:icon_sadangel2: Palestine Peace a dream?

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Hamas raps Fayyad over attending Israeli conference
Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:21:36 GMT

Hamas has denounced the Palestinian Authority for the participation of the caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in an Israeli conference.

Fayyad addressed Israel's 10th annual Herzilya conference on Tuesday, following remarks by Tel Aviv's Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

"The Palestinian Authority's cooperation with Israel reached a political level and this is a serious indicator that this national side has connected its projects with Israeli interests and policies," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

The conference, organized by the Strategic Studies Institute, is held annually in Israel and contributes to decisions on Israeli policy and strategy relating to security and politics.

During his speech to the Israeli audience, Fayyad denoted the Palestinian Authority's recognition of Israel's right to peace and security, and pledged sustained adherence to that commitment, The Jerusalem Post said on its website.

Just as the Palestinians recognized Israel's right, Fayyad reportedly said, so the concept of two states must be accepted in Israel.

He also offered Israelis his sympathy for the “pain” they have been through in their "long history."

"Like you, we Palestinians have our own history. Right now we are going through lots of pain and suffering. And we have one key aspiration, and that is once again to be able to live alongside you in peace, harmony and security," Fayyad said.

The presence of the Palestinian Authority's caretaker prime minister in an Israeli meeting and his overly conciliatory gesture has irritated Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is strongly resented for the killing of some 1,400 people during the war Tel Aviv launched against the coastal strip last January.

The resistance movement, who came to power following a sweeping electoral victory in the 2006 general polls, has been resisting Western diplomatic and economic sanctions in order to force it to recognize Israel.

Hamas had to limit its rule to the blockaded Gaza Strip following an orchestrated coup by the rival, Western-backed Fatah faction against the democratically elected Hamas administration. Fatah, has in turn created its own government in the West bank.
MRS/MB/DT

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Hamas: Netanyahu to blame for prisoner swap deadlock
Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:57:44 GMT

A leading member of the Hamas political bureau, Mahmoud al-Zahar, says negotiations between the movement and Israel over a prisoner swap involving Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and hundreds of long-serving Palestinian prisoners have broken down.

In an interview with BBC's Hardtalk program on Tuesday, the prominent leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement held Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accountable for the failure of talks on the exchange deal.

Zahar pointed out that Netanyahu is adamantly opposed to the release of 'heavyweight' Palestinian prisoners Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Sa'adat.

The status of Sa'adat and Barghouti is one of the most sensitive issues in the discussions on the Hamas-Israel prisoner swap deal.

"As regarding negotiations, as of now the process has failed. The main cause, well known to everybody, well known to the mediator, that after the interference of the political element, after the appearance of Netanyahu personally, there was a big regression and retraction. For this reason negotiations have now stopped,” Zahar said.

"We are looking to set free our people and also to give a chance for the family of the Israeli soldier to live as a human being also. We demanded a considerable number of prisoners, but the Israeli side, after hundreds of rounds of talks, reached backward too much," he noted.

Should a prisoner swap take place, Israel would release 980 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit — who has been in Hamas custody for over three years.

According to the head of the census department at the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees, Abdul-Nasser Farawna, Israel currently holds 7,300 Palestinians in prison. Among the detainees, are 33 women, 300 children, 17 legislators and two former ministers.

MP/HGH/MMN

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Israel not serious about peace, says Syria
Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:11:32 GMT

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says Israel is not serious about achieving peace since all facts point out that Tel Aviv is pushing the region towards war.

"Israel is not serious in achieving peace and that everything shows it is working towards a war," SANA news agency quoted Assad as saying in a meeting with visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos in Damascus on Wednesday.

Moratinos, for his part, pointed out that resolution of crises in the Middle East is a priority to the European Union. He also expressed appreciation over Syria's positive role in establishing security and stability in the region.

Syria maintains that Israel's withdrawal from Golan Heights is the prerequisite for peace between Damascus and Tel Aviv. Israel captured the Golan Heights following the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the Syrian territory in 1981.

Further raising Damascus' ire, Israeli warplanes destroyed Syria's al-Kibar site in 2007 blaming the country of harboring a nuclear reactor there — a claim rejected by Syria.

Under the auspices of Turkey, Israel and Syria last May launched peace talks aimed at reaching a comprehensive peace agreement, but the negotiations reached a deadlock in September 2009.

Syria then withdrew from the talks in protest at Israel's all-out military strike against the Gaza Strip — in December 2008 and January 2009 — where at least 1,400 Palestinians lost their lives to the three-week carnage.

MP/MMN

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Hamas rejects Goldstone report accusations
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:15:58 GMT

Hamas has rejected accusations leveled against the movement that it had committed "war crimes" during the last year Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.

A UN Human Rights Council report that was compiled by a team led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone has accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the three week war in the region.

Hamas, which launched rocket attacks to retaliate Israeli air raids and ground incursion into the strip, said a committee it appointed to follow up on the report found no intention to harm civilians.

The UN report claimed that rocket attacks against southern Israel deliberately targeted civilians and could constitute a crime against humanity.

"Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly confirmed that they are abiding by international humanitarian law, through broadcasting in different media that they intended to hit military targets and to avoid targeting civilians," the Hamas said, attributing civilian casualties to "incorrect (or imprecise) fire."

The request for independent investigations was made by the UN General Assembly last November. The UN gave both sides until Feb. 5 to respond to the report.

The report also accused Israel of grave crimes against humanity among which the use of phosphorous munitions against Palestinians in Gaza.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the war.

SB/RE

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Israel to raze 200 Palestinian homes in E Jerusalem
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:23:58 GMT

Israeli authorities plan to seal 200 Palestinians homes in East Jerusalem Al-Quds to counter what they call "discriminatory enforcement" against Israeli settlers.

The East Jerusalem Al-Quds Mayor Nir Barkat announced the decision after the State Prosecutor Moshe Lador criticized the municipality's refusal to carry out a Supreme Court order to seal the Jewish-owned Beit Yehonatan building in East Jerusalem Al-Quds.

The building, which houses Israeli settlers, was illegally built in the city's neighborhood of Silwan in 2004.

In a letter written to the prosecutor on Wednesday, Barkat agreed to implement the sealing order but added that he would also act to tear down 200 "illegal" Palestinian homes in the area.

"Although the sealing order, in light of the dozens of demolition orders which are not being enforced, constitutes, in my eyes, a selective and discriminatory enforcement, Jerusalem (Al-Quds) Municipality will act according to court orders and implement the sealing orders on Beit Yehonatan as well as other standing orders," Barkat wrote to Lador.

"The municipality will seal Beit Yehonatan and raze all of the illegal structures - more than 200 structures on which the court has issued demolition orders."

The mayor charged the court order came under the influence of "wrongful political intervention" which he said "may cause publicly elected officials to refrain from expressing an opinion on issues that have dire consequences."

The decision to raze Palestinian houses received condemnation from civil rights organizations and human rights groups in Israel.

The Ir Amim (City of Nations) organization denounced the move, saying Barkat was adopting a policy similar to the settlers' "price tag policy", by which settlers seek revenge by attacking Palestinians for every illegal outpost that is evacuated.

"We hope Barkat is considering the local and international significance of such an extreme act," the organization said in a statement.

The Peace Now Movement said that "the Jerusalem (Al-Quds) mayor has turned into a collaborator with Israel's most extreme right-wing organizations."

MRS/MB

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President Abbas: Negotiations Will Resume When Israel Commits to Obligatoins
Date : 1/2/2010 Time : 21:53

BERLIN, February 1, 2010 (WAFA)- President Mahmoud Abbas said, today, that negotiations with Israel could not be resumed unless the Israeli Government agrees to halt settlement activities and to commit to international community references.

In a joint press conference with the German counselor Angela Mirkel, the president mentioned the Mitchell paper 'methods of starting the negotiations' presented to the Palestinian and Israeli sides, but the Palestinian side will respond to it after consultations with the brothers and friends, by next week.

The President pointed that his concern depicted by the winds of war in the Middle East, which will not only affect the region, but the whole world.

He reminded of the Egyptian paper, submitted on October 15, 2009, and said that 'Hamas has got to sign it in order to embark together on the legislative and presidential elections on June 28, 2010.

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Israeli Troops Arrest Palestinian in Night Raid on Bilin
Date : 1/2/2010 Time : 20:58

BILIN, February 1, 2010 (WAFA)- A Palestinian citizen was arrested, this morning, by Israeli troops as they strolled down Bilin, near Ramallah.

Four Shabak (Israeli Intelligence) jeeps and one military hummer rolled through Bilin around 3 am this morning, International Solidarity Movement (ISM) reported.

ISM added that computer screens with GPS maps were visible in the jeeps. They started throwing sound bombs amongst houses when camera people arrived on the scene.

Soldiers in the last hummer taunted the camera people by making chicken noises. It seemed like they were looking for someone or were lost in Bilin as they turned down side streets and returned to the main road between the school and the mosque. Earlier in the evening residents of Bilin reported seeing the military throwing tear gas at young kids who were near the Israeli apartheid wall. Invasions like this are not uncommon in Bilin.

One person from Bilin was injured while running to document the invasion last night. There were no arrests. This happened less than one week since the arrest of Bilin Popular Committee member Mohammad Al Khatib.

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Israeli jets 'strike Gaza targets'
03.02.10 - 22:38
Israeli aircraft have struck tunnels in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses say, a day after two explosive devices said to have originated in Hamas-ruled Gaza washed up on Israel's coastline.

ImageThe Israeli army had no immediate comment on the alleged strikes on Tuesday which witnesses say were carried out by Israeli air force jets against an abandoned airport building in Gaza and on tunnels along the border with Egypt that Israel says are used to smuggle weapons into the territory.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the bombings, according to the witnesses cited by the Reuters news agency.

The attacks came shortly after Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told a news conference alongside his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi, that Israel would respond to the explosives found on Monday.

Palestinian fighters from the Israeli-blockaded territory claimed responsibility for what Israel described as an unusual attempted attack.

Most attacks from Gaza in the past few years have been by rocket shootings at Israeli towns.

The Islamic Jihad group said it had floated the explosives out to sea in a joint operation with two other groups including the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah faction led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.



Source: Aljazeera

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ISRAEL: 'Avatar' and the Palestinian blues
01.02.10 - 21:22
This week, a screening of "Avatar" erupted into a small ruckus in a suburb when one moviegoer loudly announced that the Palestinians should learn from this movie what to do to the Jews, causing a commotion and angering others in the audience.

The opinionated moviegoer was Juliano Mer-Khamis. Born in Nazereth to a Jewish mother and Arab father, he is an accomplished actor of many years, a filmmaker as well as a political activist who is very outspoken against the occupation.

Mer-Khamis confirmed the incident and added in the newspaper Maariv: "No one dares to make the real analogy. 'Avatar' is one of the bravest films made. It portrays the occupation, but people aren't making the analogy. Many would like to be like the blue people but don't understand the meaning. This is why people got angry at the movie theater. It is no secret that I think the Israelis are occupiers and the Palestinians occupied. Israel sits forcefully on lands that belong to others and this is exactly what the movie is talking about."

Mer-Khamis also suggests distributing the movie in the Palestinian town of Jenin. His choice of Jenin of all Palestinian locations is probably no coincidence: It is home to the Freedom Theatre, which he established a few years ago for the children of the Palestinian refugee camp there and to use "the magic and fantasy of theater to offer some respite" to the population, according to its website.

The Jenin theater was attacked with Molotov cocktails last year. Mer-Khamis was threatened, denounced in leaflets by militant Palestinians as morally corrupt and an agent of Zionism -- probably a first for that allegation. The music center in town was also torched later. Mer-Khamis acknowledged that he was afraid but said that he wasn't the type to run away. "It drives them crazy that a person who's half-Jewish heads one of the most important projects in the northern West Bank," he had told the news media at the time. The Jenin theater was a tribute to his mother, Arna Mer-Khamis, whose earlier work in the town was documented in the film "Arna's Children."

Either way, "Avatar" already got on the wrong side of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman -- or his spoof, really, on the "Eretz Nehederet" ('It's a Wonderful Country') satire show.

Blowing off claims that his foreign policy had left Israel with no allies in the world, the "minister" introduced the country's new best friend, "an ally out of this world": the prime minister of "Avatar."

The new diplomatic alliance lasts only until the blue thing explains that the movie is about a people resisting occupation.

A leftist movie, sniffs the "minister," and he promptly shoots the blue being.

Sorry, folks, he says. There's isn't going to be an "Avatar No. 2."



Source: LA Times

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A dangerous concept
03.02.10 - 22:40

an interview with Bassam al-Salhi

bitterlemons: Some say the concept of land swaps is a creative way to resolve territorial problems in negotiations. Do you agree?

Al-Salhi: No. I think this idea is very dangerous. We need clear recognition of the borders of a Palestinian state, i.e., the whole area of 1967, including East Jerusalem. This is the law as embodied in many resolutions from the UN and negotiations must start from this point. Any land swap must not change this reality or the unity of the area of the Palestinian state.

However, what's happening is that Israel is making changes in areas of the West Bank using the idea of a land swap to legitimize its settlement blocs. Israel wants to open negotiations with the Palestinian side from this point. In other words, from the beginning, Israel is leaving those areas outside Palestinian territory. But the original idea, which in my opinion was anyway a mistake, was that the notion of a land swap should follow the establishment of borders, not come before.

bitterlemons: Why, during the Camp David negotiations, did the Palestinian side accept the notion in the first place?

Al-Salhi: I think this was a mistake. I think it came about because at the time there was one package solution and a land swap was a small component of this larger package to solve all issues. But now the other issues are not being discussed, and Israel is trying to isolate the idea of a land swap. This makes it dangerous. We need, first, recognition of the Palestinian borders, recognition of the issue of East Jerusalem and refugees, etc.

As a point under the file of settlements, maybe a land swap can be discussed, but to take it in isolation is dangerous because it means the facts Israel is creating on the ground in the form of settlements are successfully undermining the principle of the 1967 borders.

bitterlemons: What would you respond to those who will say that with the settlements where they are and some half a million people living in these settlements it is simply unrealistic to expect to move them?

Al-Salhi: We cannot start from this perspective. If we accept to do that, it means that the rights of the Palestinians, rights that are universal, are being undermined by force, the force Israel uses to change the reality on the ground. We have to start from international law.

International law recognizes that East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza are occupied territories, an occupation that must end to make way for a Palestinian state. It is not our responsibility to find a solution to the problems Israel has created for itself. These settlements should never have been built and they should not be allowed to affect our rights.

The current Israeli coalition government relies on the support of pro-settler groups and this is a very negative development in Israel. But this government didn't create the problem. Other governments are responsible for creating an atmosphere in which settlers have been allowed to flourish.

In this way, Israel is destroying chances of a two-state solution and implementing instead an apartheid system in the West Bank, in addition to inside Israel. It is becoming clearer and clearer that Palestinians, absent a two-state solution, must prepare to think about how to ensure their right to self-determination without a state of their own. The only alternative is in a democratic one-state solution for two nations.- Published 1/2/2010 © bitterlemons.org

Bassam al-Salhi is head of the Palestinian People's Party.