Saturday, November 5, 2011
'NEW Palestinian strategy'... set to begin 11-11-11
Fatah leader reveals 'new Palestinian strategy'
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) – A member of the Fatah central committee says President Mahmoud Abbas has formed a committee to reconsider the strategy and future of relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.Muhammad Shtayyeh told Ma’an that "the new strategy will be the path after Nov. 11," when the UN Security Council is scheduled to meet to discuss Palestine's application for membership as a state.
Shtayyeh said the Palestinian leadership is set to break the status quo with Israel and reformulate relations.
The new committee, among its members the leaders of the PLO and Fatah, is discussing "where we are going now," Shtayyeh said without revealing the substance of the strategy.
But he said reconciliation with Hamas would formulate a basic part of it and noted Abbas planned to meet Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal after the holiday.
He says the PA and Israel cooperate in some areas, but all of them are strained.
On the political front, negotiations are blocked. Economically, Israel "exports whatever it wants to us, imports whatever it wants from us." Also, "Israel gives us electricity, while it steals our water and sells it to us."
In terms of security, "We are there to maintain the general security in order not to clash with Israel."
According to Shtayyeh, Israel in general is living in a stable security state.
He added that “we want to break the status quo in Israel, but we will take some measures that won’t hurt us but will reform the relationship [with Israel].”
He added that the PA has reached a point where Israel’s stubbornness and the inability of the international community to reign it in has stalled negotiations, so it went to the UN.
Shtayyeh says even if Palestine gets nine votes in the Security Council, the result would be the same because “we know the US will not allow our application to pass in the UN.
"But this is not the end of the world; we will apply again."
He also said that if the application did not pass, this would open the door to the new strategy which the leadership is planning and which will take effect after Nov. 11.
What's God got to do with it? If you want freedom and security, you need the following...
The House voted this week to reaffirm as the national motto the phrase "In God We Trust." (Treasury Department/AP Photo) "...If you want freedom and security, you need the following:
The rule of law; property rights; a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system; economic stability; a reliable infrastructure and the freedom to move about the country; freedom of the press; freedom of association; education for the masses; protection of civil liberties; a clean and safe environment; a robust military for protection of our liberties from attacks by other states; a potent police force for protection of our freedoms from attacks by people within the state; a viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws; and an effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws...."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shermer-god-20111104,0,877363.story
Op-Ed
What's God got to do with it?
He may be invoked in the national motto, but God has nothing to do with why Americans are free and secure.
Friday, November 4, 2011
PLO *** PRESS RELEASE *** 4 November 2011 Statement on Israeli Withhold of PA Tax Revenues
*** PRESS RELEASE ***
4 November 2011
Statement on Israeli Withhold of PA Tax Revenues
The General Delegation of the PLO to the US strongly condemns the Israeli government’s decision to suspend the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority. This is not the first time Israel resorts to such illegal measures, and we are appalled by the international community’s tolerance for such acts of state piracy.
Under the Oslo Accords, Israel is obligated to collect customs and some taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. We would like to emphasize that these are PA revenues, not Israeli revenues, and Israel is obligated to relay them expeditiously. Withholding this money is a violation of signed agreements and a blatant act of piracy that should strongly be condemned.
Further, this action is in line with other measures Israel has undertaken in recent years that undermined the PA’s authority. Israel is slowly rendering the PA obsolete, a reality with serious implications on the ground not only for the Palestinians but for Israel and the region as a whole.
The General Delegation of the PLO to the US urges the US Administration and members of Congress to stand up against Israeli violations and impress upon the Israeli government to immediately desist from violating signed agreements, which undermine the prospects of a future peaceful settlement.
The UNESCO cuts: What’s next on the U.S. chopping block?
Thursday, November 3, 2011 My letter to CSM RE A message Palestinians see in Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange: Hamas - 1, Abbas - 0 by Dawoud Abu Lebdeh
RE: A message Palestinians see in Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange: Hamas - 1, Abbas - 0
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/1103/A-message-Palestinians-see-in-Israel-Hamas-prisoner-exchange-Hamas-1-Abbas-0
Dear Editor,
"The international community must show the Palestinian people that they support their quest for a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders and, by doing so, demonstrate that they support those who believe in diplomacy, not violence, as a way to solve the conflict and achieve peace." Dawoud Abu Lebdeh
Thank you for publishing Dawoud Abu Lebdeh's compelling column "A message Palestinians see in Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange: Hamas - 1, Abbas - 0 " ... The timing of the prisoner exchange deal certainly is suspicious. I believe Israel is totally in the wrong for persecuting, impoverishing and displacing the native non-Jewish population of the Holy Land, but Islamists are equally wrong to also be arming religion with lethal weaponry- and Islamists were wrong to keep Gilad Shalit. Two wrongs do not make a right, and a never ending escalation of wrongs and religious extremism will not lead to peace or justice for any one.
A FULLY secular two state solution that FULLY respects international law and universal basic human rights to once and for all end the Israel/Palestine conflict really is the best way forward.... for everyone's sake. Negotiations need to be a way to get there, not yet another way for Israel (or Islamists) to delay and destroy Palestine and peace.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab,
American homemaker & poet
Nations slam UNESCO-linked Israel settlements
AFP News: Israel medics complicit with abuse of prisoners
Weighing the Price of Resistance By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
David Hale: Hamas could be swept out of power if the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations
Hamas Celebrates Prisoner Exchange: "Abbas had been riding a wave of popular support following his speech at the United Nations last month in which he called for Palestinian membership at the UN. But Ibish says the Palestinian president is the short-term loser here, and that was precisely the intention of both Hamas and the Israeli government in finally striking a deal."
The battle of Bet Shemesh Ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews gather at the gates of a local girls school, screaming abuse: " Since the state-funded religious-nationalist school of Orot Girls opened in new premises in September, groups of extreme Haredi men regularly gather at the gates, screaming "whore" and "slut" at the girls and their mothers."
"While there's no reason to think Islamists are in the process of consolidating absolute power anywhere, it's simply foolish not to recognize that they remain in every meaningful sense radical and retain their totalitarian impulses. That they would like to broadly and severely restrict the rights of individuals, women and minorities in the name of religion is obvious. It's hard to see them developing such unrestrained power, but there is also no use in kidding oneself about their evident intentions." Hussein Ibish- Jumping to conclusions on the Arab Spring
United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights: NGO News
Palestine's Salam Fayyad: "We have been trying to do the very best we can."
In Detroit, ambassador makes case for Palestinian nation
Don’t demolish my future! UNNWRA: Demolitions and the threat of displacement are ruining people’s lives in the West Bank.
"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?
Mahmoud Abbas speech at the UN - The full official text
Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land
Visit Palestine, it Makes a World of Difference By Julie Holm for MIFTAH
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation... We hope to aid that process
Children play outside a peace mural in the West Bank. Photograph: David LeveneThe Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation
The Israel-Palestine situation demands truth and reconciliation. We hope to aid that process
Desmond Tutu and Michael Mansfield
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 November 2011
Opportunities to break seemingly intractable and deadlocked situations are rare – especially on a scale which has rapidly developed this year from the beleaguered cries of citizenry across North Africa and the Middle East. There is a palpable consensus that the provenance of this movement is lodged firmly in the fundamental prerequisite for meaningful democracy: self-determination. All conventions on human rights have this tenet as a core rationale. Where it is repeatedly denied and suppressed there will never be peace or justice, let alone stability.
On Saturday the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will open its third session: after Barcelona and London, this session will take place in South Africa, the location of a seminal struggle for self-determination by a community oppressed by apartheid. Partly as a result of this courageous and persistent protest by thousands of ordinary people, who were regularly demonised as terrorists by political opponents within the South African regime (and by certain world leaders, including the UK's), there was a concerted international effort to bring international law to bear upon an entrenched position....READ MORE
Nations slam UNESCO-linked Israel settlements
A Palestinian labourer stands at a construction site in a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim on Wednesday (Reuters photo by Baz Ratner)WASHINGTON/RAMALLAH (Agencies) - Israel’s top ally Washington on Wednesday led international calls for the Israeli government to abandon its decision to speed up settlement building in occupied territory in retaliation for Palestinian admission to UNESCO, Agence France-Presse reported.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians said Israel’s tough responses to their bid to join the UN cultural organisation are unlikely to halt their quest for recognition as a state at the United Nations, Reuters reported.
“We are deeply disappointed by yesterday’s announcement about accelerated housing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said White House spokesperson Jay Carney.
“As we have said before, unilateral actions work against efforts to resume direction negotiations and they do not advance the goal of a reasonable and necessary agreement between the parties,” he said.
“So any action, as we have said all along, that either side takes that makes it harder rather than easier for the two parties to come together in direct negotiations is something that we oppose,” Carney added, according to AFP.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply concerned” by Israel’s decision and “worried at the trajectory of developments” between Israel and the Palestinians and called on both to “refrain from provocations”, said his spokesperson Martin Nesirky.
“The secretary general calls on the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to continue to transfer VAT and customs revenues that belong to the Palestinian Authority and are essential to enable it to function, in line with Israel’s obligations,” the spokesperson said.
A senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday that Israel was trying to undermine the Palestinian Authority (PA) through a decision on Tuesday to freeze transfers of PA funds after it won membership of the UN cultural agency, Reuters reported.
“It is very serious. Israel wants to strive to destroy the role of the Palestinian National Authority,” Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation...READ MOREAFP News: Israel medics complicit with abuse of prisoners
Israeli medics are complicit in the ill-treatment and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, in breach of the Hippocratic oath, two Israeli rights groups said in a report published on Thursday.
The report focuses on medical professionals who have witnessed, participated in or been in contact with prisoners who have been interrogated by the Shin Bet internal security service, formally known in English as the Israel Security Agency, which it says often inflicts physical or psychological violence.
The 61-page study -- "Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim" -- was put together by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), and the Israel chapter of Physicians For Human Rights.
The findings were based on testimonies and the files of over 100 alleged victims of torture and ill-treatment handled by PCATI since 2007, and shows that medical professionals "are frequently involved either actively or passively in torture or ill-treatment," it said.
PCATI spokesman Edan Ring told AFP that the alleged victims were all Palestinians, "under suspicion of being connected with security issues."
Whether through direct action or through their silence, medical professionals were complicit with what goes on in the interrogation rooms, the report said.
It added that evidence showed that medical professionals were doing this by systematically failing to properly document prisoners' injuries, by the failure to report abuse, and by sending detainees back to their interrogators even after seeing the injuries they had sustained.
In some cases, they also handed private medical data to interrogators, and frequently put the needs of the interrogation before the welfare of the patient, it said.
"This report reveals significant evidence arousing the suspicion that many doctors ignore the complaints of their patients; that they allow Israel Security Agency (ISA) interrogators to use torture," it said.
It added that medical staff, "approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total impunity for the torturers."...READ MORE
My letter to the NYTimes 11-3-11 RE The Overblown Islamist Threat, by Marwan Muasher
RE: The Overblown Islamist Threat, by Marwan Muasher, the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/opinion/the-overblown-islamist-threat.html?_r=2
Dear Editor,
I think Marwan Muasher, the former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, & current vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gives us much food for thought with his essay "The Overblown Islamist Threat"... and I very much appreciate being able to read his perspective in the New York Times. I totally agree with him that the Islamists threat is overblown, but I am not so sure it is wise to use that fact to in any way empower or endorse or apologize for Islamists, even moderate ones.
Laying a bet on the hope that Islamists will do the right thing is a bit like laying a bet on Wall Street doing the right thing. Might happen- but it is much more likely to happen if we the people clearly identify and voice our objections to white collar crimes.... "Human beings are flawed and we all fall short in many ways, but moral failure in high places is more shameful and deserves to be censured and punished much more severely than moral failings among the poor, the powerless and the obscure." Walter Russell Mead The Madoffs: Shamed, Isolated, Disgraced
Here in America we have a free press, and fair and just laws which give us the ability to make more real our democracy- and bring more justice (and jobs) to more people. There is no such safe guard in the Middle East. Empowering Islamists who can too easily abuse religion for nefarious purposes, just as Maddoff did in targeting his co-religionists, is playing with fire.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & poet
In Newsweek Magazine: Moshe Dayan's Widow Ruth: Zionist Dream Has Run Its Course
Weighing the Price of Resistance By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights: NGO News
Palestine's Salam Fayyad: "We have been trying to do the very best we can."
In Detroit, ambassador makes case for Palestinian nation
David Hale: Hamas could be swept out of power if the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations
Don’t demolish my future! UNNWRA: Demolitions and the threat of displacement are ruining people’s lives in the West Bank.
"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?
Mahmoud Abbas speech at the UN - The full official text
The Arab Peace Initiative requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well...
Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land
Visit Palestine, it Makes a World of Difference By Julie Holm for MIFTAH
My letter to the Washington Post 11-3-2011 RE The Mideast’s new game By David Ignatius
RE: The Mideast’s new game By David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-mideasts-new-game/2011/11/02/gIQAuESmgM_story.html
Dear Editor & Mr. Ignatius,
Why do you want to push Palestine into the arms of Islamists and extremism?! Why not step up to clearly ask that Hamas- and all Islamists- step down for Palestine's sake, for the people's sake, and for Islam... and for peace.
A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel/Palestine conflict is obviously the best way forward for every one's sake. The very real plight of the Palestinians began because Zionists violated and continue to violate the 1917 Balfour Declaration's dictate "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"
Government- and resistance- should protect freedom of religion and minority rights. Worship and religious identity should be a private matter, not a public mandate. Institutionalized bigotry and religious tyranny of every type needs to be renounced, not empowered!
So please Hamas, for Palestine's sake put down the guns, stop the rockets, stifle hate mongering, and focus in on providing real charity, good works and a more civilized, intelligent dialog: Non-violently battle to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt either that Israel is totally in the wrong and needs to be defunded, or that Israel is able to invest in a just and lasting peace based on international law and universal basic human rights.... including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees very real right to return to original homes and lands.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
American homemaker & poet
In Newsweek Magazine: Moshe Dayan's Widow Ruth: Zionist Dream Has Run Its Course
Weighing the Price of Resistance By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights: NGO News
Palestine's Salam Fayyad: "We have been trying to do the very best we can."
In Detroit, ambassador makes case for Palestinian nation
David Hale: Hamas could be swept out of power if the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations
Don’t demolish my future! UNNWRA: Demolitions and the threat of displacement are ruining people’s lives in the West Bank.
"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?
Mahmoud Abbas speech at the UN - The full official text
The Arab Peace Initiative requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well...
Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land
Visit Palestine, it Makes a World of Difference By Julie Holm for MIFTAH
