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Dec. 11, 2013
Daily summary - Wednesday, December 11, 2013
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Main News
KERRY TO BEGIN IMPORTANT ROUND OF NEGOTIATIONS TOMORROW; TO MEET WITH NETANYAHU THURSDAY AND PRESIDENT ABBAS FRIDAY
US Secretary of State John Kerry will arrive in Israel and the West Bank today to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas just days after returning to the region last Friday. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed the trip, saying that the US wanted to formulate a ‘final agreement’ and not a ‘transitional’ or temporary settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis. This is the ninth visit for Kerry to the region since March. Kerry will meet with Netanyahu tomorrow and with Abbas on Friday to discuss both the Iranian file and the peace process. When asked about the security proposal put forth to the parties by Kerry, Psaki said there had been a ‘misunderstanding” and that the US was not looking for an interim agreement but for a framework for a final agreement. (Al Quds)
ISRAELI REJECTION OF AMERICAN PROPOSAL FOR THE JORDAN VALLEY
Israel Radio quoted Israeli army officials yesterday expressing their rejection of the American proposal to deploy international forces in the Jordan Valley. The sources said that only Israeli forces should remain in the Jordan Valley to “protect” the Israeli-Jordanian border. The sources also said that negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis were ongoing but that there were ‘vast differences’ in positions on several pending subjects. The sources refused to deny or confirm the existence of any secret channels of communication between the Palestinians and Israelis. (Al Quds)
JORDAN TO CARRY PALESTINE WITH IT TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL
After Jordan recently gained a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, Palestinian Ambassador to Jordan Ata Khayri told Maan yesterday that this membership constitutes a historical moment through which Jordan will support major files, first and foremost the Palestinian cause, Jerusalem and the Islamic and Christian holy sites there, which are under the sponsorship of King Abdullah of Jordan. Khayri said Jordan’s success at the Security Council was actually a Jordanian-Palestinian success given the deep brotherly relations that link Jordan to the Palestinians. He called Jordan the “lung with which the Palestinians breathe.” He said some of the most pressing Palestinian issues Jordan can pose in the Security Council are the judaization of Jerusalem and holy sites in addition to the Israeli decisions to displace Arabs from the Negev and other hot topics that require diplomatic action. Meanwhile, Jordanian parliamentarian Mohammed Qatamsheh said that through its SC membership, Jordan would be the tool used in the service of the Palestinian cause and to expose Israel’s violations against them. He added that President Obama’s term in office must not end without the establishment of a completely sovereign state of Palestine. (http://maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=656318)
HARDON: THE PALESTINIANS ARE NOW ON THE MAP OF THE WORLD
Director of USAID for the Palestinian territories David Hardon said yesterday during a tour in the Hebron region that the Palestinians ‘are now on the map of the world”, adding that American companies know that there are professionals among them and want to build partnerships with them. “We know that the Palestinians have big dreams and we know that they have many talents,” he said, adding that USAID is trying to be the connecting link for the Palestinians to sell their products and show their talents to the world. Hardon was speaking to a group of journalists in Hebron during a USAID organized tour to projects funded by the agency, including Hebron government hospital. Hardon said USAID offers $350 million each year as aid to the Palestinians, $200 million of which goes to supporting the PA budget. He said more work needed to be done to solve the problem of unemployment even though the national income of the PA has increased by 50% since 2007. (http://maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=656341)
THE PRESIDENT: MANDELLA WAS A LEADER, A FIGHTER FOR THE FREEDOM OF HIS PEOPLE AND A SYMBOL OF LIBERATION FROM COLONIALISM AND OCCUPATION FOR ALL PEOPLES AND THEIR FREEDOM
President Mahmoud Abbas participated in the memorial ceremony of the late South African leader Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg yesterday. Thousands of people were in attendance in the stadium where the memorial was held including 91 heads of state. Abbas eulogized Mandela, calling him the ‘leader of nations’ and a loss for all peoples of the world and for Palestine. “He was the most courageous and most significant men in the world who stood by our side,” Abbas said, adding that the ties of struggle and resistance between the two peoples would remain forever. He added that “the Palestinian people would never forget his historical quote, saying that the revolution of South Africa would never be complete without the Palestinian people gaining its freedom.” (Al Quds)
JERUSALEMITE YOUTH STABBED IN SILWAN; OCCUPATION FORCES DEMOLISH A HOME, SHEDS AND SHEPHERDS’ SHACKS IN JERICHO AND TOUBAS
Last night, a youth from Jerusalem was stabbed by extremist settlers in Silwan. Mohammed Eweis, 20, was assaulted and stabbed on Jaffa Street in occupied Jerusalem. Dozens of Palestinians flocked to the scene and took Eweis to a nearby hospital where his condition was described as stable.
In related news, in the Jericho region, Israeli occupation forces demolished a house and several sheep’s sheds in Fasayel and Jiftlik in the Jordan Valley. Eyewitnesses said Israeli forces raided Jiftlik and demolished the home of Saoud Ka’abneh for the second time, displacing his entire family. They also bulldozed sheep stalls belonging to his brother Mohammed Ka’abneh. The witnesses added that Israeli forces also demolished two sheds belonging to Saeed and Deif Allah Al Rashaydeh in Fasayel. (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
BETHLEHEM: POLICEMAN SHOT AND KILLED BY UNKNOWN ASSAILANTS
Policeman Nasser Briyoush, 23, from the village of Beit Kahel near Hebron was shot and killed last night after unidentified gunmen attacked the Taqoa’ police station east of Bethlehem. According to Bethlehem governor Abdel Fattah Hamayel, a group of armed vigilantes tried to spark trouble and opened fire at security men in the police station, hitting Briyoush and killing him. Hamayel warned this group that ‘they were not far from the circle of the Israeli occupation, adding that they ‘would not stay silent in the face of such a crime.” (Al Ayyam)
DUTCH WATER BOYCOTTS THE ISRAELI MEKEROT COMPANY AND ROMANIA REFUSES TO EMPLOY ITS WORKERS IN SETTLEMENTS
A diplomatic tiff took place between Romania and Israel after Bucharest refused to employ Romanian workers in West Bank settlements. According to the Israeli army radio, the negotiations that have been taking place between the two governments regarding Romanian workers in Israel had failed a year ago but that the Israeli embassy in Bucharest had restarted them recently. The former Romanian government insisted during its talks with Israel that its workers do not work in building settlement units; Israel refused the demand, even though Romania did not call for their workers not to work in all of Israel, only in the settlements.
In related news, a major Dutch water company “Fitness” informed the Israeli water company Mekerot of its decision to halt cooperation and sever ties between the two companies in accordance with the company’s abidance by international law, which prevents working in the occupied Palestinian territories and which Mekerot does. (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
ISRAELI POLICE INSTALL THREE MONITOR CAMERAS ON POLICE STATION ROOF IN THE DOME OF THE ROCK COURTYARD
In an unprecedented move and without the knowledge of the Waqf authorities in the Aqsa Mosque, Israeli police installed three monitoring cameras inside the Aqsa Mosque courtyard above the rooftop of the police station of the Dome of the Rock. Sheikh Ahmad Khatib said this was the first time security cameras were ever installed inside the compound even though there are over 400 of them throughout the Old City of Jerusalem. He said the Waqf sent an urgent letter to the Israeli police demanding that the cameras be removed. (Al Quds)
ISRAELI AUTHORITIES ALLOW THE ENTRY OF CEMENT TRUCKS AND GRAVEL INTO GAZA FOR FIRST TIME IN THREE MONTHS
Head of the coordination committee for the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip Raed Fattouh said yesterday that cement and gravel trucks for UNDP projects were allowed into the Strip for the first time in three months. Fattouh said the Karem Abu Salem crossing was opened for the import of six trucks with flowers and strawberries to Europe. 220 trucks with goods for the commercial and agricultural sectors and for aid, in addition to two trucks of cement and two with gravel for UNDP projects entered in addition to allowing limited amounts of gasoline, diesel and cooking gas in. (Al Quds)
EGYPT GRANTS TEMPORARY RESIDENCY VISAS TO 171 ILLEGAL SYRIAN AND PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
The Egyptian foreign ministry announced yesterday that it granted three-month residency visas to 171 illegal Syrian and Palestinian refugees from a total of 206 refugees in detention. According to the spokesperson for the Egyptian foreign ministry Bader Abdel Ati, the 206 entered the country on a tourist visa with the purpose of crossing through Egyptian territory for illegal immigration purposes to other countries, which is a crime punishable by law. Abdel Ati said priority was given to children, women and sick and elderly men and that the three month visa was granted in order to sort out their legal situation. (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
HAMAS REJECTS WATER DEAL BETWEEN THE PA, JORDAN AND ISRAEL
Hamas announced from Gaza yesterday that it rejected the [Dead Sea-Red Sea] water deal signed in Washington between Jordan, the PA and Israel, according to Al Rai news agency. In a press statement, Hamas said that it rejected the deal which was ‘a normalization deal” which is totally rejected and only serves to consolidate the occupation. It warned of the consequences of any deal that leads to “recognizing the legitimacy of the occupation.”. Hamas also said that the “PA does not have the right to concede, negotiate or relinquish one inch of the land or water of Palestine.” (Al Ayyam)
BETHLEHEM: TWO GIRLS RUN OVER BY SETTLER IN WALAJEH; 8 ARRESTED IN HEBRON AND BETHLEHEM
Two sisters were wounded in Walajeh yesterday morning after being run over by an Israeli settler west of Beit Jala. According to head of paramedics and emergency in Bethlehem Mohammed Awad, the two girls, 17, were hit by the settler on the Walajeh road. One of the girls suffered a broken leg while the other suffered contusions and bruises all over her body. (Al Ayyam)
In related news, Israeli occupation forces arrested eight citizens this morning after carrying out several raids in various parts of the West Bank. Occupation forces announced that they had arrested two Palestinians they claim are wanted by the Israeli Shabak. In Dura, southwest of Hebron, security sources said Fadi Amr and Shadi Sous were arrested from their homes. In Aida camp north of Bethlehem, Israeli forces arrested six men: brothers Khalil and Majdi Abu Akr, Hussein Abu Akr, Khader Abu Khdeir, Hamdi Ayyad and Mohammed Jado. (http://safa.ps/details/news/117974/الاحتلال-يعتقل-8-مواطنين-بالخليل-وبيت-لحم.html)
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Headlines
*Three citizens wounded in unexplained explosion east of Jabalyia camp (Al Ayyam)
*Ramallah: Lighting the Christmas tree sends message of peace and steadfastness (Al Ayyam)
*Christmas and New Year’s holidays decided by government (Al Ayyam)
*Iran rejects Peres’ proposal to meet Rouhani as Israeli propaganda (Al Ayyam)
*Al Ahmad: Meshaal said they were committed to signed agreements and that we do not need to hold new talks. (Al Ayyam)
*Country under a cold front; snow expected in elevated areas along with flooding (Al Quds)
*Women killed after being run over in Qabatya (Al Quds)
*Israel invests $4 billion in striking Iran (Al Quds)
*Ahmed Uzumcu calls on Israel and Egypt to join anti-chemical weapons treaty (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*Knesset legitimizes detaining illegal immigrants without trial (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*Plans to expand separation wall threaten Batri and its unique irrigation system (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
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Front Page Photos
Al- Quds:Johannesburg: President Abbas speaks with his American counterpart during Mandela’s memorial service
Al-Ayyam:Lit Christmas tree
Al Hayat Al Jadida:1) Citizen hold her child and cries after occupation forces demolish resident homes in the northern Jordan Valley; 2) president Abbas and Moroccan Prince Mula Rashid during Mandela’s memorial; 3) cartoon; ) police officer killed in Bethlehem
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Voice of Palestine News
Jerusalem: with regards to the occupation excavation work under Al-Aqsa, these are position threat now because of the weather condition, mainly in some areas collapsing. Young Jerusalemite, Muhammad Marwan Owies, was attacked by 10 extreme settlers while returning from his work last night, and stabbed his resulting in his injury. This kind of attacks happened in the past in Jaffa Street against Jerusalemites. Also, more than 100 settler stormed Al-Aqsa yesterday.
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Voice of Palestine Interviews
** Issa Qaraqe’, Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, on the Government decision to present the sick prisoners’ issue in international forum.
Q: Did you start with implementing the decision, and will international court will be part of this decision?
Yes we start working on the issue, and it should be implemented on all levels, since some prisoners like Naem Shawamrah, face a real threat to their lives. The government discussed all issues related to these prisoners and issued the decision to start with steps in this regard, we will start with setting letters to international community bodies, and move on the UN and Arab League to pressure the Israeli side. A meeting was held yesterday with our ambassador in Geneva and head of the Red Cross Community, was w\they also discussed this issue; it’s a joint effort of governmental institutions and human rights organizations to save these prisoners.
Q: With regards to the prisoners’ well-being, was this also discussed?
Yes we discussed it before, and decided a system that will provide released prisoners will well-being and fair life. This system was published yesterday and will be implemented during the next year. This means that this issue is still very important and we work towards solving this issue. There are a number of laws and regulations that were adopted and will be implemented soon.
** Kayed Al-Ghoul, member of the PFLP political bureau, on the 46th anniversary of the PFLP foundation.
Q: This carried with of some surprises like the resignation of the some of the PFLP leaders, why?
This is part of policy decided by the PFLP, confirming the will to renew leadership, and also part of the leaderships’ own believes. Some of them said that they will resign upon holding the PFLP conference and they said that they would like to provide the younger generation with the opportunity to lead. And this is what they did, and resigned with their willingness to continue being active and support.
Q: when will we hear the announcement of the new leadership of the PFLP?
This will happen after the central committee meets and elect the political Bureau, the secretary and his deputy. We will continue and hold the meeting of the central committee, this will need sometime.
Q: What is different now from 46 years ago?
There are a lot of developments of course, an increase in our experience, and at t eh same time we are still committed to the basics of our political way, our position from the Zionist enemy and our rights as Palestinians are still the same, also with regards to the reconciliation etc…all of these are deepened now and we believe more in all these, I think that all can see now that the Zionist project in Palestine was and still is to control the whole land, despite negotiations they still insist on settlements and other measures, this is also right with the ways to confront the enemy, its nature reassures that we should use all available means of resistance. With regards to the reconciliation and national unity, I believe that this is also important for the Palestinians in facing the occupation; the division weakened us and resulted in eth suffering of Palestinians.
Q: the PFLP is one of the founding forces of the PLO, what would be your upcoming strategy in the PLO?
We will act to keep the PLO as the only representative of the Palestinian people and support its democratic structure, as we presented in eth different dialogues, we think the PLO needs restructuring in order for it to represent all Palestinians, and keep its leading role. Since during the last year this role was marginalized and the PNA was preferred over the PLO, and it became ineffective as it was in the past.
Q: with regards to unifying the Palestinian left, how the PFLP see this?
This is also one of our main goals, we believe this should be achieved, for uniting the left and for it to play its role and be a main side in reaching Palestinian unity in general.
** Hanna Amereh, member of the PLO Executive Committee, on the Kerry’s visit and the decision to postpone the prisoners’ release.
Q: what id anticipated from Kerry’s upcoming visit?
Kerry’s efforts now are related to achieving the security file, Kerry suggested some ideas in his last visit a weak ago, and now he wants to continue discussing the American security ideas with Israeli Prime Minister and the Palestinian negotiations team and the president, in an attempt to reach an understanding regarding the security issue, that will be responsive to the Israeli positions and support their occupation of the Jordan Valley.
Q: with regards to what we heard that Kerry might announce an interim agreement during next month, do you expect this?
This is what we heard, and this is what Obama said, reaching a framework agreement, I think this would be difficult, we believe that the framework agreement is international resolutions, and we will not agree to anything else, I think the better to do here is not going according to Israeli security demands, but starting to deal with borders and settlements, going for an interim agreement will not lead to real progress.
Q: Is there a meeting soon of the leadership to discuss all of these?
Of course, a meeting will be held soon, might be after the president return, to discuss all these issues.
Q: In case the situation remains the same what would be the leadership position?
The position is the same, and will not be changed because of the American pressure, like the prisoners issue and postponing their release of the third batch, we are used to these pressures, but our position will not change at all. I think that our next meeting will initial clearer decisions.
Q: You mentioned the prisoners release, were you officially informed of this by the American side?
Yes we were officially told by the Americans. Kerry told us that he is thinking to postpone the release.
Q: What would be the Palestinian response to such act?
Our response will be as the official spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudieneh, said that this is rejected by the leadership, and that ion case of any postponement this would mean that the negotiations will stop.
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More Headlines
Dangerous bugs spreading in Eshel Prison
Prisoners in the Eshel Prison in Beer Saba’ made a plea through the Ahrar center for prison studies and human rights to intervene and offer them protection from bedbugs that have proliferated throughout the blocs and rooms of the prison. The prisoners said the situation had become dangerous with the growing number of bugs in the rooms; prisoners are plagued with constant skin irritations and itching, warning that the bugs also transmit other germs and microbes via the blood. Prisoners say prison services have only provided them with a mild insecticide which has not exterminated them completely but only made them more resistant and more prone to multiplying. Head of the Center, Fouad Khaffash said the bugs accumulate and proliferate in the prisons because of lack of cleanliness and a lack of ventilation or sunlight entering the rooms. He said toilets are inside the cells, adding to the unsanitary conditions. (http://maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=656363)
PA security campaign in Bethlehem after killing of policeman
This morning, security services in the Bethlehem district carried out a wide-scale security campaign, arresting 10 citizens suspected of involvement in the attack on the Taqou’ police station and the killing of a policeman yesterday. Tensions flared in Bethlehem after Hassan Mahameed was killed by Palestinian policemen in the Asakra area east of Bethlehem. Police sources said he had been wanted by police since 2005 and that he tried to escape during arrest, which forced them to shoot him. He died later. Yesterday, policeman Nasser Briyosh was killed by unknown gunmen. (http://safa.ps/details/news/117976/حملة-أمنية-للسلطة-ببيت-لحم-بعد-مقتل-شرطي.html)
Three citizens wounded in unexplained explosion east of Jabaliya camp
Three men were wounded in a mysterious explosion east of Jabalyia camp last night. The three were taken to the Kamal Udwan Hospital where they were treated for shrapnel wounds. Medical sources said one of the wounded was in critical condition. The explosion took place near residential areas and resulted in a huge boom and smoke, most likely from a faulty bomb. No injuries were reported among other residents. (Al Ayyam)
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Arab Press
As Bedouin villages are destroyed, so too are hopes for Palestinian peace deal
By Jonathan Cook
As United States envoys shuttle back and forth in search of a peace formula to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a matter supposedly settled decades ago is smouldering back into life.
In what was billed as a “day of rage” last month, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to protest against a plan to uproot tens of thousands of Bedouin from their ancestral lands inside Israel, in the Negev.
The clashes were the worst between Israeli police and the country’s large Palestinian minority since the outbreak of the second intifada 13 years ago, with police using batons, stun grenades, water cannon and arrests to deter future protests.
Things are only likely to get more heated. The so-called Prawer Plan, being hurried through parliament, will authorize the destruction of more than 30 Bedouin villages, forcibly relocating the inhabitants to deprived, overcrowded townships. Built decades ago, these urban reservations languish at the bottom of every social and economic index.
Bedouin leaders, who were ignored in the plan’s drafting, say they will oppose it to the bitter end. The villages, though treated as illegal by the state, are the last places where the Bedouin cling to their land and a traditional pastoral life.
But the Israeli government is equally insistent that the Bedouin must be “concentrated” – a revealing term employed by Benny Begin, a former minister who helped to formulate the plan. In the place of the villages, a handful of Jewish towns will be erected.
The stakes are high, not least because Israel views this battle as a continuation of the 1948 war that established a Jewish state on the ruins of Palestine.
Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, argued last week that the fight over the Negev proves “nothing has changed since the days of the tower and stockade” – a reference to heavily fortified outposts the Zionists aggressively built in the 1930s to evict Palestinians from the land they had farmed for centuries.
These outposts later became land-hungry farming communities that gave the Jewish state its territorial backbone.
Mr. Lieberman’s view reflects that of the government: “We are fighting for the lands of the Jewish people, against those who intentionally try to rob and seize them.”
The labelling of the Bedouin as “squatters” and “trespassers” reveals much about the intractability of the wider conflict – and why the Americans have no hope of ending it as long as they seek solutions that address only the injustices caused by the occupation that began in 1967.
In truth, both Israel and the Palestinians understand that the war of 1948 never really finished.
Suhad Bishara, a lawyer specializing in Israeli land issues, has called the Prawer Plan a “second nakba”, in reference to the catastrophic events of 1948 that stripped the Palestinians of their homeland.
Israel, meanwhile, continues to conceive of its 1.5 million Palestinian citizens – however peaceable – as just as alien and threatening to its interests as the Palestinians in the occupied territories. The roots of the Prawer Plan can be traced to one of Zionism’s earliest principles: “Judaisation”. There are cities across Israel, including Upper Nazareth, Karmiel and Migdal Haemek, founded as Judaisation communities next to large Palestinian populations with the official goal of “making the land Jewish”.
Judaisation’s faulty premise, in the pre-state years, was the fantasy that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land”. Its sinister flip side was the cheery injunction to Zionism’s pioneers to “make the desert bloom”, chiefly by driving out Palestinians.
Nowadays, the term “Judaisation”, with its unpleasant overtones, has been discarded in favour of “development”.
There is even a minister for “developing the Negev and the Galilee” – Israel’s two areas with large concentrations of Palestinians. But officials are interested only in Jewish development.
Last week, in the wake of the clashes, the Israeli Haaretz daily published leaked documents showing that the World Zionist Organization – an unofficial arm of the government – has been quietly reviving the Judaisation program in the Galilee.
In an effort to bring another 100,000 Jews to the region, several new towns are to be built, for Jews only, dispersed as widely as possible in contravention of Israel’s own national master plan, which requires denser building inside existing communities to protect scarce land resources.
All this generosity towards Israel’s Jewish population is at the expense of the country’s Palestinian citizens. They have not been allowed a single new community since Israel’s founding more than six decades ago. And the new Jewish towns, as Arab mayors complained last week, are being built intentionally to box them in.
For officials, the renewed Judaisation drive is about asserting “Israeli sovereignty” and “strengthening our hold” over the Galilee, as if the current inhabitants – Israeli citizens who are Palestinian – were a group of hostile foreigners. Haaretz more honestly characterized the policy as “racism”.
Judaisation casts the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in zero-sum terms, and thereby makes it unresolvable. In considering its Palestinian citizens, Israel speaks not of integration, or even assimilation, but of their enduring status as a “fifth column” and the Jewish state’s “Achilles heel”.
That is because, were principles of justice and equality ever to be enforced, Palestinians in Israel could serve as a gateway by which millions of exiled Palestinians might find their way back home.
With the policy of Judaisation revoked, the Palestinian minority could end the conflict without violence simply by pulling down the scaffolding of racist laws that have blocked any return for the Palestinians since their expulsion 65 years ago.
This is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demands as part of the current peace negotiations that the Palestinians sanctify the Judaisation principle by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. It is also why the talks are doomed to failure.(http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/as-bedouin-villages-are-destroyed-so-too-are-hopes-for-palestinian-peace-deal#full)
Mandela’s legacy in Palestine
By OSAMA AL SHARIF
Palestinians marked the death of South African leader Nelson Mandela by remembering the great man’s indefatigable support for their struggle to end Israeli occupation and establish their own independent state. And US Secretary of State John Kerry urged both sides to take inspiration from Mandela in ongoing peace talks as he rounded up another visit to the region. In fact as the world celebrated Mandela’s life and achievements, many Palestinians wondered why their decades-old sacrifices for liberation and freedom against a regime that is as bad as South Africa’s apartheid state had failed.
At one point Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin appeared to be repeating the successful historical reconciliation between Mandela and F.W. de Clerk that ended decades of racial confrontations in South Africa. But Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and the Oslo Accords were neutralized by his hard-line successors. Attempts to conclude a final peace treaty between the Palestinians and Israelis collapsed in Camp David in 2000, and the following years were marked by tragedy, violence and political failures.
Arafat himself died under suspicious circumstances in 2004 and with his departure the historic moment that was inspired by Mandela’s release and triumph dissipated forever. Mandela and Arafat faced similar challenges in their early lives. Both had to decide how to deal with injustice that had befallen their people. Arafat launched the national liberation movement that gave the Palestinians a sense of purpose and belonging. Mandela joined the ranks of the African National Congress (ANC), opting at first for peaceful resistance against the apartheid regime of the white minority, but later deciding to resort to violence. His arrest and subsequent sentence to life imprisonment in the 1960s sidelined him, but the national struggle continued as a new generation of black South African leaders took over. He later became the symbol of his people’s fight for justice and liberation.
Arafat’s path was different. He turned the PLO into an umbrella organization for all Palestinian groups fighting against Israeli occupation. But he was moving farther away from Palestine; to Amman, Beirut, Yemen and Tunis. Israel accused him and the PLO of terrorism. The Palestinian cause was embroiled in inter-Arab confrontations of the 1960s and ‘70s. He was forced to choose sides and he paid for grave miscalculations like when he supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Despite growing international sympathy for the Palestinian cause, exemplified in numerous UN resolutions, Arafat was unable to turn the world community against Israel. He realized that he was fighting the US as well as Israel. The Palestinian issue was at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which saw three major wars in addition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. But in later years and after the US recognized the PLO the political momentum changed dramatically. Arafat renounced violence and gave up armed struggle in exchange for Israeli recognition and the beginning of years of painstaking peace negotiations under US auspices. Mandela’s success is due to three major factors: His personal strength and refusal to compromise with the apartheid regime, the unabated struggle for freedom that the black majority and their leaders carried on for many years and the fact that the world community imposed political and economic sanctions against the Pretoria government that finally brought the regime to its knees.
The culmination of these factors had produced that historical moment when de Clerk decided to release Mandela without conditions, paving the way for the ultimate collapse of the apartheid system in South Africa.
Arafat had said repeatedly that he wanted to make “a peace of the brave” with his mortal enemies. After the first intifada, Rabin and Shimon Peres, understood that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians couldn’t go on any more and that a deal must be struck. Arafat was the only Palestinian leader who could make such a deal. Both sides reached an agreement in Oslo, which was later signed in Washington.
While white South Africa was ready for change, Israel was not. Rabin’s assassination was followed by major political shifts in Israel. Hard-liners, such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, who were against the creation of an independent Palestinian state, had taken over. In the following years most of the agreements that were reached in Oslo and Washington fell apart. The US, now fighting international terrorism, sided with Israel, which reoccupied the West Bank and besieged Arafat in his Ramallah compound. In the end Arafat was abandoned by the US, forgotten by the world and he died feeling betrayed by all.
Today the Palestinians are engaged in dubious negotiations with Israel hosted by the Americans. They had failed to stop Israel’s settlement activities and now they face a humiliating deal that cancels the right of return for millions of refugees, leaves most illegal settlements in the West Bank under Israeli control, gives them token access to East Jerusalem, hands control of their airspace to their enemies and prevents them from running territories in the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians are alone, again, and their leadership is under US pressure to accept such shameful conditions. If the deal goes through it will be a complete victory for Israel; a reward for its occupation and crimes against the Palestinian people. The Palestinian struggle has veered off course many years ago. Arafat realized this only too late. There must be another option for the Palestinians, one that reinstates them as victims being subjected to an unjust and humiliating deal. If the legacy of Mandela is to survive in Palestine today the Palestinians must renew their belief in their just cause and rekindle the will to struggle for their freedom.(http://www.arabnews.com/news/490806)
Popular Front's role wanes in Palestinian politics
By Daoud Kuttab
Mention of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) used to arouse fear and intimidation in Israel and around the world. The radical Palestinian organization founded in the late 1970s by George Habash, a Palestinian Christian physician from Lydda, became a household name after it carried out spectacular airline hijackings and other daring acts.
On Dec. 7, its acting chairman, Abdel Rahim Malouh, and a number of its senior leaders quietly resigned from the faction, which is under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), without anyone paying much attention. Malouh told local Palestinian media that he had submitted his resignation in 2010, but that it took effect on Dec. 7. Others who resigned at the same time include Jamil Mejdalawi, Younis al-Jaro and Abdul Aziz al-Qarayah. Malouh has said that he will retain his seat as a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee. What has happened to this faction that the Israelis once considered a terrorist organization?
Many would argue that the hoopla around the Marxist PFLP was undeserved. True, the group carried out spectacular acts of violence, such as airplane hijackings, the most famous one involving the diversion of a passenger jet to the Jordanian desert in 1970. In fact, however, the PFLP killed only a few people. Given today’s cutthroat brand of terrorism, indiscriminate car bombings and beheadings, this once supposedly radical organization appears by comparison to be a humble lamb.
Even the Israelis acknowledged that their incitement against the PFLP had been exaggerated when they allowed PFLP senior leaders to return to the Palestinian territories after the signing of the Oslo Accords. Habash, however, never returned. He resigned in 2000 and died in Amman in 2008. He was replaced by Abu Ali Mustafa, one of the PFLP leaders allowed to return.
The outbreak of the second intifada in 2000 put pressure on Palestinians, including the new PFLP leader and his organization, to join the military resistance. Mustafa, who had shown more interest in popular resistance than violent resistance, was assassinated in his Ramallah office in an Israeli Apache-launched rocket attack.
Ahmad Saadat replaced Mustafa and vowed to avenge his assassination. In the process, PFLP members did what no other Palestinian has been able to do — kill a sitting Israeli cabinet minister. They chose Rehavam Zeevi, a right-winger calling for the expulsion of Palestinians. The Israelis found the Palestinians who shot Zeevi in an Israeli hotel in East Jerusalem, but continued to hunt for those who had sent them, focusing on Saadat.
In accordance with Palestinian-Israeli agreements, anyone accused of a crime that requires a sentence of more than seven years in jail should be incarcerated in the Palestinian areas. Saadat was thus arrested by the Palestinian police and held in a Jericho jail. The Israelis, however, were not satisfied and in 2006 sent troops to Jericho to surround the prison and seize Saadat, who was then sentenced to 30 years in an Israeli prison.
The PFLP, popularly known as al-Jabha, over the years became more of an organization of intellectuals in the West Bank, tending to recruit educated Palestinians. While still a leading member of the PLO, it has long been eclipsed by Hamas and other Islamist organizations in the role of the radical opposition. Malouh and top PFLP leaders had remained relatively low profile and had gone along with whatever PLO Chairmen Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas decided, although continuing to act in loyal opposition.
In jail, Saadat has been involved in a number of hunger strikes and is well respected among many Palestinians for his commitment to the Palestinian cause. He is said to have moved away from the two-state idea. In a written response to questions from Reuters in 2010, Saadat said that the only solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is a binational state: “The solution is the one-state solution and not the two-state solution. There are no other horizons for any other settlement."
Now that Malouh's resignation has taken effect, it is unclear who will replace the acting head of the organization. The only other well-known figure is Khalida Jarrar, an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
The PFLP is unlikely to regain its former footing or standing. Once it stood as the second most popular Palestinian faction, after Fatah. PFLP supporters carrying red flags with a map of historic Palestine on them continue to appear in demonstrations and at other public events, but their real power and impact has clearly diminished.(http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/12/pflp-palestine-habash-malouh-leftist.html)
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Opinions
Palestine a continuous suffering..!!
By Mustafa Ibrahim
We must admit the fact that division and our bad situation are not a conspiracy, we contributed to where we are, and continue to accuse each other, and nor admitting the fact that we don't have the political will, we are waiting for what is going on around us and would prefer that others will act but nit us.
Occupation haunts us, we continue to believe that the American-sponsored negotiations will bring us a State, this is just an illusion, the division continues, our cloths ripped by occupation and what we do, and the worst is coming and what is planned is beyond expectations.
Our situation becomes increasingly worse with the serious unprecedented violations of Palestinian human rights that reached the level of a catastrophe, Israel continues with its violations and denial of our rights to self-determination, and the establishment of an independent State which enables us to control our wealth and resources.
We negotiate Israel while it practices hooliganismand challenges resolutions of international legitimacy, and acts vigorously to block any adoption of Palestine as a non-member State of the United Nations, and practices a systematic policy of continued separation between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and continues to commit crimes.
In the West Bank, including Jerusalem, Israel continues its crimes, and continues supporting extremist settler groups and the so-called “Price Tag” campaigns, and settlement expansion, the confiscation of land and ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, in addition to forced displacement of indigenous land owners, with the complicity of the international community and the absence of international protection mechanisms.
In the Gaza Strip, the disastrous and darker, Israel practices collective punishment and imposes an unjust siege on the Palestinians in Gaza, and isolates it from the West. Israel commits frequent and varied crimes, from military aggression in every moment, while humanitarian conditions worsen and deteriorate because of the severe restrictions on freedom of movement of people and trade to and from the Gaza Strip, people's basic human and socio-economic rights decline in an unprecedented and dangerous matter because of the severe shortage of power supplies, fuel and electricity for 18 hours a day, and the basic services necessary for normal life.
Feelings of frustration and despair control the people, who are unable to obtain basic human life elements of food, medicine and adequate housing because of the widespread unemployment and poverty.
All of this is happening in our own backyard for seven years, the obnoxious division hits us, and its painful consequences did not wake us from our long sleep, people were optimistic more than once during dialogue and understanding meetings, but they would soon return to frustration and feel distrust of those responsible for the division.
It became inglorious for a people who fought, and continues to fight, for the triumph of the values of Justice, liberty, and the triumph of the values of equality, human dignity and justice to end the occupation and the right to self-determination to remains under a situation of poverty and misery, and reduce its history of struggle for freedom and self-determination, to invoke and demand daily living and the right to life, dignity, food and health care, and denied its right to freedom and enjoy all civil and political rights.
Palestine is a continuous suffering, to face this suffering and painful reality we are required to know and understand the dangers, listen to the people and meeting their rights became an urgent necessity, it is not too late to return to ourselves and to our cause, but ending the division requires courage.
They rapprochement between parties is in its interest and protect them, our people and our national cause, and to discuss major issues not the day-to-day details, otherwise the implosion is coming since it accumulates due to the daily frustration, disorientation, helplessness and the political and economic failure, in addition to policies of exclusion and marginalization, and the lack of acceptance of others. (http://amin.org/articles.php?t=opinion&id=22791)
No link between the negotiations and the prisoners’ issue
Al-Quds Editorial
Some reports say that the US sponsor of the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations is thinking to postpone the release of the third batch of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails for another month, after they were supposed to be released at the end of the month.
This development indicates that the United States might want to use the prisoners’ issue as a pressure on the Palestinian Authority to obtain concessions in regard to the withdrawal of Israel from the Valley, as one of the issues being considered in the negotiations.
Here we should stress that the prisoners’ issue is the most sensitive issues for the Palestinian people, it is not wise to turn their issue to means of pressure or bargaining, since their release in time before the start of negotiations is the only way to give the negotiations a reasonable degree of credibility, after losing most of its credibility through the adherence of the Israeli Government to perpetuate the occupation and settlement expansion in the West Bank.
The linkage between the negotiations and the prisoners’ issue – at least by Israeli official sources and right-wing - a fallacy. Negotiations are the strategic option for achieving peace after the PLO renounced the option of armed struggle.
Negotiations are the tool by which the resolutions of international legitimacy will be implemented, which states Israel's withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 as part of a settlement reached through negotiation between the two sides, this is a procedural concept for any negotiations between a people under occupation and a force which occupied its territory by force.
As for the issue of prisoners, international norms and the contemporary historical precedents released prisoners before the signing of any interim agreement, or terminating national conflicts for freedom and independence. The classic examples, on the release of prisoners on the eve of the signing of such agreements are the war of Algeria and the war of Vietnam.
Depending on that, extreme right-wing in Israel and the Government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, don’t have any right to link the negotiations to the prisoners’ issue.
The Palestinian demand for freezing settlements remains constant, even if political flexibility led the PA to neutralize this demand temporarily, hoping that negotiations will not only lead to freeze Jewish settlements but also to dismantle settlements in the West Bank without any exception.
It is not reasonable andunacceptable to turn into sensitive issue of Palestinian society as a whole, like the prisoners’ issue, in order to reach a small and fragilepolitical "achievement", and use this issue to pressure Palestinians and push them to accept the presence of Israeli occupation in the Valley, or another accepting an interim agreement, while the objective of these negotiations is to agree on a final solution that meets the aspirations of the Palestinian people to freedom, sovereignty and independence.
The release of prisoners within a given timetable is an understanding reached with a US guarantee. And fulfilling this pledge is a condition needed by the United States to support its interests in the region and in the whole world.(http://www.alquds.com/news/article/view/id/477561)
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