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Fadi Elsalameen is a political commentator on Arab-Israeli affairs and an adjunct senior fellow on the American Safety Challenge. He is a vocal critic of Mahmoud Abbas, the top of the Palestinian Authority, and he has acquired a number of dying threats and survived an assassination try.
Elsalameen believes that an essential step in liberating Palestinians is financial freedom—particularly bitcoin, which might help them bypass the Palestinian Authority’s management over their funds. In April, he spoke with Motive‘s Noor Greene on the Bitcoin 2022 convention in Miami.
Q: What function does the Palestinian Authority play in Palestine immediately?
A: The Palestinian Authority is a burden on the Palestinian inhabitants. Virtually 84 % of the inhabitants believes that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt. We have spent nearly $40 billion contained in the Palestinian territories since 1993, and there is little or no to point out for that cash. However we do have very rich politicians. A lot of the financial sector is monopolized by politicians who’re immediately linked to the president. And the president is in his 18th 12 months although he was solely elected for a four-year time period.
Q: As a Palestinian, how would you face corruption from the Palestinian Authority?
A: Nearly all of the Palestinian financial system depends upon labor in Israel. For those who’re a Palestinian employee, you want a allow to enter Israel to work, which is supplied free of charge by the Israelis. However you need to pay the corrupt Palestinian official, who’s now the minister of civil affairs, $500 a month to keep up your allow. So that they levy a tax on you as a employee. If you’re a Palestinian dwelling beneath the Palestinian Authority, beneath the Israeli occupation, you are actually battling all types of forces, whether or not or not it’s corruption, army occupation, an absence of freedom, an absence of expression, or no independence in any way.
Q: The place does support go that the U.S. and different international locations ship to Palestine?
A: Sadly, the help that’s despatched by the U.S. or Europe largely goes to learn corrupt Palestinian officers. And when you’re sending support to strengthen and embolden corruption, you are combating towards democracy. We have to step again for a second, not solely to cease the help, however cease the way in which the help is being despatched. That is why we talked about introducing bitcoin into the equation. Bitcoin is an answer the place the Palestinian Authority isn’t concerned, the banks usually are not concerned, and it is direct support from the US.
Q: How can bitcoin be used successfully in Palestine?
A: Bitcoin affords a approach for individuals dwelling beneath repressive regimes to earn a dwelling exterior the confinements of corruption, exterior the abuse of dictators. I’m a giant fan of bitcoin, particularly in Palestine and for Palestinians, as a result of I really feel that it is one solution to curtail the affect of a corrupt regime just like the Palestinian Authority. But in addition, it is a new approach for a Palestinian era to affix the remainder of the world. The battle has held again Palestinian youth. And the Palestinian inhabitants may be very younger. Gaza has 2.5 million individuals—half of them are beneath 18 years outdated. Two-thirds of the Palestinian inhabitants is beneath 30 years outdated. Seventy % of our inhabitants may be very energetic on the web. So if we will raise up our society and transfer it out of poverty, transfer it away from corruption, transfer it away from the brutality of the occupation, we have to look into new methods of reaching that. I see bitcoin as a peaceable means to empower the native inhabitants.
This interview has been condensed and edited for type and readability. For a video model, go to cause.com.
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