President Mahmoud Abbas today declared a 30-day state of emergency in Palestine to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.The state of emergency was first declared in March 2020 after the discovery of the first cases of coronavirus in the Palestinian territories.The state of emergency gives the government the power to act in any way it deems necessary to combat the pandemic.
I have not seen any articles about a new wave of Covid-19 in the West Bank. There has been a slight uptick in the last couple of weeks, but the rate is way below Israel's. At its recent peak there have been two deaths a week.
As far as I can tell, he is not automatically extending an old state of emergency every 30 days. According to Xinhua:
The state of emergency was first declared in March 2020 after the discovery of the first coronavirus cases in the Palestinian territories. It was last extended or re-declared in January this year, local media reported.Under the state of emergency, the government is empowered to take any step it deems necessary to fight the pandemic.
I cannot find a single Palestinian news site that questioned this announcement. They just parroted it. They didn't even elaborate on it, showing a rise in cases or in deaths.
And on Mahmoud Abbas' Facebook page, the announcement was greeted with Soviet-style unanimous praise for his great insight and wisdom:
If there was a free press, people would be asking questions why Abbas just added emergency powers on top of his already dictatorial powers over the executive, judicial and legislative branches of Palestinian government.
World leaders and media still treat the Palestinian president and his government as if they are rational leaders. If anyone would read their own media and government websites for a couple of weeks with a critical eye, the levels of dysfunction would be obvious. And there is something very rotten about this "state of emergency."
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