Ma’an News-

Gaza/Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israeli warplanes bombed the Gaza Strip in three locations early on Thursday, according to the country’s military and Palestinians in the coastal Strip.

A military spokesperson said the strikes targeted a “weapons manufacturing facility in the southern Gaza Strip and two smuggling tunnels in the Rafah border area.”

Sources in Gaza confirmed that two tunnels were bombed, in addition to a facility said to be operated by Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

Medics at Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, and the larger Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis said however that no one was injured in the attacks.

The military spokesperson said that the strikes were successful, and were in response to the launch of what Israel terms “rockets” emanating from the Gaza Strip.

One of these rockets, a homemade projectile, was fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Wednesday morning, according to the military.

Also on Wednesday fighters affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said they fired mortar shells at what they described as undercover Israeli forces near the Erez border crossing, in northern Gaza. The Israeli army said it was “unfamiliar” with the report.

Palestinians in the town of Beit Hanoun, near the crossing, however, said they came under Israeli fire, which killed a horse. The Israeli military also denied the shooting.

An Israeli spokesperson said that a roadside bomb exploded near a military patrol south of the Karni crossing point, causing no injuries.

http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m60231&hd=&size=1&l=e

Link

The Popular frnt for the Liberation of Palestine said on November 3, 2009 that the Palestinian Authority, and all Palestinian parties, must immediately end any and all illusions about the United States or its president, Barack Obama, and instead reject its “negotiations” based on surrender and rely on the Palestinian people and their resistance, unity and national rights.

Comrade Rayya Amin, of the Information Office of the PFLP, said that it must be abundantly clear that Barack Obama is nothing more than U.S. imperialism in new packaging, saying that the United States is an enemy of the Palestinian people and the Arab people, and all progressive and peoples’ forces in the world. Comrade Amin stressed that the policy of the United States had not changed in any way, and was engaged in the same strategic alliance with Zionism and conquest of the Arab world that has always determined its actions. She demanded that the PA and all Palestinian, Arab and progressive forces cast aside any and all illusions about Obama and “change” and instead struggle to confront U.S. imperialism and the occupation.

Comrade Dr. Maher al-Taher, member of the PFLP and leader of its branch in exile, said that the U.S. administration is entirely hostile to the Palestinian people and has put all of its efforts into trying to force us to surrender by calling upon Palestinians to enter into unconditional “negotiations” with the occupier, recognizing none of the national rights of the Palestinian people.

Comrade Taher emphasized that the U.S. call for the resumption of so-called negotiations means that the U.S. wants to provide a Palestinian cover of surrender for the ongoing aggression of the Zionist enemy and its policies of Zionization of Jerusalem, escalation of settlement and land confiscation, and present a false image to the world of a “peace process”. He said that the occupation wants a so-called “peace process” on the basis of force and intimidation, and said that there can be no “peace” with this enemy. Furthermore, said Comrade Taher, the only road forward for Palestinians is to continue the resistance, end internal division, and unite Palestinian ranks through the reconstruction of the Palestine Liberation Organization on clear national principles and rejecting the entire project of “political settlement” and “negotiations” under the auspices of the United States.

He emphasized that the U.S. is not an “honest broker,” nor “neutral,” but is instead a hostile party against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim interests and must be dealt with on that basis. He denounced the Netanyahu strategy of so-called “economic peace,” noting that he wants to pay for Palestinian surrender with donor funds while continuing settlements, land confiscation, home demolitions and the imprisonment of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners while denying the Palestinian right to return or ending the occupation, and noted that the U.S. is involved in a direct partnership with Netanyahu in denying Palestinian national rights.

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, demanded that the Palestinian Authority end its reliance on the U.S. administration and President Barack Obama, saying that all must instead rely on the Palestinian people and uniting our forces in order to confront the occupation.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Forum on November 2, 2009, Comrade Mizher described the U.S. position approving of Zionist settlements as “scandalous,” and demanded that all forms of direct and indirect negotiations with the occupation be immediately ended. He said that all Palestinian and Arab illusions about Obama must be discarded immediately, and that anyone who claims to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people must instead rely on Palestinian national rights and requirements. Furthermore, he called for an end to official Arab silence and complicity with the U.S./Israeli attacks on Palestinian rights, emphasizing the need for popular Arab pressure to support Palestinian resistance.

Comrade Abu Ahmad Fouad, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, reacted to the U.S. Congress’ official denunciation of the Goldstone Report on war crimes in Gaza on November 3, 2009 by denouncing the Congressional resolution and affirming that this only makes yet more clear that there should be absolutely no illusions about the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Comrade Fouad said that this once again reaffirms that there is no change whatsoever in U.S. policy toward the Arab-Zionist conflict, or its policy that supports the Zionist entity and all of its crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people.

Comrade Fouad said that the congressional resolution, House Resolution 867, comes on the heels of the announcement of Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, a few days ago that the fascist Zionist regime of Netanyahu was making “unprecedented concessions,” stating the US’ support for its settlement and land confiscation program, as well as the enemy’s actions in Jerusalem and at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Comrade Fouad denounced the warm reception Clinton met in Arab capitals while she affirmed the U.S. support for unlimited Zionist expansionism and attacks on the Palestinian people’s rights, and stressed that these positions “are and always have been the real position of the Obama administration, and any postures to the contrary are nothing more than smokescreens to mislead Arabs and Palestinians.”

He said further that the primary objective of Clinton’s visit was to support Israel while promoting deceit about “peace” and “negotiations”, but made it clear that the U.S. position is fully aligned with the Zionist policy of aggression, colonization and Zionization before the eyes and ears of the world.

Comrade Fouad commented also on recent joint military exercises between the U.S. and Israel, noting that the U.S. war machine is a full partner in Israeli state terror, recalling the comments of the commander of the U.S. naval ship, the USS Higgins, that the “defense” of Haifa is the same as the “defense” of San Diego, California.

Source

Link

The Popular frnt for the Liberation of Palestine said on November 3, 2009 that the Palestinian Authority, and all Palestinian parties, must immediately end any and all illusions about the United States or its president, Barack Obama, and instead reject its “negotiations” based on surrender and rely on the Palestinian people and their resistance, unity and national rights.

Comrade Rayya Amin, of the Information Office of the PFLP, said that it must be abundantly clear that Barack Obama is nothing more than U.S. imperialism in new packaging, saying that the United States is an enemy of the Palestinian people and the Arab people, and all progressive and peoples’ forces in the world. Comrade Amin stressed that the policy of the United States had not changed in any way, and was engaged in the same strategic alliance with Zionism and conquest of the Arab world that has always determined its actions. She demanded that the PA and all Palestinian, Arab and progressive forces cast aside any and all illusions about Obama and “change” and instead struggle to confront U.S. imperialism and the occupation.

Comrade Dr. Maher al-Taher, member of the PFLP and leader of its branch in exile, said that the U.S. administration is entirely hostile to the Palestinian people and has put all of its efforts into trying to force us to surrender by calling upon Palestinians to enter into unconditional “negotiations” with the occupier, recognizing none of the national rights of the Palestinian people.

Comrade Taher emphasized that the U.S. call for the resumption of so-called negotiations means that the U.S. wants to provide a Palestinian cover of surrender for the ongoing aggression of the Zionist enemy and its policies of Zionization of Jerusalem, escalation of settlement and land confiscation, and present a false image to the world of a “peace process”. He said that the occupation wants a so-called “peace process” on the basis of force and intimidation, and said that there can be no “peace” with this enemy. Furthermore, said Comrade Taher, the only road forward for Palestinians is to continue the resistance, end internal division, and unite Palestinian ranks through the reconstruction of the Palestine Liberation Organization on clear national principles and rejecting the entire project of “political settlement” and “negotiations” under the auspices of the United States.

He emphasized that the U.S. is not an “honest broker,” nor “neutral,” but is instead a hostile party against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim interests and must be dealt with on that basis. He denounced the Netanyahu strategy of so-called “economic peace,” noting that he wants to pay for Palestinian surrender with donor funds while continuing settlements, land confiscation, home demolitions and the imprisonment of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners while denying the Palestinian right to return or ending the occupation, and noted that the U.S. is involved in a direct partnership with Netanyahu in denying Palestinian national rights.

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, demanded that the Palestinian Authority end its reliance on the U.S. administration and President Barack Obama, saying that all must instead rely on the Palestinian people and uniting our forces in order to confront the occupation.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Forum on November 2, 2009, Comrade Mizher described the U.S. position approving of Zionist settlements as “scandalous,” and demanded that all forms of direct and indirect negotiations with the occupation be immediately ended. He said that all Palestinian and Arab illusions about Obama must be discarded immediately, and that anyone who claims to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people must instead rely on Palestinian national rights and requirements. Furthermore, he called for an end to official Arab silence and complicity with the U.S./Israeli attacks on Palestinian rights, emphasizing the need for popular Arab pressure to support Palestinian resistance.

Comrade Abu Ahmad Fouad, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, reacted to the U.S. Congress’ official denunciation of the Goldstone Report on war crimes in Gaza on November 3, 2009 by denouncing the Congressional resolution and affirming that this only makes yet more clear that there should be absolutely no illusions about the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Comrade Fouad said that this once again reaffirms that there is no change whatsoever in U.S. policy toward the Arab-Zionist conflict, or its policy that supports the Zionist entity and all of its crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people.

Comrade Fouad said that the congressional resolution, House Resolution 867, comes on the heels of the announcement of Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, a few days ago that the fascist Zionist regime of Netanyahu was making “unprecedented concessions,” stating the US’ support for its settlement and land confiscation program, as well as the enemy’s actions in Jerusalem and at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Comrade Fouad denounced the warm reception Clinton met in Arab capitals while she affirmed the U.S. support for unlimited Zionist expansionism and attacks on the Palestinian people’s rights, and stressed that these positions “are and always have been the real position of the Obama administration, and any postures to the contrary are nothing more than smokescreens to mislead Arabs and Palestinians.”

He said further that the primary objective of Clinton’s visit was to support Israel while promoting deceit about “peace” and “negotiations”, but made it clear that the U.S. position is fully aligned with the Zionist policy of aggression, colonization and Zionization before the eyes and ears of the world.

Comrade Fouad commented also on recent joint military exercises between the U.S. and Israel, noting that the U.S. war machine is a full partner in Israeli state terror, recalling the comments of the commander of the U.S. naval ship, the USS Higgins, that the “defense” of Haifa is the same as the “defense” of San Diego, California.

Source

Khaled Amayreh
Al Ahram Weekly

Plans for an election are impractical at best, argues Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

————————————–
As if the stalled and nearly moribund peace process between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel didn’t face enough problems, PA President Mahmoud Abbas dropped a bombshell this week when he called for “presidential and legislative elections” to be held in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem on 24 January.

The decree is more than problematic since Abbas’s Western-backed regime in Ramallah has no control over East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its “eternal, united capital” and the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas.

Moreover, whatever semblance of authority the PA regime has in the West Bank is completely subject to Israeli whim. This means that if Abbas is serious about holding elections in the three separate territories on the designated date, he will have to coordinate the elections with both Israel and Hamas.

Israel has already indicated that it won’t automatically grant Abbas permission to hold elections in the West Bank and there are serious doubts that the most right-wing government in Israel’s history would allow elections to take place in East Jerusalem. Unless, of course, Israel obtains the right political price from the weak PA; in other words, an undertaking to abandon the Goldstone Report.

As to Hamas and other Palestinian factions, the reactions are ranging from total rejection to deep reservations.

Rejecting the call as a pressure tactic on Hamas to sign the Egyptian-mediated reconciliation document, Hamas leaders challenged Abbas, arguing that the PA leader’s term in office has expired and that he wouldn’t be able to organise genuine election without the Gaza Strip. “Holding elections in the West Bank alone is a definitive prescription for a national disaster,” said Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader and spokesperson in Gaza.

Similarly, the Islamic Jihad organisation dismissed Abbas’s election decree as “an exposed attempt to perpetuate the Dayton princedom” in the West Bank. The allusion here is to the American General Keith Dayton who trains and oversees PA security forces.

Even the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is a founding member of the PLO, has shown its consternation. The group’s acting leader, Mahmoud Mallouh, has argued that regaining Palestinian national unity is more important than holding elections.

To be sure, Abbas didn’t say he was completely abandoning reconciliation efforts with Hamas. He argued though that organising elections on the designated date was a “legal and constitutional imperative.”

Hamas and many Palestinian intellectuals ridicule this argument, which gives the impression that the PA is an independent and sovereign state with an established constitution when in fact the PA regime, especially in the West Bank, is a little more than a mere sub-contractor for the Israeli occupation authorities. After all, it is the Israeli army, not the PA, that controls every street and corner of the West Bank.

It is not clear if Abbas is bluffing in order to outmanoeuvre and circumvent Hamas, or if he really means it. If the latter, the direct and indirect ramifications of holding elections in the West Bank without the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip would deeply and negatively affect the Palestinian political arena as well as American-led peace efforts.

Indeed, the outcome of an election in which less than half of eligible voters would participate is not going to have much credibility, will further exacerbate the Palestinian crisis, and may lead to an irreversible rupture between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As to the American-led efforts to resume peace talks between the PA and Israel, which have so far achieved no progress, it is amply clear that these efforts will have to be more or less frozen if Abbas is serious about holding elections. After all, continuing to indulge in a manifestly barren peace process (barren in light of the bitter experience of years of fruitless negotiations with the Olmert government) would seriously undermine Abbas’s efforts to woo the Palestinian public to elect him “president” for a second term.

More to the point, if elections are to be held on the designated date, Fatah would have to display a radical discourse and reassert its commitment to the Palestinian constants, including the two cardinal issues of Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees uprooted from their former homes and villages when Israel was created more than 60 years ago. It might even resort, at least as an electioneering tactic, to asserting its commitment to armed struggle against Israel.

For what it’s worth, this would have a negative impact on the peace process as it would undermine the Obama administration’s ability to realise the increasingly illusive goal of establishing a viable Palestinian state in the occupied territories.

Last week, US President Barack Obama called Abbas, assuring him that he would see to it that an independent Palestinian state is established. Obama didn’t say when such a state would see the light of day, nor did he mention anything about American efforts to get Israel to freeze Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. Abbas would do well to remember that president George W Bush made similar undertakings which came to naught.

Obama was supposed to give a foreign policy address this week that would reveal new American ideas for making progress in the stalled Middle East peace process. It is not clear if the nonevent had anything to do with Abbas’s decision to hold elections in January.

What is clear though is that Abbas is visibly disillusioned, even to the point of despondency, as all American pledges and promises to get Israel to freeze its frantic seizure of Palestinian land are shown to be false. One Palestinian official said in confidence that the president’s mood is “very depressive”. He also described US peace efforts as the “biggest act of deception”. “If Obama with all his power can’t bring Israel to freeze the building of even one building in East Jerusalem, would it be reasonable on our part to expect him to wrest East Jerusalem from Israel, allow for the repatriation of the refugees and at the top of all of this establish a viable and territorially contiguous state for us?”

This week, the Israeli media reported that Abbas was seriously considering submitting his resignation on the grounds that he had no achievement whatsoever with which he could impress Palestinian voters during the election campaign.

The unconfirmed report alerted the Obama administration which hastened to assure Abbas that the US would take a number of unspecified measures to boost Abbas’s standing among his people.

However, the American undertaking seems to be largely rhetorical, since any achievement by Abbas would require serious Israeli concessions in the West Bank. This seems highly improbable, at least for the time being, given the composition and ideological nature of the current Israeli government.

An exit from the narrow horizons facing Abbas could take the form of a certain concession to Hamas by Fatah, probably in coordination with Egypt. But even this wouldn’t be desirable from the American viewpoint since the restoration of Palestinian unity would likely radicalise the overall Palestinian stance and make the Palestinians more determined in their demands for a total Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied in 1967.

Hani Al-Masri, a public figure close to the PA leadership, argues that holding general elections in the absence of national reconciliation will lead to a huge disaster. “The president is behaving as if occupied Palestine was like Switzerland. He forgets that we are still struggling to rid ourselves of the cruel Israeli occupation. And under such circumstances, national unity is far more important than so-called constitutional considerations.”

Al-Masri further argues that the conflict between Fatah and Hamas is first and foremost “political, not constitutional in nature”, which he says requires a political solution. “Failing to understand this reality could lead to national political suicide and a total capitulation to Israeli dictates. Abbas is dead wrong if he thinks that the Palestinian negotiating position vis-à- vis Israel would be better in the absence of national unity.”

Khaled Amayreh
Al Ahram Weekly

Plans for an election are impractical at best, argues Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

————————————–
As if the stalled and nearly moribund peace process between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel didn’t face enough problems, PA President Mahmoud Abbas dropped a bombshell this week when he called for “presidential and legislative elections” to be held in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem on 24 January.

The decree is more than problematic since Abbas’s Western-backed regime in Ramallah has no control over East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its “eternal, united capital” and the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas.

Moreover, whatever semblance of authority the PA regime has in the West Bank is completely subject to Israeli whim. This means that if Abbas is serious about holding elections in the three separate territories on the designated date, he will have to coordinate the elections with both Israel and Hamas.

Israel has already indicated that it won’t automatically grant Abbas permission to hold elections in the West Bank and there are serious doubts that the most right-wing government in Israel’s history would allow elections to take place in East Jerusalem. Unless, of course, Israel obtains the right political price from the weak PA; in other words, an undertaking to abandon the Goldstone Report.

As to Hamas and other Palestinian factions, the reactions are ranging from total rejection to deep reservations.

Rejecting the call as a pressure tactic on Hamas to sign the Egyptian-mediated reconciliation document, Hamas leaders challenged Abbas, arguing that the PA leader’s term in office has expired and that he wouldn’t be able to organise genuine election without the Gaza Strip. “Holding elections in the West Bank alone is a definitive prescription for a national disaster,” said Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader and spokesperson in Gaza.

Similarly, the Islamic Jihad organisation dismissed Abbas’s election decree as “an exposed attempt to perpetuate the Dayton princedom” in the West Bank. The allusion here is to the American General Keith Dayton who trains and oversees PA security forces.

Even the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is a founding member of the PLO, has shown its consternation. The group’s acting leader, Mahmoud Mallouh, has argued that regaining Palestinian national unity is more important than holding elections.

To be sure, Abbas didn’t say he was completely abandoning reconciliation efforts with Hamas. He argued though that organising elections on the designated date was a “legal and constitutional imperative.”

Hamas and many Palestinian intellectuals ridicule this argument, which gives the impression that the PA is an independent and sovereign state with an established constitution when in fact the PA regime, especially in the West Bank, is a little more than a mere sub-contractor for the Israeli occupation authorities. After all, it is the Israeli army, not the PA, that controls every street and corner of the West Bank.

It is not clear if Abbas is bluffing in order to outmanoeuvre and circumvent Hamas, or if he really means it. If the latter, the direct and indirect ramifications of holding elections in the West Bank without the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip would deeply and negatively affect the Palestinian political arena as well as American-led peace efforts.

Indeed, the outcome of an election in which less than half of eligible voters would participate is not going to have much credibility, will further exacerbate the Palestinian crisis, and may lead to an irreversible rupture between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As to the American-led efforts to resume peace talks between the PA and Israel, which have so far achieved no progress, it is amply clear that these efforts will have to be more or less frozen if Abbas is serious about holding elections. After all, continuing to indulge in a manifestly barren peace process (barren in light of the bitter experience of years of fruitless negotiations with the Olmert government) would seriously undermine Abbas’s efforts to woo the Palestinian public to elect him “president” for a second term.

More to the point, if elections are to be held on the designated date, Fatah would have to display a radical discourse and reassert its commitment to the Palestinian constants, including the two cardinal issues of Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees uprooted from their former homes and villages when Israel was created more than 60 years ago. It might even resort, at least as an electioneering tactic, to asserting its commitment to armed struggle against Israel.

For what it’s worth, this would have a negative impact on the peace process as it would undermine the Obama administration’s ability to realise the increasingly illusive goal of establishing a viable Palestinian state in the occupied territories.

Last week, US President Barack Obama called Abbas, assuring him that he would see to it that an independent Palestinian state is established. Obama didn’t say when such a state would see the light of day, nor did he mention anything about American efforts to get Israel to freeze Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. Abbas would do well to remember that president George W Bush made similar undertakings which came to naught.

Obama was supposed to give a foreign policy address this week that would reveal new American ideas for making progress in the stalled Middle East peace process. It is not clear if the nonevent had anything to do with Abbas’s decision to hold elections in January.

What is clear though is that Abbas is visibly disillusioned, even to the point of despondency, as all American pledges and promises to get Israel to freeze its frantic seizure of Palestinian land are shown to be false. One Palestinian official said in confidence that the president’s mood is “very depressive”. He also described US peace efforts as the “biggest act of deception”. “If Obama with all his power can’t bring Israel to freeze the building of even one building in East Jerusalem, would it be reasonable on our part to expect him to wrest East Jerusalem from Israel, allow for the repatriation of the refugees and at the top of all of this establish a viable and territorially contiguous state for us?”

This week, the Israeli media reported that Abbas was seriously considering submitting his resignation on the grounds that he had no achievement whatsoever with which he could impress Palestinian voters during the election campaign.

The unconfirmed report alerted the Obama administration which hastened to assure Abbas that the US would take a number of unspecified measures to boost Abbas’s standing among his people.

However, the American undertaking seems to be largely rhetorical, since any achievement by Abbas would require serious Israeli concessions in the West Bank. This seems highly improbable, at least for the time being, given the composition and ideological nature of the current Israeli government.

An exit from the narrow horizons facing Abbas could take the form of a certain concession to Hamas by Fatah, probably in coordination with Egypt. But even this wouldn’t be desirable from the American viewpoint since the restoration of Palestinian unity would likely radicalise the overall Palestinian stance and make the Palestinians more determined in their demands for a total Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied in 1967.

Hani Al-Masri, a public figure close to the PA leadership, argues that holding general elections in the absence of national reconciliation will lead to a huge disaster. “The president is behaving as if occupied Palestine was like Switzerland. He forgets that we are still struggling to rid ourselves of the cruel Israeli occupation. And under such circumstances, national unity is far more important than so-called constitutional considerations.”

Al-Masri further argues that the conflict between Fatah and Hamas is first and foremost “political, not constitutional in nature”, which he says requires a political solution. “Failing to understand this reality could lead to national political suicide and a total capitulation to Israeli dictates. Abbas is dead wrong if he thinks that the Palestinian negotiating position vis-à- vis Israel would be better in the absence of national unity.”

Yet more atrocities are committed against the Palestinian people. Linked here.

Jag ska förklara. Nyttig idiot är från början en rysk spionterm. Den syftar på en person som springer ärenden, exempelvis åt främmande makt eller egna myndigheter, utan att förstå att han springer ärenden.

– Carl Hamilton om en reporter på Expressen. Ur Jan Guillous roman “Fiendens fiende”.

Att Jan Guillou avslöjats som KGB-agent är naturligtvis inte en skandal för att han orsakat Sverige någon stor skada. Skandalen ligger mer på det personliga planet för bestsellerförfattaren som i sina Hamiltonböcker hamrat in budskapet att Sovjetunionen var fienden, även för en före detta kommunist som Carl GG Hamilton. Att det nu är Expressen, omsorgsfullt förlöjligad i samma böcker, som nu kommer med avslöjandet gör inte saken mindre pinsam.

Att nappa på en invit från KGB:s representant och ta en lunch är inget brott. För en journalist vore det väl snarare tjänstefel att tacka nej, så länge det förankras hos en redaktion och så länge det inte handlar om att utföra några uppdrag.

Jan Guillou upprätthöll kontakterna i fem år, gjorde uppdrag åt KGB och fick pengar för det. Däremot skrev han aldrig en rad om kontakterna med Sovjetunionens säkerhetstjänst i någon tidning. Det spelar ingen roll vad han hade för syfte med det för egen del, eller hur smart han kan ha känt sig sig när han träffade KGB-mannen Jevgenij Gergel. Man spelar inte en organisation som KGB för egna syften utan en egen organisation i ryggen. För att tro att det är möjligt måste man vara, tja, Jan Guillou.

Artiklarna i Expressen väcker naturligtvis nya frågor. Det är en sak att KGB odlar en kontakt med en kommunistisk journalist i Stockholm, låt vara lite “fel sorts” kommunist, utan att något direkt kommer ut av det. Säpo har ju känt till det hela men varken gripit eller åtalat Guillou. En annan sak är vilka kopplingar till PFLP som kan ha funnits, Guillou måste ju ha varit intressant för KGB även ur den synvinkeln.

En tredje, och om den hade någon substans den verkligt sensationella, är om KGB kan ha haft något finger med i IB-avslöjandet. Guillou hävdar själv att han avbröt kontakterna med KGB på grund av arbetet med IB-artiklarna. Ville KGB å andra sidan exponera IB i Sverige hade de inte kunnat göra det bättre än via en svensk journalist. Och en (?) sådan hade de alltså på avlöningslistan.

Storyn om Jan Guillou som KBG-agent är ett perfekt kvällstidningsknäck. En kändis, en spionorganisation, hemliga akter från säpo och allt utspelar sig bekvämt ungefär 40 år bakåt i tiden. Samma dag, i samma Expressen kan vi läsa om en annan spionorganisation och en färskare och betydligt större skandal. Europarådets kommissarie för mänskliga rättigheter, Thomas Hammarberg, kräver att regeringen utreder Sveriges inblandning i CIA:s transporter av kidnappade människor. Plan med kidnappade civila på väg mot tortyr i olika hemliga fängelser har som bekant mellanlandat i Sverige med regeringens goda minne. Även i det fallet borde kända och upphöjda samhällsmedborgare ställas till svars för sin inblandning och sitt stöd till utländska spionorganisationer.

Expressens artiklar om Guillou och KGB: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Andra om Jan Guillou, KGB, Hamilton, Spion, Expressen, IB, PFLP, CIA

I ett uttalande, som du kan läsa här, säger den nybildade organisationen Socialdemokratiska Israelvänner (SIV) följande:

Vi vill att socialdemokratin i så väl Sverige som internationellt måste intensifiera sitt stöd för de progressiva krafterna i Israel och Palestina. Utvecklingen med en växande ultrahöger i Israel och extremister i Palestina är inte till fördel för varken försoning eller fred.

Nu är det ju en smaksak vad som ska anses progressivt, men några progressiva krafter i Palestina som söker försoning och fred med Israel, ja det finns knappast. Alla vill de utplåna Israel: al-Fatah, PFLP, och Hamas är bara några exempel. Och PLO har ännu inte utkommit med någon reviderad version av sitt program, som ursprungligen (fortfarande?) krävde Israels utplåning. Mahmoud Abbas, ledare för al-Fatah, uppställde nyligen som en förutsättning för fred att Israel skulle överge sin huvudstad Jerusalem samt accepterar inte att Israel kallar sig en judisk stat.

Som sagt, progressiva krafter är svåra att finna. Ingen av de nu nämnda rörelserna kan rimligen räknas som progressiv.

Dessutom har vi Iran och Hisbollah som verkar i samma riktning: Israel ska bort.

Icke desto mindre får man önska socialdemokraterna lycka till, och hoppas att deras strävan att hitta någon progressiv kraft att stödja inte skall vara förgäves. Det borde väl finnas någon palestinsk rörelse som inte kräver att Israel ska utplånas, som man kunde stödja. Men jag känner inte till någon.

Här kan du läsa vilka som ingår i SIV:s nyvalda styrelse.

Länkar: Sapere Aude!, Världen Idag.

***

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Israel, Palestina, Hamas, antisionism, Socialdemokratiska Israelvänner, Iran, Hisbollah, al-Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, Jerusalem, PLO, PFLP

Enligt Jerusalem Post sade den palestinske “presidenten” Mahmoud Abbas idag, att “det inte kommer att bli någon fred förrän ockupationen av Jerusalem upphör”.

Eftersom Israel naturligtvis inte någonsin kommer att överge sin huvudstad Jerusalem, något som Abbas naturligtvis måste vara mycket väl medveten om, måste slutsatsen av hans resonemang bli den vanliga slutsatsen: Mahmoud Abbas vill inte ha fred med Israel. Någonsin. Den uppfattningen delar han med den organisation vars ledare han är, nämligen al-Fatah, men även med Hamas, Hisbollah, PFLP och Iran för att ta några exempel.

Låt oss hoppas att president Obama, Carl Bildt m. fl. till slut börjar lyssna på vad palestiniernas politiska företrädare säger och menar, och tar intryck av det.

Göteborgs-Posten menade igår att Obama var mer lyssnande än president Bush. Men lyssnandet verkar vara väldigt selektivt. Jag är ganska säker på att just detta uttalande av Abbas, ja det kommer vare sig Obama eller Bildt att låtsas om. Man hör det man vill höra …

Länk: Sapere Aude!

***

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Israel, Palestina, antisionism, Hamas, al-Fatah, PFLP, Iran, Hisbollah, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Carl Bildt, Mahmoud Abbas, Jerusalem

Embarrassed and denounced

In monumental fashion, recent events in Geneva have roundly earned Fatah and Abbas’s Palestinian Authority the contempt of ordinary Palestinians, reports Khaled Amayreh from Ramallah

The report, compiled by South African judge Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of committing, knowingly and deliberately, war crimes and crimes against humanity during its winter onslaught on the Gaza Strip in which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of whom were innocent civilians, including more than 300 children, with thousands others injured or badly incinerated by phosphoric bombs. Thousands of homes, mosques and public buildings were destroyed in the 22-day blitz.

The adoption of the report by the UNHRC would likely have led to calls for its referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and could eventually have led to the prosecution of suspected Israeli war criminals. However, the inexplicable PA decision to support freezing discussion of the report until March has effectively enabled Israel to evade culpability by burying and neutralising the report, at least for the time being.

In occupied Palestine, and much of the Arab world, the scandalous PA misstep has drawn universal condemnation from the political right to the left, with PA officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, finding themselves at loss as to how to shield themselves from an avalanche of vitriolic condemnations and accusations ranging from commission of treason to weakness, incompetence and powerlessness in the face of Israel and the United States.

In fact, no other act by the PA/PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) since the signing of the Oslo Accords more than 16 years ago has met such a unanimous revulsion, which explains the perplexed and confused reactions of PA officials and spokespersons. Moreover, most of the criticism came from secular groups, including organisations associated with the PLO itself, which would refute the claim that the widespread indignation was part of the public relations showdown between Fatah and the Islamist camp.

Even Fatah, Abbas’s own party, which is the political backbone of both the PLO and PA, had to “go with the flow,” at least publicly, by criticising the “irresponsible feat” in Geneva. Fatah is worried that the Geneva fiasco may cause it to lose popularity ahead of Palestinian elections that could take place in the second half of 2010.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas, eager to limit the damage, has ordered a probe into what happened. However, very few Palestinians take the measure seriously since it is widely believed that it was Abbas himself who asked the Palestinian ambassador to the UN to recommend freezing the Goldstone Report until March.

Hamas used strong epithets to denounce the PA decision to defer discussion of the Goldstone Report. Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus slammed the decision as representing “total subservience and submission” to the Zionist will. Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, blamed Abbas for the debacle, asserting that it was Abbas who took the decision. “The decision to abandon the Goldstone Report came from the top of the authority in Ramallah,” he said.

Harsher words came from Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. “The Palestinian people would like to know if the Ramallah leadership is a defender of the Palestinian people and their just cause or a lawyer for Israel. We wouldn’t be exaggerating if we said that this irresponsible behaviour borders on treason,” he said.

Hamas had lately toned down its propaganda war against Fatah, apparently in order to help create the atmosphere conducive to prospective reconciliation between the two groups. However, it seems that Hamas has found the latest public relations disaster incurred by Abbas too precious to be let pass quietly — especially since the PA misstep is widely viewed as a huge betrayal for war victims and the entire people of the Gaza Strip.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a PLO faction, also strongly denounced the deferral of the Goldstone Report as “irresponsible, defeatist” and representing a “huge affront to our people’s struggle for justice”. “This suspicious behaviour,” the group continued, “is a prescription for corroding a major tool of our struggle against the Israeli occupation.” A statement by the PFLP dismissed as “mendacious and silly” PA justifications for “this irresponsible act” which only serves the goals and interests of Israel.

Even stronger words came from the Islamic Jihad, which strongly condemned PA “connivance with our enemy”. “The PA behaviour in Geneva brings shame and dishonour to the Ramallah leadership and underscores the extent to which that leadership is conspiring with the Zionist regime against the interests of our people.” According to Mohamed Al-Hindi, a prominent Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, “it is disgraceful that while the Palestinian people are celebrating the release of its honourable female prisoners from Israeli dungeons, the PA is conspiring with Israel to cover up its crimes against our people in Gaza.”

The NGO sector also strongly denounced the Palestinian “retreat” in Geneva. In a widely circulated appeal entitled, “Justice delayed is justice denied,” 16 Palestinian civic and human rights organisations argued that PA consent to defer the ratification of the Goldstone Report to March effectively “denied the Palestinian people the right to an effective judicial remedy and equal protection of the law. It also represents the triumph of politics over human rights. It is an insult to all victims and a rejection of their rights.”

The same statement argued that the right to justice for victims of the Israeli war on Gaza shouldn’t be subject to political manoeuvring. “These rights are universal, they are not subject to political considerations. In the nine months since Operation Cast Lead, no effective judicial investigation has been conducted into the conflict.”

It is still somewhat unclear why the PA embraced such an unpopular decision. Some unnamed PA officials have disclosed that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bullied Abbas to defer discussion of the Goldstone Report, arguing that ratification of the report at the UNHRC would embarrass Israel and seriously undermine American efforts to restart the stalled peace process. The same sources intimated that the Obama administration had threatened to suspend its role as broker of Middle East peace efforts and freeze financial aid to the PA government if the latter didn’t heed the American “advice”.

Israel, also reportedly threatened the PA that it would refuse to license a new Palestinian mobile phone company, partially owned by one of Abbas’s sons, if the PA pushed for the adoption of the Goldstone Report in Geneva. However, the most likely reason for the PA decision may have to do with an Israeli threat to release records of conversations between Israeli and PA officials showing the latter pleading with the former to pursue the war on Gaza to the end in order to crush Hamas.

The PA has remained reticent over these specific accusations, which only enforces speculation about the public rumours.

What is clear is that the latest scandal, or “Goldstone-gate” as some Palestinian journalists are beginning to refer to events in Geneva, is likely to seriously undermine PA standing with the Palestinian public. Weakened popularity, coupled with obvious US failure to force Israel to freeze Jewish-only settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with mounting tension around Al-Aqsa Mosque, could form an incendiary trigger that might eventually explode in a new wave of violence — a third Intifada.

Embarrassed and denounced

In monumental fashion, recent events in Geneva have roundly earned Fatah and Abbas’s Palestinian Authority the contempt of ordinary Palestinians, reports Khaled Amayreh from Ramallah

The report, compiled by South African judge Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of committing, knowingly and deliberately, war crimes and crimes against humanity during its winter onslaught on the Gaza Strip in which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of whom were innocent civilians, including more than 300 children, with thousands others injured or badly incinerated by phosphoric bombs. Thousands of homes, mosques and public buildings were destroyed in the 22-day blitz.

The adoption of the report by the UNHRC would likely have led to calls for its referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and could eventually have led to the prosecution of suspected Israeli war criminals. However, the inexplicable PA decision to support freezing discussion of the report until March has effectively enabled Israel to evade culpability by burying and neutralising the report, at least for the time being.

In occupied Palestine, and much of the Arab world, the scandalous PA misstep has drawn universal condemnation from the political right to the left, with PA officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, finding themselves at loss as to how to shield themselves from an avalanche of vitriolic condemnations and accusations ranging from commission of treason to weakness, incompetence and powerlessness in the face of Israel and the United States.

In fact, no other act by the PA/PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) since the signing of the Oslo Accords more than 16 years ago has met such a unanimous revulsion, which explains the perplexed and confused reactions of PA officials and spokespersons. Moreover, most of the criticism came from secular groups, including organisations associated with the PLO itself, which would refute the claim that the widespread indignation was part of the public relations showdown between Fatah and the Islamist camp.

Even Fatah, Abbas’s own party, which is the political backbone of both the PLO and PA, had to “go with the flow,” at least publicly, by criticising the “irresponsible feat” in Geneva. Fatah is worried that the Geneva fiasco may cause it to lose popularity ahead of Palestinian elections that could take place in the second half of 2010.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas, eager to limit the damage, has ordered a probe into what happened. However, very few Palestinians take the measure seriously since it is widely believed that it was Abbas himself who asked the Palestinian ambassador to the UN to recommend freezing the Goldstone Report until March.

Hamas used strong epithets to denounce the PA decision to defer discussion of the Goldstone Report. Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus slammed the decision as representing “total subservience and submission” to the Zionist will. Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, blamed Abbas for the debacle, asserting that it was Abbas who took the decision. “The decision to abandon the Goldstone Report came from the top of the authority in Ramallah,” he said.

Harsher words came from Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. “The Palestinian people would like to know if the Ramallah leadership is a defender of the Palestinian people and their just cause or a lawyer for Israel. We wouldn’t be exaggerating if we said that this irresponsible behaviour borders on treason,” he said.

Hamas had lately toned down its propaganda war against Fatah, apparently in order to help create the atmosphere conducive to prospective reconciliation between the two groups. However, it seems that Hamas has found the latest public relations disaster incurred by Abbas too precious to be let pass quietly — especially since the PA misstep is widely viewed as a huge betrayal for war victims and the entire people of the Gaza Strip.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a PLO faction, also strongly denounced the deferral of the Goldstone Report as “irresponsible, defeatist” and representing a “huge affront to our people’s struggle for justice”. “This suspicious behaviour,” the group continued, “is a prescription for corroding a major tool of our struggle against the Israeli occupation.” A statement by the PFLP dismissed as “mendacious and silly” PA justifications for “this irresponsible act” which only serves the goals and interests of Israel.

Even stronger words came from the Islamic Jihad, which strongly condemned PA “connivance with our enemy”. “The PA behaviour in Geneva brings shame and dishonour to the Ramallah leadership and underscores the extent to which that leadership is conspiring with the Zionist regime against the interests of our people.” According to Mohamed Al-Hindi, a prominent Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, “it is disgraceful that while the Palestinian people are celebrating the release of its honourable female prisoners from Israeli dungeons, the PA is conspiring with Israel to cover up its crimes against our people in Gaza.”

The NGO sector also strongly denounced the Palestinian “retreat” in Geneva. In a widely circulated appeal entitled, “Justice delayed is justice denied,” 16 Palestinian civic and human rights organisations argued that PA consent to defer the ratification of the Goldstone Report to March effectively “denied the Palestinian people the right to an effective judicial remedy and equal protection of the law. It also represents the triumph of politics over human rights. It is an insult to all victims and a rejection of their rights.”

The same statement argued that the right to justice for victims of the Israeli war on Gaza shouldn’t be subject to political manoeuvring. “These rights are universal, they are not subject to political considerations. In the nine months since Operation Cast Lead, no effective judicial investigation has been conducted into the conflict.”

It is still somewhat unclear why the PA embraced such an unpopular decision. Some unnamed PA officials have disclosed that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bullied Abbas to defer discussion of the Goldstone Report, arguing that ratification of the report at the UNHRC would embarrass Israel and seriously undermine American efforts to restart the stalled peace process. The same sources intimated that the Obama administration had threatened to suspend its role as broker of Middle East peace efforts and freeze financial aid to the PA government if the latter didn’t heed the American “advice”.

Israel, also reportedly threatened the PA that it would refuse to license a new Palestinian mobile phone company, partially owned by one of Abbas’s sons, if the PA pushed for the adoption of the Goldstone Report in Geneva. However, the most likely reason for the PA decision may have to do with an Israeli threat to release records of conversations between Israeli and PA officials showing the latter pleading with the former to pursue the war on Gaza to the end in order to crush Hamas.

The PA has remained reticent over these specific accusations, which only enforces speculation about the public rumours.

What is clear is that the latest scandal, or “Goldstone-gate” as some Palestinian journalists are beginning to refer to events in Geneva, is likely to seriously undermine PA standing with the Palestinian public. Weakened popularity, coupled with obvious US failure to force Israel to freeze Jewish-only settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, along with mounting tension around Al-Aqsa Mosque, could form an incendiary trigger that might eventually explode in a new wave of violence — a third Intifada.

“…while I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbor, I reserve the right to protect myself, to resist the Israeli occupation of my country and to fight for my freedom.” –Marwan Barghouti, 2002 (Washington Post)

Democracy works. Maybe not for the Americans in this part of the world, but it works.

That is the primary reason the US has never applied enough pressure on the Israeli government to release the man who probably holds the fate of the Palestinians in his very hands – Marwan Barghouti.

The Fatah party is experiencing what I like to call the “George Bush effect.” Basically, after Abu Mazen’s failure to take full advantage of the monumental ‘Goldstone Report’ – along with other policy mishaps – the Fatah party is slowing distancing themselves from their revered politician.

Barghouti, the son of the First Palestinian Intifada and the father of the Second Palestinian Intifada, is the Palestinian savior. On the same token, he is Israel’s worst nightmare – a man sainted by all Palestinians. He led the Palestinian Tanzim forces, and has also been associated with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

When the Fatah Central Committee Elections were held on August 12^th, 2009, the jailed Barghouti came in third with 1,063 votes. He is on the top of the list for any future prisoner exchange with Israel – the Hamas list. He, along with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and DFLP, in Israeli prisons established the National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners, creating the basis for the coalition government to be formed in the Palestinian Legislative Council which also outlines the basis of negotiations with Israel towards peace. This document has arguably been ignored.

He is not even the Palestinian Obama; he is their Mandela.

So, in 2004, the Israeli civilian court sentenced Barghouti to five life sentences and 40 years imprisonment in what, of course, was an unfair and illegal trial even by the lowest international legal standards.

For the Israelis, releasing Barghouti is a gamble that the Israelis are not willing to take. Not because of his alleged terrorist activities, and the fear that he may regalvanize the Tanzim and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The fear is his potential leadership over the Palestinian people.

Barghouti’s release is a virtual guarantee that he will be president in the next Palestinian elections.

The Fatah system works in a strict top-down leadership structure, run by its Central Committee. Although this has watered down a bit since the last elections, it is the reason Barghouti hasn’t been president in the past four years.

It was for the sake of Fatah’s unity (see this TIME article), and perhaps their poor showing against Hamas, that Barghouti eventually pulled out of the 2004 Palestinian presidential elections.

Barghouti is a statesman and parliamentarian that commands law and respect. The Governing Council of the InterParliamentary Union has, since his imprisonment, has continuously expressed concern with the unfair trail and subsequent sentencing.

Last August, a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that Barghouti would defeat Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas by 62% to 31% in the upcoming elections. The poll also showed preference to Abbas over Haniyeh, as did one poll conducted by the International Peace Institute reiterating that support for Abbas.

Despite this, especially after the disastrous policy taken towards the Goldstone Report, the elections are ripe for another surprise. The denial of the west, Israel, and the Arab political elites never foresaw Hamas’s political victory. Their political transformation over the past few years has positively moved it from isolation into a true political party.

Israel’s policy of dependence on Palestinian internal turmoil has now reached its end. It now depends on who the Israelis want to see uniting them.

That is why, unless the international political status quo changes, they will not let Barghouti free. Only the US and the EU can make that happen. If Abbas, and other Fatah politicians want to save their party, they will assure that this can happen. Barghouti was Arafat’s successor, the rightly guided brotherly leader – Abbas came second.

That is why, it will only last so long – so they will buy as much time as they can. He is respected by all Palestinian factions – a level of respect that only increases.

And that is precisely why, Marwan Al Barghouti must heed the Palestinians’ call – and run for President, even if it means he will spend that Presidency in prison. Fatah’s Central Committee, Revolutionary Council, and the Higher Committee must respect his intention to run. If not, they must understand that Barghouti most likely has the capacity of building his own political party, Mustaqbal, become a President and lead a coalition parliament.

Palestinians will pray for change, and for Barghouti to stay the man that he is.

Link

Posted by realistic bird under Politics Tags: al aqsa, Al Quds, Gaza, Israeli crimes, Israeli policies, Jerusalem, news, palestine, Palestinians, Politics, West Bank
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Fri, 09 Oct 2009, Press TV

Israeli forces resorts to tear gas and use of force to disperse scores of Palestinians gathered in Jerusalem Al-Quds in defense of their holy Al-Aqsa mosque.

Palestinian worshippers, who were denied access to Al-Aqsa mosque, thronged in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood just outside the gates of the Old City after the weekly Friday prayers, in protest at threats posed to the Muslims’ third holy site by right-wing Israelis.

The demonstration came amid tightened security and deployment of thousands of Israeli security forces to the city to prevent Muslims from entering to the holy site.

Israeli forces clashed with the protesters, as stone-hurling Palestinian youths responded to the soldiers who fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested two Palestinians.

Chasing the masked youths deeper into the neighborhood, Israeli forces found themselves beset from all sides by residents who threw stones, water and even chairs at them.

In the Gaza Strip, thousands of people on Friday took part in demonstrations called by leaders of the Islamic Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movements who had called for “a day of rage in Gaza and the West Bank”.

The call was echoed in the West Bank by the central committee of the Palestinian Fatah movement, urging Palestinians to stage a peaceful protest to proclaim their “attachment to their holy places and to Jerusalem Al-Quds as the eternal capital of the independent Palestinian state.”

The Fatah-run Palestinian Authority accused Tel Aviv of allowing ultra right Jewish extremists to enter the mosque compound, while denying access to Muslims, calling on the United Nation to intervene and prevent Israel from imposing provocative measures.

Tens of thousands in Gaza demonstrate in support of the Aqsa Mosque

[ 09/10/2009 - 09:17 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– Tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip heeded the call of Hamas Movement to demonstrate in support of the Aqsa Mosque that had been under Israeli siege for more than a week now.

In a massive rally held in Khan Younis city in southern Gaza Strip, Hamas’s political leader MP Yahya Mousa urged foundations of the civil society to free themselves from the chain of foreign financial support, and to expose the big conspiracy concocted against the Aqsa Mosque.

“The Aqsa isn’t only in danger, but it is about to be destroyed… the Aqsa is part of our faith, and it is the center point of the struggle between truth and falsehood, and it is about time for the Arabs and the Muslim Ummah to wake up and defend it”, asserted Mousa as he addressed the masses.

“We are prepared for the final battle with the Israelis, and the Arabs should unite, and we say to them: you have no excuse if the Aqsa is destroyed… the Muslim peoples should go to and demonstrate in the streets, and to the Arab rulers we say: are you not ashamed of being a toy in the hands of the Zionists?”, he added.

Mousa also called on the “honorable” persons in Fatah faction to correct their faction’s path, and to get rid of the disgrace brought to them and to their movement by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and his retinue because, he added, the history of Fatah now was at the brink of collapse, otherwise Fatah would become worse than the defunct Lahd Army in southern Lebanon.

In this regard, Mousa invited the Palestinian people to continue demonstrating and to revolt against the leadership in Ramallah till Abbas resigns or is ousted by force, and if this crime [Abbas's decision to delay a UN vote on the Goldstone report] passed unpunished, Abbas would next sell the entire Palestinian cause.

“No one is allowed to remain neutral in this matter because the Palestinian people wouldn’t forgive any one betraying them or trading with their blood”, he underscored, accusing the Ramallah leadership of becoming a burden on the Palestinian national action, and of mortgaging itself to the international conditions, which is a lost project.

Furthermore, Mousa reiterated his Movement’s concern to end the Palestinian political rift and to achieve the national reconciliation, but he called on Cairo to adjourn the signing of the reconciliation agreement till the shame brought by Abbas on the Palestinian issue is removed.

For his part, Hamas’s legislator Abdul Rahman Al-Jamal called on the Ramallah-based PA to release all Palestinian resistance fighters detained in the West Bank jails, strongly criticizing Abbas for ordering a delay on a crucial UN vote on the Goldstone report.

“The fanatic Jewish groups and the IOF troops were encouraged and stormed the Aqsa Mosque and arrested Muslim worshippers inside it after Abbas’s harmful decision, and the Israeli aggression on the Aqsa Mosque was coordinated with a team of traitors inside the Muqata’a in Ramallah”, Jamal charged.

Massive rally in Damascus in support of the Aqsa and condemnation of Abbas

[ 09/10/2009 - 08:48 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)– Mahir Al-Tahir, the representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP in the exile, has strongly criticized on Friday Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas for aborting a scheduled UNHRC vote on the Goldstone report, stressing that Palestinian blood is precious.

Tahir’s remarks came during a massive rally organized by the supreme follow-up committee of the Palestinian national conference in the Palestinian refugee camp of Al-Yarmook in the Syrian capital Damascus Friday against the Zionist policies towards the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque as well as Abbas’s withdrawal of support for the Goldstone report.

‘The Palestinian blood isn’t cheap for the PA leadership to ask for adjourning the vote on the Goldstone report…. This is a clear undermining of the blood of the Palestinian martyrs,” underlined Tahir.

He added, “For the past 60 years, our Palestinian people have offered martyrs, and when the chance loomed to bring murderers of the Palestinian people before international justice, the PA adjourned the UN meeting”.

He described Abbas’s decision as “political and ethical crime that shouldn’t be allowed to pass unpunished”, calling to hold accountable every person involved in the adjournment decision starting from Abbas down to the smallest official involved in that crime.

However, he blamed the “destructive” path of the Oslo agreement that, he explained, divided the Palestinian people and compromised Palestinian legal rights, urging the Palestinian people shun that path, and to build new Palestinian strategy based on national unity and resistance, and not to compromise a grain of the occupied Palestinian soil.

He also invited the Palestinian people to revolt against and to kick out US General Keith Dayton who is the virtual military governor of the West Bank

Turkish masses demonstrate in support of Jerusalem

[ 09/10/2009 - 07:54 PM ]

ISTANBUL, (PIC)– Thousands of Turkish people marched the streets in massive demonstrations in support of the Aqsa Mosque, stressing that defending the holy shrine was a religious duty on every Muslim.

In the country’s second city Istanbul, thousands of Turkish citizens chanted slogans in support of the Palestinian cause and against the Zionist entity, urging the Turkish parliament to support the Palestinian parliament under speaker MP Dr. Aziz Dwaik.

The demonstrators also called on their government to kick out the Israeli ambassador in Turkey and to sever diplomatic ties with the Zionist entity.

More demonstrations were registered in the Turkish cities of Kirkali and Siwas where angry demonstrators accused the Zionist entity of conspiring to destroy the Aqsa Mosque and to build the alleged third Temple on its ruins, urging their government and the OIC to mobilize in defense of the Aqsa Mosque.

Huge demonstrations in Iran in support of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Moque

Link

Posted by realistic bird under Politics Tags: al aqsa, Al Quds, Gaza, Israeli crimes, Israeli policies, Jerusalem, news, palestine, Palestinians, Politics, West Bank
Leave a Comment

Fri, 09 Oct 2009, Press TV

Israeli forces resorts to tear gas and use of force to disperse scores of Palestinians gathered in Jerusalem Al-Quds in defense of their holy Al-Aqsa mosque.

Palestinian worshippers, who were denied access to Al-Aqsa mosque, thronged in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood just outside the gates of the Old City after the weekly Friday prayers, in protest at threats posed to the Muslims’ third holy site by right-wing Israelis.

The demonstration came amid tightened security and deployment of thousands of Israeli security forces to the city to prevent Muslims from entering to the holy site.

Israeli forces clashed with the protesters, as stone-hurling Palestinian youths responded to the soldiers who fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested two Palestinians.

Chasing the masked youths deeper into the neighborhood, Israeli forces found themselves beset from all sides by residents who threw stones, water and even chairs at them.

In the Gaza Strip, thousands of people on Friday took part in demonstrations called by leaders of the Islamic Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movements who had called for “a day of rage in Gaza and the West Bank”.

The call was echoed in the West Bank by the central committee of the Palestinian Fatah movement, urging Palestinians to stage a peaceful protest to proclaim their “attachment to their holy places and to Jerusalem Al-Quds as the eternal capital of the independent Palestinian state.”

The Fatah-run Palestinian Authority accused Tel Aviv of allowing ultra right Jewish extremists to enter the mosque compound, while denying access to Muslims, calling on the United Nation to intervene and prevent Israel from imposing provocative measures.

Tens of thousands in Gaza demonstrate in support of the Aqsa Mosque

[ 09/10/2009 - 09:17 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– Tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip heeded the call of Hamas Movement to demonstrate in support of the Aqsa Mosque that had been under Israeli siege for more than a week now.

In a massive rally held in Khan Younis city in southern Gaza Strip, Hamas’s political leader MP Yahya Mousa urged foundations of the civil society to free themselves from the chain of foreign financial support, and to expose the big conspiracy concocted against the Aqsa Mosque.

“The Aqsa isn’t only in danger, but it is about to be destroyed… the Aqsa is part of our faith, and it is the center point of the struggle between truth and falsehood, and it is about time for the Arabs and the Muslim Ummah to wake up and defend it”, asserted Mousa as he addressed the masses.

“We are prepared for the final battle with the Israelis, and the Arabs should unite, and we say to them: you have no excuse if the Aqsa is destroyed… the Muslim peoples should go to and demonstrate in the streets, and to the Arab rulers we say: are you not ashamed of being a toy in the hands of the Zionists?”, he added.

Mousa also called on the “honorable” persons in Fatah faction to correct their faction’s path, and to get rid of the disgrace brought to them and to their movement by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and his retinue because, he added, the history of Fatah now was at the brink of collapse, otherwise Fatah would become worse than the defunct Lahd Army in southern Lebanon.

In this regard, Mousa invited the Palestinian people to continue demonstrating and to revolt against the leadership in Ramallah till Abbas resigns or is ousted by force, and if this crime [Abbas's decision to delay a UN vote on the Goldstone report] passed unpunished, Abbas would next sell the entire Palestinian cause.

“No one is allowed to remain neutral in this matter because the Palestinian people wouldn’t forgive any one betraying them or trading with their blood”, he underscored, accusing the Ramallah leadership of becoming a burden on the Palestinian national action, and of mortgaging itself to the international conditions, which is a lost project.

Furthermore, Mousa reiterated his Movement’s concern to end the Palestinian political rift and to achieve the national reconciliation, but he called on Cairo to adjourn the signing of the reconciliation agreement till the shame brought by Abbas on the Palestinian issue is removed.

For his part, Hamas’s legislator Abdul Rahman Al-Jamal called on the Ramallah-based PA to release all Palestinian resistance fighters detained in the West Bank jails, strongly criticizing Abbas for ordering a delay on a crucial UN vote on the Goldstone report.

“The fanatic Jewish groups and the IOF troops were encouraged and stormed the Aqsa Mosque and arrested Muslim worshippers inside it after Abbas’s harmful decision, and the Israeli aggression on the Aqsa Mosque was coordinated with a team of traitors inside the Muqata’a in Ramallah”, Jamal charged.

Massive rally in Damascus in support of the Aqsa and condemnation of Abbas

[ 09/10/2009 - 08:48 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)– Mahir Al-Tahir, the representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP in the exile, has strongly criticized on Friday Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas for aborting a scheduled UNHRC vote on the Goldstone report, stressing that Palestinian blood is precious.

Tahir’s remarks came during a massive rally organized by the supreme follow-up committee of the Palestinian national conference in the Palestinian refugee camp of Al-Yarmook in the Syrian capital Damascus Friday against the Zionist policies towards the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque as well as Abbas’s withdrawal of support for the Goldstone report.

‘The Palestinian blood isn’t cheap for the PA leadership to ask for adjourning the vote on the Goldstone report…. This is a clear undermining of the blood of the Palestinian martyrs,” underlined Tahir.

He added, “For the past 60 years, our Palestinian people have offered martyrs, and when the chance loomed to bring murderers of the Palestinian people before international justice, the PA adjourned the UN meeting”.

He described Abbas’s decision as “political and ethical crime that shouldn’t be allowed to pass unpunished”, calling to hold accountable every person involved in the adjournment decision starting from Abbas down to the smallest official involved in that crime.

However, he blamed the “destructive” path of the Oslo agreement that, he explained, divided the Palestinian people and compromised Palestinian legal rights, urging the Palestinian people shun that path, and to build new Palestinian strategy based on national unity and resistance, and not to compromise a grain of the occupied Palestinian soil.

He also invited the Palestinian people to revolt against and to kick out US General Keith Dayton who is the virtual military governor of the West Bank

Turkish masses demonstrate in support of Jerusalem

[ 09/10/2009 - 07:54 PM ]

ISTANBUL, (PIC)– Thousands of Turkish people marched the streets in massive demonstrations in support of the Aqsa Mosque, stressing that defending the holy shrine was a religious duty on every Muslim.

In the country’s second city Istanbul, thousands of Turkish citizens chanted slogans in support of the Palestinian cause and against the Zionist entity, urging the Turkish parliament to support the Palestinian parliament under speaker MP Dr. Aziz Dwaik.

The demonstrators also called on their government to kick out the Israeli ambassador in Turkey and to sever diplomatic ties with the Zionist entity.

More demonstrations were registered in the Turkish cities of Kirkali and Siwas where angry demonstrators accused the Zionist entity of conspiring to destroy the Aqsa Mosque and to build the alleged third Temple on its ruins, urging their government and the OIC to mobilize in defense of the Aqsa Mosque.

Huge demonstrations in Iran in support of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Moque

Shallah: Abbas’s withdrawal of Goldstone’s report wrecked reconciliation efforts

[ 08/10/2009 - 10:58 AM ]

DOHA, (PIC)– Islamic Jihad sectary-general Ramadan Shallah stated Wednesday that Mahmoud Abbas’s withdrawal of support for Goldstone’s report torpedoed the national reconciliation efforts made by Egypt, describing this act as a political suicide.

Shallah told Al-Jazeera satellite channel that delaying Goldstone’s report is added to the many sins committed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), adding that the PA is hostage to the Israeli occupation and consequently it is persistent in sticking to its defunct settlement option despite its proven failure.

He said that the party which undermined any chance to achieve the national reconciliation was Abbas and not Hamas or Islamic Jihad, noting that what is happening in the Palestinian arena is the fruit of not recognizing the results of the Palestinian elections.

For his part, Ziyad Al-Nakhala, the deputy secretary-general of Islamic Jihad, condemned during a conference held by the Islamic radio and television union the PA action toward Goldstone’s report as a big scandal and disgrace in the history of the Palestinian people and that of the Arab and Muslim nations.

Nakhala told the audience that the PA, through this irresponsible act, deprived the victim from prosecuting its executioner and washed off the blood of the Palestinian people from Israel’s hands.

He called on the attendees to expose all policies that aim to belittle the importance of the resistance and confine the Palestinian cause in a geographical framework under flimsy pretexts, like saying that peace negotiations is a strategic option and the official leadership of the Palestinians adopted this choice.

The Islamic Jihad leader also talked about how to motivate the workers in the media field to be loyal to the Palestinian people’s struggle, so that the suffering of the Palestinian people and the justice of their national cause cannot turn into a scene of a painful drama that quickly sinks into oblivion under the influence of defeatist and corrupt satellite channels and radio stations.

PFLP: There is a consensus on condemning Abbas for delaying Goldstone’s report

[ 08/10/2009 - 08:07 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)– Maher Al-Taher, a senior official of the popular front for the liberation of Palestine (PFLP), stated Wednesday that there is a Palestinian consensus on condemning Mahmoud Abbas’s withdrawal of support for Goldstone’s report.

Taher told Al-Alam satellite channel that Abbas saved Israel from international condemnation and thus he committed a moral and political crime.

He underlined that the PA decision to delay the vote on Goldstone’s report was the fruit of the peace process and Oslo agreement and called for holding accountable Abbas and everyone involved in delaying the report.

For his part, Mohamed Al-Hourani, a senior Fatah leader, said that there is a state of consensus among the leaders of Fatah and other PLO factions on rejecting the step taken by Abbas against Goldstone’s report.

Hourani added that the PA and PLO institutions are responsible for dealing with the consequences of Abbas’s position towards the report.