Issue no 81

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Issue No : 81 10th February, 2014

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1


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Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

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FEATURED STORY

ARTICLE

Before it›s too late

Increasing numbers of Palestinian Druze refuse to serve in Israeli army

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Abbas proposes demilitarised Palestinian stateHamas: Abbas does not reflect Palestinian consensus

Construction of 558 new homes in East Jerusalem approved

Israel demolishes more Palestinian houses in Jerusalem

Israeli forces injure and arrest activists while evacuating a Jordan Valley village

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CONTENTS

News of Palestine

Abbas proposes demilitarised Palestinian state 4

Construction of 558 new homes in East Jerusalem approved 5

Israeli forces injure and arrest activists while evacuating a Jordan Valley village 6

15 Palestinians injured in clashes at Al-Aqsa compound 7

Palestinian child died in Syria, raising hunger death toll to 101 8

Two fighters killed in two separate incidents in Gaza 8

Articles & Analyses

Before it›s too late 11

Israel Insider

Increasing numbers of Palestinian Druze refuse to serve in Israeli army 9

Malaysia & Palestinian Cause

AlQuds Satellite Channel keen to cooperate with Bernama 10

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News of Palestine

4/2/2014

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has proposed to US Sec-retary of State John Kerry that a state of Palestine would be demilitarised, protected only by a police force. Speaking to the New York Times, he also said that Israeli forces and settle-ments could remain in the West Bank for five years after a final agreement has been signed.Abbas told the NYT last week that he agrees that a US-led NATO force could take respon-sibility for security in the West Bank and Jerusalem. “For a long time, and wherever they want, not only on the eastern borders, but also on the western borders, everywhere,” he said.” How can Palestinians have any security if the Israelis do not feel secure?”

The NATO force would be respon-sible for preventing terrorism and weapons smuggling. At the same time, however, Abbas said that he refuses to recognise Israel as a Jew-ish state, noting that Egypt and Jor-dan were not required to do so after they signed peace treaties with the Zionist state.The Palestinian Authority leader showed flexibility about extending the period of negotiations, saying that the proposed deadline of April 29 “is not a sacred date”. If there is something promising by that time, he asked, should we just stop? “If there is nothing on the horizon at that time, though, we will stop.”For its part, Palestine’s Islamic Re-sistance Movement, Hamas, has said that the ideas expressed by President Mahmoud Abbas in his latest interview with the New York

Times are his personal views and do not reflect the national con-sensus. Abbas told the newspaper that he suggested to Secretary of State John Kerry that a US-led NATO force could be deployed indefinitely in a future state of Palestine.Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a written press state-ment released on Monday that Abbas’s ideas do not constitute a solution. “Rather, they pose a threat to Palestinians’ rights and basic national constants.”The ideas expressed in the New York Times by Abbas do not re-flect the reality of the national consensus and the Palestinian re-jection of the negotiation process, added Dr Abu Zuhri.

Source: Agencies

Abbas proposes demilitarised Palestinian stateHamas: Abbas does not reflect Palestinian consensus

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Construction of 558 new homes in East Jerusalem approved

Israel demolishes more Palestinian houses in Jerusalem

6/2/2014

Plans to build 558 new housing units in three settlements in East Je-rusalem have been approved by Is-rael’s Planning and Building Com-mittee.These include 386 units in Jabal Abu Ghneim, Har Homa, 136 in Neve Yaakov and 36 units in Pis-gat Zeev. The granting of permits is one of the last stages before construction begins, with building likely to start in the coming weeks, the Israeli Peace Now settlement watchdog said.“It’s a shameful decision at a shame-ful time. A government that wants a two-state solution would not issue those amount of permits for East Jerusalem neighbourhoods,” Peace Now spokesman Lior Amihai said.“Israel is engaging in the deliberate provocation of the Palestinians to drive them to leave the negotiations in protest of Israeli violations, and, therefore, should be blamed for the destruction of the peace process,” senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement.According to figures from Peace Now, in the six months since US-led peace talks began on July 29, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advanced plans for 7,302 new homes, includ-ing 4,880 in the West Bank and 2,422 in East Jerusalem.In the same period, tenders were issued for 4,460 new homes, 2,372 in the West Bank and 2,088 in East Jerusalem.

Figures for the whole of 2013 show that 2,433 new East Jerusalem homes were pushed through various stages of the lengthy planning process - indicating that almost all of them were advanced after the talks started.On the other hand, The Israeli authorities have demolished several houses in Jerusalem under the pretext of their being built without a permit.A researcher at the Wadi Halaweh Information Centre, Maysa Abu Ghazaleh, told Safa news agency that the Israeli authorities’ bulldoz-ers, protected by the police, demolished two houses in the Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Sur Baher and Beit Hanina on Wednesday morn-ing, and started the preparations to demolish another two houses in Mount Scopus.Abu Ghazaleh said: “The bulldozers demolished a house in the Sur Baher neighbourhood south of Jerusalem owned by Mujahid Abu Sarhan, which sheltered four individuals. The second house belonged to Mohammed Sandouka in Wadi Al Dam near Beit Hanina and shel-tered seven people.”Jerusalem municipality crews have also evacuated the contents of two other houses, owned by Hussein and Nasser Ramadan Shkirat, in Mount Scopus in order to demolish them. Abu-Ghazaleh pointed out that clashes broke out there between the residents and the Israeli forces, which attacked the women and young men, spraying them with pepper gas. Five people are reported to have been detained.The families in Mount Scopus had also been trying to obtain building permits for their houses from the Jerusalem municipality for years, but to no avail.

Source: Agencies

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Palestinian Cultural

Organization Malaysia

7/2/2014

Israeli army forces have in-jured and arrested tens of Pal-estinian activists on Friday fol-lowing a raid on the Ein Hejleh village in the southern Jordan Valley.The Palestinian and interna-tional activists said Israeli forces stormed the village af-ter midnight; using sound and smoke bombs and attacked ac-

tivists and journalists who were covering the Israeli aggression. Several young men were injured and an unknown number were ar-rested.The activists set up their encamp-ment on Friday to defend the Ein Hejleh village which Israel had threatened to evacuate and seize.According to local radio stations; the Israeli forces attacked the nearly 300 to 500 activists and

forced them to evacuate the vil-lage. Activists said that Israeli forces emptied the village and declared it a closed military area.Almost two year ago Palestin-ian activists began to establish villages of tents on land threat-ened with confiscation; but Is-raeli forces demolish them and evacuate the protesters by force.

Source: MEMO

Israeli forces injure and arrest activists while evacuating a Jordan Valley village

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6/2/2014

At least 15 Palestinians were injured in clashes between Palestinian worshippers and Israeli forc-es inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem).“The clashes are still raging after Palestinian worshippers stood up to attempts to storm the compound,” mosque guard Othman Abu Ghyar-biyeh told Anadolu Agency.The clashes broke out after Israeli forces stormed the compound, firing stun bombs and rubber bul-lets at worshippers. The mosque guard said that Israeli forces closed the mosque’s Al-Qibali gate and sprayed pepper gas toward worshippers in-side.“Three children, two women and ten men were injured during the clashes,” Abu Ghyarbiyeh said.The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said that Israeli forces were preventing

Palestinian worshippers from going in or out the mosque compound.For its part, Hamas movement described the “brutal” Israeli attacks on worshipers in the Aqsa Mosque and on activists in Ein Hijle village on Friday as a new “Zionist crime”.Hamas in a statement on Saturday affirmed that such “desperate” attempts would not succeed in breaking the willpower and steadfastness of the Palestinian masses.“We, in Hamas, strongly condemn the savage attacks on worshipers in the Aqsa Mosque and peaceful activists in Ein Hijle village,” it said, adding that such “cowardly acts” only exposed further the “reality of this usurping entity”.Hamas warned the Israeli occupation of persist-ing in such practice, expressing conviction that it would not “secure a foothold for occupation on our land”. Source: Agencies

15 Palestinians injured in clashes at Al-Aqsa compound

Hamas condemns Israeli attacks on activists, Aqsa Mosque

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Palestinian child died in Syria, raising hunger death toll to 101

8/1/2014A Palestinian girl on Friday died due to dehydration and lack of medical care in al-Yarmouk refugee camp southern of Damascus, which has been under block-ade for 209 days.Action Group for Palestinians of Syria said in a statement that child Islam Sha-heen passed away as a result of dehydra-tion and medicine shortage, raising the death toll due hunger to 101.The statement said a state of tension pre-vailed among the people of the Yarmouk refugee camp as a result of continuous shootings of snipers stationed in the al-Qudum area.

8/2/2014Spokesperson of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, stated that one resistance fighter was killed, and one Palestinian was moderately wounded in an explosion that took place in the al-Boreij refugee camp, of central Gaza. The fighter, Hani Hussein Salama, 27 years of age, is a member of the al-Qa-ssam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement.His body was severely mutilated and his remains were moved to the Al Aqsa Mar-tyrs Hospital.Furthermore, another fighter identified as Ibrahim As-Sa’eedy, 25 years of age, was killed and two Palestinians were injured in an explosion that occurred east of al-Boreij. The police and the Ministry of Interior in Gaza stated that the causes of the two blasts remain unknown, and that the po-

Child Yamen Mahmoud was wounded by a sniper fire upon leaving along with many others Al-Waseem mosque, it added, noting that the number of Palestin-ians died from sniper shootings rose to 233 since the onset of violence events in early 2011.

Source: ALRAY

Two fighters killed in two separate incidents in Gaza

Israeli airstrike on motorcycle injures two men in central Gaza Strip

lice is currently investigating the two incidents.In a related context, Israeli warplanes targeted a mo-torcycle in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, injuring two young Palestinian men, Gaza medical sources said.The spokesperson for the Gaza Strip ministry of health told Ma’an that two Palestinian men were evacuated to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah after an Israeli reconnaissance plane fired a missile at their motorcycle. Medics said one of the victims was critically wound-ed and the other sustained moderate injuries.

Source: IMEMC+Ma’an

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Israel Insider

Increasing numbers of Palestinian Druze refuse to serve in Israeli army

1/2/2014A recent poll conducted by the University of Haifa has revealed that the number of Druze refusing to serve in the Israeli army is increasing. It also showed that a growing number of Israeli youth prefer being jailed instead of military service.Only 36 per cent of the youth who took part in the poll supported obligatory recruitment, while 47 per cent believed military service should be voluntary. 17 per cent believed the current conscription policy should be revoked.According to the poll, 47 per cent of Druze said there is no difference between them and other Arabs, while 27 per cent claimed their situation is worse than the Arabs in Israel. Moreover, 83 per cent said that their life is worse than the Jews in Israel despite their military service.90 per cent of Druze polled said they held negative views towards the Israeli establishment because they suffer land confiscation and geographic siege similar to other Arabs. About 75 per cent of them said their negative feelings were because of high rates of unemployment in their community com-pared to the relatively low rate of unemployment among Jews in Israel.This latest poll by the University of Haifa affirms the findings of similar surveys; that the rate of recruitment in the Israeli army has sharply declined. While some placed the rate at less than 50 per cent, other found it to be below 48 per cent.The issue of recruitment of Palestinian Druze into the Israeli military has become a major public debate after the popular youth musician, Omar Sa’ed, publicly declared that he preferred spending time in prison rather than serving in the Israeli army.Another youth from Druze community issued a public statement explaining the reason for his refusal to in the Israeli army: “Because I am Palestinian, my morals and conscience do not allow me to serve in the Israeli occupation,” Orwa Ghalib said in his statement. Source: Al-Ghad

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7/2/2014

Beirut-based Arab televi-sion channel, AlQuds, is keen to cooperate with the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) in the exchange of news, documentaries and foot-ages to reach out to Asian viewers.Its Head of New Media, Nayef M. Shehadeh, and Copywriter and Present-er, Dr Omar Jayyosi ex-pressed interest in doing so during a meeting with Bernama Editor-In-Chief Datuk Zulkefli Salleh at the news agency’s head-quarters here Friday.According to Jayyosi, people in the Middle East looked at Malaysia as a modern Muslim country.“We are impressed with the Malaysian economic model and are also inter-ested in learning from the Malaysian media experi-ence. We hope Malaysia could play a bigger role in the media industry,” he said.Launched in November 2008, AlQuds is an Arab television channel dealing with the Palestinian is-sue and has offices in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Beirut and Damascus.

AlQuds Satellite Channel keen to cooperate with Bernama

PCOM hosts a delegation from AlQuds Satellite Channel

The TV Channel plans to ex-pand its operations by opening offices in Turkey and in South-east Asia to reach out to viewers of different background and in-crease awareness on the Pales-tinian issue.Meanwhile, Zulkefli said Berna-ma was also keen to cooperate with the Arab TV channel.“We are happy that you (AlQuds TV Channel) want to cooperate with Bernama and that you want to further educate the Malaysian people on the Palestinian issue,” he added.According to Zulkefli, Bernama intended to expand its TV cov-erage to other Southeast Asian countries.As such, it would be a good op-portunity for AlQuds TV Chan-nel to also be part of the expan-

Malaysia & Palestinian Cause

sion programme to reach out to more Asian viewers through the ex-change of footages with Bernama, he noted.Meanwhile, sharing AlQuds’ expe-rience in covering wars in Palestine, Shehadeh said during the 2008 war with Israel, the occupier waged war with Gaza, just 14 days after the AlQuds TV Channel was launched.It was the only TV channel which covered the war, he said.“During the November 2012 war, two of our cameramen and one cor-respondent were martyred in Gaza while one cameraman lost a leg,” he disclosed.Shehadeh and Jayossi are on a week’s visit to Malaysia from Feb 6, hosted by the Palestinian Cultur-al Organisation Malaysia (PCOM).

Source: BERNAMA

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Articles & Analyses

Before it›s too lateBy: Hani Al Masri Palestinians must act quickly as any plan proposed by US Secre-tary of State John Kerry will not benefit the Palestinians regardless of whether or not it comes in the form of a peace treaty or a blue print or even a mutual agreement to extend the period of negotia-tions. It would be difficult to op-pose any plan after it is formally announced, especially if it garners European, Russian, Arab and In-ternational support.Anyone who has any hope for Kerry’s proposal must read the comments that were made by his assistant, Martin Endik, to Jew-ish leaders, which clearly demon-strate the American bias for Israeli interests.The factors that are the driving forces behind Kerry’s failures can be summarised as follows:• The enormous gap be-tween the Israeli and Palestinian positions and the lack of sufficient will among the US administration to exert the required pressure on Israel. Time goes quickly and the date of midterm congressional elections is approaching, the in-fluence of pro-Israel forces is in-creasing the US administration is in a difficult position. Moreover, the Democratic Party is in a state of decline.• The lack of a balance of power, which remains in favour of Israel, does not compel the Israe-lis to sign a peace agreement even if the details of such agreement serve Israeli interests.• The improbability of the outbreak of a third intifada en-

ables Israel to maintain the status quo, which is in its favour, accord-ing to the Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon.• Israel feared the failure of any agreement once, even if it was completely in its favour. In light of the instability in the region, there are no stable systems with strong and legitimate leaders to guarantee its continuity. What is the purpose of Israel making any concessions if one cannot guarantee a potential agreement’s continuity? This point of view is supported by the fact that the outcome of Arab revolutions cur-rently benefit Israel; however, there is no guarantee for Israel that the sit-uation will continue in this manner for the long term.• The weakness of Palestin-ian leadership. It cannot easily ac-cept a bad deal that takes away from national rights and there is no guar-antee that the people will approve it, especially since its legitimacy and credibility continue to be eroded be-cause of the current divisions. Fur-thermore, any potential agreement’s legitimacy has not been renewed due to a lack of elections or resistance.

• Israel is being controlled by the influence of the most ex-treme forces which weakens the possibility of any Israeli govern-ment signing any agreement that does not guarantee all Israeli de-mands. Even if President Benja-min Netanyahu were to change his affiliations or change his coalition, he has no guarantee that he can stay in power after that. After all, he still remembers his experience when he lost power after he signed the “Wye River” agreement.The factors that are the driving forces behind Kerry’s success can be summarised as follows:• The fear of all parties concerned of the consequences of failure, particularly in terms of the risk of emerging alternatives and other parties seeking to fill any voids.• The increasing belief that Kerry’s efforts could be the last chance for the so-called two-state solution.• Weakness of the Arab sit-uation and the pursuit of the cur-rently active states to resolve the

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Palestinian issue in any form in order to devote themselves to face the so-called Iranian threat, even if the only way to do so requires forming an alliance with Israel against Iran.• The unwillingness of the United States to accept a new fail-ure in the region because it will have a tremendously negative im-pact after the decline of American influence in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and even in the Gulf States.• The vulnerability of the Palestinian leadership and its willingness to respond to pres-sure for fear of the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Also, the need for the President, Abu Ma-zen (Mahmoud Abbas), whose time in office is considered mod-erate and a symbol of security and stability in the region, to end his political career with a successful achievement, which may make him willing to be flexible. These factors may encourage Israel not to waste this historic opportunity, which may not be repeated, to al-low them to impose a solution that can fulfil Israeli and American demands.• The regional and inter-national consensus to resolve dis-putes and conflicts using political methods. This requires the diffu-sion of danger that is inherited in the Palestinian issue, because if this conflict explodes it will de-stroy everything in the region.• Kerry’s eagerness and de-termination to achieve a political breakthrough that he can claim as the perfect end of his political career. He is obsessed with reach-ing a solution, and he did not put forth all of these efforts in order to manage the conflict because this can definitely be achieved with significantly less work.Kerry would not have continued his efforts for all this time if each party’s current stance was a true reflection of their final positions.

The current negotiations, and what-ever the two parties present, is for public consumption only and for the parties to put press on each other and to push the Americans to put more pressure on the other side.The Quartet Committee supported Kerry’s ideas at its last meetings. Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign affairs spokesper-son, said that the EU would offer unprecedented support to the parties in the event that a framework agree-ment is reached. In the same context it is difficult for the Palestinians to reject Kerry’s proposal without Arab support, a statement released by a Palestinian official said.So, how about if there was Arab pressure and encouragement to ac-cept what Kerry is going to propose on the basis that this is what the Pal-estinians can get now and if they re-fuse, their situation will worsen due to the pressure and sanctions that will be imposed by the US, Europe-ans and Arabs.A question of the utmost importance remains: Is it possible for the Pales-tinian leadership to accept a solution that will put an end to the Palestinian issue while simultaneously declaring that they would never approve it?The answer to this question is that what is being proposed today is not the final solution but a roadmap to-wards achieving a final solution. This will give both sides a way out of accepting any deal by saying they achieved part of what they were aim-ing to achieve and they did not give up all or part of their other demands.Statements have been leaked that some or many of the proposed so-lutions, especially those related to Palestinian demands, will be vague while recognising the “Jewishness” of Israel and the arrangements that guarantee security and compensation for Jewish refugees and the liquida-tion of the right of return will all be crystal clear.There are other issues, such as mak-

ing both sides commit to mandatory positions including making Israel choose between its security or main-taining all or a majority of the settle-ments. There are certain settlements that will be leased and others will remain under the sovereignty of the Palestinians.As for the Palestinians they have to choose between an incomplete pow-er on a large part of the West Bank, or to have broad powers on all the Palestinian population without sov-ereignty. Or, the more of their rights that they waive the more land they can control.There is also a possibility that each party will have the right to insist on certain demands that are not ap-proved, with the right to renegoti-ate these points in subsequent talks. Another approach is to list, in the agreement, all the points that have not been agreed upon and the point of view of the side that is insisting on finding a solution for it.Alternatively, everything can be pre-sented in the form of a new roadmap that is being proposed by the Ameri-cans and to extend the negotiations until after April to reach an agreement, and to find a way to gradually imple-ment what will be agreed upon now.This critical situation requires all Palestinians to bear their national responsibilities and this is not pos-sible without holding a national con-ference immediately and to initiate a comprehensive national dialogue involving all representatives of the people across the board through the participation of members of both Houses of the national legislature with the addition of representa-tives of political parties and sectors not represented properly, especially women, youth and people in the Di-aspora.If such a conference can’t be held quickly with full representation then it should be the responsibility of those who can attend to make final decisions on behalf of the Palestin-ian people.

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Issue no 81

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