Tag Archives: palestinian authority

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Palestinians need high calibre leaders – urgently

Stuart Littlewood
Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in London recently.

Did anyone know? Did western media care?

No. Not until reports appeared that Jewish community leaders cancelled a meeting with him after intervention by Israeli PM Netanyahu’s office and Israel’s embassy in London, and Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi condemned the move as “seeking to suppress and manipulate Jewish public opinion”.

It was also typical of Netanyahu’s “persistent efforts” to prevent dialogue, she said, according to Ma’an News. Continue reading →

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Is Hamas really a mean-minded Christmas Scrooge*?

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

2011 ends on a sour note…

Phoebe Greenwood, writing from Gaza City in The Guardian on 23 December http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/23/gaza-christians-hamas-cancelled-christmas, reported:

 

“There hasn’t been a Christmas tree in Gaza City’s main square since Hamas pushed the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in 2007 and Christmas is no longer a public holiday.”

Continue reading →

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Mahmoud Abbas at UN, Chapeau

UN 194-Ceremonies
UN 194-Ceremonies

UN 194-Ceremonies

Sami Jamil Jadallah

This time around Mahmoud Abbas did it, contrary to the skeptics and I am one of them, who believed he would back out the last minute and that he would blink in a game of chicken with a shameful and shameless Obama and his White House. He did what he should have done long time ago back in 1988. He did it what the people of Palestine wanted and should have done long ago. At the UN he spoke so well, so much from the heart, so much truth, in contrast to Obama’s bankrupt and hypocritical speech and in contrast to Netanyahu’s condensing lies and make believe.

Mr. Mahmoud Abbas did not go far enough in his speech. He should have demanded an immediate end to the Jewish Military and settlers Occupations without any conditions or if or but. He should have demanded the immediate take over by the UN of the Palestinian Occupied Territories, both Gaza and the West Bank and the disbanding of operating local governments and demanded the immediate deployment of peace keeping troops to take over the security and safety of the Palestinians and their properties, land and resources and end the siege of Gaza.

He should announce the disbanding of the Palestinian Authority as an instrument of the continued Jewish Occupation and its manager. He should have announced right there and then the cancelation and voiding of Oslo Accord and to have admit it was a big, sad and tragic political mistake and that it was simply wrong to trust Israel or the Jewish state to keep any of its promises, promises it never keeps with any one, including the US.

He should have announced the disbanding of the Palestinian Security Forces as a useless, helpless security forces that has consistently failed to provide safety and security for the Palestinian people, their lives and their properties from the ever trigger happy Jewish army, and an ever greedy Jewish government that loves to steal and confiscate and is addicted to land theft and house demolition. A security forces that was never able to protect the Palestinian people and their properties from a marauding criminal gangs of Jewish terrorists living and residing in illegal Jewish settlements and admit it a security forces for the occupation.

He did not go far enough in telling Tony Blair, Dennis Ross and all the international emissaries that come to Ramallah to give lip services to simply go to hell and that they are no longer welcomed in the Palestinian “Jewish Occupied” Territories and that he is no longer willing to listen to their lies, fraud and hypocrisy. He should have told the Quartets to go to hell for failing to be fair and honest broker that always justify and stand useless and helpless in front of daily crimes committed by the Jewish state, its army, its settlers and its Jewish judicial system that is totally and unconditionally biased in favor of Jews and against all others.

Mr. Abbas should have told President Obama that he, the Palestinians and in fact all the Arabs and Muslims and the world at large are no longer willing to accept the United States as a biased, dishonest and highly “toxic “ peace broker that always supported Israel and its armed, destructive and criminal Jewish Occupation right or wrong.

That the Palestinians and the Arabs are no longer willing to accept the role of the United States as a dishonest broker when it funds and arms the Jewish and settlers occupation, provide political and legal covers for Israeli war crimes and support and stand by Israel as it destroy Gaza and continue to hold the 1.5 million under siege and hostage and as it commit murder and piracy on the high seas.

Mahmoud Abbas first step toward legitimacy is to demand the dismantling of the PLO as the illegal and illegitimate representative of the people and to demand and organize a new and truly representative body of the Palestinian people to be voted on by the people.  He should demand the immediate implementation and carrying out of investigations of political and financial corruption that riddles the PA, Fatah and the PLO and demand open and public hearing of all the dormant files and immediate cleansing of the corruption and the corrupt. He should demand and open public hearing into the tens of billions stolen and fleeced by the PLO executives and their families over the years.

Please take the time to read the full text of Mr. Mahmoud Abbas excellent speech at the UN… it is worth it. Thank you Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, you have made the people proud, and you spoke so well, not only for the Palestinians but for the world as well. Keeping mind the “international community” is not limited to or as defined by Obama and Hilary Clinton.

Please take the time to read and view the full text and speech of Mr. Mahmoud Abbas. Thank you..

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/22286/World/Region/-Mahmoud-Abbas-speech-at-the-UN–The-full-official.aspx

Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the UN [part 1/3]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_rd3PqT-k

Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the UN [part 2/3]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7zWz4mTCyg

 

Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the UN [part 3/3]




 

 

Sami Jamil Jadallah

Sami Jamil Jadallah

Sami Jamil Jadallah is an international legal and business consultant and is the founder and director of Palestine Agency and Palestine Documentation Center www.palestineagency.com and founder and owner of several business in technology and services. Sami also runs an online website (Jefferson Corner). His articles are also featured on PalestineNote and Veterans Today.

Articles on RamallahOnline by Sami Jamil Jadallah

Born in the Palestinian city of El-Bireh ( presently under Israeli Military Occupation, Armed Jewish thugs and settlers). Immigrated to the US in 62. After graduating from high school in Gary, Indiana was drafted into the US Army ( 66-68) received the Leadership Award from the US 6th Army NCO Academy in Ft. Lewis, Washington. Five of us brothers where in US military service about the same time. Graduated from Indiana University with BA-72, Master of Public Affairs-74 and Juris Doctor-77, and in senior year at IU,was elected Chairman of the Indiana Student Association.

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The importance of being anti-Israeli

Israeli Pirate Flag Silwan - (June 26 2010, Rebecca Fudala)

Israeli Pirate Flag Silwan - (June 26 2010, Rebecca Fudala)

Dr. Ismail Salami

When valleys accuse their mountains of having altitude-and march denounces april as a saboteur then we’ll believe in that incredible unanimal mankind (and not until). — e.e. cummings

Anti-Israeli sentiments have begun to surge radically as the Israeli officials are going through fire and water to prevent the Palestinian bid for statehood based notionally on the 1967 borders from being even presented to the UN general assembly.

The feeling of aversion to the Israeli regime and sympathy for Palestine has even reached the United States. On September 16, hundreds of Americans and Palestinians rallied in New York City in front of the United Nation Building in Manhattan and voiced their support for Palestine’s statehood bid. Among the protesters were students and even pro-Palestinian Israelis who held Palestinian flags and chanted pro-Palestinian songs.

The proposal for UN membership will be submitted on Friday by the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.

It is widely believed that the bid will fail; yet, it will be an important move on the path of the Palestinian cause. Even if the bid fails on account of the veto, the US wields at the Security Council, it will still be remembered as a moral victory for the Palestinian people. Besides, Palestine will gain access to some UN bodies including the International Criminal Court, which is no small victor for Palestine.

The US has already expressed its strong opposition to the bid and has vowed to veto it if it ever happens to find its way into the Security Council. Early this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the path to a Palestinian state does not go through New York but through Jerusalem, implicating that the bid will go to waste.

Despite all the pernicious forces mobilized against the Palestinian bid for statehood, Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to go ahead with the bid and seek full United Nations membership for a Palestinian state even though “all hell has broken out” over the move.

Some Israeli officials have warned of dire consequences and demanded tough retaliation against the Palestinian move which they believe is meant to isolate Israel. The US has threatened to cut humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, which totals approximately $500 million a year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that abominable brat speaks with utmost contempt and contumely for the Palestinian bid and makes condescendingly hollow promises if Palestine abandons its bid for statehood.

“I believe that in the end, after the smoke clears, after everything that happens in the UN, ultimately the Palestinians will come to their senses — that’s my hope — and will abandon these negotiations-circumventing maneuvers and will sit down at the table.”

Interestingly, many western states which pretend to be champions of democracy in the world have already started to throw their support for the Zionist regime and voiced their opposition to the Palestinian bid.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has urged the Palestinian Authority to give up its push for statehood at the United Nations, saying the bid could be “divisive.” It seems that his one reason for his opposition is that it would be vetoed by the United States and that millions of people around the world would be disillusioned.

In general, there are two main camps in the EU: While some members have voiced their support for Palestinian statehood, some others do not feel very comfortable with the notion of a Palestinian state such as Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. There is still a third camp, among them, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Luxemburg, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, France and Sweden, which urge Palestinian Authority to apply for an upgrade to an observer status. Yet, may European countries have kept their cards close to their chests.

Anyhow, the Palestinian bid has garnered considerable support in the international arena. A recent BBC poll reveals that from among 20,466 people in 19 countries, 49% backed the statehood proposal while 21% said their government should oppose it. This is while only 30% declined to give a definite reply. Jointly carried out by the BBC and GlobeScan, the poll showed the majority voiced their support in four predominantly Muslim countries, with China strongly backing the bid. Even in the countries where there was a strong opposition to the bid, those who supported the bid far exceeded those who were against it.

Global support for a de facto recognition of Palestine was also reflected through social networks.

A Facebook page supporting the Palestinian cause with ten million signatures read, “Despite pressure from Western countries, we are asking for full Palestinian membership at the Security Council.”

Faced with the possibility of political bankruptcy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has begun a tour of Europe, trying to marshal up support for Israel and making sure the Palestinian bid will fail at the UN. Fear is certainly the word that best suits how the Israelis feel at the moment.

So far, the West has danced to every tune of the Zionist regime and Israel has until now played, as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan puts it, the role of a ‘spoiled child’ who frolics frivolously about in the international political arena, threatening the nearest target and one of the main supporters of Palestine e.g. Iran – which is too big a morsel for it to chew – with bombing their nuclear sites. However, time is running out for Israel which has now become a synonym for hate.

These days, the idea of being anti-Israeli is not a vogue in the world but a collective cry of protest by all freedom seeking people against the tyranny inflicted on Palestine and all the Palestinian people who aspire for an Israeli- free Palestine.

– Ismail Salami is an Iranian journalist and author. He has written numerous books and articles on Middle East some of which have been translated into more than ten languages. His articles can be found on many other online publications such as Global Research, Palestine Chronicle, Dissident Voice, Foreign Policy Journal, Veterans Today, Media Monitors, Salem News, Opinion Maker, Intifada Palestine, Iran Review, Counter Currents, Turkish Weekly Journal, Intrepid Report and Ramallah Online.

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The PA’s Historic Mistake – and Opportunity

Palestine Flag

 

Jeff Halper

No one knows the precise plans of the Palestinian Authority vis-a-vis September: will Mahmoud Abbas declare a Palestinian state within recognized borders and ask that it be admitted as a full member of the UN – or not? Perhaps Abbas himself does not know. Now political leaders often make decisions alone or in consultation with a small group of advisors. As in so many matters political, however, the Palestinian leadership finds itself in a unique situation. Its main allies are not governments, and certainly not the American government, whose support for some inexplicable reason has constituted the Palestinians’ default position for the past forty years. Rather, the Palestinians’ most loyal and powerful ally is civil society. And yet, this most solid base of support remains unappreciated, unutilized, and ignored.

Three circles of popular support radiate out into the wider world, able to mobilize millions of people to the Palestinian cause. First, of course, is the Palestinian people itself. Displaced, scattered, oppressed, occupied, struggling for its national rights and very cultural identity, this “little grain of sand,” as it has been called, continues generation after generation to jam not only the vaunted Israeli military machine but that of its main supporter, the United States, who for decades has used Israel as its forward position in the Middle East.

To oppressed people everywhere, the Palestinians have become an inspiration, almost their surrogate. Their ability to remain steadfast (sumud) is proof that injustice, even when supported by the most advanced weaponry of the most powerful super-powers, can be resisted. But Israel, helped by time and geography, has succeeded in fragmenting the Palestinians. The refugees in the camps are almost completely excluded from political processes, but it is the exclusion of the Diaspora that is especially problematic. Highly educated for the most part, fluent in all the European languages, they could play a major role in promoting the Palestinian cause abroad. Indeed, a few individuals have carved out influential positions despite being excluded, even resisted, by the West Bank leadership. Instead, the Palestinian Authority has fielded, with a couple notable exceptions, a most inept and inarticulate corps of diplomats. Rather than using their greatest asset, their own people abroad as well as the legions of articulate spokespeople at home, including younger people, the Palestinian Authority has tied its own hands diplomatically just when Israel is mounting a major international offensive against it. Just recall one astounding fact: during the entire year that saw the Obama Administration taking office and the invasion of Gaza, there was no official Palestinian representative in Washington!

The second circle of civil society support for the Palestinian cause is, of course, the Arab and wider Muslim worlds. While each uprising of the “Arab Spring” has its own reasons and dynamics, the Palestinian struggle provided the inspiration. The Arab peoples came to realize that the same forces oppressing the Palestinians – militarism designed to thwart democracy and ensure neo-colonial control over their lands and resources – are at the source of their own oppression as well.

Indeed, the Palestinians possess one source of tremendous clout: they are the bone in the throat of the global powers that prevent them from completing their imperialist plans. The Palestinian struggle is not simply a local one between Palestinians and Israelis; it has become global on the order of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. It cannot be by-passed. Even though there are larger and bloodier conflicts in the Middle East, until the Palestinians signal the rest of the Muslim world that they have arrived at a political settlement with Israel and the time has come to normalize relations, the conflict is not over. A solution cannot be imposed, and the Palestinians are the gatekeepers. Nothing can happen without them, and until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is indeed resolved, the US and Europe will be unable to pursue their interests unencumbered in an empowered Middle East.

The third circle of civil society just waiting to be mobilized are the millions of ordinary people the world over whose have devoted enormous energy and resources towards the realization of Palestinian national rights. The Palestinian struggle has indeed assumed the proportions of that against apartheid. It is one of the two or three leading issues in the world. Churches, trade unions, university students, political and human rights organizations, prominent intellectuals, performers, and even key politicians have all mobilized in support of the BDS movement (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel). They are evident in the repeated attempts to break the siege of Gaza by sending international flotillas.

But they, like Palestinian civil society and that of the Arab and Muslim worlds, wait to be mobilized by the Palestinian leadership. According to newspaper accounts – unfortunately, the Authority leadership has never conducted an open discussion of the crucial September initiative and has never shared its deliberations – the two main objections to seeking membership in the UN are fear of upsetting the American administration and failure to obtain the required number of votes. The first is ridiculous. Does anyone still believe the Palestinians will gain anything by pursuing American-led “negotiations”?

The second objection, that not receiving the required votes for admission to the UN constitutes a “failure,” exposes a key flaw in the strategic thinking of the Palestinian leadership. If Abbas approaches the UN in a docile and half-hearted way, appearing more to be pushed by an Israeli refusal to negotiate than by his people’s own just cause and urgent need for independence, the Palestinian struggle will certainly suffer. Many other countries that would otherwise support the Palestinian initiative will indeed waiver, giving in to US and Israeli pressure because it seems the Palestinian themselves are not serious about it. But if he goes into the UN as the head of a national unity government with the support of the world’s peoples, Mandela-like, he could decisively change the course of events forever.

To pull off his September initiative, Abbas must reject the go-it-alone approach that the Palestinian leadership has followed fruitlessly for so long. He must recognize that civil society the world over – and in the Muslim world and Europe in particular – is the Palestinians’ most important ally. The issue is not whether the initiative “succeeds;” it is clear that the US will cast a veto. The true struggle is to pull out all the stops to show the world just how strong the Palestinian movement is. If mobilized, the collective power of the grassroots who have for years labored on the Palestinian issue will generate a momentum that will be hard to stop.

Time is of the essence. Mobilization must begin immediately. The elected representatives of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territory, joined for the first time by Palestinians of the refugee camps, inside Israel, and the Diaspora, should issue a joint “Call for Support.” Immediately following the Palestinian Call, grassroots activists would issue a Civil Society Call to support the Palestinian initiative, which would be signed by tens of thousands of people from all over the world and delivered to the UN in September. If a campaign for public support begins now, if the political leadership works intensively and closely with its own civil society to garner widespread support, more than 100,000 people can be gathered at the UN in New York in September in a mass rally for Palestinian independence. (And believe me, Israel will mobilize its own supporters!)

Inside the UN, Abbas would present Palestine’s compelling case for independence and UN membership, as he did in his New York Times piece of May 16. He would also reframe the conflict. It is not specious security issues that lay at the roots of the conflict, but Israel’s refusal to respect Palestinian national rights and to end the Occupation. As he also did in the New York Times article, Abbas must also make it clear that recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in no way compromises the right of refugees to return to their homes, a key point of future negotiations with Israel. He should also state up front that the establishment of a Palestinian state does not end the Palestinian quest, through peaceful means, of an inclusive single-state solution.

If international mobilization is pursued vigorously and Abbas exudes a genuine determination to see a Palestinian state established and recognized, more than 130 countries, including many of the leading European ones, will vote to accept Palestine into the UN. Even if this does not overrule the US veto in the Security Council, it is far more than a merely symbolic achievement and certainly cannot be considered a failure. Such a massive expression of support would demonstrate the inevitability of Palestinian statehood. It would signal the beginning rather than the end of an international campaign for Palestinian rights, one now joined by governments as well as civil society.

We, the people who have pursued Palestinian rights over the decades, Palestinians and non-Palestinian alike, are an integral part of the struggle. We have earned the right, all of us, to have our voices heard in September. Indeed, I would argue that if September comes and goes without any breakthrough due to the acquiescence and weakness of the Authority leadership, civil society support might well dissipate. The people can bring the struggle to a certain point; we cannot negotiate or pursue initiatives at the UN. If the leadership fails us then we truly have nowhere to go. All those Palestinians who have suffered, resisted and died over the past decades cannot be let down at this historic moment by a vacillating political leadership. We call on you to mobilize us. Together we shall succeed, and sooner rather than later.

 

Jeff Halper

Jeff Halper

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

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Hamas + Fatah announce in Cairo they’ve reached agreement

Coat of arms of Palestine -- standard pan-Arab "Eagle of Saladin" with shield of the flag, and holding a scroll with the word filastin فلسطين (Palestine).(Wikimedia Commons)

 

Marian Houk, UN-Truth.com

This was a surprise.

The announcement came at the end of the day, in the early evening. Reuters broke the story. Hamas and Fatah, meeting in Cairo, had reached agreement on reconciliation. Further details were not immediately available, and only a few pieces of information filtered out as evening became night.

Isabelle Kershner (and four other correspondents in Cairo, Gaza and Washington) wrote in the New York Times that “In a televised address on Wednesday, even before the Fatah-Hamas press conference, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, sent a stern warning to the Palestinian Authority president and Fatah chief, Mahmoud Abbas.  ‘The Palestinian Authority has to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas’, Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, ‘Peace with both of them is impossible, because Hamas aspires to destroy the state of Israel and says so openly’.  The choice, he said, was in the authority’s hands”. This story is published here.

One Twitterer (from Gaza) called Netanyahu a “Drama Queen” after these remarks.

A Tweet from the Palestinian President’s office said, in response to Netanyahu’s remarks: @MahmoudAbbas – #Netanyahu has to choose between #Peace or #Settlement’s construction.

 

The NYTimes added, in its report, that Netanyahu said “Hamas ‘Fires rockets at our cities and anti-tank missiles at our children’, referring to a recent attack by Hamas militants on a school bus in Israel that killed a 16-year-old Israeli youth.  ‘I think the very idea of the reconciliation shows the weakness of the Palestinian Authority, and leads one to wonder whether Hamas will take control over Judea and Samaria as it did over Gaza’,  Mr. Netanyahu added, using the biblical name for the West Bank”.

While there is certainly deep apprehension among those Palestinians who hate and fear Hamas, many of the organized Palestinian factions and others expressed satisfaction and relief that the intensely destructive Palestinian division might soon be over.

The end to this division was one of the three main calls of the Palestinian March 15 Youth movement, headquartered (loosely) in Ramallah’s Manara Square, as well as in the internet.  Their reaction was sober, and focussed.  On Twitter, @PalYouthVoice wrote:  “Now the work starts to demand a PNC elections, we want to be represented, we will not sit and celebrate yet”.

In a joint press conference in Cairo at 8pm, Fatah’s Azzam al-Ahmad said that the agreement was a translation of the efforts of the March 15 Youth movement.  He and Musa Abu Marzouk of Hamas both paid tribute to Egypt’s “tremendous efforts”.

The NYTimes reported that Hamas’ Taher Nounou  “credited the new mediators from Egypt, put in place after that country’s revolution, with ‘an exemplary performance’, including weeks of courtship at private meetings with each side before they met face to face with each other for the first time today”.  The NYTimes added that  “The tentative deal is the first sign that the recent upheaval in the region, and specifically the Egyptian revolution, has reshuffled regional diplomacy. Previously, efforts to reconcile the two Palestinian factions fell under the jurisdiction of Mr. Mubarak’s right-hand man, Omar Suleiman. Although he talked to both sides, he and the Egyptian government were considered openly hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot”…

Some analysts speculated that the Hamas leadership in Damascus was especially eager to reach agreement now because of the bad political situation in Syria at the moment.

Celebrations broke out in Gaza, which has been under a Israeli military-administered siege that was tightened after the Hamas rout of Fatah/Preventive Security forces in Gaza in mid-June 2007.

But no one was thinking much, on Wednesday night, that they might be facing another international financial and political boycott such as the one that happened after a Hamas-backed party won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006.

The U.S. State Department reaction was muted.  Haaretz reported that a State Department spokesman said: “We have seen the press reports and are seeking more information. As we have said before, the United States supports Palestinian reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace …  To play a constructive role, any Palestinian government must accept the Quartet principles by renouncing violence, accepting past agreements, and recognizing Israel’s right to exist”.  This was published here.

The NYTimes reported that “Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that the administration was seeking more information about the agreement and its terms, but sharply warned that it considered Hamas a terrorist organization that would not be a reliable partner in peace talks with Israel.  ‘As we have said before, the United States supports Palestinian reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace’, Mr. Vietor said.  ‘Hamas, however, is a terrorist organization which targets civilians’.”

Because of perceived intransigence and bad policies, Hamas has lost much sympathy it had gained among Palestinians on account of the the unfair treatment it received after its 2006  electoral victory.  Many in West Bank were sure Hamas would lose badly in any new elections.  But now, if it turns out that Hamas has made big concessions in order to reach this new agreement, it may stand to regain some of the support it had lost.

In general, Hamas appears to have more to gain from a reconciliation than the Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank.

UPDATE: Noam Sheizef has written on +972 magazine here that “The Hamas-Fatah agreement seems like another victory for Abbas, whose legitimacy crisis might come to an end. It also shows that the Palestinians have decided to take the lead in the diplomatic process, and not let the US, or even Europe, dictate their path to independence. Naturally, Jerusalem claims that the Palestinian unity proves there is “no partner” on the other side, but it’s interesting to note that Washington didn’t shut the door completely on the new Palestinian government. Finally, Netanyahu has a new dilemma: after his comments tonight, could he still come to Washington and call for direct negotiations between the two parties, when Fatah shares power with Hamas?”

But the reconciliation conforms to a general Palestinian demand [Fatah die-hards excepted].

Even after the double coups in mid-June 2007, Hamas continued to recognize Mahmoud Abbas as the elected President.  When his term came to an end in January 2009, some in Hamas said that was the end of their support.  Abbas extended his term for a year so that presidential and parliamentary elections could be held simultaneously, and Hamas seemed to tacitly agree, for the most part.  Then, Abbas cancelled both elections, and later also municipal elections — ostensibly because of the continuing Hamas-Fatah feud — and said he would continue in office until new elections could be held, or until he couldn’t take it any more, whichever came first.

In solicited reaction after tonight’s announcement on agreement to reconcile, at least one Hamas official politely referred to Abbas as “President”.

Abbas has consistently said he wanted  nothing less than the return of the status quo ante — the situation before the “military coup” of mid-June 2007.  Gaza must come under PA rule, he has insisted.

Abbas recently responded to an invitation from Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh by saying that he was ready to go to Gaza “within days”.   However, Abbas said, he was not going to negotiate but only to sign an already-reached agreement.

If agreement was reached today, it was almost certainly Hamas who made the greater concessions.

The NYTimes reported that “Palestinian officials said Hamas and Fatah agreed on three main issues that had thwarted previous rounds of talks aimed at reaching a national reconciliation.  Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, told Al-Jazeera from Cairo that the issues included the interim leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian umbrella organization from which Hamas has so far been excluded;  a tribunal for elections;  and a deadline for elections.  Mr. Zahar said they were to be held within a year of the signing of the final agreement, which is expected to take place in Cairo next week.  Mr. Zahar added that Hamas and Fatah would together nominate the members of the technocratic government and of the 12-judge elections’ tribunal.  He also said that an agreement was reached on another contentious issue, control of the security services, but he did not elaborate.  In November, officials from the two movements met in Damascus but failed to reach an agreement due to differences on security”.

According to a report by IMEMC, Zahar indicated that “this agreement will be presented to Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, for approval.  He said that consecutive legislative and presidential elections will be held within a year after signing the final deal”.  The report also said “The Hamas leader added that an agreement was reached to reform the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in order to restructure it to include all factions”.  This report is posted <a href=”http://www.imemc.org/article/61146″>here</a>.

Israel’s interest in developing Gaza gas field — now, perhaps urgent, after today’s sabotage in the Sinai which again damaged an Egyptian pipeline bringing gas to Israel as well as to Jordan — is a big incentive to Hamas, which does not want to be left out.  Netanyahu said in February that he was willing to reopen discussions with the Palestinians — because the Palestinians wanted it, he said.  Then, a seemingly-preposterous [but quite serious] Israeli proposal was recently floated on building an artificial island in the sea offshore to house not only gas installations but also a desalinization plant, an airport, a seaport, and hotels and other attractions.

——————————————————————————————-

BACKGROUND

2005 – Cairo agreement between Hamas + Fatah that Hamas would join the PLO, Protracted discussions ever since without any resolution.

2006 – Hamas, responding to demands that it should change into a political party, ran a slate under the name of the “Change + Reform Party” and contested January elections for the Palestinian Authority’s parliament, the Palestine Legislative Council. They won a majority (over 65%) of seats, to general surprise, including their own. Fatah, a poor loser, decided not to participate in the new government, and grew increasingly furious with Hamas. Israel demanded that the international community boycott the Hamas governed PA, and major donors, led by the U.S. complied. For over a year-and-a-half, PA employees were not paid their salaries, and had to take out bank loans and pay the interest on the loans themselves, too.
The major sticking point in the argument since then was that Hamas wanted seats in the PLO’s Palestine National Council (PNC) proportionate to its electoral seats it won in 2006 elections. Fatah said absolutely not, Hamas should not get more than 25% of seats. (Now, Fatah people say this is all moot, there should be new elections first, and they are sure Hamas will not win very many seats at all…)

2007 – A Saudi-brokered agreement was reached in Mecca on formation of National Unity Government, which took shape in March. But, in mid-June, Hamas — suspecting that PA Fatah-led Preventive Security backed by U.S. and others were about to make a military move to oust them from power — routed Preventive Security in Gaza. Abbas said this was a “military coup”, and dissolved the National Unity government. In a political coup, he established an new Hamas-free Emergency Government with Salam Fayyad as Prime Minister.

———————————————————————————————-

Now, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Nabil el-Araby, has announced he will be visiting Israel soon.

 

 

Marian Houk PASSIA 2004

In the photo below, taken at a roundtable discussion in Jerusalem in July 2004, Marian Houk is the woman wearing the sort-of-orange-colored eyeglasses. Photo courtesy of PASSIA:

Marian Houk, a writer, reporter, journalist and analyst with long experience at the United Nations — in New York and in Geneva and more — as well as with the Middle East. She has reported on, and for a time also worked for, the United Nations. She is a former President of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) at UNHQ/NY (1986), and is currently based in Jerusalem.

Marian Houk is the Editor of UN-Truth news site.

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Meanwhile, Gaza’s agony sharpens and deepens

Map of Gaza Strip, Stand December 2008 (WikiMedia Commons, Lencer)

Marian Houk, UN-Truth.com, 23 March 2011

What is the worth, the value, of assigning blame here? It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t stop anything.

This weekend, Hamas went crazy, and Israel too.

There. Now, what?

It’s simply no longer possible to say who went crazy first, or who went crazy more. This discussion is sickening.

Israel attacked and killed people in Gaza on Friday. It announced on Sunday that one of the dead included a senior Hamas commander.

This is perhaps the explanation for why Hamas went crazy on Saturday morning — suddenly firing about 50 mortars into the Israeli perphery in about 15 minutes (is this possible?) — and taking responsibility for the act.

Then, it continued. There was more.

On Tuesday, the IDF announced that 7 rockets and mortars had been fired from Gaza into Israel that day — making a total of 60 projectiles fired from Gaza since the weekend, it said.

IDF attacks on Gaza — retaliation, prevention, whatever — killed some 10 Palestinians, including a number of what the IDF admitted were “uninvolved civilians”, mostly kids, and injured some 40 more. The IDF offered medical care to the wounded — a clear sign that something had gone badly wrong, and that Israel was recognizing some responsibility. And the IDF announced it was starting an investigation. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed regret, “but”…

In its statement, the IDF said its mortar fire on northern Gaza (which killed 3 kids + uncle, and wounded more) came AFTER — “a short while later” – Palestinian firing from site. The language used in the IDF statement, posted here, is very telling: “Initial reports indicate that terrorists [sic] were among the injured. Regrettably, uninvolved civilians were also present at the site and were injured. The Civil Administration offered medical assistance to those injured and the assistance is being coordinated with the Palestinian Authority in both Ramallah and Gaza”.

While the IDF usually claims that its attacks on Gaza are “prevention”, this IDF mortar attack Tuesday afternoon on northern Gaza appears to have been clear retaliation.

The Los Angeles Times has a very poignant account from Gaza posted here Tuesday on its Babylon and Beyond blog. It reported that “Relatives of those killed said they prevented a group of Palestinian militants from firing mortars into Israel from an area that is adjacent to their houses just half an hour before Israeli tanks fired the shells”.

The LATimes account, written by Ahmed Aldabba from Gaza City, continues: “But militants waited until people went for prayers at the neighborhood’s mosque and sent a round of mortar shells beyond the Israel-Gaza borderline, which is a little less than half a mile away from the bombed area. ‘I was going out of the mosque when the shells hit the kids’, said Mohammed Helo 42, the children’s uncle, at the morgue of Shifa hospital in Gaza, where the bodies were taken. ‘I did not know what was going on. All I heard was thunderous explosions then the moans of people who were just walking by. Limbless bodies were scattered all around’.”

Later, a Grad missile was fired from Gaza into Ashdod on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, the IDF spokesperson announced, “An Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft targeted a terrorist in the northern Gaza Strip, in the same location from which the Grad missile was fired towards Ashdod. A hit was confirmed”.

A short while later, a Grad missile was fired from Gaza into Beersheva.

Ashdod is north of Gaza, Beersheva is to the east — and the range is greater than ususal: it is the maximum range reached by projectiles fired from Gaza in response to Israeli attacks during the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009 (which was announced as a response to months, years, of attacks from Gaza onto Israel…

What next?

Now, Israeli Vice President Silvan Shalom has echoed on Wednesday morning the call made by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni last Friday — for a launch of Operation Cast Lead Two…

Israel had the choice, and it chose to up the ante at this time.

This was a rational, though brutal and wholly unadmirable, decision.

It was Hamas who lost its cool. Firing from Gaza into Israel periphery as revenge is crazy, futile, and also crime of war. Fear is not policy [as Israeli former Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy recently told journalists in Jerusalem]. Nor is revenge.

Was Israel trying to block the proposed Abbas visit to Gaza? [Netanyahu told the Knesset on Tuesday what he told CNN's Piers Morgan in an interview last week: The Palestinians can't have it both ways -- they must choose between reconciliation with Hamas or peace with Israel]…

Or, was Israel making the choice to Hamas perfectly clear, making a blunt and brutal test of whether Hamas is ready to be the “address” Israel says it needs, ready to be responsible for stopping all attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip? Was it an Israeli counter-offer, in stark contrast to other uncertainties?

For, this comes in the midst of piously-announced but wary preparations for a possible proposed visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to Gaza for reconciliation or unity purposes.

This meeting was suggested by Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh on 15 March in response to youth protests in the West Bank and Gaza demanding an end to the Palestinian division. Abbas has since claimed credit, saying it was really his initiative.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, when Hamas claimed credit for the first time in a long time for firing nearly 50 mortars into Gaza, it also attacked youth demonstrators who had apparently been given a permit for their protests, then attacked journalists’ offices looking for photos and videos of the attacks. (Hamas later apologized for the attack on the journalists offices.)

The proposed Abu Mazen visit — which did raise Palestinian hopes and expectations — would really have been a lot of hard, difficult and embarassing work. So, it is, in a way, easier for everybody like this.

No way this proposed visit is going to happen now, of course.

Meanwhile, more people are dying, suffering, grieving, raging — and the already ready-to-blow situation is getting worse.

Tuesday night, the UN’s Robert Serry issued a statement after the IDF mortar reprisal in N Gaza: “firing into densely populated areas is extremely dangerous” + raises serious questions.

Later, UNSG BAN Ki-Moon issued a statement, though his spokesman, which “strongly condemns the killing of three Palestinian children and their uncle and the wounding of 13 other civilians by an Israeli tank shell in the Gaza Strip earlier today. He is very concerned at an escalating situation in Gaza and southern Israel. He reiterates as well his condemnation of rocket fire by Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, including from populated areas, against civilian targets in southern Israel. He calls on all to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law”. This is posted on the UN website here.

So, now what?

What is the policy, now?

Meanwhile, how does this factor into the equation? Israel has just admitted it’s holding the Deputy Director of the Gaza Power Plant, Dirar Abu Sisi, who was seized on board a train in Ukraine on 18-19 February, where he went on 18 January to join his Ukrainian wife and file for citizenship — apparently because they have concluded that life in Gaza is no longer the best choice for them or their six children. The Gazan engineer was forcibly removed from the train he was on, hooded and handcuffed and driven by car to Kiev (where he was headed by train), then taken to an apartment where he was questioned by men who introduced themselves as Mossad, and in short order flown to…Israel, where he has been in jail for over a month. A judge has just partially removed a gag order on the case, but permitted continued Israeli media restrictions on reporting for another 30 days… Abu Sisi has not been charged, he will be held in Israel for at least another day, and there is no reasonable explanation for this startling development.

 

 

Marian Houk PASSIA 2004

In the photo below, taken at a roundtable discussion in Jerusalem in July 2004, Marian Houk is the woman wearing the sort-of-orange-colored eyeglasses. Photo courtesy of PASSIA:

Marian Houk, a writer, reporter, journalist and analyst with long experience at the United Nations — in New York and in Geneva and more — as well as with the Middle East. She has reported on, and for a time also worked for, the United Nations. She is a former President of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) at UNHQ/NY (1986), and is currently based in Jerusalem.

Marian Houk is the Editor of UN-Truth news site.

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Netanyahu’s illusory peace plan

Jonathan Cook

Israel cornered on every front

By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth, 10 March 2011

Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisers conceded last week that the Israeli prime minister is more downcast than they have ever seen him. The reason for his gloominess is to be found in Israel’s diplomatic and strategic standing, which some analysts suggest is at its lowest ebb in living memory.

Netanyahu’s concern was evident at a recent cabinet meeting, when he was reported to have angrily pounded the table. “We are in a very difficult international arena,” the Haaretz newspaper quoted him telling ministers who wanted to step up settlement-building. “I suggest we all be cautious.”

A global survery for Britain’s BBC published on Monday will have only reinforced that assessment: Israel was rated among the least popular countries, with just 21 per cent seeing it in a positive light.

A belated realisation by Netanyahu that he has exhausted international goodwill almost certainly explains — if mounting rumours from his office are to be believed — his mysterious change of tack on the peace process.

After refusing last year to continue a partial freeze on settlement-building, a Palestinian pre-requisite for talks, he is reportedly preparing to lay out an initiative for the phased creation of a Palestinian state.

Such a move would reflect the Israeli prime minister’s belated recognition that Israel is facing trouble on almost every front.

The most obvious is a rapidly deteriorating political and military environment in the region. As upheaval spreads across the Middle East, Israel is anxiously scouring the neighbourhood for potential allies.

Unwisely, Israel has already sacrificed its long-standing friendship with Turkey. With the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Netanyahu can probably no longer rely on Egyptian leaders for help in containing Hamas in Gaza. Israel’s nemesis in Lebanon, the Shia militia Hizbullah, has strengthened its grip on power. And given the popular mood, Jordan cannot afford to be seen aiding Israel.

Things are no better in the global arena. According to the Israeli media, Washington is squarely blaming Netanyahu for the recent collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians.

It is also holding him responsible for subsequent developments, particularly a Palestinian resolution presented to the United Nations Security Council last month condemning Israeli settlements. The White House was forced to eat its own words on the issue of settlements by vetoing the resolution.

The timing of the US veto could not have been more embarrassing for President Barack Obama. He was forced to side publicly with Israel against the Palestinians at a time when the US desperately wants to calm tensions in the Middle East.

Over the weekend, reports suggested that Netanyahu had been further warned by US officials that any peace plan he announces must be “dramatic”.

Then, there are the prime minister’s problems with Europe. Netanyahu was apparently shaken by the response of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, when he called to chastise her for joining Britain and France in backing the Palestinian resolution at the UN. Instead of apologising, she is reported to have berated him for his intransigence in the peace process.

Traditionally, Germany has been Israel’s most accommodating European ally.

The loss of European support, combined with US anger, may signal difficulties ahead for Israel with the Quartet, the international group also comprising Russia and the United Nations that oversees the peace process.

The Quartet’s principals are due to hold a session next week. Netanyahu’s officials are said to be worried that, in the absence of progress, the Quartet may lean towards an existing peace plan along the lines of the Arab League’s long-standing proposal, based on Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 borders.

In addition, Israel’s already strained relations with the Palestinian Authority are likely to deteriorate further in coming months. The PA has been trying to shore up its legitimacy since the so-called Palestine Papers were leaked in January, revealing that its negotiators agreed to large concessions in peace talks.

A first step in damage limitation was the resolution at the UN denouncing the settlements. More such moves are likely. Most ominous for Israel would be a PA decision to carry out its threat to declare statehood unilaterally at the UN in September. In that vein, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said on Saturday that he expected an independent Palestinian state to become a permanent member of the UN.

The other prospect facing the PA — of collapse or being swept away by street protests — would be even more disastrous. With the PA gone, Israel would be forced to directly reoccupy the West Bank at great financial cost and damage to its international image. Palestinians could be expected to launch a civil rights campaign demanding full rights, including the vote, alongside Israelis.

It is doubtless this scenario that prompted Netanyahu into uncharacteristic comments last week about the danger facing Israel of sharing a single “binational state” with the Palestinians, calling it “disastrous for Israel”. Such warnings have been the stock-in-trade not of the Greater Israel camp, of which Netanyahu is a leading member, but of his political opponents on the Zionist left as they justify pursuing variants of the two-state solution.

Netanyahu reportedly intends to unveil his peace plan during a visit to Washington, currently due in May. But on Monday Ehud Barak, his defence minister, added to the pressure by warning that May was too late. “This is the time to take risks in order to prevent international isolation,” he told Israel Radio.

But, assuming Netanyahu does offer a peace plan, will it be too little, too late?

Few Israeli analysts appear to believe that Netanyahu has had a real change of heart.

“At this point it’s all spin designed to fend off pressures,” Yossi Alpher, a former director of the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, wrote for the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue website Bitterlemons. “The object of the exercise is to gain a day, or a week, or a month, before having to come up with some sort of new spin.”

Indications are that Netanyahu will propose a miserly interim formula for a demilitarised Palestinian state in temporary borders. The Jerusalem Post reported that in talks with Abbas late last year Netanyahu demanded that Israel hold on to 40 per cent of the West Bank for the forseeable future.

His comments on Tuesday that Israel’s “defence line” was the Jordan Valley, a large swath of the West Bank, that Israel could not afford to give up suggest he is not preparing to compromise on his hardline positions.

His plan accords with a similar interim scheme put forward by Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s far-right foreign minister and chief political rival on the right.

Palestinians insist on a deal on permanent borders, saying Israel would use anything less as an opportunity to grab more land in the West Bank. At the weekend Abbas reiterated his refusal to accept a temporary arrangement.

Herb Keinon, an analyst for the rightwing Jerusalem Post, observed that there was “little expectation” from Netanyahu that the Palestinians would accept his deal. The government hoped instead, he said, that it would “pre-empt world recognition of a Palestinian state” inside the 1967 borders.

 

Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Cook

 

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

  • The author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline. More Articles by Jonathan Cook.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

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Israel apartheid week/month in progress

Mazin Qumsiyeh

The Israel apartheid events* are already being attacked ahead of the events.
We are now writing from Colorado where we had our first US stop and where
the local groups arranged a number of appearances for us to launch the
apartheid Month. In three days we have  public lectures at a church, two
universities, a bookstore, interview with two radio stations, informal
meetings with community leaders, and a meeting with a congressman.  Some
anti-Semitic Ashkenazi Zionists have been writing to organizers telling them
that we are “anti-Semitic” and sending them the link to the ferociously
right-wing and settler supporting and misnamed “Anti-Defamation League” (ADL
should be called Arab Defamation League). The link they send is this that
includes a serious of quotes from me
http://www.adl.org/israel/qumsiyeh/in_his_own_word.asp (I have no problem
with the quotes, only that some of them are truncated and out of context).

*For more on the Israeli Apartheid Week events held in over 50 cities
worldwide, see http://apartheidweek.org/ and this interesting and rather
balanced aarticle in Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/what-does-israeli-apartheid-week-actually-achieve-1.347807

March 15 is Palestine’s moment to join the other struggles in Arab countries
gfor freedom and people power.  All Palestinians and their supporters are
encouraged to get down to the streets in all cities and towns wherever they
occur.  We also demand an end to the West Bank Gaza Split but I personally
do not use terms like reconciliation. There are many Palestinian factions on
the ground similar to the number of factions that existed in South Africa
when it was struggling to end apartheid.  The problem lies in the confusion
and damage done by the Oslo process which created a “Palestinian authority”
(now 2) without any real authority.  It relieved the pressure on the
occupiers by administering people and controlling their anger while really
making the occupation cost-free to the occupiers.  I am not big on
“reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah” as that implies that they have
drifted apart and need to be brought back together.  I think it is just fine
that they always had differing political ideologies (like in Europe there
are parties with differing political ideologies). Our problems as
Palestinian people stem from drifting away from the original charter and
goal of our movement (return of refugees, liberation, self-determination) to
notions like a state on (part of) the West Bank and Gaza (less tahn 22% of
Palestine) or discussing the form of government without reference to letting
people decide AFTER liberation and return.  In this, there are trends now to
reconstitute the Palestinian National Council to represent all 11 million
Palestinians around the world. There is also a growth in popular resistance
towards a new uprising (which I discuss in detail in my new book) which like
in 1928 has to contend with both Palestinian security forces and
colonizer/occupier forces.  But it has succeeded in the past and will
succeed again. Our movement is alive, vibrant, and diversified. It is also
being helped now internationally with hundreds of thousands of activists
engaged in media work and in boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS).
Like in South Africa, apartheid will not succeed.

TV Interview: Nonviolent resistance in Palestine: including interview with
Eyad Burnat and Mazin Qumsiyeh http://www.presstv.ir/Program/168468.html

Other scheduled events: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/upcomingevents/

Action: Diamonds are Israel’s single most important export commodity,
accounting for over 30% of Israel’s exports in 2008. In evidence to the
Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Israeli economist Shir Hever stated
- “Overall the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion
annually to the Israeli military and security industries … every time
somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel some of that money
ends up in the Israeli military so the financial connection is quite clear”
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign have been promoting the idea of a
boycott of Israeli diamonds for some time.

A new, closed Facebook working group, GPS (Global Palestine Solidarity),
has just launched a petition calling for a review of the Kimberley Process
definition of a conflict or blood diamond so all diamonds that fund human
rights violations are included. Cut & polished diamonds, the sector of the
industry which Israel dominates, are excluded from the existing definition
of a conflict diamond.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/Boycott-Israeli-Blood-Diamonds/

Videos of Sheikh Jarrah demo and arrests:

McClatchy, the Sacramento Bee, Darrell Steinberg and Islamaphobia: Denying
Nazi-Zionist Collusion By ALISON WEIR
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03042011.html

Join us in Palestine July 8-16 http://palestinejn.org

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour He is author of “Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle” and the forthcoming book Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment.

A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
http://www.pcr.ps

Articles by Dr. Qumsiyeh on RamallahOnline.com.

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Will the Palestinian Authority declare an independent state… or collapse?

Palestinian Loss Of Land 1946-2000
Palestinian Loss Of Land 1946-2000

Palestinian Loss Of Land 1946-2000

Stuart Littlewood, 28 Nov 2010

“Either might force international community’s hand, suggests Halper”

The other day I looked back with sadness on how nothing had changed for the better since my last trip to Palestine three years ago. On that occasion I also visited Gaza, an experience indelibly etched on my memory.

The situation there only goes from bad to worse – intolerably worse. But if I’m dispirited, heaven knows how the average Palestinian must feel as a result of the incompetent leadership they have had to endure these last 63 years… a leadership which failed to coherently argue and convey the justice of the Palestinian cause and never bothered, even to this day, to formulate and put into action an effective communications plan to win freedom.

The Israelis, though accomplished propagandists, are not very bright. In the battle for hearts and minds they have a violent story to tell and a lousy reputation to defend. And it’s getting worse every day. In their greed they score potentially damaging own-goals and leave the moral high ground to their victims.

Their conduct reveal a cruel streak. They trample human rights and show no respect for international law. They are steeped in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Yet the Palestinians shrug and let the endless flow of priceless PR opportunities slip away.

The Palestinian Authority, which is supposed to be leading the fight-back, has little to say to the outside world and the many sympathisers out there.  The task of informing and educating is left to a handful of exiles, academics, dedicated internet site operators, conscientious UN personnel like John Ging and Richard Falk, political mavericks like George Galloway, bold ‘freelancers’ like Ken O’Keefe, a host of courageous charities on the ground and rising numbers of students across the globe. Jewish peace activists play a vital role too.

All work hard to keep the issue alive, no thanks to the PA.

The front that Palestine presents to the world remains disunited, chaotic and dysfunctional, just the way Israel and the US like it. Fatah, with a history of sleaze and corruption, has taken on a role similar to that of the hated Milice in World War 2, the ass-licking paramilitary outfit set up by the Vichy French government, with Nazi help, to fight the French Resistance and do much of the Nazis’ dirty work. Parallels with what’s happening now in the Holy Land are unmistakable.

Fatah should remember that when the Nazis were beaten the French people took their revenge on surviving members of the Milice.

Hamas, defending its packed coastal enclave, meanwhile allows itself to be demonised and makes no move to overhaul its image – a puzzling omission and a blunder with huge self-inflicted consequences.

We are watching the sort of self-indulgent and ultimately self-destructive lunacy no-one in this day and age can afford, least of all the Palestinians. Who can blame sympathisers for throwing up their hands in exasperation, crying “Enough! A pox on you all,” and reaching for the ‘off’ switch?

If any real progress is to be made, things must now change drastically within Palestinian ranks.

My own finger was hovering over the ‘off’ switch when an excellent piece by Jeff Halper entitled “Palestine 2011″ http://ramallahonline.com/2010/11/palestine-2011/

dropped into my Inbox and made me sit up. When this remarkable man speaks I, for one, listen.

Will a jolt from the outside create “new circumstances for peace”?

For many years Jeff Halper and his organisation ICAHD (Israeli Campaign Against House Demolitions) have closely monitored the Israeli occupation and its sinister methods, sometimes courageously facing the bulldozers and re-building what they knock down. ICAHD’s analyses and other resource materials are essential reading for anyone wishing to properly understand the situation. If you visit ICAHD in Jerusalem, as I have done twice, you can arrange to be taken on a tour to see the awful truth.

“We are at a dead-end of a dead ‘process’,” says Halper, adding: “Israel will

never end its Occupation voluntarily; the best it may agree to is apartheid,

but the permanent warehousing of the Palestinians is more what it has in

mind.”

Given the massive ‘facts on the ground’ Israel has established in the Occupied Territories, Halper believes the international community will not exert enough pressure to make the two-state idea a reality. Even if they wanted to, the veto power enjoyed by Israel’s sponsor, the US, wouldn’t allow it. “And the Palestinians, fragmented and with weak leadership, have no clout. Indeed, they’re not even in the game….we have arrived at the end of the road.”

However, he predicts that 2011 will create a new set of circumstances in which a just peace is possible, but the necessary game-changing jolt must come from outside the present “process”.

He puts forward two possibilities. The first is a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority on the 1949 armistice lines (the 1967 “Green Line”) together with an application for UN membership. A Palestinian state within those pre-1967 borders, which UN member states, including the US, already recognise, would be accepted by most countries in the world. Such a move would place reluctant powers like the US, Britain and Germany in an awkward position and force the hand of the international community.

The trouble is, says Halper, “the leadership of the Palestinian Authority lacks the courage to undertake such a bold initiative”.

It’s more likely, he thinks, that 2011 will see a continuing deadlock in “negotiations” and the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, bringing to an end the current process. It would be unthinkable for Israel to allow Hamas to fill the vacuum, so it would be faced with the prospect of re-occupying the Territories at full security strength, a massive burden. Such a move would, of course, inflame the Muslim world and generate massive protests worldwide, again forcing the hand of the international community. “Looked at in this way,” Halper observes, “the Palestinians have one source of enormous clout: they are the gatekeepers.”

Jeff Halper throws some welcome shafts of sunlight onto a bleak landscape. But is civil society, in Palestine and abroad, in any shape to seize the opportunities presented by either of these scenarios? Activists, wherever they are, need to prepare for what happens and agree how to react if the Palestinian Authority falls.

“Abbas may be weak and pliable, but he is not a collaborator,” says Halper. Well, he certainly had me fooled. If it waddles like a collaborator, quacks like a collaborator and jumps through hoops like a collaborator, it sure as hell ain’t no patriot duck! Abbas might have created a better impression if he’d carried the fight to the Israelis and the US, demanded the enforcement of international law and UN resolutions, refused to negotiate before Israel complied, and insisted on any subsequent talks being supervised by the UN, not by Israel’s ally, financier, arms supplier and all-purpose bitch.

Far from upholding Palestinian rights, “honest broker” America torpedoes them at every turn even under this peace-prize president. It must be sidelined somehow.

To my mind the international community, with or without the US, could have used leverage to force an end to the occupation any time during the last 63 years, and could do so tomorrow. The great mystery – for many – is why the Palestinian Authority and the Arab community of nations have not explored that angle energetically enough.

It has always been vitally important to counter Israeli propaganda. Abbas should have set up a professional communications unit, trained and funded Palestinian embassies around the world to educate and inform, and orchestrated an effective worldwide campaign.

Why didn’t he? His ‘silent routine’ and reluctance to make waves lend weight to accusations of collaboration.  The only information coming out of the PA’s embassy in London, for example, is social ‘froth’ like details of the next concert. Its website hasn’t been updated for since April, which just about sums up the uselessness of Abbas and his henchmen.

Compare this with the slick, always-on-the-ball Israeli operation.

As for Hamas, they certainly have what it takes in terms of raw courage, firm resolve and popular support to fill the void, as they did in the 2006 elections. But they are unapproachable at a time when they need to open up, forge friendly links and defuse the West’s fears and misconceptions. Without a careful makeover and general re-branding they’ll have a hard road ahead and so will their people.

If 2011 doesn’t bring Jeff Halper’s “jolt from outside”, and a dose of salts to flush Palestine’s insides, the ‘off’ switch will remain a serious temptation.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

  • The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com.Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.