issue no 45

Issue No: 45 28th May, 2013

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia (PCOM) 1



Read in this report:

Hamas: Kerry's economic plan, a new

attempt to deceive public opinion (P.4)

Occupation demolishes 11 Jerusalemite

houses within one day (P.4)

Arab businessen pledge to invest in Gaza

(P.7) Netanyahu will not freeze settlements (P.6)

Malaysian NGO delegation arrives in

Gaza (P.8)

Article: A slap on the face (P.8)



CONTENTS

NEWS OF PALESTINE

Hamas: Kerry's economic plan, a new attempt to deceive public opinion ................................ 4

Occupation demolishes 11 Jerusalemite houses within one day ............................................... 5

Israeli forces escort rightists at Aqsa compound ....................................................................... 5

Netanyahu will not freeze settlements in return for resumption of negotiations ....................... 6

Israel renews administrative detention of 11 Palestinians ......................................................... 7

Arab businessmen pledge to invest in Gaza .............................................................................. 7

MALAYSIA & PALESTINIAN CAUSE

Malaysian NGO delegation arrives in Gaza .............................................................................. 8

ARTICLES & ANALYSES

A slap on the face ....................................................................................................................... 8



Hamas: Kerry's economic plan, a new attempt to deceive

public opinion

27/05/2013

Hamas movement has considered Kerry's

new economic plan to activate the

Palestinian situation in West Bank as a

new attempt to deceive the public opinion.

Fawzi Barhoum, the movement's

spokesman, warned of the serious impact

of Kerry's plan, saying that US previous

projects were only attempts to provide

more time to implement the Israeli

Judaization and racist schemes.

The spokesman for the movement said that

the repeated meetings between Kerry and

Abbas raise doubts about the future of the

Palestinian reconciliation, rights and

resistance.

PA is subjected to US pressures to renew

negotiation with the occupation that will

affect seriously the Palestinian unity and

reconciliation, he added.

He stressed that all the Palestinian

segments have always rejected any attempt

to restart talks with the occupier.

On the other hand, the Prime Minister

Ismail Haniyeh expressed his surprise

towards president Abbas's recent

statements in favor of security

coordination with the occupier, saying that

it is not part of the Palestinian culture.

Haniyeh criticized PA concessions during

its repeated meeting with US secretary of

state John Kerry, stressing that many

enticements and money were offered to his

government, but they were refused

because "Palestine is not for sale."

During his speech to the World Economic

Forum in Jordan Abbas revealed that PA

security services returned 96 Israeli

soldiers who had mistakenly entered the

PA-controlled areas, to the Israeli

authorities in 2012.

"Kidnapping soldiers is not in our nature,

we do not use these methods, and we want

to live with neighbors in mutual respect.

Any Israeli that comes onto Palestinian

ground will be welcomed and returned

safely to his home," he said.

Source: Agencies

NEWS OF PALESTINE



handed out dozens more of demolition notices in Jerusalem

Occupation demolishes 11 Jerusalemite houses within one day

23/05/2013

The Israeli authorities on Tuesday

demolished 11 apartments in the occupied

city of Jerusalem, displacing more than

one hundred Jerusalemite citizens, mostly

women and children.

Wadi Al-Helwa Information Centre said in

a report published on Wednesday that the

Jerusalem municipality teams,

accompanied by military and police forces,

demolished in Tur neighborhood and Jabal

Mukaber in eastern Jerusalem 7

Palestinian houses and a residential

building of four apartments.

The occupation authorities said the

apartments were built without a permit on

lands threatened with confiscation, and

started the demolition without any prior

notice.

The Information Center said the residential

building in the Jabal Mukaber, which

consisted of four apartments, has been

built since 1973, and that some years ago

the occupation tried to buy it.

In a related context, the occupation

municipality in Jerusalem handed to

dozens of citizens notifications informing

them of its intention to issue

administrative demolition orders in case

they do not stop construction work in their

buildings.

The lawyer Nael Rashid said he filed an

administrative petition to the

Administrative Court in Jerusalem against

these warnings, and that he found out that

they were arbitrarily issued against citizens

who had been earlier fined for carrying out

unauthorized building work. Rashid

stressed that the issuance of administrative

demolition orders against houses inhabited

for decades represents a flagrant violation.

Source: Agencies

_________________________________________________________________________________

Israeli forces escort rightists at Aqsa compound

27/05/2013

Israeli security forces and right-wing Jews

toured the al-Aqsa Mosque compound on

Monday accompanied by intelligence

officials, a local group said.

The al-Aqsa Foundation said in a

statement that the female officers led the

group through the Moroccan Gate, before

splitting into separate groups.

Muslim worshipers shouted "Allahu

Akbar" at the group, the statement said,



adding that such visits have increased

recently.

Also Monday, settlers from the religious

Zionist Ateret Cohanim organization took

control of two shops belonging to

Palestinians in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Witnesses said dozens of settlers guarded

by Israeli police raided the two shops.

They evacuated all the contents of the

shops and changed the locks. She shops

had been closed for years.

The group claims that the stores were

seized before 1948 under the Absentee

Property Law, and an Israeli court had

ordered evacuation of the stores.

Source: Ma’an News Agency

_________________________________________________________________________________

Netanyahu will not freeze settlements in return for resumption of

negotiations

27/05/2013

An Israeli official has claimed that Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not

freeze West Bank settlements in order to

facilitate the resumption of peace talks and

negotiations with the Palestinian

Authority.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the

official said that Palestinian Authority

President Mahmoud Abbas has had such

an opportunity once before: "This will not

happen again." If the Palestinians want to

talk, he added, "They know we are waiting

for them at the table".

The paper noted that after four rounds of

talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah in the past

two months US Secretary of State John

Kerry is seeking to revive peace talks

between the Palestinian Authority and the

Israelis.

"Kerry urged Israel to halt settlement

activity voluntarily, but added that the

demand for such a freeze, as a pre-

condition to direct talks, was not helpful,"

the Jerusalem Post pointed out.

Source: MEMO



Israel renews administrative detention of 11 Palestinians

22/05/2013

Al-Tadamun human rights organisation

said on Tuesday that the Israeli occupation

has renewed the administrative detention

of 11 Palestinians, including a former

hunger striker and two Palestinian

lawmakers.

The administrative detention order against

Samer al-Barq, 39, from Jayous village in

Qalqilya was renewed for six months. Al-

Barq went on a hunger strike in April 2012

for 120 days. On November 23, 2012, he

ended his hunger strike after he was

promised he would be released and

deported to Egypt.

With the renewal of the order against al-

Barq's, Al-Tadamun advocate, Osama

Maqboul, accused the Israeli occupation of

breaching pledges of release and

deportation. Others whose administrative

detention orders have been renewed

include members of the Palestinian

Legislative Council, Mahmoud al-Ramahi

and Basim al-Za'areer. Both were detained

at November, 2012.

The Israeli occupation renewed the

administrative detention of another eight

Palestinians from various cities and

villages across the occupied West Bank.

Many Palestinian prisoners have recently

gone on hunger strike in protest against

administrative detention which is a

military detention order issued on no

apparent basis.

Source: MEMO

_________________________________________________________________________________

Arab businessmen pledge to invest in Gaza

25/05/2013

Head of the Palestinian businessmen

forum Jamal Karim, who has led a

delegation of Arab businessmen to Gaza,

pledged to carry out investment projects

supporting the steadfastness of Gaza

people in the face of the occupation.

Karim made his remarks in an evening

meeting held on Thursday by the ministry

of economy at Movenpick hotel in honor

of the visiting businessmen.

The head of the delegation said that their

visit to Gaza was aimed at developing

some familiarity with the investment

environment in the Strip.

"The nation is awake and is waiting for the

right moment to march to the resistance

land in order to liberate Jerusalem from the

profanity of the Zionist occupation," he

stated.

Source: PIC



Malaysian NGO delegation arrives in Gaza

26/05/2013

A delegation of Malaysian NGOs arrived

in the Gaza Strip Sunday to check the

humanitarian situation and open projects.

The delegation includes 80 representatives

and activists from humanitarian work

groups in Malaysia.

Azmi Abed al-Hamid, the chairman of the

board, held a news conference at the Rafah

crossing where he stressed the strategic

relationship between Malaysia and

Palestine.

Walid al-Amoudi, an NGO leader in Gaza,

welcomed the delegation.

Source: Ma’an News Agency

_____________________________________________________________________________

A slap on the face

By Khalid Amayreh*

The recent Israeli decision to build four

major settlements in the West Bank,

including one in the vicinity of Ramallah,

is a slap on the face of the Palestinian

Authority (PA), the United States, EU and

all those who still are working to revive

the moribund peace process.

The decision is a clarion political

statement which expresses Israel's

intransigence and rejection of all peace

efforts despite the humiliating surrender

displayed by the PLO leadership as well as

the disgraceful concessions offered to

Israel by the Arab League with regard to

the so-called Arab initiative.

In fact, even without the building of

additional settlements in the West Bank,

Israel has already decapitated any

ARTICLES & ANALYSIS

MALAYSIA & PALESTINIAN CAUSE



remaining chances for establishing a viable

Palestinian state, especially a territorially

contiguous entity with East Jerusalem As

its capital.

The phenomenal Israeli settlement

expansion, along with the unrelenting

unlimited political and military support

Israel is receiving from the U.S., leaves no

real chance as to the possibility that Israel

might rethink its policies.

There are two main reasons for this

prognosis: First, Israel is too fanatical and

stubborn to rethink its settlement policies,

as the vast majority of Israelis would reject

any notion of giving up the spoils on the

1967 war.

Second, the U.S. government, including

Congress, White House and the media is

reeling under effective Jewish-Zionist

control that seriously restricts American

freedom, ability and independence to

pursue an honest policy toward the

Palestinians.

Indeed, for this to happen, the U.S. will

have to undergo a real revolution in

America's collective thinking, something

that is unlikely to happen in the

foreseeable future.

This also means that the ongoing efforts by

the American Secretary of State John

Kerry to revive the clinically-dead peace

process are doomed to failure.

It is just a pointless repetition or

regurgitation of past American and

international efforts to resolve the

Palestinian question.

Needless to say, all these efforts, from

William Roger (1968) to John Kerry

(2013), failed due to purely domestic

considerations, namely the rejection by a

Jewish controlled Congress of any

proposal that would make Israel give up

the occupied territories.

This also means that it is foolhardy to

count on the U.S. to convince, let alone

force Israel to walk in the path of peace.

The U.S. is too weak, even if willing, to do

so. Moreover, the classical Jewish

mentality is too insolent, too self-absorbed

and too uncompromising to allow for a

dignified peace in the region.

Needless to say, the U.S., Israel's

guardian-ally and bankroller, has had more

than half a century to force or convince

Israel to give up the occupied territories,

but to no avail. And there is no convincing

reason which would make any honest

observer believes that the Obama

administration will succeed where all other

administrations since Lyndon Johnson's

failed.

The more likely goal of the present

American administration is to bully or

cajole the powerless and gutless PA to

cede fundamental Palestinian rights,

including the paramount right of return for

millions of refugees who were uprooted

from their ancestral homeland at the hands

of Jewish-Zionist invaders.

So the American logic goes like this. If the

Obama administration is too weak and two

cowardly to pressure Israel to give up the

occupied territories in implementation of

international law, the same administration

is at least powerful enough to bully the

vulnerable Palestinian leadership, e.g.

Mahmoud Abbas, to give up Palestinian

rights "for the sake of peace."!!

But the Obama administration is very

likely to be mistaken in thinking that

Abbas would be able to sell the highly

politicized Palestinian public a deformed

deal with Israel that would seriously

compromise the right of return as well as

other vital issues pertaining to Jerusalem,



the Jewish colonies and Palestinian

sovereignty.

The Palestinian people is stronger than its

leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas may try to play the financial card,

given the fact that the financial survival of

the PA depends to a large extent on

American bribes.

Congress prohibited the transfer of funds

to the PA when the latter sought

international recognition at the United

Nations a few months ago. Eventually, the

funds were released after the Obama

administration persuaded Congressional

leaders that a financially sunk PA would

harm Israeli interests and was likely to

benefit Hamas.

There is little doubt that Congress would

resort to the same punitive measures if the

PA leadership showed determination to

cling to Palestinian national constants by

refusing to capitulate to Israeli dictates and

conditions.

In the final analysis, Mahmoud Abbas

would have to choose the less of the two

evils, either be answerable to his people

who reject any deviation from the well-

known redlines or commit a political and

moral suicide by succumbing to American

and Israeli pressure.

The Palestinian question has been extant

since the Balfour Declaration in 1917. It is

therefore sad and illogical that some

Palestinian leaders are prompted to think

that "now it shall be or not at all."

Towering Palestinian leaders lived and

died without compromising our national

rights. On this occasion, we mention

Izzidin al-Qassam, Hajj Amin Husseini,

George Habash, Yasser Arafat, Ahmed

Yasin, Abdul Aziz Rantisi and others.

Abbas must never be think that the

Palestinian cause must be resolved in his

lifetime. He should show a real willingness

to leave this world, when his time comes,

rather than act under pressure.

After all, time is on our side. True the

Israelis are trying to narrow our horizons

by building more settlements. But

eventually, that which can be built, can be

destroyed.

More to the point, it is now crystal clear

that Palestinians already constitute a

numerical majority west of the River

Jordan. This is a factor of both historical

and strategic significance. It shows that

Abbas and cohorts should not be chasing

after a futile peace deal that would only

consolidate and perpetuate the historical

injustices meted out to our people.

With these facts in mind, it is not far

fetched to think that at a certain point in

the near future, Jewish-Zionist leaders

would grovel at Palestinian feet to "beg for

peace" as the circle of history would haunt

Israel as it did haunt many other

oppressive states and empires before.

So Mr. Abbas, you don't have to worry

about the Palestinian cause and people.

Israeli inequity shall not prosper. Israel

will disappear sooner than many people

think.

* Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist based in Dura, near Hebron. He is barred from leaving

the West Bank. For many years Amayreh was confined to his home village of Dura near Hebron by

the Israeli military occupation authorities.

issue no 45

Documents

palestinian reconciliation

palestinian situation

palestinian unity

palestinian segments

palestinian culture

kerrys economic plan

kerrys new economic

new attempt