The history of the Palestinian Authority and other collaborators ​with Joseph Massad | EI Podcast

Tamara and Asa speak to leading Palestinian intellectual Joseph Massad for a wide-ranging discussion on the true role of the Palestinian Authority as a collaborationist body with Israeli apartheid, repression and colonization. Massad teaches modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University in New York. He is the author of several books, including Desiring Arabs and Islam and Liberalism. He writes a regular column for Middle East Eye and has also written for The Electronic Intifada. “I’ve been describing the Palestinian Authority as a collaborating authority ever since its inception back in 1994,” Massad tells us. He explains that the PA was always intended to protect Israel and stop Palestinians from resisting occupation. He explains the long history of Israeli and Zionist efforts and how they so often failed due to the chosen collaborators’ lack of popular support and national legitimacy among Palestinians. But the PA has proven the ideal collaborator for Israel, since it has been able to draw on the legitimacy provided by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s history of revolutionary struggle. The PA allowed Israel to “transform the PLO itself into an anti-PLO collaborationist leadership,” Massad explains. FULL TRANSCRIPT: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐚𝐝𝐚 Visit our website for more reporting: Facebook: Twitter: Instagram: Soundcloud: Spotify: Apple Podcasts: #TheElectronicIntifada #TheElectronicIntifadaPodcast