Palestine: Challenges from within

Palestinian legislative elections will go ahead as planned, though the results are far from certain for the ruling Fatah faction, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has reaffirmed his commitment to hold crucial legislative elections, slated for 17 July, on time. His reassertion came in the aftermath of suggestions by some Fatah law- makers in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) that a postponement of the elections was necessary to allow more time for adequate preparations.

Earlier in the week, the PLC approved the "election law" in its second reading, whereby a third of MPs would be elected as "national candidates" while two-thirds would be elected in regional districts, either as party list members or independents. The draft law is fiercely opposed by the bulk of Palestinian society and most of the smaller political factions who petitioned Abbas to see to it that "a fairer and more representative law" was adopted.

Last month Palestinian political factions meeting in Cairo agreed that the "50-50 system" would be adopted; meaning half of the parliament's seats would be contested nationally with the other half contested within regional districts. Meanwhile, some Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) factions are exploring the idea of contesting the elections under a united "nationalist- democratic front" to challenge the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.

This idea was floated last week by Abbas who proposed that the entire occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, be considered a single electoral district, very much like the Israeli electoral system. Abbas, who is also head of Fatah, the de facto ruling party of the Palestinian Authority (PA), suggested that a united PLO front would put up a serious challenge to Hamas and might well keep it at bay.

This view is generally shared by leaders of the three main Palestinian leftist factions, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Palestine People's Party (PPP). The Palestine National Initiative (PNI), headed by former presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti, accepts the idea in principle, but insists that any Fatah-leftist front must be predicated on the condition that his expressly secular party is treated as "equal" rather than "subordinate" to Fatah

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/740/re3.htm

In a recent conference, once again it was said that Israel would be recognized if the Palestinian People were allowed their State called for in the Road Map to Peace.

Once you have the Palestinian State in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza. You are on the Road to Peace and the Israeli Arabs have a better chance of equality as the Jewish Settlers will have a better chance at Peace. After all what is wrong with the State of Israel with a Jewish majority and an Arab minority?....And what is wrong With Palestine with a Palestinian majority and a Jewish minority?....Nothing, if both nations were at Peace instead of One Group under the Brutal Occupation and Oppression of the Other.

Once you have a Palestinian State, the Israeli Arabs who do not like living in Israel can move to Palestine, Just like the Jewish settlers who do not like living in the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian Rule can move to Israel Proper.
Do the right thing and Peace Will Follow......

Hypocrisy and double standard does not lead to peace, and people are not blind and they can see the truth as it really is.

Thirty-six years of war should be enough for such a small number of people, when you consider the World Population.
Allowing the Palestinian People to have their small state in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza can solve this conflict.
There are 1,200,000 or so Arabs living inside Israel Proper.
There are 400,000 or so Jews living inside the West Bank and Gaza.
Trying to remove all the settlement can be an almost undoable task.
So Set the Borders for Israel to it Pre 1967 Border (Green Line) and have the State of Palestine inside the West Bank and Gaza.
If the U.N. can decide the Borders of Israel in 1948,
The U.N. can decide the Borders of Palestine in 2005.
You would end up with Israel with a majority Jewish Population and Palestine with a majority Muslim Population.
This would allow for the Israeli Military to Guard and Control the Israeli pre 1967 borders instead of confiscating Palestinian Land and Demolishing Palestinian Homes in the West Bank and Gaza that only goes to fuel the need for the Palestinian People to fight for their Freedom.
The Jews who do not like living in the new Palestinian State can feel free to move to Israel if they so choose.
The Arabs living inside Israel can feel free to move to the new Palestinian State if they so choose.
Almost every nation on earth has more then one ethnic group or religious group, so why not Israel and Palestine?
It would sure be better then the never-ending conflict we have right now.

Who has died and how in this struggle for Palestinian Freedom?
CLICK HERE > http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

>>>"In a recent conference, once again it was said that Israel would be recognized if the Palestinian People were allowed their State called for in the Road Map to Peace."<<<

Perhaps ANGEL could refresh our memory as to when this occurred and where?

>>A *recent* conference?<<
>>>"In a recent conference, once again it was said that Israel would be recognized if the Palestinian People were allowed their State called for in the Road Map to Peace."<<<

>>Perhaps ANGEL could refresh our memory as to when this occurred and where?<<

To have peace we must realize that the Arab Population also wants to live in Peace just like everybody else, but they do not want to be deprived of their land and freedom as is the case with the Palestinians.

>>>ALGIERS, 22 March 2005 — The Arab League Summit starts today with an air of seriousness and purpose as delegates from the 22-member group are expected to focus more on social and economic issues than at earlier meetings, though Saudi diplomats hope to restart the Arab peace plan.<<<

>>>The initiative offers Israel peace and normal relations with Arab countries in return for withdrawal to the borders as they stood on the eve of the Middle East War of 1967. Jordan had tried to simplify the offer, known in the Arab world as the Beirut Initiative, to send a message of peaceful intentions to Israelis and world public opinion.<<<

For the complete article:
CLICK HERE >
http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2005/saudi-relations-NID-03-22.html

New York City, NY April 29, 2005. If you happened to be passing by the Israeli Consulate yesterday afternoon you most surely would have been shocked by the unusual sight that greeted your eyes: a group of over 10,000 Orthodox Jews who were protesting against the actual existence of the state of Israel. Behind them hung large posters showing the beating of Orthodox Jews by Israeli police while they were protesting the desecration of antiquated Jewish cemeteries which are in the path of a planned highway expansion. The shocking sight didn’t stop there. When you studied their signs and looked at the picture posters a shocking new world was revealed. Tens of thousands of religious Jews are protesting in the streets of Jerusalem against the state of Israel stating that the state of Israel, according to the Torah (that is the Jewish teachings) is illegitimate. They state that since the time that God sent the Jews into exile with the destruction of the temple two thousand years ago the Jews were forbidden to have their own state and that the whole concept of Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel was formed by irreligious Jews contrary to the Torah and the opinion of almost all of the Rabbinical leaders of Judaism worldwide. The posters showed beaten and bloodied Rabbis sprawled on the ground cowering before Israeli police with stun guns and batons in their hands. Other posters showed old and young men alike being dragged on the ground and being piled into paddy wagons to be taken to Israeli prisons. Still other graphic pictures showed the excavated graves and bones spread over the ground; quite a shocking sight. The signs that the protesters held read:

Israel has no right to rule over any part of the Holy Land
Jews Mourn 56 years existence of “Israel”
Zionists do not represent Jews
Let our Sages rest in Peace
Israeli Government: Grave Digging is inhumane, disgraceful and shameful
Zionism stole the name of Jews
Oh No! Zionism will never succeed
Rabbinical Leaders fought Zionism since its inception
True Jews will never recognize Israel
Israel does not represent world Jewry
Dissolve the Zionist State
Authentic Rabbis always opposed Zionism and the State of Israel

Other demonstrations were held in Montreal, Canada and London, England. For further information and photographs of these activities visit our website at http://www.nkusa.org <http://www.nkusa.org>

The post from May 2 at 12:27 AM is a tendentious and lopsided presentation riddled with lies and deliberate omissions. For example, the rioting (yes, that's what they've been doing) ultra-Orthodox ("haredi") are have long been known to fuss over the tampering with any ancient graves, not only Jewish. They often discount archaeological evidence proving graves aren't Jewish.

Also, they often exaggerate the Israeli police brutality and omit their own rioting that prompts police to respond by force.

One "challenge from within" Palestinians have is the fact that a huge percentage of them are insane, brainwashed lunatics who still care more about making Israel disappear than peace alongside Israel, even though this tactic has failed for decades now.

So let me get this right. When a child suicide bomber blows himself up in a cafe, this is a horrible act of suicidal terror. This is not a minor point.

Israel then rightly has a stated aim of retaliating in ratio of, at a minimum, 50 to 1.

Geneva would refer to this as collective punishment against an occupied population for the "actions" of "others." If the IDF kills a single Palestinian in retaliation, the punishment, according to the widely ridiculed Geneva, is death.

Similarly, when an IDF soldier kills an armed and identifiable Palestinian freedom fighter (defending his homeland dating back 2000 years) this is also, per Geneva, punishable by death for the Israeli.

Conversely when a Palistinian freedom fighter kills an IDF soldier, Geneva defines this as "legitimate resistance."

Apparently, in regard to the foregoing, the "security" of the occupier never enters into the realm of International Law. For humanitarian law purposes, such "security" is never recognized under any cirmstance.

Geneva is also clear in it's interpretation of settlement: it is a form of ethnic cleansing. The People complain that West Bank settlers have increased from 40,000 in 1980 to 435,000 today. In fact yearly UN resolutions condemning it have been issued for the last 24 years.

Modernly the votes go something like this: 165 against Israel and 1 to 6 for Israel. The one to six usually includes Israel, the US, and certain Polynesian islands. One of the latter votes, Tuvalu, is at risk since it is now underwater due to global warming.

Regarding Jerusalem, the votes are quite similar. Practically the entire European Union votes against Israel. The US, known to some as a partly "Christian" state, embarrasingly abstains.

Oh well.

>>>"When a child suicide bomber blows himself up in a cafe, this is a horrible act of suicidal terror. This is not a minor point.

Israel then rightly has a stated aim of retaliating in ratio of, at a minimum, 50 to 1."<<<

But Israel usually wouldn't act that way.


>>>"when an IDF soldier kills an armed and identifiable Palestinian freedom fighter (defending his homeland dating back 2000 years) this is also, per Geneva, punishable by death for the Israeli."<<<

Thanks for affirming the obvious, thereby placing your pro-Palestinian arguments under ridiculous light. The Palestinians of 2000 years ago were the Jews; it took 130 more years for their homeland to be renamed Palestine" by the Roman occupiers. In other words, the notion of an Arab Palestinian homeland dating back 2000 years is fictitious. Your ignorance places the remainder of your claims under similarly laughable light.

BTW, since Israel wrested the territories from Egypt and Jordan that were illegitimately occupying them, Israel isn't an occupier of territories that belonged to a separate state or nation.


Oh well.

Regarding the comments about the People by Cynical and Seffy:

Here is the point where the fact-based diverges from faith-based. Your revisionist and fantasy-like interpretations of history and international law are completely and utterly divergent from reality;

I have grave concerns about your sanity. Please wire for more funds from the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Then use it for a long vaction - you've been on watch for way too long.

I'm dead serious, lady..

Historical givens and international law have become revisionism and a fantasy based interpretation thereof, respectively. Now I get it.

>>>"Palestinian 'freedom fighter' (defending his homeland dating back 2000 years)"<<<
I'll try to draw this bit back to memory each time I get the blues.

>>>"Palestinian 'freedom fighter' (defending his homeland dating back 2000 years)"<<<
I'll try to draw this bit back to memory each time I get the blues.

The Problem will not go away till we look at thing the way they are TODAY and not 2000 years ago.
The U.S.A. did not exist 400 years ago........
We have to allow for the movement of people through the centuries.
In the mid 1800 the area that is today Israel, West Bank and Gaza, was a majority of Arabs and a minority of Jews.
The Great grandparents of many (not all) the Jews that live in Israel today came from Germany, Russia and other European nations.
The least we can do for Peace in the Area is to allow the Palestinian People a State of their own in the land where they were born and have lived in since 1967 and even before that.

>>A *recent* conference?<<
>>>"In a recent conference, once again it was said that Israel would be recognized if the Palestinian People were allowed their State called for in the Road Map to Peace."<<<

>>Perhaps ANGEL could refresh our memory as to when this occurred and where?<<

To have peace we must realize that the Arab Population also wants to live in Peace just like everybody else, but they do not want to be deprived of their land and freedom as is the case with the Palestinians.

>>>ALGIERS, 22 March 2005 — The Arab League Summit starts today with an air of seriousness and purpose as delegates from the 22-member group are expected to focus more on social and economic issues than at earlier meetings, though Saudi diplomats hope to restart the Arab peace plan.<<<

>>>The initiative offers Israel peace and normal relations with Arab countries in return for withdrawal to the borders as they stood on the eve of the Middle East War of 1967. Jordan had tried to simplify the offer, known in the Arab world as the Beirut Initiative, to send a message of peaceful intentions to Israelis and world public opinion.<<<

For the complete article:
CLICK HERE >
http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2005/saudi-relations-NID-03-22.html