Nasheman

India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English

You are here: Home / Archives for Palestine

EU court orders Hamas removed from terror list

by

Court delays implementing the ruling to allow appeals, drawing ire from Israeli PM Netanyahu and praise from Hamas as a ‘human rights’ victory.

eu-hamas

by Barak Ravid, Haaretz

The General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg accepted the petition by Hamas in which it sought to have itself removed from the EU’s list of terrorist organizations.

The court postponed implementing the ruling for three months to allow for the EU commission or one of the EU’s 28 member states to petition the decision, which drew praise from Hamas and condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The hearing in the European court was technical and procedural, and did not stem from a change in the EU’s position regarding Hamas.

Although Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem played down the importance of the EU decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked it vociferously.

Netanyahu said Israel is not satisfied with EU explanations that removing Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations is solely a technical matter.

“The burden of proof is upon the European Union, and we expect them to immediately put Hamas back on the list, as anyone understand that it is an inseparable part of it,” said Netanyahu. “Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization, which states in its charter that its goal is to destroy Israel. We will continue to fight in with determination and strength so that it will never achieve its goal.”

A senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, tweeted that the court decision is “a legal victory for Palestinian rights.” According to the Twitter post, the decision rights an injustice done to the Hamas movement, “which is a national liberation movement.”

The Palestinian terrorist group asserted in its petition that the decision to put it on the EU terror list was carried out without giving it an opportunity for a hearing and without sufficient evidence being presented. The European court accepted the petition based on the precedent of a similar case of the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.

The court ruled in its decision that most of the evidence used to put Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations were from open sources – mainly press publications. The court made it clear that the ruling does not say anything substantial about the status of Hamas or the character of the organization’s operations.

Likewise, the three-month postponement also means that Hamas assets within the EU will remain frozen as well as sanctions against its members. During this period EU institutions or member states will be able to appeal the ruling or make a new decision within the council of EU foreign ministers, which would define Hamas as a terror organization based on stronger evidence.

The EU ambassador in Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, met Wednesday with the director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, who expressed great disappointment from the EU court’s decision, and demanded the EU act swiftly to reclassify Hamas as a terrorist organization.

The ambassador made it clear in the meeting that there is no change in EU policy regarding recognizing Hamas as a terrorist organization, and that the EU intends to use all means to reinstate the group on the terrorist list. The ambassador also stressed that the court’s decision has no immediate validity, and that there will be no change regarding freezing Hamas funds in Europe.

The EU also issued a special statment in response to the court ruling.

“This legal ruling is clearly based on procedural grounds and it does not imply any assessment by the Court of the substantive reasons for the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organisation,” read the statement. “It is a legal ruling of a court, not a political decision taken by the EU governments. The EU continues to uphold the Quartet principles.”

The statement continued, “The EU institutions are studying carefully the ruling and will decide on the options open to them. They will, in due course, take appropriate remedial action, including any eventual appeal to the ruling. In case of an appeal the restrictive measures remain in place.”

Israel detains Palestinian student, child as house demolitions continue

by

Debris of a Palestinian building demolished by Israeli forces in annexed East Jerusalem on December 01, 2014. Anadolu / Salih Zeki Fazlıoğlu

Debris of a Palestinian building demolished by Israeli forces in annexed East Jerusalem on December 01, 2014. Anadolu / Salih Zeki Fazlıoğlu

by Al Akhbar

Israeli forces detained a 17-year-old student and an 11-year-old child in Jerusalem, witnesses told Ma’an news agency Wednesday, as Israeli demolition orders could leave 70 Palestinians homeless.

That same day, Israeli soldiers arrested a former Palestinian prisoner who had been previously been released as part of a prisoner swap deal.

According to witnesses, Israeli forces detained Dalia Murad Mohammed Qarawi, 17, while she was on her way home from school in annexed East Jerusalem.

Israeli forces claimed Qarawi sprayed “a substance” on a police vehicle and was thus taken for interrogation at an Israeli police station on Salah al-Din street.

Meanwhile, 11-year-old Baraa Issam Shahin was detained by Israeli forces on Ein al-Luza street in the Silwan neighborhood of annexed East Jerusalem and was taken to the Russian Compound detention center in West Jerusalem for interrogation.

It is still unclear why Shahin was detained.

Early December, Israeli forces detained two Palestinian children, 8 and 12, also in Silwan.

Unrest has gripped Jerusalem and the West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past five months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and burned a young Palestinian to death because of his ethnicity, and worsened by the deadly Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip in July and August.

In late November, executive director of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) Abdullah al-Zaghari said Israeli forces detained nine-month-old Balqis Ghawadra and two-year-old Baraa Ghawadra during a visit to see their jailed father. The two children were released the following day.

At least 600 Palestinian children have been arrested in annexed Jerusalem alone since last June.

According to a recent report by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC), nearly 40 percent of these children have been subjected to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities.

At least 300 minors are currently behind bars.

Around 95 percent of detained children were subjected to beatings and torture by Israeli security personnel while in detention, while many were forced to make confessions under duress and undergo unfair trials, said Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) committee on detainees.

More than 10,000 Palestinian minors in the occupied West Bank and annexed Jerusalem have been held by the Israeli army for varying periods since 2000, a PLO official said last month.

According to the UN children’s fund (UNICEF), over the past decade, Israel has detained “an average of two children each day.”

In its 2013 report, UNICEF added that Israel was the only country in the world where children were “systematically tried” in military courts and gave evidence of practices it said were “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.”

A report by Defense for Children International (DCI) published in May 2014 revealed that Israel jails 20 percent of Palestinian children it detains in solitary confinement.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces on Wednesday arrested Ibtisam al-Issawi, 46, during a raid on her home in the Jabal al-Mukkabir neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.

The head of a Palestinian committee dedicated to prisoners’ and detainees’ families, Amjad Abu Asab, told Ma’an that Israeli forces raided Issawi’s house before arresting her and taking her to the Russian Compound detention center.

Abu Asab added that Issawi was released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal after spending 10 years in Israeli jails, and that she is married and has six children.

Issawi is one of more than 70 former prisoners released in the 2011 exchange that have been re-detained by Israel since the summer.

The deal traded Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas fighters on the Gaza Strip border in 2006, for 1,027 Palestinians and Palestinian with Israeli citizenship being held in Israeli jails.

The detention and retrial of the released prisoners is a breach of the deal and could potentially have wide-reaching consequences for other freed detainees.

More than 6,500 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli jails.

On Wednesday, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said 21 Palestinian women, including three minors, are currently held in Israeli jails.

Israel threatens to demolish 62 percent of Silwan houses

Also in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Israeli forces delivered Wednesday demolition orders to 11 Palestinian houses, some as old as 30 years, saying they have been built “without permits.”

Fakhri Abu Diab, a member in the committee for the Defense of Silwan Lands and Estates, told Ma’an that at least 70 people will become homeless if the houses get demolished.

Abu Diab said that in the past few days more and more orders have been delivered, and even in some cases to houses that were built before the 1967 occupation of Jerusalem.

Moreover, Abu Diab accused the Israeli authorities of seeking to displace Palestinian residents in order to take over the neighborhood, adding that over 62 percent of houses in Silwan are under the threat of demolition.

So far in 2014, Israel has demolished more than 543 Palestinian structures and displaced at least 1,266 people, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

Local and international watchdogs have widely criticized Israel’s home demolition policy, saying that it contributes to a cycle of violence and merely inflicts collective punishment on family members.

Besides demolishing Palestinian properties, Israeli authorities have allowed Zionist settlers to take over Palestinian homes, have announced plans to build thousands of settlements strictly for Israeli settlers, and have generally looked the other way at rising violence by Zionist settlers against Palestinians.

According to Abu Diab, many Israeli settlers build houses without permits but none received demolition orders.

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

Jerusalem Palestinians also face discrimination in all aspects of life including housing, employment, and services, and although they live within territory Israel has unilaterally annexed, they lack citizenship rights and are instead classified only as “residents” whose permits can be revoked if they move away from the city for more than a few years.

Similarly, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank suffer from the demolition policy.

In May, the European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah urged Israel to halt home demolitions in Area C of the occupied West Bank, describing such actions as “forced transfer of population.”

Israeli authorities rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in the Israeli-occupied areas, including in Area C, which amounts to 80 percent of the total land area.

The World Bank estimated in 2013 that Israeli control over Area C costs the Palestinian economy around $3.4 billion annually, or more than one-third of the Palestinian Authority’s GDP.

According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, the Israeli authorities have demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian structures in the West Bank since 1967.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-infamous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

(Al-Akhbar, Ma’an)

U.S feels the heat on Palestine vote at UN

by

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Villa Taverna in Rome, Dec. 15, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Evan Vucci)

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Villa Taverna in Rome, Dec. 15, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Evan Vucci)

by Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: The floodgates have begun to open across Europe on recognition of Palestinian statehood. On Friday the Portuguese parliament became the latest European legislature to call on its government to back statehood, joining Sweden, Britain, Ireland, France and Spain.

In coming days similar moves are expected in Denmark and from the European Parliament. The Swiss government will join the fray too this week, inviting states that have signed the Fourth Geneva Convention to an extraordinary meeting to discuss human rights violations in the occupied territories. Israel has threatened retaliation.

But while Europe is tentatively finding a voice in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, silence reigns across the Atlantic. The White House appears paralysed, afraid to appear out of sync with world opinion but more afraid still of upsetting Israel and its powerful allies in the US Congress.

Now there is an additional complicating factor. The Israeli public, due to elect a new Israeli government in three months’ time, increasingly regards the US role as toxic. A poll this month found that 52 per cent viewed President Barack Obama’s diplomatic policy as “bad”, and 37 per cent thought he had a negative attitude towards their country – more than double the figure two years ago.

US Secretary of State John Kerry alluded to the White House’s difficulties this month when he addressed the Saban Forum, an annual gathering of US policy elites to discuss the Middle East. He promised that Washington would not interfere in Israel’s elections.

According to the Israeli media, he was responding to pressure from Tzipi Livni, sacked this month from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, triggering the forthcoming election, and opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog, of the centre-left Labor party.

The pair recently made a pact in an effort to oust Netanyahu. Their electoral success – improbable at the moment – offers the White House its best hope of an Israeli government that will at least pay lip service to a renewal of peace negotiations, which collapsed last April. They have warned, however, that any sign of backing from the Obama administration would be the kiss of death at the polls.

US officials would like to see Netanyahu gone, not least because he has been the biggest obstacle to reviving a peace process that for two decades successfully allayed international pressure to create a Palestinian state. But any visible strategy against Netanyahu is almost certain to backfire.

Washington’s difficulties are only underscored by the Palestinians’ threat to bring a draft resolution before the UN Security Council as soon as this week, demanding Israel’s withdrawal by late 2016 to the 1967 lines.

Given the current climate, the Palestinians are hopeful of winning the backing of European states, especially the three key ones in the Security Council – Britain, France and Germany – and thereby isolating the US. Arab foreign ministers met Kerry on Tuesday in an effort to persuade Washington not to exercise its veto.

The US, meanwhile, is desperately trying to postpone a vote, fearful that casting its veto might further discredit it in the eyes of the world while also suggesting to Israeli voters that Netanyahu has the White House in his pocket.

But indulging the Israeli right also has risks, bolstering it by default. That danger was driven home during another session of the Saban Forum, addressed by settler leader Naftali Bennett. He is currently riding high in the polls and will likely be the backbone of the next coalition government.

Bennett says clearly what Netanyahu only implies: that most of the West Bank should be annexed, with the Palestinians given demilitarised islands of territory that lack sovereignty. The model, called “autonomy”, is of the Palestinians ruling over a series of local councils.

The Washington audience was further shocked by Bennett’s disrespectful treatment of his interviewer, Martin Indyk, who served as Obama’s representative at the last round of peace talks. He accused Indyk of not living in the real world, dismissively calling him part of the “peace industry”.

Bennett’s goal, according to analysts, was to prove to Israeli voters that he is not afraid to stand up to the Americans.

Given its weakening hand – faced with an ever-more rightwing Israeli public and a more assertive European one – Washington is looking towards an unlikely saviour. The hawkish foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman used to be its bete noire, but he has been carefully recalibrating his image.

Unlike other candidates, he has been aggressively promoting a “peace plan”. The US has barely bothered examining its contents, which are only a little more generous than Bennett’s annexation option, and involve forcibly stripping hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Israel of their citizenship.

Lieberman, however, has usefully created the impression that he is a willing partner to a peace process. At the weekend he even suggested he might join a centre coalition with Livni and Herzog.

Lieberman is cleverly trying to occupy a middle ground with Israeli voters, demonstrating that he can placate the Americans, while offering a plan so unfair to the Palestinians that there is no danger voters will consider him part of the “peace industry”.

That may fit the electoral mood: a recent poll showed 63 per cent of Israelis favour peace negotiations, but 70 per cent think they are doomed to fail. The Israeli public, like Lieberman, understands that the Palestinians will never agree to the kind of subjugation they are being offered.

The Israeli election’s one certain outcome is that, whoever wins, the next coalition will, actively or passively, allow more of the same: a slow, creeping annexation of what is left of a possible Palestinian state, as the US and Europe bicker.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

A version of this article first appeared in The National, Abu Dhabi.

Palestine to submit UN resolution for ending Israeli occupation

by

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat (right), is due to meet US Secretary of State John Kerry within the coming days to discuss ending Israeli occupation. (AFP/File)

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat (right), is due to meet US Secretary of State John Kerry within the coming days to discuss ending Israeli occupation. (AFP/File)

by Ma’an News Agency

PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday that a resolution to end the Israeli occupation will be submitted to the UN Security Council “in the coming few hours, or maybe on Monday.”

Erekat told the official Palestinian radio station that he would meet US Secretary of State John Kerry in a European capital in the coming two days.

“We want a clear and specific resolution for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, resolving all the final status issues, releasing all detainees and refugees and labeling settlement activity illegal and should be stopped immediately, including in Jerusalem,” Erekat said.

Kerry left early Sunday for a series of meetings in Europe seeking to head off an end-of-year UN showdown over the Palestinian bid for statehood.

His first stop was to be Rome where he will meet separately with both Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Diplomats say negotiations on a UN resolution to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects are making little headway, with Europeans waiting for a US response to proposals.

Jordan last month circulated a draft Palestinian text to the Security Council setting November 2016 as a deadline for the end of the Israeli occupation.

But the text ran into opposition from the United States, which has veto power, and other countries that felt it lacked balance, diplomats said. It was never put to a vote.

France stepped in last month to try to cobble together along with Britain and Germany a resolution that would win consensus at the 15-member council.

And the Palestinians have said they would like a draft resolution to go to a vote before the end of the year.

The text would call for a return to negotiations with a view to achieving a two-state solution by which Israel and a Palestinian state would co-exist.

Negotiations have hit hurdles over whether to include a two-year deadline for talks on a final settlement to be completed.

France is also proposing to host an international conference to launch the new peace track.

Window of opportunity

Supporters of a UN resolution are now hoping to win US backing or at least ensure Washington will not oppose the measure — which would be the first text adopted by the council on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2009.

“There is a window of opportunity,” said a European diplomat. “There is a willingness from the Americans to consider options at the UN.”

Kerry led dogged efforts earlier this year to try to reach an Israeli Palestinian peace deal, but the bid collapsed amid bitter recriminations by both sides.

Relations between the US and Israel have been uneasy since, amid a series of spats and behind-the-scenes name-calling.

Kerry is due to meet Lavrov on Sunday, shortly after arriving in Rome. Talks with Netanyahu follow on Monday, after which the top US diplomat is expected to travel on within Europe although no stops have yet been announced.

Russia responded angrily on Saturday to news that US senators had passed a bill calling for fresh sanctions against Moscow and the supply of lethal military aid to Ukraine.

The eight-month conflict in Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian separatists has left at least 4,634 dead and 10,243 wounded, while displacing more than 1.1 million people, according to the United Nations.

Deputy Russian foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said however the main focus of the Rome meeting — the 17th between the two diplomats this year — would be the Middle East.

The talks come as European parliaments in Britain, France, Spain, Ireland and Portugal have asked their governments to recognize Palestinian statehood — a move that would bypass negotiations.

And the campaign for snap Israeli elections in March is also complicating the regional political landscape.

“There are a lot of different folks pushing in different directions out there, and the question is can we all pull in the same direction,” Kerry said Friday, when asked about his meeting with Netanyahu.

“We’re trying to figure out a way to help defuse the tensions and reduce the potential for more conflict, and we’re exploring various possibilities to that end.”

Ireland recognizes Palestine as a state as EU vote looms

by

A Palestinian protester holding her national flag faces Israeli soldiers during a demonstration on the highway between Jerusalem and Jericho on November 28, 2014, against the construction of Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley and against the plan to relocate Bedoiuns from the central West Bank area. AFP / Abbas Momani

A Palestinian protester holding her national flag faces Israeli soldiers during a demonstration on the highway between Jerusalem and Jericho on November 28, 2014, against the construction of Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley and against the plan to relocate Bedoiuns from the central West Bank area. AFP / Abbas Momani

by Al Akhbar

Irish lawmakers urged their government Wednesday to recognize Palestine as a state in a symbolic motion that sailed through parliament unopposed, the latest in a series of similar measures across Europe as the EU parliament holds a crucial vote on Palestine next week.

The Irish move came a day before the Danish parliament gears up to vote on Thursday to recognize Palestine as well.

The non-binding motion agreed by lawmakers in Dublin called on the government to “officially recognize the State of Palestine, on the basis of the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital, as established in UN resolutions.”

This would be “a further positive contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” it added.

The government is not bound to follow the motion but Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said Ireland supported early recognition of a Palestinian state “in principle.”

“We have always supported a viable two-state solution and will continue to support that in any manner and by any means,” Flanagan told parliament.

Despite being proposed by the opposition Sinn Fein party, the motion had cross-party support, dispensing the need for a vote. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who was refused entry to Gaza by Israel during a visit to the region last week, said the motion was about inspiring hope.

“We must stand with the Palestinian and Israeli citizens who want peace – who are taking risks for peace. The passing of this motion is an important contribution to this,” Adams said.

The motion also called on the Irish government to do everything it could internationally to secure “an inclusive and viable peace process.”

European politicians have become more active in pushing for a sovereign Palestine since the collapse of US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in April, and ensuing conflict in Gaza, where more than 2,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and on the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians were killed this summer.

“It’s been suggested that recognition now might help jump-start a stalemate process. This was the judgement made by Sweden and indeed it is the spirit of this evening’s motion,” Flanagan said.

The chairperson of the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Martin O’Quigley, welcomed the move.

“It’s very important, but just as important is for the Irish government to make Israel accountable for what has happened and what is happening in Palestine,” he told AFP.

The Israeli embassy in Dublin said however the motion was premature.

“A vote in favor of this motion, therefore, is a vote for Ireland, a neutral country, to intervene in a foreign conflict in favour of one national movement at the expense of another,” the Embassy said in a statement.

“That is not how peace is brought about.”

Denmark to debate Palestine recognition

Meanwhile, the Danish parliament will debate a motion calling for the recognition of Palestine as a state on Thursday.

Danish MP Holger K. Nielsen, one of the main drivers behind the initiative in Denmark, told Ma’an news agency that the first reading will take place Thursday before a potential vote in the second reading, which could take place in early 2015.

The motion was introduced by the Red-Green Alliance, the Socialist People’s Party (SPP), and Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit, three small left-wing parties. It calls on the government to recognize Palestine as a state within the 1967 borders

“I think there is strength now among European countries tired of Israel’s attitude to negotiations and it is therefore more important now to put pressure on Israel,” Nielsen, a member of the SPP, said.

Nielsen says it will be “difficult” to get a majority in the Danish parliament, which may even vote against it. But he thinks debates like these aim to raise public awareness and have notably changed national attitudes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Public opinion has changed (in Denmark) today compared to 10 years ago. Our aim is to change the situation so the Danish public understands the conflict.”

A former Danish adviser at the EU parliament told Ma’an that while the vote in Denmark won’t change the realities on the ground, it is a step in the right direction.

“The Danish vote is part of larger picture where a lot of Europeans are getting fed up with Israel’s rejectionism and continued settlement building. Parliaments in a lot of EU countries are reacting to this and putting Palestinian statehood to a vote out of concern for the two-state solution.”

According to PA estimations, around 135 countries have so far recognized the State of Palestine, although the number is disputed and several recognitions by what are now European Union member states date back to the Soviet era.

Ireland’s parliament is the fourth European assembly to call for the recognition of Palestinian statehood since October.

Sweden, who initiated the vote, has gone even further, officially recognizing Palestine as a state in a move that prompted Israel to recall its ambassador.

A week after Sweden’s decision, MPs in Britain voted 274 to 12 for a non-binding motion to “recognize the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution.”

On November 18, Spanish MPs backed a motion to recognize Palestine as a state following a final-status agreement, while on December 2, French MPs voted 339 to 151 in favor of a motion that invites Paris to recognize the state of Palestine “as an instrument to gain a definitive resolution of the conflict.”

Spain notably changed its wording on the day of the motion following an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue — from recognition as a way to encourage a “negotiated settlement” to recognition following an agreement.

Intense lobbying around EU vote

The Danish debate comes a week before the EU parliament is due to vote on recognizing Palestine as a state on December 17, a motion postponed on November4 27 following reportedly intense pressure by Israeli diplomats.

Spain’s significant rewording of its motion reflects the core split within the EU parliament: using unconditional recognition as a means to address the imbalance between both sides in the peace process, or recognition as a condition of the outcome of talks.

A staffer in the European parliament told Ma’an that the vote was extremely tight at the moment, with signs that there could be no majority for any text at all, a potentially damaging blow for the EU’s role as a serious global actor.

The PA has also notably been absent from lobbying parliament members on the vote, the staffer said, with Israeli civil society actors lobbying passionately in favor of recognition and Israeli diplomats and other actors lobbying intensely against parliamentarians recognizing Palestine.

Whatever the outcome of the vote next week, debate in the EU parliament has been extensive, the staffer added.

EU recognition of Palestine would do little to change the realities of occupation, the former Danish adviser told Ma’an, but it could be taken as a sign of future EU action if Israel continues to maintain the status quo.

New EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who took office in early November, has been extremely vocal on Palestine and made it a point of calling for a Palestinian state during a visit to Gaza, the first visit in her new position.

Mogherini’s statements together with real measures such as getting tougher on settlements, denying violent settlers access to the EU, and reviewing the extensive trade agreements with Israel could signal meaningful change if the EU recognition vote falls flat, the former adviser added.

Holger Nielsen, the Danish MP, agrees that the EU must use economic means and be stricter on trade policy to really influence the Israeli government’s position.

“It’s difficult, but you have to continue the discussion. Change is coming all the time. Maybe not tomorrow, but I’m sure the only way you can make things change is to maintain this kind of pressure.”

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In November 1988, Palestinian leaders led by Yasser Arafat declared the existence of a state of Palestine inside the 1967 borders and the state’s belief “in the settlement of international and regional disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the charter and resolutions of the United Nations.”

Heralded as a “historic compromise,” the move implied that Palestinians would agree to accept only 22 percent of historic Palestine, in exchange for peace with Israel. It is now believed that only 17 percent of historic Palestine is under Palestinian control following the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) this year set November 2016 as the deadline for ending the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and establishing a two-state solution.

It is worth noting that numerous pro-Palestine activists support a one-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians would be treated equally, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable. They also believe that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.

(AFP, Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

Palestinian minister dies after being assaulted by Israeli soldier

by

Ziad Abu Ein

Ramallah/Ma’an: The head of the Palestinian Authority committee against the separation wall and settlements died Wednesday after Israeli soldiers assaulted him in a village near Ramallah, committee sources said.

Ziad Abu Ein, 55, died after an Israeli soldier beat him on the chest with his helmet in the village of Turmsayya in the Ramallah district, the director of the committee’s information center, Jamil al-Barghouthi, told Ma’an.

Abu Ein also suffered severe tear gas inhalation as Israeli soldiers fired canisters in the area.

A Palestinian security source told AFP that Israeli forces beat Abu Ein with the butts of their rifles and their helmets during a protest march.

He lost consciousness and was taken to Ramallah Public Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Medical sources told Ma’an that Abu Ein lost consciousness and that his heart stopped after being beaten by Israeli soldiers and inhaling tear gas.

The Israeli army said in a statement that “approximately 200 rioters gathered in Turmus Ayya, near Ramallah. Forces halted the progress of the rioters into the civilian (Israeli settler outpost) community of Adei-Ad using riot dispersal means.”

It said it was “reviewing the circumstances of the participation of Ziad Abu Ein, and his later death.”

“The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav (Poli) Mordechai, and his Palestinian counterpart, Hussein Al-Sheikh, have agreed that an Israeli pathologist will join a delegation of pathologists from Jordan, for a joint examination of the circumstances of Ziad Abu Ein’s death.

“Additionally, a proposal has been made to the Palestinians to establish a joint investigation team to review the incident.”

A Ma’an reporter said Abu Ein was taking part in a tree-planting project in an area of the village threatened with confiscation.

Dozens of other activists were also taking part in the project.

President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that the attack on Abu Ein was a “barbaric action that cannot be ignored or accepted,” adding that actions would be taken to hold Israel accountable.

Abbas condemned all Israeli assaults on Palestinians.

Ziad Abu Ein was a member of the Fatah movement’s Revolutionary Council, and served as undersecretary to the minister of prisoner affairs before Abbas appointed him head of the committee against the separation wall and settlements.

Belgium may unilaterally recognize Palestine – report

by

Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

by RT

Four political parties that form Belgium’s government have reportedly agreed to recognize the Palestinian state, despite diplomatic pressure from Israel and its allies. The recognition will happen “at a moment deemed appropriate.”

Belgium could become the second European Union member to officially recognize the Palestinian state, reported Le Soir, French language daily Belgian newspaper.

Sweden was the first country to recognize the occupied state of Palestine this year.

Belgium’s coalition government allegedly drafted a motion regarding recognition of the Palestinian state earlier this week. The document that will be submitted to nation’s parliament for implementation bears no set date of recognition, though.

In late November Prime Minister Charles Michel favored Palestine recognition. “But the question is when is the right moment,” he added.

There should be a common position elaborated within the EU regarding the Palestinian state recognition, Michel stressed. Yet there is at least one European state – Germany – that has spoken against recognition of Palestine.

“From our point of view, a unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state would not move us forward on the way to a two-state solution,” Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said in November after meeting with Michel.

In October the British parliament voted in favor of a symbolic move to recognize Palestine as an official state, answering impassioned pleas by pro-Palestinian ministers and activists.

Irish lawmakers joined the initiative in November.

Spanish MPs have watered down outright calls for a Palestinian state after the ruling Socialist party passed a non-binding symbolic motion, though initial version urged the Madrid government to recognize Palestine.

The French parliament passed a symbolic motion on Palestine recognition on Tuesday, while the senate will vote on a similar non-binding motion on December 11. At the same time Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stressed that the government would only recognize Palestinian statehood after Palestine and Israel come to a solution in peace talks.

Israeli authorities have been warning other nations to withstand from recognizing Palestinian statehood in any way.

“Recognition of a Palestinian state by France would be a grave mistake,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem ahead of the French vote.

Simultaneously with the symbolic recognitions of the Palestinian state, Netanyahu’s cabinet voted in favor of anchoring in law the status of Israel as “the national homeland of the Jewish people,” which critics fear would discriminate the Arab population.

French MPs recognize Palestine as a state in non-binding vote

by

A Palestinian man holds a poster as he calls for France to vote for the recognition of a Palestinian State outside a French and German language training center in the West Bank city of Ramallah on December 2, 2014. AFP / Abbas Momani

A Palestinian man holds a poster as he calls for France to vote for the recognition of a Palestinian State outside a French and German language training center in the West Bank city of Ramallah on December 2, 2014. AFP / Abbas Momani

by Al Akhbar

French lawmakers voted on Tuesday in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state, a symbolic move that will not immediately affect France’s diplomatic stance but demonstrates growing European impatience with a stalled peace process.

The motion, which echoes similar votes in Britain, Spain and Ireland, received the backing of 339 lawmakers with 151 voting against.

While most developing countries recognize Palestine as a state, many Western European countries do not due to their ties with Israel and its main ally, the US.

But European countries have grown frustrated with Israel, which since the collapse of the latest US-sponsored talks in April has pressed on with building illegal settlements in annexed East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territory that is being considered for a Palestinian state under a two-state solution.

The seven-week Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip over the summer also elicited serious criticisms regarding the Zionist state’s use of force. More than 2,160 Palestinians were killed in the conflict, at least 70 percent of them civilians.

Palestinian leaders say negotiations have failed and they have no choice but to pursue independence unilaterally.

In October, Sweden became the biggest Western European country to recognize Palestine, and parliaments in Spain, Britain and Ireland have since held votes in which they backed non-binding resolutions in favor of recognition.

In an interview in Les Echos daily on Tuesday, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven defended the move.

“What is working so well in the current plan?” Lofven asked. “It’s time to do something different. We wanted to make the balance less uneven between the two parties.”

Israel has strongly opposed all such moves and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the French vote a “grave mistake.”

The motion, proposed by the ruling Socialists and backed by left-wing parties and some conservatives, asked the government to “use the recognition of a Palestinian state with the aim of resolving the conflict definitively.”

Speaking to parliament ahead of the vote, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the government would not be bound by the vote. However, he said the status quo was unacceptable and France would recognize an independent Palestine without a negotiated settlement if a final diplomatic push failed.

He backed a two-year timeframe to relaunch and conclude negotiations. Paris is working with Britain and Germany on a text that could be accelerated if a separate resolution drafted by Palestinians is put forward.

“If this final effort to reach a negotiated solution fails, then France will have to do what it takes by recognizing without delay the Palestinian state,” Fabius said.

The vote in Paris has raised domestic political pressure on the French government to be more active on the issue. A recent poll showed more than 60 percent of French people supported a Palestinian state.

France has the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in Europe and flare-ups in the Middle East aggravate tensions between the two communities.

Right-wing lawmakers have criticised the Socialist majority for backing Palestine recognition to win back support from Muslim voters after President Francois Hollande’s apparent support for Israel’s intervention in Gaza.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In November 1988, Palestinian leaders led by Yasser Arafat declared the existence of a state of Palestine inside the 1967 borders and the state’s belief “in the settlement of international and regional disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the charter and resolutions of the United Nations.”

Heralded as a “historic compromise,” the move implied that Palestinians would agree to accept only 22 percent of historic Palestine, in exchange for peace with Israel. It is now believed that only 17 percent of historic Palestine is under Palestinian control following the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) this year set November 2016 as the deadline for ending the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and establishing a two-state solution.

According to PA estimations, 134 countries have so far recognized the State of Palestine, although the number is disputed and several recognitions by what are now European Union member states date back to the Soviet era.

It is worth noting that numerous pro-Palestine activists support a one-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians would be treated equally, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable. They also believe that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

US sends 3,000 'Smart Bombs' to Israel that killed thousands in Gaza Strip this Summer: Report

by

A Palestinian child sits above the ruins of his ruined home, and looks at thousands of homes destroyed because of the war on Gaza. © 2014 Pacific Press

A Palestinian child sits above the ruins of his ruined home, and looks at thousands of homes destroyed because of the war on Gaza. © 2014 Pacific Press

by Gopi Chandra Kharel, IBT

The United States is arming Israel with 3,000 more of the similar ‘Smart bombs’ that killed more than 2,140 Palestinians and injured over 11,000 others this summer in one of the biggest Israeli onslaught at the Gaza Strip.

Although the Department of Defense website did not carry the news, the Press TV and a local news agency cited the department as announcing that it will supply the Israeli air force with those bombs, which are precision-guided munitions designed to achieve greater accuracy.

Since the exact date as well as the nature of the announcement remained unspecified, the news could not be independently verified.

However, the funding for the sale of those bombs will come from US military aid to Israel and will be paid until the end of November 2016, according to International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) which reported citing the US Department of Defence.

It can be noted that the United States provides Israel with about $8.5 million in military aid each day, while it gives nothing to the Palestinian side.

The cost of the latest deal is estimated to be around $82 million enabling the Israeli Air Force to receive thousands of G-DAM model bombs, news sources cited local Palestinian agency Al Ray as saying.

The United States support for Israel has largely been viewed as arbitrary and has prompted several demonstrations across the country. Obama administration has been accused of using US taxpaying money for more Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

The Israeli Air Force used similar smart bombs in the recent war against Hamas militants in Gaza Strip. While the casualties in the Palestinian sides were in thousands, the United States shrugged off the impact of the war as mere ‘colateral damage’ and said they had the right to protect the “Israeli’s right defend itself”.

While hundreds of innocent people including children lost their lives, the Israeli attacks destroyed thousands of buildings, including the only power plant of the territory and hit at least 223 schools in Gaza, including those run by the UN to protect the homeless.

Palestinian woman shot after stabbing attack

by

Bet Fajjar resident transferred to hospital after being shot for stabbing Israeli civilian in southern West bank.

West bank

by Al Jazeera

The Israeli army has shot and wounded a Palestinian woman after she stabbed an Israeli civilian near a Jewish settlement bloc in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, police said.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that the woman, said to be in her 20s and from Bethlehem, arrived at the Gush Etzion settlement bloc on Monday and stabbed the civilian with a knife, injuring him lightly.

“According to the police, the woman approached an Israeli soldier with the intention of stabbing him but was unable to do so. So she then used her knife to harm a passerby, an Israeli civilian, who was apparently only lightly injured,” Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh reported from Ramallah.

The Palestine Red Crescent told Al Jazeera that they saw the Palestinian woman after she was shot at the junction and that she was still alive at the time. However, Israeli authorities did not allow the Palestinian medical team to approach her.

Police released a statement saying that the Israeli civilian suffered minor injuries in the stabbing at the settlement bloc south of Bethlehem, and that the Palestinian woman was transferred to a hospital for further medical treatment.

The Gush Etzion junction is a business, commercial and tourism centre in the southern West Bank, which serves as the entry point to the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements.

KNOW US

GET INVOLVED

PROMOTE

Archives