, Christian or Jew. We believe in the principle that violence of any kind is wrong. And yes, we don't like Israel's oppressive and brutal policies, but firing rockets and targeting civilians is not the same as the Thawra that Yasir Arafat once led that forced the world to recognize that Palestinians do exist and we can't be ignored.

But it is the hatred of the few, the extremists with the loudest voices, who turn the suffering of victims into bludgeons of hatred that has undermined the Palestinian cause over the years.

What has the Electronic Intifada ever done for Palestine except act as a guardian of their sacred cause to preserve the conflict. Because when the conflict ends, the rejectionists will be out of jobs. They'll have to go someplace else to enjoy themselves give empty speeches.

Without the suffering of the Palestinian people, the Electronic Intifada would have no reason to exist. They would just be another worthless "entity" that employs its own racist and self-hating "apartheid" to persecute those with whom it disagrees.

Palestinenote.com is a threat to the Electronic Intifada. More and more Palestinians are reading Palestinenote.com and other sites that offer new and more creative thinking to help bring the conflict to an end, and more importantly to end the perpetual suffering of the Palestinian people.

The Electronic Intifada's attack is intended as a warning to anyone who dares to think for themselves. If you do, the rejectionist Palestinians will not hesitate to tear you down. It's the one major character flaw of the rejectionists. They know how to defeat their own people, but they have no idea how to achieve a Palestinian State.

The greatest threat to any dictatorship - and the Electronic Intifada is a dictatorship -- is when people start to think for themselves. And when they start thinking for themselves, they start to demand that their so-called "leaders" be accountable.

I'm proud to write for Palestinenote.com and I am proud to be attacked by the Electronic Intifada. To use a common American expression, being called a traitor by the Electronic Intifada is like being called ugly by a pig.

I've spent a lifetime watching as rejectionist extremism has led our people down the path of failure, suffering and to the goal of nothing. "All or nothing" is the mantra the rejectionists want the Palestinian people to continue to embrace.

Well, they have had one success. The Electronic Intifada has delivered to the Palestinian people the "nothing" that the Electronic Intifada has always promised.

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