Issue no 127

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Issue No : 127 23th March 2015

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1


Palestinian Cultural Organization MalaysiaMalaysiaM

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Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

Read in This Issue

Israeli election results reflect deep divisions in that society

UN officials accused of bowing to Israeli pressure over children›s rights list

FEATURED STORY

Articles & analyses

Read in This Issue

What comes after the Israeli elections?

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Displaced by Israel, Palestinians make homes in caves

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin: The man and the struggle

Wheelchair- bound teacher in Gaza

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P 18

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On Mother›s Day, 2 Palestinian mothers in Israeli prisons

Israel Insider P 10

P 20

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CONTENTS

Articles & Analyses

Isreal Insider

News of Palestine

FEATURED STORY

UN officials accused of bowing to Israeli pressure over children›s rights list 4

UNRWA concerned about Palestine refugees 6

18 Palestinians tortured to death in Syrian jails 7

Displaced by Israel, Palestinians make homes in caves 8

“Israel” arrests 14 children in Jerusalem 9

Israeli election results reflect deep divisions in that society 10

Israel destroyed 18 Arab houses in the Negev last week 12

On Mother’s Day, 2 Palestinian mothers in Israeli prisons 13

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin: The man and the struggle 14

Hamas calls for Palestinian reconciliation after Israel poll 16

Official: Israeli soldiers uproot 300 olive trees near Nablus 17

Wheelchair bound in Gaza 18

What comes after the Israeli elections? 20

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Featured Story

UN officials accused of bowing to Israeli pressure over children›s rights list

Source says officials backed away from recommending that IOF be added to list of children’s rights violators after phone calls from Israeli offi-cialsSenior UN officials in Jeru-salem have been accused of caving in to Israeli pressure to abandon moves to include the state’s armed forces on a UN list of serious violators of chil-dren’s rights.UN officials backed away from recommending that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) be in-cluded on the list following telephone calls from senior Israeli officials. The Israelis al-legedly warned of serious con-

sequences if a meeting of UN agencies and NGOs based in Jerusalem to ratify the recom-mendation went ahead. Within hours, the meeting was can-celled.“Top officials have buckled un-der political pressure,” said a UN source. “As a result, a clear message has been given that Israel will not be listed.”Organisations pressing for the IDF’s inclusion on the list since the war in Gaza last summer – which left more than 500 chil-dren dead and more than 3,300 injured – include Save the Chil-dren and War Child as well as at least a dozen Palestinian human rights organisations,

the Israeli rights organisation B’Tselem and UN bodies such as the children’s agency Uni-cef.“These organisations are in up-roar over what has happened,” said the UN source.The IDF’s inclusion on the UN’s list of grave violators of children’s rights would place it alongside non-state armed forces such as Islamic State, Boko Haram and the Taliban. There are no other state armies on the list. It would propel Israel further towards pariah status within international bodies and could lead to UN sanctions.Although Jerusalem-based of-ficials cancelled the meeting

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– and subsequently decided not to recommend the IDF’s inclusion on the list – the UN complained to Israel over the intimidation of its staff. Susana Malcorra – a high-ranking of-ficial in the New York office of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon – raised the issue in a private letter to Israel’s ambas-sador to the UN, Ron Prosor. The UN in New York said it could not comment on leaked documents.The telephone calls were made to June Kunugi, Unicef’s spe-cial representative to Palestine and Israel, on 12 February, the night before a meeting to de-cide whether to recommend the IDF’s inclusion on the list. One call was from a senior figure in Cogat, the Israeli government body that coordinates between the IDF, the Palestinian Author-ity and the international com-munity; the other was made by an official in Israel’s foreign ministry.According to UN and NGO sources, Kunugi was advised to cancel the meeting or face serious consequences. How-ever, Israeli sources described the telephone conversations as friendly and courteous at-tempts to persuade Kunugi to delay the working group’s de-cision on its recommendation regarding the IDF until Israel had been allowed to present its case on the issue.At 8.54am the next morning, an email was sent on behalf of James Rawley, a senior official with UNSCO (the office of the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process) who had called the meeting, to participants. It said: “Please be informed that today’s meet-

ing scheduled at 13:00hrs has been postponed. Sincere apol-ogies for the inconvenience this may have caused.”A joint statement to the Guard-ian from Kunugi and Rawley said the “strictly confidential process” of determining inclu-sion on the list was still ongo-ing and was the “prerogative of the UN secretary general, and it rests with him alone”. The UN in Jerusalem was unable to comment on the process, it added, but the submission from Jerusalem to New York was “based on verified facts, not in-fluenced by any member state or other entity”.Unicef has called a fresh meet-ing to update UN and NGO offi-cials in Jerusalem on Thursday.The decision on which state and non-state armed forces are to be included on the list will be taken by UN chiefs in New York next month. However, accord-ing to the UN source, “a politi-cal decision has already been taken not to include Israel”.A separate source told the Guardian: “The UN caved to Israel’s political pressure and took a highly contentious step to shelter Israel from account-ability.”The list of violators of children’s rights is contained in the an-nex of the annual report of the secretary general on children and armed conflict. A “monitor-ing and reporting mechanism”, established by a UN security council resolution, supplies in-formation on grave violations of children’s rights, such as killing and maiming, recruitment of minors into armed forces, at-tacks on schools, rape, abduc-tion, and denial of humanitarian access to children. The secre-

tary general is required to list armed forces or armed groups responsible for such actions.Following last summer’s sev-en-week war in Gaza, a num-ber of UN agencies and NGOs met to consider whether to rec-ommend the IDF’s inclusion on the list. According to insiders, participants “agreed there is a strong and credible case to rec-ommend listing”.A 13-page internal Unicef pa-per seen by the Guardian ex-amined the case for the IDF to be listed on the basis of its actions in last summer’s war in Gaza, including the killing and injuring of children, and “target-ed and indiscriminate” attacks on schools and hospitals.Several of the working group’s participants wrote to the UN secretary general to urge the inclusion of the IDF on the list. A letter sent in December by Defence for Children Interna-tional (Palestine) said: “There is ample evidence to demon-strate that Israel’s armed forc-es have committed acts that amount to the grave violations against children during armed conflict, as defined by UN secu-rity council resolutions, includ-ing killing or maiming children and attacks against schools and hospitals.”The Israeli ministry of foreign affairs and Cogat declined to answer specific questions about the phone calls to Kunu-gi, but said in a joint statement: “Israel has a good working re-lationship with Unicef and the United Nations in general. Is-rael has no desire to get into a slanging match with anti-Israel elements nor to submit to their intimidations.”Source: The Guardian

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The spokesperson for the UN agency tasked with providing aid for Pales-tinians, Christopher Gunness, made the remarks in a statement issued on Friday after it was revealed that nine Palestinians were among as many as 50 migrants who drowned in a boat-wreckage incident off the Italian coast near the island of Sicily early in March.“The fact that this group reportedly consisted of Palestine refugees from Syria, as well as from Gaza and Leb-anon, is a clear and tragic sign that Palestine refugees are finding life in Syria and beyond increasingly un-tenable,” Gunness said in the state-ment.“These tragedies... stem not only from armed conflict, occupation and a lack of protection of human rights, but more fundamentally from the fail-ure to resolve the Palestine refugee

UNRWA concerned about Palestine refugees

News of Palestine

problem,” he said.Palestinians are facing the Israeli oc-cupation and atrocities in the occu-pied territories. The Palestinian refu-gees are also encountering a deadly crisis in Syria and severe living con-ditions in neighboring countries such as Lebanon.“At a time of rising extremism in the Middle East region, the failure of the international community to resolve the Palestinian issue takes on an added significance,” Gunness further noted.Gaza Strip has been under a crip-pling Israeli siege since 2007. The blockade, which has cut off the terri-tory from the outside world, has led to an economic and humanitarian crisis in the densely-populated enclave.Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem

al-Quds and the Gaza Strip, and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to discuss the issue of al-Quds.According to the information on the website of UNRWA on March 21, there are as many as 526,744 reg-istered Palestine refugees in nine camps in Syria. The data also show that 1,258,559 registered Palestine refugees are living in eight camps in the besieged Gaza Strip and there are 762,288 registered Palestine refugees in 19 camps in the occu-pied West Bank. It also shows that as many as 449,957 registered Pal-estine refugees are residing in 12 camps in Lebanon and a total num-ber of 2,097,338 registered Palestine refugees in ten camps in Jordan.Source: PRESS TV

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18 Palestinians tortured to death in Syrian jails

The number of Palestinian refugees who died as a result of torture in Syrian pris-ons is on the rise, the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria warned yesterday.According to the group, the bodies of 18 Palestinians from Yarmouk refugee camp were identified mostly using leaked photos.The pictures show dozens of bodies of the captives who were tortured to death in Syrian jails.The group announced earlier that it had documented the killing of nearly 315 Pal-estinian refugees under torture in Syrian prisons.17 March 2015 Source: MEMO

The number of Palestinian refugees who The number of Palestinian refugees who died as a result of torture in Syrian pris-died as a result of torture in Syrian pris-ons is on the rise, the Action Group for ons is on the rise, the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria warned yesterday.Palestinians of Syria warned yesterday.According to the group, the bodies of According to the group, the bodies of 18 Palestinians from Yarmouk refugee 18 Palestinians from Yarmouk refugee camp were identified mostly using leaked camp were identified mostly using leaked photos.photos.The pictures show dozens of bodies of The pictures show dozens of bodies of the captives who were tortured to death the captives who were tortured to death in Syrian jails.in Syrian jails.The group announced earlier that it had The group announced earlier that it had documented the killing of nearly 315 Pal-documented the killing of nearly 315 Pal-estinian refugees under torture in Syrian estinian refugees under torture in Syrian prisons.prisons.17 March 2015 Source: MEMO17 March 2015 Source: MEMO

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Displaced by Israel, Palestinians make homes in caves

Scores of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have made homes in caves on the out-skirts of Al-Khalil (Hebron) because the Israeli occupation authorities continue to prevent them from building homes on territories earmarked for illegal settlements for Jews. Noaman Hama-mda, 57, told Anadolu that he and his fellow Pal-estinians in this predicament have tried to build homes with bricks and cement, but the Israelis demolish the structures on the grounds that they have been built without a permit. It is very rare for Palestinians to be given a building permit by the occupation authorities.

Hamamda and his 13-member family currently live in a cave covering around 30 square metres; they have no basic amenities. Nevertheless, he and other Palestinians in the area say that they would rather suffer such harsh living conditions in the caves than abandon their ancestral land to Israeli settlement projects.

“The occupation keeps trying to evict us,” said Hamamda while his wife Rasmiya prepared tea with primitive utensils, “but we refuse to give up the land. Life is hard for us here, but you get used to it.”

The family’s cave is split into three sections: one for sleeping, another for storing grain; and a third for receiving guests. Outside the cave is a wood oven that Rasmiya uses for cooking and baking bread. “We live a primitive life, but we endure it for the sake of protecting our land,” she said.

Hamamda’s is one of about 15 Palestinian fami-lies living in caves in Al-Khalil’s mountainous Al-Mafqara village, one of a cluster of Palestinian villages nestled between five affluent illegal set-tlements reserved for Jews and built by Israel on confiscated Palestinian land. Israeli troops have

entered the area in force repeatedly in recent years to demolish structures built by Palestinian residents.

The most recent raid by Israeli forces on Al-Mafqara was in 2013, when army bulldozers destroyed an electricity generator that had pro-vided residents with power for a few hours each night. During the same raid, the Israelis also lev-elled a local mosque.

“I can’t watch television any more because Is-rael destroyed the electricity generator,” said 11-year-old Adam, Hamamda’s youngest son. He and his friends in Al-Mafqara must walk three kilometres every day to reach their school in a nearby town. “When I come back from school, I either tend to the cattle or play with my friends,” he added.

The boys also suffer from assaults by Jewish settlers. “Sometimes they chase us. If they catch us, they beat us,” said Adam.

The ill-fated villages fall within so-called “Area C”, which accounts for nearly two thirds of the West Bank’s total territory and remains under “full Is-raeli security and civilian control” as per the US-sponsored Oslo Accords. Signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1993 and 1995, the agreement divided the West Bank into Areas A, B and C. Typically, Israel prevents Palestin-ians in Area C from erecting structures on the

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“Israel” arrests 14 children in JerusalemIsraeli forces yesterday morning arrested seven Palestinian children in the Silwan neighbourhood of Jerusalem, pls48.net reported.

Pls48.net revealed the names of six of the minors: Baker Owis, 16, Nour Al-Zaghal, 17, Wael Salaymeh, 16, Karim Mustafa, 15, Yousef and Shaker Mustafa, both 16.

The website said Israeli forces stormed Silwan, broke into the children’s houses, inspected them, before taking the minors to interrogation centres.

The children were to appear at the Mag-istrates Court in Jerusalem yesterday in order for their detention to be extended.

grounds that the land falls under “Israeli administration”.

“Scores of Palestinian families in Al-Mafqara and surrounding areas live without basic facilities like water and electricity and have to use animals for transport,” Rateb Al-Jobour, coordinator of Al-Khalil’s popular resistance committees, told Anadolu. “The [Israeli] occupation is trying relentlessly to force residents from the land so that it can be used for expanding settlements,” he pointed out.

According to Al-Jobour, some 50,000 square kilometres of land in Al-Khalil are threatened with confiscation by Israel for building additional settlement units or military training camps. He said that Jewish settlers living near the villages routinely assault Palestinian residents. “Settlers frequently attack women and children from the villages,” he added. “They also routinely cut down trees and poison cattle.”

Two months ago, Peace Now, a left-leaning Israeli NGO, said that the Israeli government had is-sued tenders for 450 new settlement units to be built in the occupied West Bank. International law considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be occupied territories captured by Israel in 1967; all Jewish settlement building on such land is illegal. Palestinian negotiators insist that Israeli settle-ment building must stop before the stalled peace talks can resume.Source: MEMO

Israeli forces also arrested seven minors from Al-Issawiya and Ras Al-Amud.17 March 2015 Source: MEMO

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Israel’s next chapter awaits the fallout from a contentious election unrivaled in that country’s history, say Stanford faculty experts.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party won a narrow victory this week over its principal rival, the center-left Zionist Union. The next step is for Netanyahu to form a coalition government af-ter an election characterized by heated rhetoric and issues of ex-istential importance to Israel.

Russell Berman, a Stanford pro-fessor of German studies and of comparative literature, said that Netanyahu’s nearly single-mind-ed focus on security issues won

Israeli election results reflect deep divisions in that society

Israeli insider

him votes that would have other-wise gone to smaller right-wing parties.

“The conservative political spec-trum, in total, fared less well than it did in the previous election, al-though Likud now emerges as the uncontested leader of that camp,” said Berman.

He said the center-left spectrum suffered from candidates without charisma as well as a split among its multiple parties: “Beyond this partisan political arithmetic, it is clear that security concerns were the key to the election and Netan-yahu articulated them more effec-tively than his competition.”

As for Israel’s stance against Iran’s nuclear program, Berman said that the real issue is not Isra-el’s stance but America’s strategy in the Middle East.

“The consistent U.S. policy of re-ducing its footprint throughout the region has caused regional ac-tors to begin to behave differently with greater attention to their own security. The real question is whether giving up on Pax Ameri-cana will also mean giving up on Pax,” said Berman, the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spo-gli Institute for International Stud-

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ies.

He explained that during the Cold War, some Europeans doubted the credibility of the American nuclear shield, asking whether the United States would risk nuclear war with Russia in order to defend West Germany. Recent events in Ukraine have revived these con-cerns in the Baltic states and Po-land, he added.

“This lesson is not lost in Israel, as Iran acquires enrichment capacity, all the while expanding its ballistic missile capacity,” he said.

Berman believes the Israeli elec-tions have had no impact on the possible reality of a nuclear Iran. “If Isaac Herzog [from the Zionist Union] had won, the Iranian nu-clear enrichment would not have disappeared.”

Political, religious, social divisions

This was arguably the most con-tentious election in Israel’s history, said Reut Itzkovitch-Malka, a vis-iting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. A researcher from the Israel Institute, she studies po-litical representation, gender and politics, political parties and elec-tions.

“It means more of the same,” said Itzkovitch-Malka, referring to the Netanyahu victory. “He has no reason and no incentive to change his policy, especially in re-gard to Iran. This is an issue he feels very strongly about, as well as one which, most likely, bought him some of the electoral reve-nues he got.”

Depending on how the nuclear talks with Iran progress, she said, this could become a substantial

problem for Israel, one with seri-ous implications for the U.S.-Isra-el relationship.

The election exposed serious fault lines in Israeli society between the religious and the secular, and the right and the left, said Itzkovitch-Malka. She said Israel is com-posed of different social groups with distinct national, communal and religious elements.

“Group identities that are promi-nent in national politics reflect the rifts between Jewish and Arab citizens, between religious [Ortho-dox] and non-religious Jews; and between Ashkenazi Jews [whose origins are in Europe] and Mizrahi Jews [whose origins are in North Africa and Asia],” she said.

In the last two decades, Israeli so-ciety has become more fragment-ed than ever, said Itzkovitch-Mal-ka. Some of the recent campaign rhetoric reflected an “us or them” mentality, portraying the other side as demonic and destructive for Israeli society, she said. Rac-ism against Arabs was also used in the politicking, she said.

And so, domestic and economic issues have almost taken a back-seat to the focus on security and group-minded politics, said Itzko-vitch-Malka.

“To some extent, it is hard or even impossible to talk about a com-mon feeling or common mood, given the deep divisions in Israeli society,” she said. The country’s pressing concerns are the Pales-tinian issue, the growing cost of living, the deepening social cleav-ages and racism, she noted.

Stephen Krasner, Stanford’s Gra-

ham H. Stuart Professor of Inter-national Relations and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Insti-tute for International Studies, said that Netanyahu’s apparent rejec-tion of a two-state solution for now is a tactical mistake.

“Even if a two-state agreement is not likely, there is nothing else on offer for now, and Israel loses nothing by keeping it on the table but risks alienating international support if it takes it off the table,” he said.

Krasner said the outlines of a two-state solution have been on the table at least since the Camp David meetings at the end of the Clinton administration.

“The fundamental impediment to reaching this settlement has been spoilers, especially but not exclu-sively on the Palestinian side, and the involvement of external ac-tors,” he said.

Krasner said he believes it would not be hard for the Israelis and the Palestinians to come to an agreement if “somehow the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea could be iso-lated from the rest of the world.”

As it stands now, it is much hard-er to reach a two-state solution agreement since neither side is able to assess its relative power, he noted.

In regard to the Iranian nuclear issue, Krasner described it as a threat to the stability of the Middle East and the world: “The only du-rable solution is regime change in Iran but this can only come from within Iran. It may or may not hap-pen.”

Source: Stanford

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Israel destroyed 18 Arab houses in the Negev last week

The Israeli interior ministry yesterday announced that it destroyed 18 Arab houses in the Negev Desert last week, PLS48.net reported.

In a statement, the ministry said that it supervised the destruction of the houses in cooperation with the National Jewish Fund.

The ministry added that the destruction took place in the neighbourhoods of Kseefah, Um-Bteen, Al-Atrash and Sa’wah.

One of the houses in Kseefah, the ministry said, was destroyed by its owner after he received a demolition order from the ministry.

Palestinians and Arabs often destroy their homes themselves when they receive such orders because if they do not, they are forced to foot the bill for the destruction by the government.

This is part of Israel’s increased campaign to demolish Arab buildings in the Negev. The properties were destroyed under the pretext that they had no construction licences.

17 March 2015 Source: MEMO

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On Mother’s Day, 2 Palestinian mothers in Israeli prisons

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Center for Studies has is-sued a report to highlight Palestinian mothers who spent this year’s Mother’s Day in Israeli prisons.

There are currently 22 Pal-estinian women prisoners in Israeli custody, including two mothers, said Riyad al-Ashqar, spokesperson for the center.

Prisoner Samaher Sulei-man Ali Zein al-Din, 35, from Nablus is a mother of six, the youngest of whom, Naim, is only 4 years old. Zein al-Din was detained on May 28, 2014.

Meanwhile, prisoner Yas-min Taysir Abd al-Rahman Shaaban, 32, from Jenin is mother to four children. She was detained in November 2014, and is currently being held in the HaSharon jail and suffers from asthma.

Mother’s Day, which is cel-ebrated on different dates around the world, is marked on 22 Mar. in most Arabic nations.

According to al-Ashqar, the Zein al-Din family is espe-cially badly affected, as Sa-maher’s husband, Nader Zein al-Din, is also being held in an Israeli prison.

The Zein al-Dins’ children are currently living with their grandparents.

Female prisoners are often banned from family visitation and frequently face privacy violations through cameras installed by Israeli prison authori-ties in private quarters, in addition to late night searches, said Al-Ashqar.

Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association Addameer reported in 2014 that female prisoners are subjected to the same psychological and physical abuse as male counterparts under Israeli detention, and have reported beatings, insults, threats and sexual harassment.

Female prisoners are also routinely humiliated by intrusive body search-es, which often occur before and after court hearings, and during the night as punitive measures.

Israeli forces detained 112 Palestinian women and girls in 2014, marking a 70 percent increase from 2013.

Israeli forces routinely detain both Palestinian men and women through-out the West Bank, often on the pretext of perceived security threat, and Addameer estimates that 40 percent of the Palestinian male population has been arrested at some point.

As of February 2015 there were 6,200 political prisoners held in Israeli prisons in total, according to Addameer.

22 Mar 15 Source: Ma’an

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Sheikh Ahmed Yassin: The man and the struggle

On March 22nd, 2004, two Is-raeli warplanes targeted and attacked with several missiles a totally paralyzed elderly man pushed on a wheelchair. Minutes later, all Palestine and all Arab and Muslim countries erupted in protest and anger. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, 68, did not resist the occupation carry-ing guns or even stones. He was a man with a vision and a mis-sion. He was the mastermind of the new Palestinian generation that swore to be free. And for that, Israel sought to imprison him and kill him. The death of Sheikh Ahmed Yas-sin took his body away from his followers and supporters. But his mind and his ideas will live for-ever in their hearts and minds. Ahmad Yassin, founder of Hamas Movement, has had a distinctive political and spiritual place in the hearts of the Pales-tinian resistance, which made him one of the notable figures of the Palestinian national struggle of the past century.Early lifeAhmad Ismail Yassin was born in a historic village of ancient Ashkelon known as Al-Jorah in June, 1936. In that same year, the first armed revolution against the increasing Zionist influence in the Palestinian territories was launched. His father died when he was five.Ahmed Yassin witnessed the Arab defeat, also known as Na-kba, in 1948 when he was 12 years old. Talking about that time, Yassin said, “The Arab armies that came to fight Israel

unarmed us with the pretext that no force would be present other than the armies’. Consequently, our fate was attached to theirs, and we were defeated by their defeat. The Zionist gangs then started waging massacres and pogroms terrorizing the defense-less Palestinians. Had our arms been in our hands, the course of events would have been differ-ent.”Tough lifeYassin enrolled to Al-Jourah Primary School for the first five grades. Nonetheless, the Na-kba that befell Palestine and displaced its people forced him along with hundreds of thou-sands to evacuate. His family ended up in Gaza. In Gaza, ev-erything was different and the family suffered poverty, starva-tion, and deprivation, like most of the displaced families then. Ahmed Yassin used to go to the Egyptian military camps with his counterparts to collect the

leftovers of the soldiers’ food to feed their families. He quit school for a year, 1949-1950, to help his seven-member family’s livelihood by working in a small fast food restaurant in Gaza. He went back to school later on.InjuryWhen he was 16 years old, Yas-sin had an accident that changed his entire life. He had a fractured neck vertebra while he was play-ing with his counterparts in 1952. After forty-five days with a gyp-sum-splinted neck, he learned that he would spend the rest of his life paralyzed.Furthermore, he suffered from many diseases, including loss of vision in the right eye due to brutal Israeli investigation while he was in jail. He also suffered from a severe weakness in the left eye, a chronic inflammation of the ear, lungs diseases, and other gastrointestinal infections.Political activity

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Yassin finished high school in 1957/58 and managed to get a job despite the initial refusal due to his health condition. And most of his teaching income was spent helping his poor family.When he was 20, he took part in the demonstrations that broke out in Gaza to protest the tripar-tite aggression on Egypt in 1956. He showed rhetorical and orga-nizational capacities as he ac-tively joined his counterparts in refusing the international super-vision over Gaza and insisting on the importance of the return of the Egyptian administration.His oratorical skills began to de-velop distinctively and his name started to resonate among the scholars of Gaza. This invoked the Egyptian intelligence to ar-rest him in 1965 as part of its crack on Muslim Brotherhood. He remained in solitary confine-ment for around a month since he had no connection to the Brotherhood.His time in jail affected him as he described its impacts on him saying, “[My time in jail] deep-ened my hatred for oppression and emphasized that the legacy of any authority depends on its justice, and belief in the human right of living free.”The Israeli occupationYassin’s activism disturbed the Israeli occupation, so he was ar-rested in 1982 and charged with forming a military organization and possession of weapons. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but he was released in 1985 in a prisoners swap deal between the occupation authori-ties and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.Founding Hamas MovementIn 1987, Yassin agreed with a number of Islamic leaders, who adopted the ideology of

the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip, to establish an Is-lamic organization to resist the occupation until the liberation of Palestine. They agreed to name it “The Islamic Resistance Move-ment”, more commonly known by its acronym “Hamas”.He played a major role in the first Palestinian Intifada. Since then, he has been considered the spir-itual leader of the Movement.As the resistance escalated, the occupation started thinking of a way to terminate Yassin’s ac-tivities. In 1988, the occupation stormed and searched his house and threatened to exile him to Lebanon. As the resistance at-tack against Israeli occupation forces and its collaborators in-creased, the Israeli authorities arrested Sheikh Yassin along with hundreds of Hamas figures on May 18th, 1989.On October 16th, 1991, a mili-tary court issued a life-impris-onment and a 15-year sentence against him. In the indictment, he was charged with incitement to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers and of establishing Hamas and its military and security appara-tuses.Attempts to set him freeA group of Al-Qassam Brigades tried to set Shaikh Ahmed Yassin and other elderly prisoners free. Therefore, Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier near Jerusalem on December 13th, 1992. Al-Qassam offered Israel to swap the soldier with these prisoners, but Israel refused the offer and attacked the place where the soldier was kept killing him, the commander of the Israeli com-mando unit, and all members of the resistance group.In another swap deal, on Octo-ber 1st, 1997, between Jordan and Israel in the wake of a failed

assassination attempt of Khalid Mishaal, Head of Hamas Po-litical Bureau in Amman, Yassin was set free.House arrestAs Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah the mainstream faction of the PLO, carry contradictory strate-gies, the PA often tends to put pressure on Hamas. As one of those pressures, the PA im-posed house arrest on Sheikh Yassin more than once.MartyrdomOn September 6th, 2003, Yassin survived an Israeli assassination attempt as an Israeli helicopter targeted a flat where Ahmad Yassin and Ismail Haniyeh were meeting with off Hamas mem-bers. Yassin was slightly wound-ed in his right arm.At the break of dawn on Mon-day, March 22nd, 2004, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was brutally mur-dered by Israeli Apaches. The helicopters launched three rock-ets on his wheelchair while he was leaving Al-Mujamma Al-Is-lami Mosque in Al-Sabra neigh-borhood, Gaza. Seven of his attendants were also killed and two of his sons were injured in this attack that was commanded by Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minis-ter of Israel then.The struggle goes onSheikh Ahmed Yassin was one of those few and rare individuals who gave everything to Pales-tine. His path was clear as crys-tal: Palestine comes first. Sheikh Yassin always taught Palestin-ians that the killing of leaders should never stop the struggle but ignite it. And nowadays, we have hundreds of thousands in Palestine following the steps of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

22 Mar 2015 Source: PIC

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Hamas calls for Palestinian reconciliation after Israel poll

Senior Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouq said in a statement.”Implementing the reconciliation agreement ,signed last year by both Hamas and Fatah, is the best way to respond to the Likud party’s electoral victory,” Unofficial results of Tuesday’s Knesset polls indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party had won 30 seats, while the center-left Zionist Union alliance had come in second with 24 seats.The Joint Arab List, meanwhile, a coalition of four Israeli-Arab parties, came in third with an unprecedented 14 seats.Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation deal almost one year ago aimed at ending seven years of division.That division had led to two rival seats of Palestinian govern-ment – one in Gaza and one in Ramallah– after Hamas routed pro-Fatah forces in 2007 and took control of the Gaza Strip.The Ramallah-based unity government, however, has yet to assume political responsibility for the blockaded Gaza Strip amid ongoing differences between the rival factions.

18 March 2015 Source: World Bulletin

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Official: Israeli soldiers uproot 300 olive trees near Nablus

Israeli forces on Wednesday evening uprooted 300 olive trees and destroyed more than 5,000 meters of stone barriers belonging to Palestinians in the village of Majdal Bani Fadil south of Nablus. Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that dozens of Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers raided the area in the evening.He said that the soldiers entered the Kfar Ataya area, located on the northern side of the village, and uprooted hundreds of trees. Daghlas told Ma’an that the trees belonged to villagers Maher Abd al-Raouf Khatib and Bashar Abdullah Ahmad.He said that they had been planted as part of an agricultural project in the area.Israeli authorities have apparently objected to the project and Daghlas said the matter was currently in court.Israel’s Civil Administration told Ma’an that there was no “uprooting,” but “rather a demolition was carried out against terraces which were built illegally without the necessary permits on state lands.”Majdal Bani Fadil is located on the eastern edge of the Nablus region, and is surrounded by areas under Israeli military control as well as Israeli settlements on all sides.

18 Mar 2015 Maan

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Wheelchair-bound Palestinian student teacher Ahmed al-Sawaferi, 25, gives a class at an elementary school in Gaza City, March 18, 2015. Al-Sawaferi, said that he lost both legs and his left arm in an Israeli air strike in 2008. Al-Sawaferi, a father of two children, is due to hold a B.A in Islamic studies after finishing his last university semester in June this year.

Ahmed al-Sawaferi gives a class at an elementary school in Gaza City, March 18, 2015.

Ahmed al-Sawaferi pushes himself at an elementary school in Gaza City.

Wheelchair bound in Gaza

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Ahmed teaches an elementary class in Gaza city.

Ahmed al-Sawaferi makes tea before leaving his house in Gaza City, March 18, 2015

Ahmed al-Sawaferi speaks with a student during the morning queue, March 18, 2015.

Source: World Bulletin

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What comes after the Israeli elections?

19 March 2015 The Israeli elections have been and gone, and the numbers at the polls indicate that the new government will be lead by Ben-jamin Netanyahu and the Right. In this sense, the current situa-tion as embodied by the stag-nant status quo will not change.In fact, the most that the new Is-raeli government can offer Pal-estinians in the form of change is lowering tax rates paid on im-ports in the hope of continuing security coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA). Is-rael knows that it can no longer freeze the PA’s funds should it want to secure its cooperation on matters of security; the cen-tral council agreed to halt its co-operative efforts with the Israeli government during their last meeting. Many senior Israeli of-ficials have warned of the dan-gers of withholding Palestinian funds out of fear that the current PA would collapse and a new anti-Israeli authority would take its place.The second possibility is that the “Zionist camp” will succeed in forming a coalition with other parties, including right-wing reli-gious parties, to form a new gov-ernment. What will then happen is that the government will stop its freeze on Palestinian funds and perhaps will also conduct a partial settlement freeze as

Articles & Analyses

a prelude to the resumption of negotiations and an attempt to halt any unilateral decisions taking by the PA in the interna-tional arena. This is especially important when considering the possible lawsuits facing Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC) with respect to crimes perpetrated by Israeli forces during their aggression on the Gaza strip last summer.The third possibility facing the Israeli government is is that of forming a national unity govern-ment that would include all par-ties; however, this government would be politically paralysed and would not achieve much in terms of change and innova-tion. The most they could agree upon is to release frozen Pales-tinian assets for the sake of pre-empting any dangerous unilat-eral steps from the Palestinian side.The question that seems to be of prominent importance follow-ing the Israeli election results, and has been on the minds of political circles in Washington, New York and other American cities that I have been visiting, is: Will the international commu-nity be able to force both sides to resume the negotiation pro-cess and reach a settlement in which Israel agrees to withdraw its forces based on 1967 bor-ders? Many still believe that this

is the only solution that would allow Israel to retain its sense of security while also solving the Palestinian refugee issue.The talk here in the US, espe-cially in Palestinian and Arab circles, revolves around ques-tions regarding whether or not Barack Obama’s administration is daring enough to take the initiative at the end of the sec-ond period of his presidency, as most American presidents be-fore him did. Many are eager to see what Obama will do, espe-cially in light of certain laws re-stricting him, as is the case with the Iranian issue. Yet, the presi-dent has broad powers with re-spect to US foreign policy and many are curious to see what will happen in light of the stress experienced by US-Israeli rela-tions in recent years. This is in light of the recent deterioration

Dr Hani Al-Masri

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of personal relations between Obama and Netanyahu, espe-cially following Netanyahu’s last visit and speech in Congress, which was done without the co-ordination and approval of the US administration.If the US decides to work with other great powers in the world, as it did in the Iranian, Ukrai-nian and even Syrian cases, then one could argue that the results of the Israeli elections are not all that significant, since the international community has the ability to pressure the Israeli government.It would, of course, be easier for the international community to impose their will on the Israeli government provided that the newly elected government is not too far to the Right; therefore, it is no secret at this point that the US, as well as many Euro-pean and Arab countries, would be keen to see Netanyahu’s government reach its downfall. Many influential figures within his party have mentioned that there are many external factors that have been working to influ-ence the outcome of these elec-tions.Many sources I have met with and spoken to indicate the presence of Russian, Chinese and European willingness, es-pecially French in this case, to impose a solution on the parties before the situation deteriorates on the Palestinian front. In fact, the harsh reality facing Palestin-ians has led to an international call for a just and peaceful solu-tion. Israeli-Palestinian relations have grown even tenser when considering Palestinian entry to

international organisations such as the ICC, as well as Pales-tinian efforts to hold Israel ac-countable for its illegal occupa-tion of Palestinian territories.No one truly believes that the US will join the international community in its efforts to put pressure on Israel or to work to find a suitable solution that would be imposed on both par-ties. Yet, many still agree that if the US does not act, it would be the final nail in the coffin of a 20-year peace process and the end of we have been calling the “two-state solution”.Many have considered the Obama administration’s ap-pointment of Robert Malley as the man in charge of the Middle East file an indicator that poten-tial changes might occur in US foreign policy. Malley is known to not be a member of the pro-Israeli camp in the US govern-ment per se; moreover, he has been open to integrating Hamas in the political process and has shown some flexibility on the is-sue at large.There will more than likely be an international movement calling for a solution to the conflict with the participation of the US; how-ever, there will be US and Eu-ropean pressure placed on the Palestinian side to make more concessions to ensure a higher chance of success. The nature of this conflict ensures that the US and Israel share common goals, and this is in part due to the fact that the Palestinian side is weak and disadvantaged due to the occupation and politically divided on the inside. The Pal-estinians are rendered weaker

there will be US and European

pressure placed on the Palestinian side to make more

concessions to ensure a higher

chance of success

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there is no significant difference between

the right-wing party in Israel and a coalition

within the Zionist camp; public opinion on the Israeli Right

is extremist and racist and represents

the overwhelming majority.

due to these circumstances and due to other factors such as the siege that has been imposed on Gaza.Therefore, it is necessary to give the utmost importance and attention to ending Palestinian national division and restor-ing unity. There needs to be a change in the old approach, or the implementation of a new ap-proach that does not allow for the resumption of negotiations. New approaches to resolving the conflict, whether they in-clude international and regional participation or not, could quick-ly work against the Palestinian people if international law and UN resolutions continue to be ignored. All parties involved in this must ensure that UN reso-lutions are implemented and not negotiated. More important-ly, humouring the idea of Israel withdrawing the occupation in accordance with 1967 borders and potential land swaps could open the gates of hell because these land swaps would grant Israel the opportunity to annex large areas of land that it has occupied for long periods of time, which would end the pos-sibility of creating a viable Pal-estinian state.There are many actors within Palestinian and regional pan-Arab circles who are placing their bets on the outcomes of the Israeli elections or the pos-sibility that the US administra-tion will become more proactive in the second half of Obama’s final term; this is a fatal mistake and a trap that we must not fall into again. Placing bets on the occupation will simply result in

nothing other than strengthen-ing, legitimising and continuing said occupation, and we cannot afford to do that with the pre-cious time that we have left.In a lecture I recently gave at Brown University, I said that there is no significant difference between the right-wing party in Israel and a coalition within the Zionist camp; public opinion on the Israeli Right is extrem-ist and racist and represents the overwhelming majority. It imposes on rival parties the need to compete with extreme ideologies to attract the highest number of votes. This reality ul-timately places a great deal of responsibility on us Palestinians to place pressure on Israel and make the occupation costly and ineffective.If we simply look at the political programme that was proposed by Herzog and Livni, we would see that their campaign is based entirely on the notion of security and the idea that Israel is an ex-clusively Jewish state. Herzog recently stated that he does not believe in an Israeli state estab-lished along 1967 borders, nor does he believe in the Palestin-ian Right of Return or in divid-ing Jerusalem. Days before the election, he also expressed that he does not believe that Israel has a partner for peace in the Palestinian people and that the future government will pay close attention to the Iranian issue as well as restoring US-Israeli rela-tions. Beware of the mirage and false promises of hope embod-ied by the Israeli elections.The views expressed in this arti-cle are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect PCOM’s editorial policy.

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Issue no 127

Documents

Transcript of Issue no 127