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Thousands march in Hamas rally
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas has held a massive military rally in Gaza City, in clear defiance of President Mahmoud Abbas's calls to disarm.
Hamas said a 10,000-strong army, posing on jeeps and camouflage-decorated trucks, spread out across Gaza city on Sunday.
The men carried assault rifles, Qassam rockets and anti-tank missiles as hundreds of thousands of supporters cheered them on.
The demonstration comes one week after Israel completed the evacuation of its forces from the Gaza Strip, ending 38 years of military rule in the impoverished territory, and many Gazans see it as the largest show of force yet by the group.
Defiance
The demonstration was considered a clear message of defiance to Abbas's calls to disarm Gaza, including his own party's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, under the banner of One Authority, One Weapon.
"We will not allow the state of lawlessness, the disorder of weapons, taking law into one's hands, kidnapping and attacks on government institutions and state land to continue," Abbas said earlier. "No one is above the law."
The demonstration also the first time commanders of Hamas's armed wing - the Izze-Din-al-Qassam Brigades, long hunted by Israeli drones and helicopter gunships - made a public appearance.
Resistance
"These are only a small portion of the brigades - spread out on the very same street that our leaders were once assassinated on. If they all came out today, Gaza itself could not fit them," said the one of the younger leaders of the armed wing.
"We are here today to say we shall never lay down our arms. Our arms are our existence," he said.
"It is not a matter of how much it costs us; we will never let up. We are here to tell the entire world, Israel must leave not just Gaza-but Palestine in its entirety.
"Some people say these rockets are child's play. If this is the case, why did the enemy escape from them? We have defeated the army that cannot be defeated. We have crushed the army that cannot be crushed."
Credit for withdrawal
Palestinian factions have been jockeying for power and credit for the Israeli withdrawal in the run-up to Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.
The ability of the Abbas government to come to a swift resolution to the Rafah border crisis, and to re-open the Rafah crossing with Palestinian control, is thought to be a test for his government.
Hamas won the majority of the seats in Gaza's municipal elections this year, and the group's effectiveness at meeting the immediate needs of residents and getting the job done is seen as a challenge to the popularity of the largely mismanaged Palestinian Authority.
Election
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel would "make every effort" not to help the Palestinian Authority hold elections in the West Bank if Hamas took part in them.
Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar on Sunday warned Sharon against impeding the Palestinian elections, Aljazeera reported.
"Based on Sharon's latest statements about impeding the Palestinian elections and preventing Hamas from participating, we hereby announce that if Sharon impeded the elections process, we have the right to disturb the lives of the Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine by any means viable to us.
"Secondly, Hamas movement opposes any step taken (by Israel) under the pretext of establishing security zones aimed at serving the purposes of the Zionist enemy in any form,'' al-Zahar said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/531F89CA-7A67-4393-8A9F-8AFA6A30A336.htm
The men carried assault rifles, Qassam rockets and anti-tank missiles as hundreds of thousands of supporters cheered them on.
The demonstration comes one week after Israel completed the evacuation of its forces from the Gaza Strip, ending 38 years of military rule in the impoverished territory, and many Gazans see it as the largest show of force yet by the group.
Defiance
The demonstration was considered a clear message of defiance to Abbas's calls to disarm Gaza, including his own party's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, under the banner of One Authority, One Weapon.
"We will not allow the state of lawlessness, the disorder of weapons, taking law into one's hands, kidnapping and attacks on government institutions and state land to continue," Abbas said earlier. "No one is above the law."
The demonstration also the first time commanders of Hamas's armed wing - the Izze-Din-al-Qassam Brigades, long hunted by Israeli drones and helicopter gunships - made a public appearance.
Resistance
"These are only a small portion of the brigades - spread out on the very same street that our leaders were once assassinated on. If they all came out today, Gaza itself could not fit them," said the one of the younger leaders of the armed wing.
"We are here today to say we shall never lay down our arms. Our arms are our existence," he said.
"It is not a matter of how much it costs us; we will never let up. We are here to tell the entire world, Israel must leave not just Gaza-but Palestine in its entirety.
"Some people say these rockets are child's play. If this is the case, why did the enemy escape from them? We have defeated the army that cannot be defeated. We have crushed the army that cannot be crushed."
Credit for withdrawal
Palestinian factions have been jockeying for power and credit for the Israeli withdrawal in the run-up to Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.
The ability of the Abbas government to come to a swift resolution to the Rafah border crisis, and to re-open the Rafah crossing with Palestinian control, is thought to be a test for his government.
Hamas won the majority of the seats in Gaza's municipal elections this year, and the group's effectiveness at meeting the immediate needs of residents and getting the job done is seen as a challenge to the popularity of the largely mismanaged Palestinian Authority.
Election
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel would "make every effort" not to help the Palestinian Authority hold elections in the West Bank if Hamas took part in them.
Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar on Sunday warned Sharon against impeding the Palestinian elections, Aljazeera reported.
"Based on Sharon's latest statements about impeding the Palestinian elections and preventing Hamas from participating, we hereby announce that if Sharon impeded the elections process, we have the right to disturb the lives of the Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine by any means viable to us.
"Secondly, Hamas movement opposes any step taken (by Israel) under the pretext of establishing security zones aimed at serving the purposes of the Zionist enemy in any form,'' al-Zahar said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/531F89CA-7A67-4393-8A9F-8AFA6A30A336.htm
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About 10,000 members of the Islamic faction carrying assault rifles, rockets and anti-tank missiles were cheered by tens of thousands as they paraded in the group's largest armed show of force in the territory in years.
The demonstration came a week after Israel completed a military withdrawal from the coastal Gaza Strip in a move praised by Washington as a possible springboard to peacemaking.
Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri called the demonstration a message to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "that thousands of Qassam men will remain and not disband", using the name of Hamas's military wing.
Masri said Hamas would continue to aim its weapons at Israel "until the liberation of all of Palestine", alluding to both Israel and the occupied West Bank where Israel has vowed to keep large Jewish settlement blocs.
Hamas poses a political challenge to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas who vowed in a speech last Tuesday he would not tolerate the "chaos of weapons". The Palestinian Authority has also sought to ban public displays of arms.
Israel has said it would not resume peace talks on Palestinian statehood under a U.S.-backed "road map" unless the Palestinians disarm militant groups such as Hamas, bent on Israel's destruction.
Abbas persuaded militants to observe a ceasefire he agreed with Israel in February to smooth Israel's removal of all 21 settlements in Gaza last month. But the Palestinian leader has shied from forcibly disarming them.
Hamas and other militants see the Israeli pullout as a victory to their fight against Israel during a nearly five year uprising.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/626228.html
Of course there was continuous conflict prior to 1967 and ANY Jewish occupation, but facts don't matter to some.
Now this expensive and painful effort on the part of Sharon and Israel in order to achieve peace, security, and leave in Gaza--in the form of 3,000 agricultural buildings and greenhouses which, under Jewish ownership produced $75 million a year in exported vegetables as infrastructure for an economic engine for a viable state is called a "tactic" and a "smokescreen." 8,500 real human beings lost their homes, schools, businesses, and jobs in order to cave into Palestinian demands.
The land ceded in Gaza by the Jews to the PA, has become the very first officially owned Palestinian lands in history.
All other lands were pretty much held by squatters rights.
Now Hamas calls for the liberation of "all of Palestine."
Wake up and smell the coffee people. Hamas (which you call resistance fighters) has declared that they will continue to attack until Israel is destroyed. Thats both sides of the Green line folks.
Israel's gesture for peace is being flouted as a military defeat and the reason why terrorism works. The PA has shown its ineffective and can't or won't reign in the terrorist groups.
Also, why has no one posted about the Palestinians burning down all the synagogues? Isn't it newsworthy enough?
Yeah, Sharon threw Israel's critics a PR bone by clearing settlers from Gaza, but meanwhile settler abuses have redoubled in the West Bank. the WB is the main prize anyway. This is called a feint. Besides, Israel is obviously going to fuck the Gazan's nice and deep so they get to resume the occupation anyway. Mark my words, folks.
"The land ceded in Gaza by the Jews to the PA, has become the very first officially owned Palestinian lands in history. All other lands were pretty much held by squatters rights."
That's ol Beck-o, totally rabid and ruthlessly twisted! Yeah, didn't you know Arabs have been squatting on Jewish land for the past 2,000 years?
"Hamas ... has [vowed] to attack Israel until it's destroyed. Thats both sides of the Green line folks."
Wow, that's so evil. Unlike how Israel wants to destroy Palestine on both sides of the Green Line, and is 3/4 of the way done doing it. That's totally different. I mean they have a right to, they're "G-d's chosen."
"Israel's gesture for peace is being flouted as a military defeat and the reason why terrorism works."
Who did that, Beck-O? Your co-bigots?
"why has no one posted about the Palestinians burning down all the synagogues?"
But some of your co-bigots did post that here. You don't think they'd fall down on their cushy 9 to 5 jobs, do you?
@%<
it seems that becky johnson, or whatever her actual name is, is a kind of born again zionist, perhaps a socalled christian zionist.
i also recall that many months ago our presence was blessed by afro man and now we have the inimitable carlos. i recall one pro-israel type in these threads that wrote as if he were a palestinian related to those who were ethnically cleansed in 47 and 48. strangely, he (or she?) spread the zionist myth that the palestinains were encouraged to flee the country by arab leaders. also believed the zionist axiom that jordan is palestine.
Yawn.
So, having now evaded my questions, over and over, what about Dmimmi status and the Moslem Wakf of Palestine (Moslems only with Dhimmi [Jim Crow] for anyone else)?
So the fence to prevent Palestinians from suicide bombing Israeli women and children is no different than the wall arround the Warsaw ghetto designed to keep Jews in on their way to a real concentration camp? Thats a evil equation.
If there were no fence arround Gaza, there would be endless suicide bombers going into Israel. If ther had been no wall aound the Warsaw ghetto, people would have gone about their lives.
And your so called peace camp goes along with phrases like "they are traitors who should die for their treachery."? Its only peace for some, right?
And still no response regarding the Dhimmis and the Moslem Wakf. Is it because you're boundless hypocracy has been exposed?
EU raises 2005 aid to PA at a total of 500 million euro
By Associated Press
The European Union announced details of new aid for the Palestinians, raising the 2005 total to 280 million euro on Monday, a day before talks between the four parties that drive the Mideast peace process.
If assistance from the 25 EU governments is added, Europe's total annual aid to the Palestinians amounts to some 500 million euro.
"Only Israel and Palestine can make peace, but Europe is playing its part in the international Quartet to create the environment in which peace can take root," EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement.
Advertisement
Foreign ministers of the so-called Quartet - the United States, Russia, the EU and the United Nations - meet in New York on Tuesday to discuss the way forward in the Middle East after Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip.
One crucial issue is the future of the Gaza-Egypt border. Israel closed that border's Rafah crossing when it withdrew its forces from Gaza last week. The Palestinians want Rafah to reopen quickly, possibly with European monitors.
Before the Quartet meeting, the EU prepared an aid package worth 60 million euro for the Palestinians, including help to upgrade the Gaza airport, develop the seaport and build housing now that Jewish settlers have been removed from the area.
Of that, 40 million euro goes to transport, water supply and sanitation projects in the Gaza Strip, 12 million euro to boost political and government institutions and 8 million euro for social services in East Jerusalem, EU officials said.
In the EU's view, the evacuation of Israeli settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip, as well as the dismantling of its 21 settlements last month, has put into greater focus the need to make the area economically and political more viable.
This touches on economic opportunities, the ability of Palestinians to move freely between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as well as secure borders and entry points.
"Our substantial assistance package will make an important contribution to achieving" these objectives, Ferrer-Waldner said. "Having led the way in support for reform efforts in the Palestinian Authority, we are now helping to lay the foundations for a viable Palestinian economy."
She said the EU was ready to start construction of a 25 million euro cargo terminal at the Gaza airport, and several EU states have offered help to develop the seaport.
In addition to the 60 million euro, the EU has also set aside
this year 70 million euro if the Palestinian Authority implements political and economic reforms; 10 million euro for projects bringing Palestinian and Israeli non-governmental organizations together; 29 million euro in food aid; 28 million euro in humanitarian aid and 64 million euro for the UN Works and Refugee Agency.
israel is a racist, aggressor state whose decades long campaign of murdxer, terror, theft and lies has been financed by the American taxpayers. That means there is blood on our hands, too.
That's the issue.
Cut Israel's purse strings now.
@%<
@%<
You know, if Hamas said their goal was a Palestinian state on the West Bank ad Gaza and they weren't constantly calling for the destruction of Israel, and if they didn't murder civilians with suicide bombers, maybe they could accomplish something.
As long as they are murdering civilians the US will never ask Israel to negotiate with them, and there will never be any kind of Palestinian state.
Attacks might have persuaded Israel to leave South Lebanon, but they will not persuade them to leave Israel, now will they?
Better not to kill at all, but sometimes it is necessary. When it is necessary, it is better to kill colonialist invaders than their victims.
Self determination for ethnic groups is racism by definition.
>like any other peoples.
Like *some* other peoples.