"Any one who speaks Arabic can tell that the torturers are Dahlan's thugs. After beating the Hamas people viciously, they force them to chant for Dahlan, "With our lives and blood we will redeem you o Dahlan!" Also at the end they force them to chant,"Hamas is Shiite, Hamas is Shiite!" Which of course is not true, but it is supposed to put Hamas in the Iranian camp; a sleazy sectarian attempt. Is there any doubt that Israel is behind this thug Dahlan?"
WARNING: Viewer discretion is advised
Just a reminder that Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine.
Showing posts with label New Unity Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Unity Government. Show all posts
Friday, June 22, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Whose Coup, Exactly?
Abbas's appointing a new prime minister was itself entirely illegal. The new 'emergency government' is illegal, too. According to the Basic Law of Palestine (as amended in 2003), which serves as the constitution of the PA, Abbas can do neither of these things. Nor can the new 'emergency government' claim any democratic mandate. This means that Abbas and the Fayyad government are ruling by decree, outside the framework of the Basic Law. So on what basis is that government supposed to govern -- and on what basis are foreign governments supposed to deal with it?
According to the Basic Law, Abbas has violated a whole stream of Articles as well as the spirit of its checks and balances, which were designed during the Arafat era partly to limit the power of the presidency. With full US and Israel support (if not their insistence), Abbas has baldly trashed numerous provisions of the Basic Law, including:
According to the Basic Law, Abbas has violated a whole stream of Articles as well as the spirit of its checks and balances, which were designed during the Arafat era partly to limit the power of the presidency. With full US and Israel support (if not their insistence), Abbas has baldly trashed numerous provisions of the Basic Law, including:
- The President can sack his Prime Minister (Article 45) but he cannot legally appoint a new Prime Minister that does not represent the majority party (i.e., Hamas).
- In the event that a President sacks the PM, the Government is considered to have resigned (Article 83), but the serving Cabinet (here, the Hamas-led Cabinet) is supposed to govern until a new Cabinet is confirmed by the Legislative Council (Article 78).
- Only the Legislative Council can confirm the new PM and Cabinet and the new officials cannot take their oaths (Article 67) or assume their duties (Article 79) until this is done. We might now look for the Fayyad government to go to the Legislative Council for post hoc approval, but if the Legislative Council cannot vote for lack of a quorum -- because too many of its members are in jail or refuse to participate -- then the Cabinet cannot be legally confirmed. The Basic Law provides no remedy for conditions where the Legislative Council cannot vote to confirm the Cabinet or the actions of the President.
- The President can rule by degree during emergencies (Article 43) but the Legislative Council must approve all these decrees at its first meeting.
- The President cannot suspend the Legislative Council during a state of emergency (Article 113).
- The President has no power to call early elections, either.
- The Basic Law has no provision whatsoever for an "emergency government."
Saturday, June 16, 2007
CIA Meddling in Palestinian Affairs
"After overtaking the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security headquarters in Gaza City on Thursday afternoon, Hamas fighters report they have seized tens of thousands of highly valuable intelligence documents, including correspondence between the PA and others, including the CIA, regarding security issues.
'If we release these documents, the entire world will be shocked, not just the Palestinians. The dozens of armored vehicles, RPG launchers and rockets, the hundreds of thousands of bullets we have – they are all nothing compared to the documents and data discs we uncovered.
'There are video tapes of surveillance against our fighters and their homes, wiretaps on our calls, the PA's entire method of operation has been exposed,' he said.
The Hamas man said that the documents also implicate several Arab nations of involvement in the internal Palestinian power-struggle in an attempt to impair Hamas. According to the Hamas source the papers also document the PA's cooperation with the American CIA against Palestinian organizations, especially Hamas.
Releasing the documents would entail the approval of the Hamas leadership, said the Hamas source, saying that the documents would be used to prove the justness of Hamas' fight against the Palestinian security forces.
The WorldNetDaily news website reported Muhammed Abdel-El, the spokesperson for the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees group, as saying: "The CIA files we seized, which include documents, CDs, taped conversations, and videos, are more important that all the American weapons we obtained the last two days as we took over the traitor Fatah's positions."
Another Hamas official, quoted by WND, said the CIA documents they browsed so far contain "information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza."
Full Story
'If we release these documents, the entire world will be shocked, not just the Palestinians. The dozens of armored vehicles, RPG launchers and rockets, the hundreds of thousands of bullets we have – they are all nothing compared to the documents and data discs we uncovered.
'There are video tapes of surveillance against our fighters and their homes, wiretaps on our calls, the PA's entire method of operation has been exposed,' he said.
The Hamas man said that the documents also implicate several Arab nations of involvement in the internal Palestinian power-struggle in an attempt to impair Hamas. According to the Hamas source the papers also document the PA's cooperation with the American CIA against Palestinian organizations, especially Hamas.
Releasing the documents would entail the approval of the Hamas leadership, said the Hamas source, saying that the documents would be used to prove the justness of Hamas' fight against the Palestinian security forces.
The WorldNetDaily news website reported Muhammed Abdel-El, the spokesperson for the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees group, as saying: "The CIA files we seized, which include documents, CDs, taped conversations, and videos, are more important that all the American weapons we obtained the last two days as we took over the traitor Fatah's positions."
Another Hamas official, quoted by WND, said the CIA documents they browsed so far contain "information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza."
Full Story
Thursday, June 7, 2007
1967 War: An Unfinished Chapter
By Ismail Haniyeh
WHEN the Israeli leaders launched their expansionist war in June 1967 they never envisaged that 40 years later they would still be haunted by the consequences. At the time, they were driven by one strategic objective: to end the conflict by seizing all that remained of Palestine and complete the process of ethnic cleansing that started in 1948.
They did not realise the resolution of this conflict would take much more than military superiority. The occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai peninsula was portrayed as the victory of David over Goliath. For the next two decades the Palestinian experience was drowned out by the clamour of Israeli hubris. The world paid little attention to the expropriation of Palestinian land, the apartheid regime established by the occupation and the systematic destruction of Palestinian livelihoods.
It was only in 1987 that the world awoke to the reality of a popular Palestinian uprising –– intifada. A new generation had come of age, thirsty for freedom and peace with dignity in its own land. The two decades since have confirmed that my people will not repeat the mistakes of 1948. They will remain rooted in their land, whatever the price, and pursue their legitimate right to resist the occupation.
That right is supported by, for example, UN Resolutions 2955 and 3034, which affirm the "inalienable" right of all peoples to self-determination and the legitimacy of their struggle against foreign domination and subjugation "by all available means".
Israel's fateful error was to underestimate the resolve of the Palestinians. Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded by the Israeli army since 1967. During 2006, the number of Palestinians killed reached 650. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel –– about 40 per cent of the male population. Today three-quarters of the Palestinian people are displaced: there are five million Palestinian refugees throughout the world.
With the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, we were told that things would get better. But life became more hellish as Israel accelerated settlement building and seizures of our land. Meanwhile, the world was fed the fallacy that Israel was defending its "threatened existence". In reality, it is Israel, through the prosecution of colonial war, that has threatened the Palestinians' right to live in their land. And when they were most needed, the world's most powerful states refused to ensure respect for the international law that "the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible".
In contempt of the will of the international community, Israel continues to build its annexationist apartheid wall across the West Bank. Which western state\n would, in the 21st century, accept that its citizens be literally caged and locked into cantons? Undaunted by repression, my people have embraced democracy as a means of struggle and governance. Yet in response the world's most powerful democracies have imposed an economic blockade against my people, while Israel continues to kill, expropriate and destroy with impunity. The humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is clearly designed to subvert the elected government and create a client authority that concedes every wish of the occupier. There can be no exit from the impasse without sanctions being lifted and Israel's release of the hundreds of millions of dollars of our money it has seized.
In the 1967 war, Israel conquered the land of Palestine but it did not conquer the people. And in its attempt to debase and dehumanise my people, Israel has debased and degraded itself before the family of nations. The 1967 war has over 40 years engendered\n successive wars and destabilisation of the Middle East. The increasing mistrust between the Arab-Muslim peoples and the western world is rooted in the conflict in Palestine.
The first step to change this catastrophic climate is for the West to engage with the Palestinian National Unity government, which envisages the establishment of an independent state on all the Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967, the dismantling of all the settlements in the West Bank, the release of all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the recognition of the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes."
With the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, we were told that things would get better. But life became more hellish as Israel accelerated settlement building and seizures of our land. Meanwhile, the world was fed the fallacy that Israel was defending its "threatened existence". In reality, it is Israel, through the prosecution of colonial war, that has threatened the Palestinians' right to live in their land. And when they were most needed, the world's most powerful states refused to ensure respect for the international law that "the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible".
In contempt of the will of the international community, Israel continues to build its annexationist apartheid wall across the West Bank. Which western state would, in the 21st century, accept that its citizens be literally caged and locked into cantons? Undaunted by repression, my people have embraced democracy as a means of struggle and governance. Yet in response the world's most powerful democracies have imposed an economic blockade against my people, while Israel continues to kill, expropriate and destroy with impunity. The humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is clearly designed to subvert the elected government and create a client authority that concedes every wish of the occupier. There can be no exit from the impasse without sanctions being lifted and Israel's release of the hundreds of millions of dollars of our money it has seized.
In the 1967 war, Israel conquered the land of Palestine but it did not conquer the people. And in its attempt to debase and dehumanise my people, Israel has debased and degraded itself before the family of nations. The 1967 war has over 40 years engendered successive wars and destabilisation of the Middle East. The increasing mistrust between the Arab-Muslim peoples and the western world is rooted in the conflict in Palestine.The first step to change this catastrophic climate is for the West to engage with the Palestinian National Unity government, which envisages the establishment of an independent state on all the Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967, the dismantling of all the settlements in the West Bank, the release of all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the recognition of the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
If Israel is serious about peace, it has to recognise these basic rights of our people. The 1967 war remains an unfinished chapter. Nothing will stop our struggle for freedom and to have all our children reunited in a fully sovereign state of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital. ––The Guardian, London
The writer is the Palestinian prime minister.
WHEN the Israeli leaders launched their expansionist war in June 1967 they never envisaged that 40 years later they would still be haunted by the consequences. At the time, they were driven by one strategic objective: to end the conflict by seizing all that remained of Palestine and complete the process of ethnic cleansing that started in 1948.
They did not realise the resolution of this conflict would take much more than military superiority. The occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai peninsula was portrayed as the victory of David over Goliath. For the next two decades the Palestinian experience was drowned out by the clamour of Israeli hubris. The world paid little attention to the expropriation of Palestinian land, the apartheid regime established by the occupation and the systematic destruction of Palestinian livelihoods.
It was only in 1987 that the world awoke to the reality of a popular Palestinian uprising –– intifada. A new generation had come of age, thirsty for freedom and peace with dignity in its own land. The two decades since have confirmed that my people will not repeat the mistakes of 1948. They will remain rooted in their land, whatever the price, and pursue their legitimate right to resist the occupation.
That right is supported by, for example, UN Resolutions 2955 and 3034, which affirm the "inalienable" right of all peoples to self-determination and the legitimacy of their struggle against foreign domination and subjugation "by all available means".
Israel's fateful error was to underestimate the resolve of the Palestinians. Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded by the Israeli army since 1967. During 2006, the number of Palestinians killed reached 650. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel –– about 40 per cent of the male population. Today three-quarters of the Palestinian people are displaced: there are five million Palestinian refugees throughout the world.
With the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, we were told that things would get better. But life became more hellish as Israel accelerated settlement building and seizures of our land. Meanwhile, the world was fed the fallacy that Israel was defending its "threatened existence". In reality, it is Israel, through the prosecution of colonial war, that has threatened the Palestinians' right to live in their land. And when they were most needed, the world's most powerful states refused to ensure respect for the international law that "the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible".
In contempt of the will of the international community, Israel continues to build its annexationist apartheid wall across the West Bank. Which western state\n would, in the 21st century, accept that its citizens be literally caged and locked into cantons? Undaunted by repression, my people have embraced democracy as a means of struggle and governance. Yet in response the world's most powerful democracies have imposed an economic blockade against my people, while Israel continues to kill, expropriate and destroy with impunity. The humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is clearly designed to subvert the elected government and create a client authority that concedes every wish of the occupier. There can be no exit from the impasse without sanctions being lifted and Israel's release of the hundreds of millions of dollars of our money it has seized.
In the 1967 war, Israel conquered the land of Palestine but it did not conquer the people. And in its attempt to debase and dehumanise my people, Israel has debased and degraded itself before the family of nations. The 1967 war has over 40 years engendered\n successive wars and destabilisation of the Middle East. The increasing mistrust between the Arab-Muslim peoples and the western world is rooted in the conflict in Palestine.
The first step to change this catastrophic climate is for the West to engage with the Palestinian National Unity government, which envisages the establishment of an independent state on all the Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967, the dismantling of all the settlements in the West Bank, the release of all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the recognition of the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes."
With the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, we were told that things would get better. But life became more hellish as Israel accelerated settlement building and seizures of our land. Meanwhile, the world was fed the fallacy that Israel was defending its "threatened existence". In reality, it is Israel, through the prosecution of colonial war, that has threatened the Palestinians' right to live in their land. And when they were most needed, the world's most powerful states refused to ensure respect for the international law that "the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible".
In contempt of the will of the international community, Israel continues to build its annexationist apartheid wall across the West Bank. Which western state would, in the 21st century, accept that its citizens be literally caged and locked into cantons? Undaunted by repression, my people have embraced democracy as a means of struggle and governance. Yet in response the world's most powerful democracies have imposed an economic blockade against my people, while Israel continues to kill, expropriate and destroy with impunity. The humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is clearly designed to subvert the elected government and create a client authority that concedes every wish of the occupier. There can be no exit from the impasse without sanctions being lifted and Israel's release of the hundreds of millions of dollars of our money it has seized.
In the 1967 war, Israel conquered the land of Palestine but it did not conquer the people. And in its attempt to debase and dehumanise my people, Israel has debased and degraded itself before the family of nations. The 1967 war has over 40 years engendered successive wars and destabilisation of the Middle East. The increasing mistrust between the Arab-Muslim peoples and the western world is rooted in the conflict in Palestine.The first step to change this catastrophic climate is for the West to engage with the Palestinian National Unity government, which envisages the establishment of an independent state on all the Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967, the dismantling of all the settlements in the West Bank, the release of all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the recognition of the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
If Israel is serious about peace, it has to recognise these basic rights of our people. The 1967 war remains an unfinished chapter. Nothing will stop our struggle for freedom and to have all our children reunited in a fully sovereign state of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital. ––The Guardian, London
The writer is the Palestinian prime minister.
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