The House of Palestine needs real reform to put an end to the infighting and disunity within and the misconduct both within and without. There are raging accusations and sloganeering that may lead to further division and not to unity.

Some Palestinians forget the fact that the position of Saudi Arabia on the Palestine issue has not witnessed any change ever since the period of the Kingdom’s founder King Abdul Aziz. The kings who succeeded him also held fast to this position, considering Palestine to be the core issue of Arabs.

Indeed, there may not be any Arab government other than the Kingdom whose prime concern is the issue of Palestine and the situation of the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia is holding fast to this firm policy with regard to Palestine and this is attributed to many factors. These include the fact that Palestinians are brothers of the Saudi people binding them together with their blood, language and religion. Moreover, the occupied Palestinian territories also include the holy city of Jerusalem, which houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holy mosque in Islam. The Saudi position supporting the Palestine issue reached its zenith with the Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by the late King Abdullah, and later adopted by the Arab summit held in Beirut in 2002 as the remedy to the longstanding crisis.

This initiative is still considered to be the roadmap to the so-called “two-nation solution” to the Palestinian crisis. Palestinians, Arabs and the international community, including the United States, are satisfied with this initiative, even though President Donald Trump came out recently with the stunning decision to donate Occupied Jerusalem to Israel as its “eternal and unified capital”.

However, at the same time, we see some Palestinians taking to the streets, not in protest against the United States and its president but against Saudi Arabia! It is unfortunate that some Palestinians, who migrated to Europe, find pleasure in attacking Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, and these include even members of the media. Some of them specialize in blaming the Kingdom and attempting to discredit it despite the fact that their close relatives still reside and work in the Kingdom! They also know that the Kingdom does not treat these Palestinian expatriates as refugees and that the Kingdom forbids the deportation of even those Palestinians who should be deported for one reason or the other. Moreover, some of them have obtained Saudi citizenship and are happy to live in the Kingdom as their second nation.

Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as a heavyweight in the Arab and Islamic world and one of the major economies in the world gives utmost importance to the Palestinian issue. The Kingdom is very keen to fulfill its responsibilities toward the Palestine issue with payment of its contributions to support the Palestinian Authority. It has also for several decades been very prompt in the payment of contributions to the Al-Aqsa Fund. The Kingdom treats all of this as one of its obligatory duties so as to uphold the Palestine cause and serve the interests of the Palestinian people. Hence, it makes the payment of all these contributions in a silent manner without making the hue and cry that is sometimes practiced by others.

Despite all of this, some Palestinians are involved in a malicious campaign against the Kingdom. These Palestinians have become millionaires after migrating not only to Western Europe, North America and South America but also to the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. They pay no attention or regard even to their close relatives who are residing in the Gulf, as well as to their interests.

Their main concern is apparently to double their wealth even by standing with a country, which is usurping their homeland! A few of these people are involved in selling their land to Jews in return for dollars and shekels and then they complain to others that Israel confiscated acres of the property that they inherited from their ancestors. This is the reality about which former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam Al-Majali spoke in a reliable television interview that can be watched on YouTube.

Of course, I do not wish to generalize as there are many noble Palestinian men and women who make great sacrifices for their fellow Arabs and Muslims in their heroic struggle to realize the dream of liberating the remaining territories of their historic nation of Palestine from Israeli usurpers. However, those Palestinians who show their effrontery in blaming the Kingdom are committing a great offense not only to themselves but also to their homeland and people through their impertinent and indecent behavior.

As for Saudi Arabia, it never behaved to Palestinian expatriates in an indecent way under any circumstances. Everybody knows the mistreatment and persecution meted out to Palestinian refugees by the Bashar Al-Assad regime in squalid Syrian camps. Similar is the case of refugees in Lebanese camps.

Saudi Arabia extends assistance to the Palestinian Authority or other organizations in the occupied territories in return for nothing. Also, the Kingdom sees it is a duty not only as an Arab and Muslim country but also as part of the international community. The Kingdom feels an immense sense of pride in playing a pioneering role in the heroic struggle to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque and all the occupied Palestinian territories.

Nobody can remain silent in the face of such a shameful attitude on the part of some Palestinians toward the Kingdom and other Gulf states. If they continue persisting in such an arrogant and offensive attitude, it is our duty to expose this without doing any harm to most Palestinians who still maintain reciprocal respect with the Kingdom and its people.

The author is the editor-in-chief of Okaz.