Many analysts and observers fear that life in the west Bank is taking on an increasingly authoritarian hue. “I feel real concern that we are reaching the level of a police state,” says Shawan Jabarin, the director of al-Haq, a Ramallah-based human rights group.
Salam Fayyad
Palestinian activists: [W]hy shouldn’t the PA change the addresses of thousands of people, instead of having its officials turn them away while explaining obediently that “the Israelis don’t agree to it”? In this way, the PA will exercise its authority in accordance with Oslo. This would be a form of integrated civil disobedience: the leadership and the public together reject the occupiers’ dictates.
In a rare speech to an Israeli audience, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Tuesday that Israel must show the Palestinians that it is beginning to roll back the occupation, and that the way to do that is primarily by stopping both settlement construction and IDF incursions into Palestinian areas.
IOA Editor: So, “it’s the Occupation, stupid,” eh? Some of us have been saying it for over four decades.
Also The Washington Post: Palestinian premier gives a key address…
Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, described the plan as essentially “national duty” in its aims to realize Palestinian freedoms, the right of return and the right to Jerusalem. “All of these ideas are acceptable to Palestinians,” he said, and said he thought the plan should see popular support.
The reports indicated that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Such recognition would likely transform any Israeli presence across the Green Line, even in Jerusalem, into an illegal incursion to which the Palestinians would be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense.
IOA Editor: Highly unlikely, given US moves to crush the Goldstone Report, its actions on recent ME ‘peace efforts’ and in the past 42 years, but important to watch. The mere concept of a Palestinian State presents an existential risk to Israel – strictly in a philosophical sense: An independent, viable Palestinian state, however theoretical, could mean the end of Israel as we know it – a state with no official borders, equipped with an insatiable appetite for land, resources and regional domination – by creating the first meaningful boundary to its colonial program and greatly weakening a US ally, potentially crucial for global control. All the more why US support is unlikely, no mater how business-like Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s plan appears. Undoubtedly, Israel will do all it can to defend itself from the threat of peace.
Fayyad is a former World Bank economist who has been praised internationally and by Israel for reforming Palestinian finances and improving security in the occupied West Bank. He said he remains committed to a plan announced in August to build all the institutions of a viable state within two years.
Israel’s character is it’s own business. It is not up to the Palestinians to define it, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Thursday, when asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
