It has been a week to remember. The Palestinians will mark May 4, 2011 as the day the division was laid to rest. In a ceremony in Cairo, the leaders of Fateh and Hamas came together to sign a reconciliation deal, which they both said would end the division forever. Other than President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas politburo head, Khaled Mashal and heads of Palestinian factions, several other high ranking people attended the ceremony including UN envoy Robert Serry and Amr Mousa, Arab League Secretary General. “We have turned the page of division forever,” Abbas said during his speech in which he also reiterated that Hamas and Fateh have much more in common than not. Abbas took the opportunity to lay out his political positions such as a rejection of violence and temporary borders. He said he also said the Palestinians would not accept any outside intervention and that a temporary government “would be born soon” until elections could be held.
On his part, Meshal was also very reconciliatory in his speech, saying that the two sides agreed on one common goal, which is a “free and independent state” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Jerusalem [Al Quds] as its capital. Meshal alluded to the “black page of division” in Palestine’s history, saying it was now behind us. He also stressed that the Palestinians’ only battle was with Israel.
While Palestinians everywhere were celebrating the long awaited reconciliation agreement between their rival parties, the international community was more wary in its comments. US State Department spokesman Mark Toner conveyed his government’s caution in accepting the newfound unity among Palestinians. On May 4, he said the unity agreement would have to be a means to advance peace with Israel. “It's important now that Palestinians ensure implementation of that agreement in a way that advances the prospects of peace rather than undermines them," Toner said. "We'll wait and see what this looks like in real and practical terms... We still don't know what, if any changes, there will be at the governmental level".
Meshal, on May 7 pointed to at least a few reassurances in this regard. According to the Wall Street Journal, Meshaal said Hamas would make all the decisions about its struggle against Israel, including if and when to use violence, in coordination with Fatah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, was quick to slam the deal, saying Hamas was looking only to destroy Israel. On May 5, while on a visit to Paris, Netanyahu said, “If [Palestinian] national unity is unity for peace, then we would be the first to support it. But if it's unity to move away from peace, pursue the battle for Israel's eradication, then obviously we oppose it and so should everyone else."
Meshaal was not impressed with the Israeli leader. "When we were divided Netanyahu did not give Abu Mazen [Abbas] or the Palestinian Authority anything and I am sure that after the unity he will give us nothing," the Hamas leader told AFP.
France is a particular battleground for Netanyahu, especially after Paris hinted at possible recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN this September. On May 3, French President Nicolas Sarkozy hinted in an interview that France could recognize an independent Palestinian state this year if peace talks with Israel did not resume by September.
"If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of recognition of a Palestinian state," Sarkozy said in an interview in France's L'Express magazine.
Netanyahu is trying to ensure that this doesn’t happen or at least that Israel gets the maximum number of concessions from the Palestinians as possible. “What I heard from President Sarkozy is that they [Palestinians] must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people," Netanyahu said during his Paris trip on May 5.
As part of its overall campaign against Palestinian unity, Israel announced on May 1 it would withhold tax revenues belonging to the Palestinians until it can ensure that the money would not be funneled to Hamas, described by it and the US as a “terrorist organization”.
On May 1, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the Israeli decision meant that the PA could not pay its employees’ salaries without the transferred tax funds in the amount of $105 million - or two-thirds of the PA’s revenues. Still, he said the Palestinians would not back down on reconciliation. “Threats ... will not deter us from concluding our reconciliation process,” he said. “It is our policy and we must work harder to end our divisions as soon as possible."
On May 5, as the funds remained frozen, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Netanyahu that Israel should not withhold the money from the Palestinian Authority.
"The Secretary-General ... noted that Palestinian unity is a process which is just beginning now, and thus, it would be best to assess it as it moves forward," read the UN press office statement following a telephone between Ban and Netanyahu. The statement added that Ban "also urged Israel not to stop transferring tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority."
The UN chief seemed more positive than other international authorities in terms of accepting Palestinian reconciliation. He said he hoped Israel would "make decisive moves towards a historic agreement with the Palestinians."
Meanwhile a European Commission statement on May 5 said EU funds were being accelerated at the request of Prime Minister Fayyad in order to meet urgent financial needs.
"It is important that access to essential public services remains uninterrupted and the right to social services is respected," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.
In another major development this week, US Navy SEALS stormed a Pakistani compound and shot dead Al Qaeda’s leader Osama Bin Laden on May 1. A day later, PA government spokesperson Ghassan Khatib said Bin Laden’s death was “good for the cause of peace worldwide.”
Hamas, however, was not as keen to hail the death of the United States’ number one wanted man. "While we disapprove of the methods of Al-Qaeda, particularly actions directed against innocent civilians, we are opposed to the United States or any other party having recourse to extrajudicial executions," Mash'al said, also on May 2.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities continued with their expansionist policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. On May 5, the Israeli army demolished homes and tents belonging to residents of Um Neer near Hebron while on May 3, Israel announced that 35 new housing units would be built in the Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo. Also on May 3, Jewish settlers set fire to prayer sites in Huwwara and broke into Nablus’ Joseph’s Tomb.
UN Resolution 1325
Date posted: February 03, 2021
By MIFTAH
Kerry talks peace while Israel bars UNESCO mission [May 19 - May 25]
Date posted: May 25, 2013
By MIFTAH
President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both met with US Secretary of State John Kerry this week in the latter’s fourth visit to the region since he assumed office.
After meeting with the two to ostensibly find ways to restart stalled negotiations between the two sides, Kerry urged on May 24 both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take "hard decisions" to revive the peace process.
"We're getting toward a time now when hard decisions need to be made," he said at the end of his visit.
Kerry admitted a day before after meeting with the two leaders that there was skepticism and cynicism about his efforts to revive talks.
"I know this region well enough to know there is skepticism, in some quarters there is cynicism, and there are reasons for it. There have been bitter years of disappointment," he said. Still, he maintained: "It is our hope that by being methodical, careful, patient, but detailed and tenacious, that we can lay on a path ahead that can conceivably surprise people and certainly exhaust the possibilities for peace."
British foreign secretary William Hague was also in the region visiting with leaders on both sides and even visited the Bedouin community of Khan Al Ahmar between Jerusalem and Jericho, whose residents are under the threat of displacement.
On May 23, Hague was poignantly clear on where his country stands on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "Israel has lost some of its support in Britain and in other European countries over time - this is something I've often pointed out to Israeli leaders -because of settlement activity, which we condemn,” he said.
"We strongly disagree with settlements on occupied land. Israel is a country we work with in many ways but we do disapprove of settlements,” he maintained, adding that: "We want to see both Israelis and Palestinians really commit themselves to the peace process while there is still a chance of a two-state solution."
In Khan al Ahmar, Hague listened to the residents’ grievances from Israeli efforts to push them out to make way for more settlement expansion. "We (in Britain) strongly condemn the building of settlements and recognise they are a severe threat to a two-state solution,” he told the people there.
On March 21, Israeli forces demolished two residential buildings in the Jabal al-Mukabbir in East Jerusalem. Earlier, they demolished two Palestinian homes in al-Tur, all under the pretext of unlicensed construction. Dozens of people have been left homeless from the demolitions.
A UNESCO fact-finding mission was supposed to arrive this week to look into Israeli measures in the Old City of Jerusalem and their impact on the archeological, cultural and heritage significance of the place, but was denied entry by Israel on May 20. Israel justified its decision by saying Palestinians were trying to politicize the visit.
"The Palestinians were not respecting the understandings,” an Israeli foreign ministry official said. “The visit was supposed to be professional, (but) they were taking measures that showed they were politicizing the event and not letting the delegation focus on professional sides of it," the official said.
UNESCO maintained that the mission was not cancelled, but postponed, the agency’s spokeswoman Sue Williams said.
The Palestinians said they expected Israel to pull something like this. “We weren't surprised by this decision because we believed that Israel's agreement to (allow the mission) was not convincing," minister of foreign affairs Riyad Al Malki said.
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was reopened on May 22 after a five day closure. Egyptian soldiers and policemen closed the crossing following the kidnapping of seven Egyptian soldiers in Sinai, only reopening it after the soldiers were freed. Over 2,400 Palestinians had been stranded on both sides of the crossing during the days of the closure.
Extremist Israelis extended their attacks this week all the way to the Negev desert. On May 19, residents of the Retamim Kibbutz attacked the nearby Bedouin village of Bir Hadaj and set fire to a tent, according to head of the local village council, Salman Ibin Hamid
"The setters of Retamim are acting like they are in the West Bank," Ibn Hamid said. "These people have the mentality of the occupying settler to attack every Arab."
Finally, on May 23, the US appointed Gen. John Allen as special envoy on security issues in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. According to a US official, Allen will deal with the U.S. position on Israeli security needs and the security arrangements that would accompany the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Al Nakba commemorated amid increasing settler attacks [May 12 - May 18]
Date posted: May 18, 2013
By MIFTAH
This week Palestinians commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948 on May 15, with a variety of activities, demonstrations and events throughout the Palestinian territories and outside of its borders. Festivals were held in Ramallah and Nablus in addition to several protests and confrontations with Israeli occupation forces. In Jerusalem, clashes broke out between protesters and Israeli police and border guards when Palestinians commemorating Al Nakba, raising Palestinian flags and facing off with Jewish settlers and soldiers. Thirty people were wounded or arrested during the clashes in addition to six Israelis.
The Jerusalem clashes come at a time when settler break-ins to Al Aqsa have been on the rise amid increasing calls by extremist Jewish groups to make a presence at the compound. The break-ins have become a near daily event. Muslim worshippers and Palestinian youths have kept constant vigil at the mosque to stave off the break-ins which included settler groups who used children as a cover to enter the compound on the occasion of Shavuot.
Settlers in the West Bank have wreaked havoc this week as well. On May 17, three Palestinians were injured in clashes in Urif south of Nablus when dozens of settlers set fire to lands in three area-villages: Urif, Einabus, and Asira al-Qibliya. The settlers also attacked citizens and threw burning tires at people’s homes.
Jewish extremists attacked inside the Green Line as well. On May 14, extremists set fire to three cars and sprayed racist graffiti on a mosque south of Haifa, according to Israeli media reports.
"Price-tag" and "Eviatar," which is thought to refer to the name of a settler stabbed to death last week, were found on the mosque’s walls in addition to the Star of David. In Safed, even farther north, racist graffiti with the words "Arabs out" was found on walls in the city.
On May 13, Israeli settlers exhumed a number of graves and sprayed racist graffiti in the Sawiya village in Nablus. Ghassan Daghlas, head of the PA settlement activity file, said settlers from the Alia settlement were responsible for the damage.
On the same day settlers from Tel Hatimar begin building a religious school for children on Al Khader lands in the Bethlehem area.
The Israeli army meanwhile, uprooted over 1,200 olive tree saplings on May 16 and razed land Palestinian farmer in the northern West Bank, according to Daghlas. He said the army dug up over 40 dunums of farm land and demolished a water tank and stone walls in Ras Karker, near Nablus.
On May 17, three Palestinian laborers were wounded in Beit Ula northwest of Hebron after Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets and unleashed police dogs at them according to Issa al-Amla, coordinator for the popular struggle committee. He said Omar Al-Amla, 31, and Abdulkadir Al-Amla, 28, suffered multiple dog bites to the neck and hands. A third laborer, Jihad Saleem, was shot in the leg.
In Jerusalem on May 17, Israeli forces raided the home of Iyad al-Awar and insisted on taking his two children 6-year-old Qassam and 5-year-old Nasrallah for “interrogation”. While their father prevented the forces from arresting his boys, Israeli soldiers handed him a warrant ordering him to bring his children to the Russian Compound for questioning.
"We arrived to the Russian Compound and the troops wanted to take my kids for investigation; I refused and they beat me in the ear and the leg. My kids started crying and were so scared from the troops. They took my kids by force," al-Awar said.
Israeli Intelligence officers apparently questioned the children about their detained cousin Shadad, and asked if they had seen him throwing stones or Molotov cocktails at Israeli forces, Al Awar said.
On the same day however, Palestinians scored a tiny victory in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis when they were able to tear a hole through part of the separation wall. Protesters marking the Nakba anniversary ripped a 4-meter hole in it, eyewitnesses said. Clashes ensued between the protesters and Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Several injuries were reported.
Peace Now reported on May 16 that the Israeli government planned to grant retroactive approval to four West Bank settlement outposts it had previously pledged to at least partially demolish.
The Israeli state attorney's office said that settlers had purchased the private Palestinian land on which they built, thus paving the way for the government to give its blessing.
"In the response, the government declares its intention to legalize four outposts, in isolated areas," Peace Now said in a statement, adding that the strategy was an affront to US Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "The intention to legalize outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry's new peace process," Peace Now said.
On May 14, Hamas and Fatah agreed in Cairo to form a national unity government within three months during which they would finalize and approve the Palestine National Council elections law. The two sides, represented by Fatah leader Azzam Al Ahmad and Hamas politburo member Mousa Abu Marzouq, came to the agreement under Egyptian sponsorship and said President Abbas would immediately begin talks on the new government formation. Once the government is formed, general elections can be held.
