In a letter penned in jail to the Palestinian people, commemorating his Fatah party’s 47th anniversary, Barghouti said peace negotiations with Israel are finished, “and there is no point to make desperate attempts to breathe life into a dead body… Fatah … should be in the leadership of the peaceful popular resistance now.”
Fatah
Bilin’s popular resistance leader Muhammad al-Khatib: ‘I am not for one state or for two states. I am for equality. The principles of equality and human rights are global principles, and they are no less applicable here than elsewhere.’
Money aside, a PA crisis and/or collapse resulting from a boycott of the new Hamas-Fatah government could ultimately lead to further violence and chaos. This is what happened when the first Hamas-Fatah national unity government, formed under the Mecca Agreement in 2007, failed, after the decision by all the Quartet’s members but Russia to boycott and isolate it.
Palestine Studies TV speaks with Rashid Khalidi, professor at Columbia University and editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, on the Fata-Hamas reconciliation agreement.
On April 28th, formerly rivaling Palestinian parties announced their intention to begin reconciliation and hold an election within one year. Hamas is in power in the Gaza strip and Fateh is the leading party in the Palestinian Authority, ruling the West Bank. Since 2006 the parties have fought each other, leading to hundreds of casualties and many failed attempts to reach reconciliation.
But Obama may have done Abbas a favour: by revealing in the starkest terms the unconditional nature of US support for Israel – and how slender the rewards are for being America’s man in Ramallah – he has forced Abbas to do something that, for once, may win him some Palestinian goodwill. And he may just be able to sell the agreement – in other words, the inclusion of a party that has not renounced violence or recognised Israel – to the EU, which has become increasingly exasperated with Obama’s timidity on Palestine.
The era of using the Palestinian cause as a pretext for maintaining martial laws and silencing dissent is over. The Palestinians have been betrayed, not helped, by leaders who practice repression against their own people… Equally, it is no longer acceptable for the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas to cite their record in resisting Israel when justifying their suppression of each other and the rest of the Palestinian people.
“If we are building a police state — what are we actually doing here?” So asked a European diplomat responding to allegations of torture by the Palestinian security forces. The diplomat might well ask. A police state is not a state. It is a form of larceny: of people’s rights, aspirations and sacrifices, for the personal benefit of an élite. This is not what the world meant when it called for statehood. But a police state is what is being assiduously constructed in Palestine, disguised as state-building and good governance.
The Palestinian military prosecutor’s office will stop detaining civilians, and civilians will no longer be tried by Palestinian military courts, according to a pledge made by senior officials in the Palestinian security establishment to representatives of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq.
IOA Editor: For background and political analysis, see Aisling Byrne’s Building a Police State in Palestine.
British film director Ken Loach brought a message of warning to the Palestinians on his first visit to the occupied territories: if you are divided you will fail.
Let us be clear: Palestinians long ago recognized Israel and its right to exist in peace and security. Twenty-two years ago, to be precise. The peace process that began 17 years ago has repeatedly reaffirmed Palestinian recognition of Israel and its right to exist over 78 percent of our historic homeland. The internationally recognized obstacle to peace is the ongoing Israeli occupation.
[A] strategy predicated on the belief that a few more humanitarian truckloads will make the problem of Gaza go away is as deeply flawed as the notion that Ramallah’s surfeit of new high-street cafés will be a sufficient sedative for the aspirants to a Palestinian state. Gaza is a political, not a humanitarian, problem.
The truth is that the suicide attacks on civilians gave Israel a golden opportunity to implement plans, which had always existed, to confiscate more and more Palestinian lands, using the excuse of “security.” The use of weapons did not stop the colonialist expansion of the Jewish settlements. On the contrary. And the use of weapons only accelerated a process Israel began in 1991: disconnecting the Gaza Strip from the West Bank.
Palestinians were shocked on Thursday after Israeli TV aired a graphic video showing a senior official caught on a hidden camera soliciting sex from a job applicant. The video, parts of which aired on Israel’s Channel 10 earlier this week, was shot by former Palestinian intelligence officer Fahmi Shabaneh, who has accused the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of widespread corruption.
UPDATE:
Ha’aretz: Abbas suspends PA aide embroiled in sex tape scandal
Ma’an: Abbas dismisses Rafiq Husseini, appoints investigation committee
Israel prevents equipment meant for bettering the internet industry from entering the Palestinian Authority – equipment such as servers and routers. Moreover, Israel is delaying giving a permit to Wataniya, a second cell phone and internet provider in the West Bank, which bolsters the existing company PalTel’s monopoly.
The United States sent a message to Egypt stating it does not support the proposed reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas as it would undermine negotiations with Israel, Haaretz has learned.
IOA Editor: Divide and Rule.
Uri Davis is used to denunciations. A “traitor”, “scum”, “mentally unstable”: those are just some of the condemnations that have been posted in the Israeli blogosphere in recent days. As the first person of Jewish origin to be elected to the Revolutionary Council of the Palestinian Fatah movement, an organisation once dominated by Yasser Arafat, Davis has tapped a deep reserve of Israeli resentment. Some have even called for him to be deported.
The decision by Fatah’s Sixth Congress that the movement is sticking to negotiations as a means of achieving independence, statehood and peace is an admission that the use of arms during the second intifada was disastrous. That is a difficult admission for a movement founded on the sanctification of the armed struggle. And despite being tacit, it is a brave admission for Fatah at a time when most Palestinians are convinced that Israel does not want peace.
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