Department of Expatriate Affairs – PLO Issue 29 21 Nov 2017

Adding, the Palestinian people's rights as specified in the Declaration of Independence are inalienable and will not be a negotiating

issue. The American administration shall not waste time in promoting solutions that deny these rights. Some American political and

media circles reported that the administration intends to provide what it named an "Deal of the Century" has nothing to do with the

international legitimacy's resolutions, and it will be rejected by the Palestinians, stressing the need to return to the Palestinian Central

Council and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization's resolutions, and to rebuild the relationship with Israel

being an occupying colonial and apartheid state.

In an interview with media regarding the seriousness of the so-called "Deal of the Century," Khaled said, "doing so, the US

administration ignores the resolutions of international legitimacy and doesn't like to abide itself with time limits, thus, reminding us

with the absurd negotiations sponsored by the former US administrations, which enabled Israel to disregard the peace process and the

so-called 2-state solution.

Khaled stressed that the Palestinian leadership seeks to have a comprehensive settlement based on the resolutions of international

legitimacy in order to guarantee the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of June 4th, 1967 with East

Jerusalem as its capital, and to ensure a just and acceptable settlement of the refugee issue on the basis of the relevant resolutions of

international legitimacy. Accordingly, he pointed out that there is no benefit from such deals that ignore the international law.

As for the Palestinian options available to face the US administration's pressure on deals that do not meet the legitimate national

rights, Khalid stressed that "our priorities must begin with the arrangement of our internal Palestinian house, support the Palestinian

reconciliation, and to restore the unity of the Palestinian political system, which enables the Palestinian leadership to face Netanyahu's

settlement policy and projects, and the American settlement deals that don't have international legitimacy" .

He stressed the need to translate the Central Council and the Executive Committee's resolutions with steps, such as, disengagement of

the political, economic, administrative and security at all levels with Israel, and national disobedience that compels the international

community to conform its words with deeds regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, international law and international legitimacy

resolutions.

Khalid mocked the news on the Trump team's maneuver to gather "preliminary documents" that examined various topics, which dealt

with causes of conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis e.g. the status of Jerusalem, settlements and borders in the occupied West

Bank, added that the America Administration disrespect our minds when it says it didn't know the points of contention in the final

status negotiations over the last years of American sponsorship of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

Tayseer Khaled: The Declaration of Independence Still The

Guiding Standard of Our National Struggle

In commemorating the 29th anniversary of the Palestinian Declaration

of Independence, member of the PLO's Executive Committee, and the

DFLP Political Bureau's member, Tayseer Khaled, said that the

Declaration adopted by the Palestinian National Council at its 19th

session held in Algiers on Nov. 1988, remains a compass for our national

struggle as well as the right to self-determination, the right of return and

the right to establish a Palestinian State on all the occupied Palestinian

territories of the 1967 aggression, on top of which Jerusalem, the eternal

capital of the people and State of Palestine.

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page1

Britain must atone for the Balfour

declaration – and 100 years of suffering

Many British people will not know of Sir Arthur James Balfour, an early 20th century foreign secretary. For 12

million Palestinians, his name is all too familiar. On the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration, the

British government should take the opportunity to make things right.

At his desk in London, on 2 November 1917, Balfour signed a letter promising the land of Palestine to the

Zionist Federation, a recently established political movement whose goal was the creation of a Jewish state.

He promised a land that was not his to promise, disregarding the political rights of those who already lived

there. For the Palestinian people – my people – the events this letter triggered have been as devastating as

they have been far-reaching.

This British policy, to support Jewish immigration into Palestine while negating the Arab-Palestinian right to

self-determination, created severe tensions between European Jewish immigrants and the native Palestinian

population. Palestine (the last item on the decolonisation agenda) and we, its people, who sought our

inalienable right to self-determination, instead suffered our greatest catastrophe – in Arabic the Nakba.

In 1948 Zionist militias forcibly expelled more than 800,000 men, women and children from their homeland,

perpetrating horrific massacres and destroying hundreds of villages in the process. I was 13 years old at the

time of our expulsion from Safad. The occasion on which Israel celebrates its creation as a state, we

Palestinians mark as the darkest day in our history.

The Balfour declaration is not something that can be forgotten. Today, Palestinians number more than 12

million, and are scattered throughout the world. Some were forced out of their homeland in 1948, with more

than 6 million still living in exile to this day. Those who managed to remain in their homes number roughly

1.75 million, and live within a system of institutionalised discrimination in what is now the state of Israel.

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page2

By : President Mahmoud Abbas

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Britain must atone for the Balfour declaration –

and 100 years of suffering

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page3

Approximately 2.9 million live in the West Bank under a

draconian military occupation-turned-colonisation, with

300,000 of that number being the native inhabitants of

Jerusalem, who have so far resisted policies to force them

out of their city. Two million live in the Gaza Strip, an open

prison subjected to regular destruction through the full

force of Israel’s military apparatus.

The Balfour declaration is not something to be celebrated –

certainly not while one of the peoples affected continues to

suffer such injustice. The creation of a homeland for one

people resulted in the dispossession and continuing

persecution of another – now a deep imbalance between

occupier and occupied. The balance must be redressed, and

Britain bears a great deal of responsibility in leading the

way. Celebrations must wait for the day when everyone in

this land has freedom, dignity and equality.

The physical act of the signing of the Balfour declaration is

in the past – it is not something that can be changed. But it

is something that can be made right. This will require

humility and courage. It will require coming to terms with

the past, recognising mistakes, and taking concrete steps to

correct those mistakes.

I salute the integrity of those British people calling on their

government to take such steps: the 274 MPs who voted in

favour of recognising the state of Palestine; the thousands

who have petitioned their government to apologise for the

Balfour declaration; the NGOs and solidarity groups turning

out on the streets, advocating tirelessly for our rights as

Palestinians.

Despite the horrors we have endured in the past century,

the Palestinian people have remained steadfast. We are a

proud nation with a rich heritage of ancient civilisations,

and the cradle of the Abrahamic faiths.

Page 2

Over the years we have adapted to the realities around

us – the chain of events triggered in 1917 – and made

deeply painful compromises for the sake of peace,

beginning with the decision to accept a state on only

22% of our historical homeland while recognising the

state of Israel, without any reciprocation thus far.

We have endorsed the two-state solution for the past

30 years, a solution that becomes increasingly

impossible with every passing day. As long as the state

of Israel continues to be celebrated and rewarded,

rather than held accountable to universal standards for

its continued violations of international law, it will have

no incentive to end the occupation. This is short-

sighted.

Israel, and friends of Israel, must realise that the two-

state solution may well disappear, but the Palestinian

people will still be here. We will continue to strive for

our freedom, whether that freedom comes through the

two-state solution or ultimately through equal rights

for all those inhabiting historic Palestine.It is time for

the British government to do its part.

Concrete steps towards ending the occupation on the

basis of international law and resolutions, including the

most recent UN security council resolution 2334, and

recognising the state of Palestine on the 1967 border,

with East Jerusalem as its capital, can go some way

towards fulfilling the political rights of the Palestinian

people.

Only once this injustice is set right will we have the

conditions for a just and lasting peace in the Middle

East – for the sake of Palestinians, Israelis and the rest

of the region.

100 Years Ago, Britain Facilitated Palestine's Ethnic

Cleansing. Today, Britain's Celebrating It

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page4

This year, approximately 13 million Palestinians scattered throughout the world mark 100 years since the Balfour Declaration. Largely ignored by successive British governments, the consequences of this infamous declaration are suffered by the Palestinian people until today.

Though many British citizens may not be aware of the impact of the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate, these two measures paved the way for the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in 1948. Even while British troops were still in Palestine, Palestinian civilians were expelled from their homes and even massacred in vile terror attacks.

Today, while Israel glorifies the terrorists who expelled the Palestinian people from their homes, the Balfour Declaration continues to inspire the systematic denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination by the Israeli government.

In a letter addressed to Lord Rothschild on 2 November 2 1917, the British Foreign Secretary at the time, Sir Arthur James Balfour, promised the land of Palestine as a homeland for the Zionist movement. But Palestine had a people, and the United Kingdom had no right to promise it to anybody else.

Balfour's promise was a conscious decision to unblushingly ignore hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Christians and Muslims living in Palestine, who made up approximately 95 percent of the population. This disregard continues today, as the British government celebrates 100 years of Palestinian dispossession by inviting the Israeli prime minister to London.

At the time of the Balfour Declaration, we were a nation of over 700,000 people, well-rooted on almost 28,000 square kilometers of a land called Palestine. Those were the descendants of those who built the city of Jerusalem, the ancient ports of Jaffa and Haifa and the cities of Gaza, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Nablus, as well as my hometown Jericho, the oldest inhabited city in the world, alongside the Dead Sea and the rich Jordan Valley.

One hundred years ago, the Balfour Declaration was about severing Palestine from the geography of the world and an attempt to wipe out our national identity. Despite the losses, suffering, and exclusions, our identity is still preserved through our pride and historic heritage, created by our vibrant and robust nation.

The direct consequence of British colonialism in Palestine was the interruption of this nation. It began with the Nakba, catastrophe, of 1948. But this was not a particular historic episode of dispossession and ethnic cleansing but became an ongoing process that continued even after Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, wherein more Palestinian villages were destroyed including Imwas, Yalu, and Beit Nuba.

And despite our painful compromise to recognize Israel as a State on 78 percent of our historic homeland, Israel continues to deny our right to exist in freedom and dignity on what is today the internationally recognized State of Palestine, which constitutes 22% of our historic homeland.

The fact that the British government has decided to celebrate this is to add insult to injury, especially considering that the Balfour Declaration, which negated the political rights of the people of Palestine, is exactly what the Israeli government is implementing on the ground.

The Israeli government rejects the two-state solution that will provide Palestinians with their long overdue political rights, at the same time that it rejects one democratic state all over historic Palestine with equal rights for all. Balfour’s spirit was not with democracy and justice but with colonialism and oppression.

Evidently, the British government is adamant to disregard Palestinian rights by "marking with pride" its colonial role that caused injustice and the mass displacement of the people of Palestine.

It is not enough when the British government claims to support the two-state solution while it mobilizes its diplomatic weight against the recognition of the State of Palestine or against any attempts at holding Israel accountable for its violations of international humanitarian law and UN resolutions.

The British government also still ignores the votes of 274 members of the British parliament, who called on their government to recognize Palestine's right to statehood, and it disregards the work of thousands of its citizens who continuously advocate for the rights of Palestinians.

Instead, the British government should rectify this historic injustice with a long awaited apology and through the recognition of the State of Palestine. Although, this alone will not erase or repair the consequence of colonialism, it would serve as an example for the rest of the international community to do what is necessary for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and around the globe.

The time is ripe for the UK to act responsibly to bring about a necessary paradigm shift by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 border, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and by taking concrete steps toward the achievement of the political rights of the Palestinian people, the very rights that were denied by Balfour a century ago.

By : Dr. Saeb Erekat Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation

Organization (PLO)

A century on from Balfour, I challenge

Britain to finally do the right thing

Today we mark the centenary of the calamitous Balfour

declaration. In 1917, with a few paragraphs and a stroke of

his pen, the British foreign minister, Lord Balfour, unleashed

historic forces that changed the fate of an entire people and

a whole region. He committed a grave sin: promising the

homeland of one people to another.

A century on, every Palestinian is still plagued by the consequences of

that decision – whether it is the refugees yearning to return, still

clutching the keys to their homes, Palestinians suffering under an

occupation that has lasted 50 years, Jerusalemites experiencing the

fraudulent transformation of the character, demography, culture and

landscape of their city before their eyes, or Palestinian citizens of

Israel who are undergoing an intricate and cruel system of

discrimination and exclusion in a country that claims to be

democratic.

A veneer of ‘religious conflict’ has been superimposed on what are

political, legal, moral and human rights violations.

The Balfour declaration was quintessentially a colonial decision

emanating from the myth of the “white man’s burden”, the idea that

“advanced nations” needed to administer the territories of “peoples

not yet able to stand by themselves” – in the words of the covenant

of the League of Nations – an inherently problematic and racist notion

in itself.

The land was neither Balfour’s nor Britain’s to give away, but, as is

always the case with colonialism, a diktat made in a capital far away

is meant to supersede the collective rights and aspirations of a

people.

Contrary to an oft-propagated myth, the land was not devoid of

people. In 1920 the Jewish population in Mandatory Palestine stood

at only 11%; their land ownership was less than 7% by 1947. Yet

Balfour took it upon himself to relegate the status of the indigenous

people of the land to “non-Jewish communities” – a second-class

entity whose primary existence was that of “the other”, consisting of

“communities” rather than a people with national rights who have

been calling the land home for centuries.

While the Jewish Palestinians became the primary demographic and

were offered a “national home” in Palestine, the Christian and

Muslim majority were defined by what they were not, and demoted

to the status of holding only civil and religious rights. Consistent with

colonial form, Balfour not only failed to recognise the political, human

and legal rights of the Palestinian people, he also stripped away their

most sacred collective right: the right to self-determination. Balfour

deemed us unworthy.

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page5

These historical injustices are not the totality of the colonial legacy

still in existence today. The narrative, myths and language that

have been used to justify Balfour and its corollary events – from

the Nakba in 1948 to the Naksa in 1967, and the continued

occupation today – are an extension of the racist, colonial spirit

that defines the document. A century on, the dehumanisation and

marginalisation of the Palestinian people persists, and is used as a

basis to deny us our most basic rights.

A misleading veneer of “religious conflict” has been superimposed

on what are essentially political, legal, moral and human rights

violations. The coinage of the mantra “Judeo-Christian values” has

also been conveniently utilised to exclude and demonise “the

other”, whether Christian or Muslim – setting the tone for the

slanderous label “radical Islamic terrorism”. Any criticism of Israel

is dismissed on the basis that Israel is a beacon of “democracy” and

“western values” in a region of violence and darkness. The racist

claim of a “villa in the jungle” is simply the contemporary

equivalent of the “white man’s burden”.

To this day, the UK has failed to recognise this legacy, admit its

culpability and apologise for this historic injustice. In fact the prime

minister, Theresa May, has publicly stated that Britain takes

“pride” in the declaration, and Her Majesty’s government plans to

celebrate its anniversary.

When will Britain recognise that the real legacy of the Balfour

declaration is of suffering, dispossession, oppression and injustice –

a painful legacy that every Palestinian generation since 1917 has

inherited?

If the UK is looking for past glories, it will not find them in

exceptionalism, stepping outside the global consensus or

celebrating the colonial calamities it has created. Rather, it is called

upon to stand up for what is right, and become a champion of the

norms and values we collectively hold as an international

community.

The first step in a process of rectification and redemption is to

recognise this historical injustice and apologise to the Palestinian

generations that have been its victims. The UK must decide to

stand for peace, equality, justice and self-determination, and hold

Israel accountable for violating these basic rights. Having denied us

that opportunity in 1917, a century on we hope Britain can help

create and recognise a sovereign, independent Palestinian state. A

century on, we hope Britain will make it right.

By : Hanan Ashrawi Member of the PLO Executive Committee

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Corbyn urges ‘increasing pressure’ on Israel in

Balfour centenary statement

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has urged “increasing international pressure” to be brought to bear to end

Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in a statement released yesterday evening to mark

the Balfour Declaration centenary. The full statement by the Leader of the Opposition is as follows:

Today marks the centenary of the British government’s Balfour Declaration, which has shaped the modern

history of the Middle East.

The fact that this promise by what was then colonial Britain is celebrated by one side and commemorated as a

disaster by the other reflects the continuing tragedy at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Balfour promised to help establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine while pledging that

nothing would be done to prejudice the rights of its “existing non-Jewish communities”, a reference to the

Palestinian Arabs who then made up 90% of the population.

A hundred years on, the second part of Britain’s pledge has still not been fulfilled, and Britain’s historic role

means we have a special responsibility to the Palestinian people, who are still denied their basic rights.

So let us mark the Balfour anniversary by recognising Palestine as a step towards a genuine two state solution

of the Israel-Palestine conflict, increasing international pressure for an end to the 50-year occupation of the

Palestinian territories, illegal settlement expansion and the blockade of Gaza.

As many Israelis and Palestinians believe, there can only be a lasting peace in the Middle East on the basis of a

negotiated settlement that delivers justice and security for both peoples and states.

Brusseles Declaration Submitted to the First European Conference on Israeli Settlement

Brussels- 6 November 2017

The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements, and the Department for Palestinian Expatriates Affairs in PLO, and

in collaboration with several European institutions advocating for the Palestinian cause, have organised the first European Conference

on Israeli settlement on Monday, 6 November in the Belgian capital Brussels .

WE, representatives from 24 European countries, including parliamentarians, legal experts, journalists, political activists and peace

activists, in solidarity with the just cause of the Palestinian People have met in Brussels on 6 November 2017 in the first European

Conference on Israeli settlement and have agreed on the following declaration to be called, henceforth, Brussels Declaration:

1. Israel, the occupying power of the Palestinian territories since 1967 continues its policy of confiscating and

Judaization Palestinian land and building settlements over it. Israel, the occupying of 650-700,000 settlers. In

addition, there are more than 200 outposts. These settlements had turned, with the passage of time, into an

incubator for settler’s terrorist organizations such as Hilltop Youth, Paying the Price and Revenge.

2. With this premeditated policy of settlement expansion, it is, therefore, inappropriate to talk about dismantling

political or security settlements, but rather see this movement as a structured colonial policy that was able to

colonize a large part of the West Bank not less than 60 percent of its size. This policy has, in fact, established an

Apartheid regime, which violates the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the Rome Statute of the International

Criminal Court, which determines in its article 8 that the settlements are a war crime, and the advisory opinion of

the International Court of Justice issued on 9 July 2004 regarding the Apartheid Wall, which was qualified as a

serious violation of international law and UN resolutions, especially Security Council resolution 2334 (2016). This

resolution clearly states that all Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East

Jerusalem, are illegal under international law and constitute an obstacle to the establishment of a contiguous,

viable and fully sovereign Palestinian state.

3. The Brussels Conference, taking note of the above mentioned facts, considers the continuation of the settlement

activities terminates all chances for the two-state solution and rather solidifies the apartheid system as practiced by

the occupation policy. The Conference calls for the immediate termination of all settlement activities pursued by the

occupying state in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.

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www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page7

Brusseles Declaration

4. The Brussels Conference calls on the international community to assume its legal

responsibilities by addressing these racist policies of the occupying Power and put serious

pressure on it to respect the relevant international law. The European Union, which has

extensive relations and a association agreement with the Israeli occupying state, should

pressure Israel to shoulder its responsibility to bridge the gap between its words and actions

in the context of Israeli settlement policy by activating Article 2 of the Partnership

Agreement to pressure Israel to respect its obligations as the occupying power.

5. The Brussels conference also calls on the EU countries to match their words with deeds, not

just by issuing statements of denunciation and condemnation, rather adopting effective

measures to hold Israel accountable by imposing a complete ban on all direct and indirect

financial, economic, commercial and investment activities with Israeli settlements until it

submits to international law.

6. The participants in this Conference, as they condemn the settlement policy in the occupied

Palestinian territories as a violation of international law, they emphasize, as well, the

important role that can be played by political forces, parliaments, human rights

organizations and civil society organizations in the EU countries to confront Israeli expansion

plans and settlement construction. They also call upon the Governments of the EU and its

constitutional institutions to shoulder their responsibilities in accordance with their

collective responsibility to reject Israel's violations of the rights of Palestinian citizens under

occupation in a manner that compels Israel to respect its obligations under Partnership

Agreement at the minimum, and not permit settlers and their leaders to enter the EU

countries and bring them to international justice as war criminals if they do.

7. The participants in the Conference call on the peoples of the world and their peace-loving

democratic forces to actively participate in the international campaign to boycott, divest and

impose sanction movement, known as (BDS) and to pressure Israel to comply with

international law.

8. The Conference also affirms its full support for the Palestinian initiative to refer constructing

new settlements, expanding existing settlements and settlers’ violence against Palestinian to

the International Criminal Court as war crimes.

9. The participants in the Conference salute the growing state of solidarity with the Palestinian

people and their just cause. They also commend the peoples of the world’s rejection of

Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid as pursued by the Israeli occupation state.

10. The participants in the Conference call for confronting this policy by forming a European

committee of participating countries represented in this Conference to expose the ongoing

violations of the occupation forces and build up the pressure to prosecute Israeli war

criminals until Israel complies with international law.

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How to solve the gap between the words and needs of the European Unions policy regarding Israeli settlements

Fifty years ago, after the 1967 war, Israel began

its colonial project in the West Bank, including East

Jerusalem through destroying some Palestinian villages ,

and parts of the city Qalqiliya displacing their

inhabitants, to establish Jewish colonies there.

The Israeli policy aimed at modifying the borders

in order to annex part of the West Bank i.e. Jerusalem,

Latrun and the Gush Etzion in Bethlehem district , a

military order was imposed on the Jordan Valley.

Settlement policy developed according to the political

situation, thus, passed into different stages, particularly,

in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

From 1967 - 1977, the Labor Party's ruling

witnessed the establishment of about 31 settlements in

Bethlehem district and the Jordan Valley , Accordingly,

the number of settlers rose to 2876.

The major change in Israeli settlement policy

took place in 1977, after the rise of the extremist,

Menachem Begin to power, and after signing the peace

agreement with Egypt, where Israel established 35 new

settlements, though the number of settlers rose to

13,234. 1980s witnessed a large-scale settlement

offensive as Israel established 43 new settlements,

bringing the number of settlers to 28,400 settlers .

Settlement activity gradually increased at the

period that accompanied the Madrid and Washington

negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis after

the Gulf War in 1991, where Yitzhak Shamir government

established new 7 settlements, thus the number of

settlers rose up to 107,000 i.e. 5.3% of the total

population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Despite the signing of the Oslo Accord between the

Palestinians and Israelis in Sep. 1993, settlement

activities continued, bypass-roads were opened and

military orders were issued to confiscate more

Palestinian land, as if Israel racing time to impose

new facts on the ground. Therefore, by the end of

the Labor government in 1996, the number of

settlers rose to 145,000.

With the rose of the Likud to power in 1996,

settlement activity also continued, and the number

of settlers rose up to 165,000 by the end of 1998.

Although the agreements stipulated that no

side may take unilateral actions that affect the

outcome of permanent status negotiations, but

settlements expansion continued, and the

occupation began to deepen as well as an apartheid

regime in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Referring to the Interim Agreement signed

between the Palestine Liberation Organization

(PLO) and Israel in Sep. 1995, the Palestinian

territories were divided into 3 areas:

1. (A) area, with 18% of the West Bank, under

Palestinian control.

2. (B) area: with 18.3% of the West Bank, under the

Palestinian Authority civil administration, but under

Israeli security and military control .

3. (C) area, with 61% of the West Bank, under the

full control of the Israeli occupation army .

The Israeli governments exploited the

agreements signed with the Palestinians as a

political cover for settlement activities .Therefore,

the number of settlements rose to 158 , inhabited

by 650-700,000 settlers in the West Bank, including

East Jerusalem. Moreover, some 15,000 - 20,000

settlers live in more than 230 outposts that over

time turned into incubators for Jewish terrorist

organizations, such as Hill-Top Youth, Pay the Price,

and the Organization called Rebels .

By : Tayseer Khaled

Member of The Executive Committee (PLO EC),

Head of the Department for Expatriate Affairs and

Head of the National Bureau for Defending Land and

Resisting Settlements.

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Since 1993, Israel has doubled its colonial strategy and

started fragmenting the Palestinian areas, but

strengthening the 158 settlements and 232 outposts

through transferring them into an integrated entity,

where settlers have a network of bypass roads, but the

Palestinian communities were partitioned, creating

apartheid regime exactly as the one in South Africa .

Not only do we see Israel as the South Africa apartheid

regime, but the whole peace loving nations of the world.

Here, we recall the US former president, Jimmy Carter's

book, titled: Palestine .. Not Apartheid " and the UN

former Special Envoy to the Palestinian Territories, John

Dugard , who emphasized many times that Israel is

committing 3 violations that contradict with the values

and laws of the international community: 1.

Occupation.2. Colonialism. 3. Apartheid.

Moreover, former President of the UN General Assembly,

Father, Miguel D'Escoto , also called on the international

community to hold its responsibilities, fulfill its

obligations, and to acknowledge the fact that Israel is an

Apartheid State, and the Nobel Prize winner, Mairead

Maguire , who stood before the Israeli Supreme Court

and called on Israel to stop the apartheid policy. Adding,

"There will be no peace in this region until Israel stops

apartheid and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian

people."

The UN Economic and Social Commission's Report

(ESCWA) that published on March 15th, 2017, was clear in

accusing Israel of establishing a racist separation regime .

It provided evidence and data that confirm Israel's

imposition of the apartheid regime to control the

Palestinian people. Facts also prove that Israel is guilty

through using such policies under the international law's

articles.

The EU acknowledges that the Israeli settlements built on

the occupied Palestinian territory are illegal. Its

explanatory memo clearly states that "in line with

international law, the EU doesn't recognize Israel's

sovereignty on the territories it occupied in June 1967."

However, the EU annual imported goods from Israeli

settlements, especially, is estimated US$ 300,000,000, or

17 times more than the annual average of goods exported

from the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the EU in 2004

– 2014.

In spite of the explanatory memo, still there a wide gap

between the EU's words and deeds.

The EU countries are also involved in projects with

Israeli companies that directly work with

settlements and occupation. Here, a clear contrast is

seen between their words and deeds. For example,

the EU has approved the operation of 205 projects

with Israeli participation until 2020 that are the

largest research and innovation projects in the

European Union.

Among those companies Elbit Co., which directly

works in the construction of settlements and the

wall, the Israeli Space Industries Company that

provides equipment supplies for the construction of

the wall, as well as the Technion-Israel Institute of

Technology, which operates with the Israeli Military

Complex .

Moreover, the European banks and the Israeli ones

are coordinating to provide settlers with real estate

loans, finance settlements, and other commercial

activities sponsored by Israel.

As a result, the EU's explanatory memo appears as a

symbolic step that only responding to the European

civil society's growing demands to apply its

regulations and to hold Israel responsible. Worth

mentioning here that the civil society is increasingly

supporting the movement of boycott, divestment

and sanctions against Israel BDS .

Under international law, States are obliged not to

recognize this illegal situation, not to provide any

assistance to it, and to ensure Israel to abide by the

international humanitarian law. In other words, the

EU and its member States have to do their utmost to

put an end to the illegal Israeli settlement activities .

Therefore, the EU has to translate its words into

effective deeds through imposing a total ban on all

direct and indirect financial, economic, trade and

investment activities with Israeli settlements .

Moreover, the EU shall cut its financial relations with

Israeli banks, particularly those financing the

occupation and settlement construction in

accordance to the European Council's special report

on Foreign Relations.

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Huge Financial Temptations to Encourage Settlers to

Move to the Palestinian Valley settlements

By: Madeeha Al-Araj

National Bureau / PLO

As a continuation of the settlement plans being quickly

implemented to judaizing the majority of the C areas through

the absorption of more settlers in the occupied Palestinian side

of the Jordan Valley by offering huge financial inducements to

encourage Israelis for moving to the Jordan Valley settlements,

transfer funds to settlement councils in order to expand the

settlements and to start marketing settlement housing units

there.

Israeli media have disclosed a plan supervised by the

Housing Minister, Gellant, to support settlements in the Jordan

Valley to ensure Israel's control over the Jordan Valley, which

forms a quarter of the West Bank and the Palestinian food

basket, coincides with the participation of senior Israeli officials

including Netanyahu.

Under this plan, all settlements are incited to absorb

new families through providing budgets, privileges and facilities

with preference given to settlements that remove and reduce

the conditions to accommodate new families.

The Israeli occupation authorities notified the

Palestinian citizens of the closure of hundreds of donums in the

areas of Ein-Hilweh and Um Jamal in Wadi Maleh in the Jordan

Valley. They also confiscated 550 dunums and threatened to

confiscate all their belongings if they did not leave the area,

which leads to expelling about 320 citizens distributed to 40

families living in both areas.

Jerusalem plans to build 240 settlement units in East

Jerusalem, including the construction of 150 settlement units in

the Ramat Shlomo settlement, as well as 90 settlement units in

the Gilo neighborhood, Jerusalem's occupation municipality

deputy mayor said, Jerusalem Municipality also approved

building permits for 292 settlement units outside the Green Line.

The Israeli government reportedly transferred millions of

shekels to promote a plan to build a new settlement in the

industrial area of Atarot in Jerusalem. According to the plan,

a new Jewish settlement will be built, including 10,000

settlement units outside the Green Line in Jerusalem, near

Qalandiya checkpoint.

In addition, a new settlement plan has been

uncovered, which was initiated along the settlement of

Karnei Shomron, built on the land of the citizens of Qalqilya.

The outline of the settlement plan, which covers an area of

more than 70 donums, is the construction of more than 1,200

new settlement units.

Israeli Interior Minister, Gilad Arad has prepared a

security plan to prevent what he called "Palestinian attacks"

in the Old City of Jerusalem. This plan aims to tighten the

security belt in the area of Bab Aal-Amoud and the old town

through the establishment of centers and checkpoints large

military-like points will be deployed in the area and its

surroundings to control the security situation. The

deployment of the forces of the so-called border guards at

those points, Including the deployment of 40 intelligent

security cameras to enable police to monitor what is

happening in the area.

The Haru'eh Haafri-Shepherd Society of Israel is

working to settle and build the settlement outposts, as it

works to reestablish a settlement outpost on a hill adjacent

to the settlement of Kfar Adumim near the Abu-Dis area. The

road has been paved to establish the focus on private

Palestinian land classified by the Israeli occupation as " State

land, "without any building permits issued by the Israeli

government.

The association claims that it works to treat the

youth who drop out of the education system. The society's

activists, who work with the Ministry of Education and in its

service, recruit young settlers from other settlement

outposts to this outpost, and works to let the establishment

of this outpost with an annual budget of NIS 700,000.

On the other hand, the leadership of the occupation

army in the occupied West Bank fortified the bus stations

located on the roads near the settlements in the West. This

comes under the pretext of protecting the settlers from the

run-ins while standing near the waiting stations. The settlers'

website 7 quoted an officer in the Israeli army asking the

settlers to stand in the fortified stations not outside them,

not to ride private cars, and to make sure that the driver is an

Israeli in the case of riding private cars.

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page11

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page12

Hundreds of thousands of people waving the

yellow Fatah flag gathered on Saturday 11th.

November at the Saraya grounds in Gaza City to

commemorate 13 years for the death of

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

In Ramallah, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah laid a wreath

at Arafat's grave located in the Moqata, his headquarters.

The Fatah-Hamas reconciliation last month paved the way

for allowing this event to take place in Gaza, which has

been under Hamas rule since July 2007 until it agreed in

October to turn over control in Gaza to the Palestinian

Authority’s government.

Thousands of Gazans began since late Friday night to take

up places at the Saraya awaiting the central event planned

for midday Saturday with the participation of

representatives of all the Palestinian factions.

Arafat died at a Paris hospital on November 11, 2004 after

he was rushed there following a serious deterioration in

his health.

The Palestinian leader and founder of Fatah movement

was under siege by Israel’s military in his Ramallah

headquarters.

Palestinians have accused Israel of poisoning Arafat after a

team of Swiss forensic experts found traces of the highly

poisonous polonium radioactive material on his body.

Hundreds of

thousands in Gaza

commemorate

Arafat’s death

anniversary

Wafa reported that thousands of Palestinians joined a

rally in the central West Bank city of Ramallah,

organized by the Fatah movement and other

Palestinian factions, carrying portraits of Arafat,

waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans

celebrating the iconic figure.

Meanwhile in the southern West Bank city of Hebron,

Israeli forces suppressed demonstrations by students,

Wafa reported.

A large number of troops reportedly surrounded a

number of schools in Hebron, preventing students from

exiting to participate in demonstrations and firing tear

gas canisters at students and homes.

In 2015, at least 70 Palestinians were injured by Israeli

forces while commemorating the 11th anniversary of

Arafat’s death, while last year, clashes broke out with

Israeli forces during demonstrations.

Arafat died in France on Nov. 11, 2004, at the age of 75,

but doctors were unable to specify the cause of death.

No autopsy was carried out at the time, in line with his

widow's request.

His remains were exhumed in November 2012 and

samples were taken, partly to investigate whether he

had been poisoned -- a suspicion that grew after the

assassination of Russian ex-spy and Kremlin critic

Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

French judges investigating claims that Arafat was

murdered closed the case in September without

bringing any charges, saying that evidence did not

demonstrate the leader had been poisoned.

Israel sets up blacklist of boycott supporters

The Israeli government is currently preparing a blacklist of the local and international organisations and

activists who call for boycotting Israeli institutions, products and events, local media sources revealed

yesterday.

The Israeli Ministerial Committee on Legislation passed a law against activists who encourage the international

boycott of Israel, under which they are likely to be sued or fined.

Israel Hayom quoted legal officials yesterday describing the blacklist as “a database of the boycotting

organisations, which can be prosecuted under the new law.”

According to the amended law, “a body or person who encourages any sort of boycott of Israel or Israeli

institutions simply for being Israeli is liable to be sued for 100,000 shekels [$28,280] without proof of damages,

and for 500,000 shekels [$142,500] if tangible damage is proven to have been caused.”

According to the agency, the blacklist includes Amnesty International, which has called on its website, in

international ads, and on its Facebook page for all countries to boycott products from the occupied West Bank,

and to impose a weapons embargo on the Jewish state, claiming that Israel is guilty of war crimes and that the

settlements constitute a war crime.

The list also includes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, the world’s most widely spread

movement that calls for boycotting Israel.

BDS was established in 2005 with the aim to end the international support for Israel’s oppression against the

Palestinians and to pressure Israel to comply with international law.

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page13

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page14

Forget the 'slippery slope' — Israel already

is an apartheid state

The time has come to call the duck a duck. It's time to agree with a

long list of Israeli political leaders, academics and public figures on

both the political left and right, including three former prime

ministers, a winner of the Israel prize, two former heads of the

Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, and one of the country's

principal newspapers, all of whom have warned that the Jewish

state is becoming, or already is, an apartheid state. I would choose

the latter characterization.

It's interesting that within the Israeli discourse, the assertion seems

to have become routine, while it remains radioactive in the West,

where energetic pro-Israel activists scrutinize the media, the

academy and the polity, ready to declare anti-Semitism or

incitement at any use of the word.

Look at the outrage and venom poured upon former President

Jimmy Carter, under whose brokerage the peace accord between

Israel and Egypt was signed, when he titled a 2006 book Palestine:

Peace not Apartheid.

Suddenly, Carter was transformed from a Nobel Peace Prize laureate

and statesman to a dotty old man under the sway of terrorists, at

least in the eyes of Israel's supporters, including a significant fraction

of his own cohort, Evangelical American Christians.

A duck is a duck

But reality is reality, and a duck is a duck. As the late Yossi Sarid,

longtime leader of Israel's Meretz party and former education

minister once put it: "What acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid

and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck — it is apartheid."

This past June, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak re-stated a

position he's held for years: "If we keep controlling the whole area

from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan where some 13 million

people are living — eight million Israelis, five million Palestinians ...

if only one entity reigned over this whole area, named Israel, it

would become inevitably — that's the key word, inevitably – either

non-Jewish or non-democratic." The country is, he repeated, "on a

slippery slope" that ends in apartheid.

The dividing line between prominent Israelis who use the term in

the here and now, rather than as a warning of what's coming, seems

to be the continued existence of the "peace process," with its

promise of a Palestinian state, and self-governance.

And when I was posted in Jerusalem for CBC News, back in the late

'90s, that actually did seem like a possibility, if an unlikely one.

Since then, the peace process — always half-hearted — has utterly

collapsed. Expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank

continued, and since the election of Donald Trump, colonization

has surged with an invigorated enthusiasm.

Their existence is in fact currently being celebrated in a series of

appearances by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We are here to stay, forever," he declared two months ago in the

settlement of Barkan, commemorating the 50th anniversary of

Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

"There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of

Israel." (The "Land of Israel," as opposed to the State of Israel, is a

term used by the Israeli right to describe all the territory between

the Jordan and the Mediterranean, and sometimes even further).

Settlers suspected of crimes are entitled to full rights in Israeli

courts; Palestinians endure military tribunals, indefinite

imprisonment without charge ("administrative detention") and

collective punishment. Settlers are entitled to carry arms and use

them in self-defence; Palestinians are not. Settlers have property

rights. Palestinians have property claims. Et cetera.

Netanyahu frames it all as a matter of national survival, warning

that any land conceded will immediately be occupied by

fundamentalist terrorists determined to destroy the State of Israel,

with its nuclear weapons, tanks, fighter jets, layered missile

defence systems and 600,000-plus active and reserve troops.

At any rate, Ehud Barak's slippery slope is now in the rearview

mirror. Yossi Sarid's duck has arrived. Let's accept that, drop the

pretense, and move on.

Neil Macdonald is an opinion columnist for CBC News, based in

Ottawa. Prior to that he was the CBC's Washington correspondent

for 12 years, and before that he spent five years reporting from the

Middle East. He also had a previous career in newspapers, and

speaks English and French fluently, and some Arabic.

By : Neil Macdonald

Israeli violations of Palestinian media freedoms in

October highest for 2017

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) monitored 28 violations against media

freedoms in the occupied Palestinian territory during October, 27 of which were carried out by Israeli forces,

according to a statement released by the group on Wednesday.

According to the group, the number of violations committed by Israeli forces increased from 22 in September to 27

during October, all of which were “serious attacks.” The statement added that the violations in October constituted

the most serious of all violations of media freedoms in the territory recorded since the beginning of 2017.

Israeli violations of media freedoms in October included storming 10 offices and headquarters of Pal Media, Trans

Media and Ramsat media companies in the cities of Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem and Nablus, “confiscating their

property and turning 94 journalists and employees working in these institutions jobless,” MADA said.

“Not only did these companies lose their work... but they have also endured heavy losses of equipment as a result

ofthe destruction and confiscation of property,” MADA said, adding that these media companies used to provide at

least 15 local, Arab and foreign TV channels with media services.

The Israeli occupation forces arrested four Palestinian journalists during October, two of whom were working for

Trans Media, and were arrested during the raid on the company’s offices.

Palestinian government violations continued to decline, dropping from four violations in September to one single

violation during October, MADA said.

The October violation occurred when the government summoned and interrogated a journalist in the West Bank.

Palestinian journalists often describe their work as a form of “resistance,” as they believe their stories show the

world the devastating effects of Israel’s policies on Palestinians and provide Palestinians an outlet for their voices

in a media climate that is often overshadowed by pro-Israeli narratives.

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page15

US bill would outlaw Israel aid used

to abuse children

Ten members of Congress are cosponsoring a bill to bar the US from financially supporting human rights abuses of

Palestinian children by the Israeli military.

The Promoting Human Rights by Ending Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act is the first ever bill to

prioritize the human rights of Palestinian children as a condition for US support, according to campaigners.

The bill requires the Secretary of State to annually certify that no US funds allocated to Israel will have been used

to “support military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children.”

The legislation would block funds used by Israel to inflict “torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment,”

“physical violence, including restraint in stress positions,” “hooding, sensory deprivation, death threats or other

forms of psychological abuse.”

It would also target solitary confinement, administrative detention, denial of access to parents or lawyers during

interrogations and “confessions obtained by force or coercion.”

“It’s an unprecedented bill,” said Jennifer Bing, an advocate for Palestinian children’s rights who directs the

American Friends Service Committee’s Middle East program.

“There’s never been a piece of legislation in Congress that says we need to hold Israel accountable for the aid

dollars it receives from US taxpayers,” she told The Electronic Intifada.

Bing said that this is a critical opportunity for constituents to advocate for their representatives to support the bill.

Standing in defense of children’s human rights will help steer the conversation away from the status quo and the

dead-end “peace process,” she said, “which has been an excuse to allow the abuse and detention of children to

continue.”

By blocking financial complicity in Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinian children, this bill “aligns US

policy toward Israel with international law,” added Brad Parker, an attorney with Defense for Children

International - Palestine.

The bill sends a clear message to Israeli officials “that widespread ill-treatment of Palestinian child detainees must

end and is a direct challenge to the systemic impunity enjoyed by Israeli forces” in the occupied West Bank and

Gaza Strip, Parker told The Electronic Intifada.

By : Nora Barrows-Friedman

www.pead.ps Issue 29 Page16