Palestinians hopeful reconciliation talks will end national rift

Palestinians at home and in the Diaspora are hoping that the Egyptian-sponsored national reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo will succeed in ending the rift between the two largest Palestinian national movements.

The Palestinian national cause has suffered immensely as a result of the enduring crisis as the apartheid Israeli regime sought relentlessly to utilize internal Palestinian divisions to consolidate its repression and escalate its crimes against the Palestinian people.

Moreover, Israel took advantage of the internal power struggle to build and expand Jewish settlements, especially in Jerusalem where the Zionist occupation authorities are planning to destroy an entire Palestinian neighbourhood as part of a master plan to ethnically cleanse the city of its Arab inhabitants.

The national reconciliation talks started formally in Cairo on Wednesday, 25 February, with a “preparatory meeting” involving two delegations representing Fatah and Hamas. The Hamas delegation was led by Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar, a high-ranking Hamas leader from the Gaza Strip. Ahmed Qurei’, Chief Palestinian negotiator and former Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister headed the Fatah delegation, which also included Fatah parliamentarian, Azzam al-Ahmed.

Following the initial meeting, al-Zahar and al-Ahmed pointed out in a joint peace conference that the meeting was positive.

The two revealed that both movements agreed to take a number of confidence-building measures, including putting an end to politically motivated arrests, releasing a significant number of political prisoners and terminating incitement and media attacks.

The two movements also pointed out that five committees were formed with the task of carrying out what was agreed upon.

Al-Zahar said that as many as 400 Hamas members and supporters were being incarcerated in the West Bank, adding that of those 80 had been freed.

Al-Ahmed revealed that Hamas had lifted house arrests imposed on a number of Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip. He added that “good will” was the main guarantee for the success of the internal dialogue and for confronting the Israeli aggression.

Al-Ahmed also revealed that the two sides agreed to form a government of national reconciliation.

In a press release, the two delegations said, “We have come to Cairo in order to end the rift and effect a final agreement to restore national unity.”

Asked if the prospective reconciliation agreement would involve recognition by Hamas of Israel, al-Zahar said, “We will not recognize Israel, period.”

He added that “the objective circumstances were now more adequate and more conducive to effecting a successful dialogue.”

Favourable international atmosphere

The national reconciliation talks in Cairo are taking place under relatively favourable conditions, at least as far as Hamas is concerned.

Israel, in collusion with the United States and a number of regional players, had been making strenuous efforts to destroy or at least seriously weaken Hamas, but to no avail.

In the last week of December, the Israeli army carried out a genocidal blitzkrieg against Gaza, killing and maiming as many as 7,000 people, mostly innocent civilians, including more than 370 children. Moreover, the Nazi-like onslaught utterly destroyed the bulk of the civilian infrastructure, including thousands of homes, apartment buildings, mosques, schools, and public buildings.

Israel and the Bush administration—which enthusiastically backed the criminal onslaught—had hoped that the overwhelming invasion and the indiscriminate death and terror meted out to the Gaza civilians would prompt the masses to turn against Hamas.

Some influential Fatah leaders in Ramallah are also believed to have colluded with Israel during the 22-day offensive in the hope of bringing down the elected Hamas government.

However, all these designs utterly failed and Hamas emerged from the one-sided war politically stronger and far more popular than before the war.

This apparently played a significant role in getting Fatah and the American-backed Palestinian Authority to abandon their erstwhile plans to topple Hamas and re-conquer the coastal enclave.

More to the point, two years of draconian measures against the Hamas government, including an extremely harsh blockade that effectively pushed the Gaza Strip to the brink of disaster failed to make Hamas cave in, which also convinced the international community that it was inescapable to talk with Hamas.

This impression gained momentum and became apparent especially after the departure of the Bush administration and the advent of the Obama administration, with the latter signaling that it wouldn’t stand in the way of a Palestinian national unity government comprising Hamas and Fatah.

In recent weeks, there have been many signs indicating that the West, especially the European Union, may be on its way to initiating contacts with Hamas.

On Wednesday, 25 February, a group of former peace negotiators urged the world community to engage Hamas, saying the policy of shunning and boycotting the Islamic liberation movement was “futile.”

“The policy of isolating Hamas cannot bring about stability. As former peace negotiators, we believe it is of vital importance to abandon the failed policy of isolation and to involve Hamas in the political process,” the group said in a letter published in the British newspaper, the Times on 26 February.

The letter said the futility of the policy had been demonstrated by the recent Israeli blitz against Gaza, as well as the tight blockade of Gaza and the boycott of Hamas.

“Whether we like it or not, Hamas will not go away. Since its victory in democratic elections in 2006, Hamas has sustained its support in Palestinian society despite attempts to destroy it through economic blockades, political boycotts and military incursions.”

The letter was signed by several former negotiators, including former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, former United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Alvaro de Soto, former leader of the Social Democratic Liberal Party of Northern Ireland John Hume, as well as former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami.

Earlier, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was quoted as saying that talking to Hamas was “the right thing to do.”

The increasing international propensity to talk with Hamas has undoubtedly caused a lot of bitterness and anger within Israeli political circles.

On Thursday, 26 February, the right-wing Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, quoted an advisor to the Prime Minister-designate as urging U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to boycott a prospective Palestinian national unity government that includes Hamas and Fatah.

Zalman Shuval, a right-wing extremist and proponent of apartheid, said Israel would try to convince the Obama administration to refrain from encouraging other countries to recognize Hamas.

“We shall try to convince our American friends that this is not something that would help the peace process, and that it would only make it easier for all sorts of other players—the Europeans and the Russians—to deal with Hamas.” 

Read More

Counterpoint: Five gradations of stupidity

Some policies enacted by our many governments defy logic. They can only be characterized as policies of stupidity, particularly since they all will reap harsh domestic and international repercussions. More than the policies making no sense, there seems to be no redeeming value to them. It is as if arbitrariness is the new ideological guide for decision-making.
An Arab shows his Israeli ID...

An Arab shows his Israeli ID card at a checkpoint.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

Our leaders cannot see the forest through the trees. Simply, there is no correlation between cause and effect. Below are five gradations of stupidity that can be attributed to our governments.

1) No sooner does US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive in the country than she admonishes Israel for its plan to destroy 80 Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem - in Silwan, the City of David. The government's claim is that the houses were built without permits - never mind that many have been standing since before the state was established. Of course, it is virtually impossible for a Palestinian to secure a building license.

The real cause of the demolition orders has little to do with legalities, but rather with the fact that the government wants to create a "green space" in place of the houses, where it intends to open an archeological site. The settler organization, Elad, with financial backing from Bingo magnate Irving Moscowitz, is navigating the process, making wild claims that it has purchased many of the homes. The members of Elad pose as concerned citizens, protecting the national interest in conducting archeological excavations. The ultimate goal of these far-out religious Jews is to "Judaize" the capital.

The complete foolishness of the government and the Jerusalem municipality to uproot so many Palestinians from their homes - in the heart of east Jerusalem - is beyond measure. The entire international community will rightfully come down on us, and we will have no defense. And one can imagine what riots will follow on the part of Palestinians - riots that such an inane policy invites.

2) Then there is the idiocy of the punitive and unnecessary checkpoints, roadblocks and inner barriers/walls/fences within the Palestinian Authority - all of which suggest a commitment to irrationality.

While there is little debate that the security barrier has helped to reduce suicide bombings, the route of the barrier is most certainly problematic because of its expropriation of Palestinian land. Nevertheless, few Israelis object to the checkpoints and roadblocks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (although many of them are administered in a needlessly inhumane way), because they are necessary, especially since we still face a real threat of terror.

However, there is a network of roadblocks and checkpoints and interior walls within the West Bank that are rarely discussed in the public forum, which place unbearable hardships upon the Palestinians. Having little security value, these interior obstacles are ostensibly set up to protect settlers going to and from their settlements. But they are already protected by a separate road system. That these barriers limit the freedom of movement of so many to guarantee the freedom of movement of so few lacks any measure of reasonableness.

Israel is basically imprisoning a people, not only making it virtually impossible for Palestinians to travel from one village to the next, but also cutting off access to their land and their livelihood - again all in violation of international agreements to which the government is committed.

3) Another act of imbecility is the expansion of existing settlements, the refusal to destroy illegal ones (unlike the government's eagerness to destroy those homes in Silwan), and the actual building of new settlements.

If one wants to thwart a two-state solution, all one has to do is continue confiscating Palestinian land and building Jewish communities throughout the West Bank - with separate roads leading to them - so that the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state would be impossible. And, once again, the world, including our greatest ally America, will condemn us for violating agreements we have signed, as well as stalling the peace process.

4) And, if the above three acts are not sufficient to indicate the insanity of our political thought process, there is the utterly absurd policy surrounding the monitoring of the border crossings into Gaza. While one should be concerned about arms smuggling, to decide one day that blankets are considered legitimate humanitarian aid, but not sheets, that toothpaste satisfies the criteria for needed hygiene, but not toothbrushes, staggers the imagination.

Despite the justification of the war in Gaza, Israel has been taking a beating in the international community. Hypocrisy seems to rule the nations of the world, but that has little to do with providing an unhindered flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza. After all, how many times did we hear our leaders proclaim that we are not fighting the Gazan people, but their leaders, Hamas? So what is the sense here, especially since we are not using the well-worn argument that we are closing the borders to punish Hamas for the continued firing of rockets?

5) The last area of mischievous nonsense, which goes far beyond inanity, is the construction of the alleged Museum of Tolerance on top of an Arab graveyard. Recently, I visited the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. While the museum places special emphasis on the Nazi persecution and eventual slaughter of the Jews of Europe, it also addresses bigotry and genocide in today's world. It seems that those behind erecting Israel's supposed Museum of Tolerance have little understanding of what the museum should represent.

Jews throughout the world are the first ones to cry anti-Semitism when a Jewish graveyard is defaced. The sacred Mount of Olives cemetery was partly destroyed by the Jordanians during their occupation of the West Bank from 1948 until 1967, and the headstones of many graves were used in the foundation of the Seven Arches Hotel. We were justifiably outraged by this blatant act of disrespect.

Read More

The American Jewish Committee deserves better leadership

If ever an issue begged for the intervention of a Jewish organization of international stature, it was the Mohamed al Dura affair. This notorious blood libel accused Israeli soldiers of shooting to death an Arab boy in Gaza on September 30, 2000. Though the event was actually a staged hoax, it was broadcast the same day on French public television station, France 2. Mohamed al Dura became an icon for all Muslim children. The story triggered rioting, terrorism and mayhem throughout the Muslim world; unleashed the Second Intifada; was the pretext for Daniel Pearl's beheading, and was referenced in Osama bin Laden's recruitment tapes prior to 9/11.

Read More

Turkey: The longer view

n considering the Israel-Turkey relationship, Israelis have reason to feel let down by the behavior of the Turkish government and people. From the start of Operation Cast Lead on December 27, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been on a diplomatic rampage. His words - coupled with the unbalanced media coverage prevalent worldwide - incited the Turkish masses into an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish frenzy. Turkish leaders declared that Israel was committing atrocities against Gaza and would be punished by Allah.

Israel's Ankara embassy has been in a virtual security lock-down. Turkish basketball fans chanted "Death to the Jews" during a recent match against Bnei Hasharon. Signs in Anatolia declare: "No Armenians or Jews. Dogs OK."

In the latest outrage, Erdogan stormed off the stage in Davos after shouting, "You are killing people" at President Shimon Peres; he was welcomed home as "The Conqueror of Davos."

No wonder Israeli tourists - over 500,000 in 2008 - are staying away

Read More

who say Gaza Killing is not Holocaust

Holocaust VS Holocaust

I don't believe Nazi's did something wrong to Jews, and the jews don't even find it BAD, so they are repeating same to Palestinians.

Gaza, an image reflecting Jewish images..

A message for peace loving

…PLEASE FORWARD…

BUILDING WALLS & FENCES TO KEEP PEOPLE IN PRISONS

CHECK POINTS NOT TO ALLOW PEOPLE BASIC FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT

ARRESTS & HARASSMENTS

DESTROYING HOMES & LIVELIHOODS

GIFTS (WITH LOVE) FROM THE CHILDREN OF PEACE-LOVING & CIVILIZED COUNTRIES

THE CLASSIC PROPAGANDA MACHINE - YOU WILL FIND THE PICTURE IN BLACK & WHITE IN ALL AMERICAN AND SOME OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES HISTORY BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS, LIBRARIES, MUSEUMS… THAT DEPICTS A YOUNG JEWISH BOY WITH HIS HANDS UP WHILE NAZI TROOPS POINT THEIR GUNS AT HIM AND HIS FAMILY IN ORDER TO EXPEL THEM FROM THEIR HOMES… (IT'S SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU SYMPATHIZE WITH THE VICTIMS & TO SUPPORT THEIR CAUSE FOR JUSTICE & A HOMELAND)

THE ISRAELIS PRACTICE THE SAME TACTICS

Read More