WHY I OPPOSE PALESTINE STATEHOOD BID

Standing in the breadline during Operation Cast Lead.

I have been using Sameh Habeeb’s work since I first found it during Operation Cast Lead. As a native Gazan, his photographs were among the best there were, his photo essays of the devastation, his captures of the children, his insights. No one captured the faces and emotions of the people, especially the children, on film better than he. It was very difficult to settle on just one photo to represent his work.  

Sameh has gained some prominence in Europe on speaking rounds of the situation in Palestine. Here Sameh writes about the bid and, like Ali Albuminah, (EI), sheds a clear-eyed view of the futility and outrageousness of this whole Palestinian bid for statehood. Once again, the general populace of Palestine is being manipulated by the twisting of their natural desire for freedom and autonomy. So many are kept in desperation and ignorance that manipulation is a snap for their undesired masters.

By Sameh Habeeb

Gaza Today

September 30, 2011

Not accidently, this is the third time we announce a Palestinian state. The first time to have a state announced was on September 1948. It was announced by the commons of Palestine government. The second time was in Algeria in 1987. And here we go, this September we announce it for the third time.

Many Palestinians are cheering up for the Palestinian Authority (PA) Bid. Many of them are well educated and even experts in their fields of law, politics and journalism. Yet, when it comes to the Bid, their knowledge and experience seems narrow. They get very passionate.

Indeed, we Palestinians are emotional always and this might be the reason.

Protests are taking place in the West Bank, where the Fatah movement as well as the PA is asking people to take it into streets. In fact, many are participating zealously. Certainly, the feeling is inexpressible when one gets an independence and freedom.

The prospect of it materializing on the ground will be a life-changing experience for all the Palestinians when, we all will be emancipated from the occupier’s oppression. However, this should not be done the way it has been within that Bid.

I simply oppose it because I was never asked what I want as a Palestinian.

I was marginalized like millions of Palestinians in the Diaspora and the refugee camps. The PA and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) do not have the mandate to take such a bid to the UN.

PLO created PA long time ago to self-administrate the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

However, PA pretends to represent all the Palestinians either in the occupied territories or in the Diaspora. PA and its leadership have been managing the political arena since Oslo.

People in the Palestinian territories made it clear in the elections in 2006 that they did not approve PA as their representative. PA is referred to as Fatah here.

Having said that, PLO is another story, it was the legitimate representative of the Palestinians but not anymore. I’m not adopting Hamas stance which calls on reforming the PLO. Rather, I’m suggesting my personal view based on facts.

PLO used to be the sole representative of all Palestinians when once; it had its own parliament called “Palestinian National Council”. During that period, refugees’ own voice was heard through their representatives from Chile in Latin America till the refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. It has been almost 16 years where the last elections of the PNC took place. Does not this put the PLO’s legitimately on the edge?

I think going to the UN without consulting the Palestinian People undermines the right of majority of Palestinians. The majority is being marginalized. It is apparent that a small group of people is monopolizing the Palestinian decision.

I clearly blame Fatah or call it the PLO or the PA, at the end they are all the same. I also, blame Hamas. Hamas was not clear on the Bid. Many of its senior officials supported the bid while others ignored it. Hamas has given the PA a cover to go for that Bid through the national unity deal signed in Egypt.

The nature of the Bid is really unclear to many people. But what is vivid here is that, Palestinians via PA are officially giving up on many of the principles of an entire nation. The bid adopts 1967 borders as the borders of that state. Why the PLO did not adopt other decisions to base its bid on?

The PA /PLO are saying that they are in huge battle with Israel and the US to pass this bid. If it is that case, why cannot the PA base that bid on partition resolution 181? Sadly, the PA is being pushed in the corner for that bid. No one has pushed it. It has pushed itself because of the endless rounds of failure negotiations which have lasted for years.

PA went to that Bid after realizing that Israel is never ready for peace. The bid step was hasty and not profoundly studied. Even, us, Palestinians we are not familiarized about that Bid. We don’t know its contents, ramifications or its merits if there is any!

Obviously, the bid if passed will create new facts. Palestinians will officially adopt two state solution. Facts on the ground will make it hard to implement it and create that state. Yet, the whole cause will be limited to a dispute on borders.

Israel will be asked to withdraw to these borders.

Yet, major issues like Right of Return, Jerusalem, Water and other issues will not be addressed.

The entire cause of a nation that has been ethnically cleansed will be an issue of a dispute between two people. Even, we will never see Israelis apologizing for us, same as the Germany did with the Jews.

Some experts consider the PA move as an intelligent plan to isolate Israel. They think the Bid will further seclude Israel after it has lost many key allies like Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia among other Arab regimes.

Other experts suggest that this Bid is a move from the PA to regain its lost popularity on the Palestinian street. Without a doubt, there are many explanations on the issue. But the key element here is that the Bid does not represent the whole Palestinian nation. No mandate has been granted to the PA who lacks the legitimacy given by people.

PA and its spokespersons are counting on that step to reach peace. Whilst, facts on the ground put forward solid harsh realities.

What will be the future of Israeli settlements on that state?

Will we have our own real independence from Israel?

Will Israel grant us sovereignty on that state?

Will I fly one day from London to Gaza airport easily without being scrutinized by Israel?

Will I visit the West Bank without any interrogation?

All these questions and others will be left for the PA to answer, if the deliberation on the Bid is ever allowed to materialize in UN in the presence of Israel and the supposed peace broker the United States.

By Sameh A. Habeeb

Founder of the Palestine Telegraph Newspaper

Photo by Sameh A. Habeeb

FORMER ENVOY: ISRAEL AT ALL-TIME LOW AT UN

May 16, 2011

By crescentandcross

 

LET THEM SHAKE IN THEIR BOOTS.   

MAY THEY FRET UNTIL THEY PAYOTS FALL OUT.

These creatures deserve to do more than fret but it is a good start.  What worries me is that they could easily instigate a war before Abbas speaks to the UN.  However, I also believe Hamas and the PLO are smart enough not to fall for Israeli baiting considering the stakes that they are working towards.

Professor Gabriela Shalev, left, Israel’s former UN ambassador, said the state’s current status at the United Nations is “at a record-breaking low”.

“This low began with Operation Cast Lead, and its end is anyone’s guess,” Shalev said, adding that the declaration of statehood was not the Palestinians’ aim but rather “a means to Israel’s final demise in the eyes of the world”.

MY goodness but these people are paranoid. “Israel’s final demise” would only be of value to the world if every other Talmudic Zionist Jew disappeared with it. 

The debate was launched by a number of professors who explained their views on recent regional developments. “Israel must be more active in the political arena as an initiator, rather than observing and saying, ‘All of these developments prove what we’ve been saying all along’,” Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Shimon Shamir said.

Dr. Dan Shiftan, of Haifa University, rejected hopes of reaching an accord with the Palestinians due to impassable disagreements, the Hamas-Fatah truce deal, and the current US administration.

What accord? The one they have not wanted all along during the years of “peace talks”? Obama is in their sweaty palms already so ….

He suggested withdrawing from areas in the West Bank which Israel plans to relinquish in any future deal in order to “buy time in the international arena”.

Among those participating in the debate are former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate Major General Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, and former Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Uzi Dayan.

The declaration is scheduled to be made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly in September. Many Israeli officials fear it will further exacerbate tension in the West Bank, but others say it will likely have little effect on the ground.

MAYBE GAZA SHOULD PADDLE ITS OWN CANOE

February 16, 2011

By Stuart Littlewood

Sabbah Report

www.sabbah.biz

So Hamas is not coming out to play at the elections the Palestinian Authority (PA) wants to hold before September.

And who can blame it? Last time, I hear, President Mahmoud Abbas and his gruesome crew wouldn't allow Hamas to contest the elections under its own party name ~ and they still lost, went into a sulk, turned quisling and deeply shamed the Palestinian people.

Ever since, the Fatah-dominated PA has worked hand-in-glove with Israel and deployed its Western-funded thugs to prevent Hamas from "developing" the West Bank electorally.

Hamas says it is not playing ball because elections will reinforce Palestine's internal divisions. In any case, Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have no legitimate authority to organize and supervise such elections and Hamas will not give them recognition or cover to do so.

As usual, Abbas has things back to front. Resistance factions are surely right in insisting on unity first. The continuing political fragmentation and the physical separation of the two territories have led to serious violations of the conditions that must prevail for genuinely free and fair elections to take place.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has just issued a position statement, which includes the following:

Any presidential, legislative or local elections require certain conditions necessary for the organization of fair and transparent elections that reflect the will of voters. These conditions most notably include the upholding of public freedoms, including the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to peaceful assembly and the freedom of association; the release of all political prisoners; the lifting of prohibitions imposed on political activities (Hamas activities in the West Bank and Fatah activities in the Gaza Strip); as well as permission for all print, audio and visual media institutions to operate freely.

PCHR points to the serious and unprecedented deterioration of public freedoms and the ongoing violations of Palestinians' human rights in PNA [Palestinian National Authority ~ also known as Palestinian Authority, or PA] territories. According to PCHR monitoring and investigations, the vast majority of intra-Palestinian human rights violations were motivated by the political fragmentation.

This shows just how toxic the Abbas regime's rule has been to Palestinian prospects. Obviously there's a lot of behind-scenes work to do before Palestinians can go to the polls.

MIND THE GAP!

Let's face it: the clowns who drew up ~ and agreed ~ the boundaries for Partition in 1947 must have been bribed, or stoned out of their minds, to propose an Arab state with two non-contiguous territories and one of them landlocked.

Palestinians are nearly always denied permission to travel between them. But in October 1999 Israel and the PA signed an agreement for a road across the 28-mile gap between the Gaza Strip and the landlocked West Bank. The Israelis said it would open "in a week or two", but they'd control permits for the corridor and monitor the traffic.

To take advantage of this "safe passage" running from the Erez Crossing to Tarkumiyeh, near Hebron, Palestinians would have to apply for permits in advance, a process that could take up to five days. Travel would be restricted to daytime, the last vehicle leaving the corridor by 5pm.

Ehud Barak, then Israel's prime minister, told the Knesset that the land route was only temporary and he hoped to build a flyover linking the Palestinian zones.

Of course, like everything the Israelis control, the corridor wasn't going to work without maximum humiliation and aggravation for Palestinians, but the diplomatic dummies in the West hailed it as evidence of a new spirit of co-operation in the Middle East peace process.

In 2007 the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs said:

"There is… no reason to believe that a Palestinian State, lacking a territorial link between the West Bank and Gaza, will not be viable, where 'viable' is understood as capable of independent existence."

It cited several other examples where states comprise non-contiguous territories, such as East and West Timor, and Argentina. Of course, these all have direct links by sea. Gaza and the West Bank haven't.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), in January 2006, came up with a proposal for an air corridor based on the 1944 Chicago Convention. As a matter of principle, according to the convention, states are obliged to allow access to their airspace for the purpose of transit to the aircraft of other contracting states and, subject to certain provisions (reasons of public safety, national security or military necessity), are prevented from discriminating against such aircraft on the grounds of their nationality. The ability of a state to prevent the civil aircraft of other states from using the designated airways within its sovereign airspace is strictly limited. In practice, however, it may be difficult to enforce the basic right of flight over another state's airspace.

The convention establishes the responsibilities and obligations of contracting states to provide for the free movement of international air transport services.

"In terms of the right of passage for foreign aircraft through Israeli airspace," says the CAA, "the transit agreement as read with the convention itself, is of critical importance. Israel is a signatory to both the convention and the transit agreement and therefore bound by the provisions of those documents."

The CAA also points to the provisions of the  Geneva Convention on the High Seas 1958 and in particular Article 3 (now largely superseded by the  UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, Article 125), which recognizes the right of states with no sea-coast to have access to the sea.

To that end the signatory states situated between the sea and states having no sea-coast shall, by common agreement with the latter and in conformity with existing international conventions, accord to that state, on the basis of reciprocity, free transit through their territory.

To the extent that a part of the future state of Palestine, namely the West Bank, will have no sea-coast, then the provisions of the conventions might be considered applicable to the future relationship between Palestine and Israel, even though the latter is not yet a signatory…

The previous year, in June 2005, Israel's then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had authorized the PA to prepare Gaza airport for reopening and announced that Israel would transfer control of Bethlehem and Qalqilyah.

This was followed by a declaration by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the United States was

"committed to connectivity between Gaza and the West Bank" and to the "freedom of movement for the Palestinian people".

The CAA's proposal included a number of options, all of which assumed that Palestine will eventually sign the Chicago Convention and be entitled to all rights and privileges that flow from it, including the basic rights of access to the airspace of the other contracting states.

It suggested that, when negotiating with Israel, the Palestinians seek an agreement for a contiguous vertical dimension to the territorial corridor to enable access by very light aircraft and/or helicopters for monitoring the traffic using it and for the purposes of search and rescue, medical or casualty evacuation and emergency control and recovery. This vertical dimension could be limited to 1,000 feet in height and a maximum of one to two nautical miles in width, sufficient for flights under Visual Flight Rules only.

The Palestinians should also seek agreement for an air corridor between Gaza International Airport and the West Bank (possibly via the Reporting Point of Beer-Sheba). This could be restricted to between 5,000 and 10,000 feet in height and up to 10 miles in width within Israeli airspace.

WHAT IF…

Pigs may fly before any of this happens. And nobody is going to put themselves in a position (again) where Israel can suddenly throw a security wobbly and switch off a whole nation's right to movement and trade, and bring about economic ruination.

And can Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank ever become lovingly reunited? Probably not without a Cairo-style revolution and UN-guaranteed land and air corridors.

So what if Hamas decided that a two-state Holy Land is simply not workable, and that their best bet is to develop the Gaza Strip as an independent coastal enclave as soon as some degree of border normalization is established? All they need do is sit back, smile more, do whatever is needed to boost their appeal, wait for the blockade to be lifted and go it alone, trading with the rest of the world via land (through liberated Egypt), sea and air.

If left to their own devices they would surely prosper.

But what happens to the landlocked West Bank?

Maybe the single state solution comes a step closer.

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

PALESTINE: A COLD-BLOODED EXECUTION

By Kawther Salam 

Jan 9th, 2011

Palestine Think Tank

Troops of the Israeli occupation war criminals Lt. Col. Guy Hazut, (סא"ל גיא חזות), Major General Avi Mizrahi, (אלוף אבי מזרחי), Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, (תא"ל. תא"ל אלון ניצן), and Brig. Gen. Yoav “Polly” Mordechai (אלוף יואב (פולי) מרדכי), murdered in cold blood the elderly Palestinian Omar Salim al-Qawasmi, 66, at dawn of last Friday. 

They smashed his head to pieces while he was sleeping in bed in his house at Haret Al- Sheikh in the center of Hebron. Lt. Col. Hazut, the so-called military brigadier of the IDF in Hebron was with his bloodthirsty death squads when they murdered Al-Qawasmi. This war crime was perpetrated during the raid on the house of Al-Qawasmi where a political leader, one of six Palestinians who had been released from the PA jail the day before, rented an apartment in the first floor of the victim’s house.

From left: Lt. Col. Guy Hazut, Major General Avi Mizrahi, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, and Brig. Gen. Yoav “Polly” Mordechai.

Sobheye al- Qawasme's, the victim's wife, said that she did not know how the IDF soldiers broke into their home. “I was praying at dawn when that the IDF soldiers broke into our house. I don’t know how they opened the door. Suddenly I saw the soldiers closing my mouth and pointing their guns to my head. I was shocked. I asked them, “What are you doing?” They ordered me to shut up and took me to another room under threats of shooting me in head. My paralyzed child was also in this room and very frightened”.

“I saw many soldiers break into the room where my husband was sleeping. I heard bombs and several shots inside the room. When the occupation soldiers left, I went to the room, I saw that the head of my husband was broken and smashed into several pieces, his brain was out, and his blood was spilled in bed. He was swimming in a pool of blood.”

 Omar Salim al-Qawasmi, 66, a victim of the commonaders seen in the picture above.

During the IDF raid, they arrested the neighbor of Al-Qawasmeh, Wael Mahmoud Said al-Bitar, a Palestinian activist who was one of six political prisoners released by the Palestinian jailers on the previous day. Al- Bitar lives with his family in a rented apartment in the first floor of the same house of Al-Qawasme.

Security Coordination and a Cold-blooded Execution

Five of the political activists had been jailed at the Jericho prison during so-called “security” coordination between the traitors of the PA and the occupation after some jewish colonists were killed in September 2010 near Bni Neam village near Hebron. 

The prisoners were tortured and denied family visits. They went on hunger strike for over 45 days, demanding to be moved to Hebron so that their families could visit them. 

The Palestinian media was censored by the PA and did not report about the hunger strike and the deteriorated health of the prisoners.

Finally, a campaign of spying between the Palestinian security and the Israeli occupation, in which the PA decided to release the political activists (a trick) so that the IDF war criminals could proceed to arrest or execute them. During the campaign between the Israeli war criminals and their friends, PA traitors, the prisoner’s interrogation files were submitted to the Israeli occupation. On last Thursday the Palestinian authority implemented the first part of their deceptive campaign and released the prisoners.

The dirty mission was implemented by the PA, whose officials who stated on Thursday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had ordered the release of the six prisoners after direct appeal from the Emir of Qatar and because the president wanted to end this issue of the political prisoners once and for ever.

The Palestinian “security” organization at jail forced those prisoners who were released and their families to sign a pledge according to which they bear responsibility for their own safety after their release.

This dirty act of treachery between the PA and the colonial israeli zionist occupation, President Mahmoud Abbas and his traitors used the arrest of the activists who were released and then arrested by the Israel as a justification to keep three thousand more political activists in jail, among then teachers, engineers, doctors, professors, youths and elderly. The PA in all seriousness claims that the jailing of political activists is some kind of “protection” from the Israeli occupation.

Hamas accuses the PA of jailing and torturing 3000 of its elements at its prisons, which previously were jails of the occupation.

Sobheye al- Qawasme's, the victim's wife is shocked in her bed room.

It must also be noted that the Committee of the Palestinian Prisoners Relatives, a group of relatives of the abductees in the prisons of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied territories in the West Bank, released a statement accusing Mr. Majed Faraj, chief of the General Intelligence of the Palestinian Authority, which is under the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, of calling the wives of the prisoners to his office and abusing them sexually and extorting sexual favors from them in exchange of promises to release their husbands or commuting the sentences issued against them by military courts, or for permission to visit the husband.

I was direct witness of one such case and I know that it is usual procedure by PA police or jail officers to extort sexual favors from relatives of prisoners, especially if the women are young and beautiful.

On the other hand, Fatah accuses Hamas of arresting its political elements in the Gaza. Fatah issued a statement warning of "the risk of death threats” to the lives of its militant activists who went on hunger strike in centers of torture of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Fatah appealed in a statement issued in the second of this month for the intervention of Palestinian national groups, personalities, independent Palestinians, and human rights and international organizations to put an end to the repressive measures against the political activists in the centers of torture belong to Hamas and asked them to work to release them all.

Fatah stated that six of its activists had entered a hunger strike since three days, claiming that the prisoners already suffered poor and deteriorated health conditions as a result of torture and the daily violations of their rights at the centers of torture affiliated to Hamas.

Fatah stated that "Hamas" is fully responsible for the lives of their detainees. Fatah added that the detainees fall under the risk of “double death”, as a result their deteriorated health due to torture and the continued hunger strike, in addition of leaving them held in places which could be bombed at anytime by the Israeli occupation.

It is truly disgusting to see to what level the PA has learned the arts of whining and lying from their jewish masters. It is disgusting to see the abject levels of betrayal of these brown-nosers who have no compunction in setting up a situation where it people get murdered. With the murder of Omar Al-Qawasmeh by Hazut and his henchmen, it has become clear that the PA has become more jewish than the jews, more zionist than their zionist masters, and equally devoid of humanity and honor. 

It is equally disgusting to see Hamas jailing resistance people just because they are not under their control, dirtying upright citizens with accusations of collaborating with israel, torturing them, breaking their legs or murdering them, only because they walk under different colours.

Kawther Salam is a Palestinian journalist. She had a career of over 20 years working for various newspapers and TV stations in Palestine. She forced to live in the Exile in Vienna since 2002.