20 sept 2017
An overwhelming majority of Palestinians is worried about the future of liberties in Palestine and two-thirds demand the resignation of President Mahmoud Abbas and half of the public views the Palestinian Authority as a burden on the Palestinian people, a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Ramallah between 14-16 September 2017 found out.
According to the report, the findings of the third quarter of 2017 show that an overwhelming majority of the Palestinian public is worried about the future of liberties in Palestine. This prevailing perception seems to be driven by the recent increase in the incidents in which journalists and activists have been arrested, by the recently announced presidential decree enacting a cybercrime law, and by the government proposed amendments to the Law of the Judiciary.
A large majority believes that Palestinians cannot criticize the PA without fear. In fact, half of the public believes that the PA has now become a burden on the Palestinian people.
This worry about the future of liberties, along with the concerns about the steps taken by the PA against the Gaza Strip, might be responsible for the increase in the demand for the resignation of President Abbas and the decline in his popularity compared to that of Hamas’s potential presidential candidate, Ismail Haneyya.
The poll found out that today 80% of Gazans want Abbas’s resignation, satisfaction with the performance of the president is about 20%, and it is certain that he would lose any presidential elections in the Gaza Strip to Hamas’s Haneyya.
Moreover, Fatah is fast losing its popularity in the Gaza Strip, standing at 28% today compared to 40% only nine months ago.
Findings show that 67% of the public want president Abbas to resign while 27% want him to remain in office. Three months ago, 62% said they want Abbas to resign. Demand for Abbas’s resignation stands at 60% in the West Bank and 80% in the Gaza Strip.
Only 38% of the Palestinian public say people in the West Bank can criticize the PA without fear; 59% of the public say that people cannot criticize the PA without fear.
Half of the pubic (50%) view the Palestinian Authority as a burden on the Palestinians while 44% view it as an asset.
According to the report, the findings of the third quarter of 2017 show that an overwhelming majority of the Palestinian public is worried about the future of liberties in Palestine. This prevailing perception seems to be driven by the recent increase in the incidents in which journalists and activists have been arrested, by the recently announced presidential decree enacting a cybercrime law, and by the government proposed amendments to the Law of the Judiciary.
A large majority believes that Palestinians cannot criticize the PA without fear. In fact, half of the public believes that the PA has now become a burden on the Palestinian people.
This worry about the future of liberties, along with the concerns about the steps taken by the PA against the Gaza Strip, might be responsible for the increase in the demand for the resignation of President Abbas and the decline in his popularity compared to that of Hamas’s potential presidential candidate, Ismail Haneyya.
The poll found out that today 80% of Gazans want Abbas’s resignation, satisfaction with the performance of the president is about 20%, and it is certain that he would lose any presidential elections in the Gaza Strip to Hamas’s Haneyya.
Moreover, Fatah is fast losing its popularity in the Gaza Strip, standing at 28% today compared to 40% only nine months ago.
Findings show that 67% of the public want president Abbas to resign while 27% want him to remain in office. Three months ago, 62% said they want Abbas to resign. Demand for Abbas’s resignation stands at 60% in the West Bank and 80% in the Gaza Strip.
Only 38% of the Palestinian public say people in the West Bank can criticize the PA without fear; 59% of the public say that people cannot criticize the PA without fear.
Half of the pubic (50%) view the Palestinian Authority as a burden on the Palestinians while 44% view it as an asset.
19 sept 2017
Without citizenship, Bedouins would be largely defenseless against steps to evict them, advocates say.
Israel has quietly revoked the citizenship of thousands of members of its large Palestinian minority in recent years, highlighting that decades of demographic war against Palestinians are far from over.
The policy, which only recently came to light, is being implemented by Israel’s population registry, a department of the interior ministry. The registry has been regularly criticized for secrecy about its rules for determining residency and citizenship.
According to government data, some 2,600 Palestinian Bedouins are likely to have had their Israeli citizenship voided. Officials, however, have conceded that the figure may be much higher.
The future offspring of those stripped of citizenship are likely to suffer problems gaining citizenship too.
Human rights groups have severely criticized Israel for violating its own laws, as well as international conventions to which it is a party, in carrying out such revocations.
Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal center for Israel’s Palestinian minority, told The Jerusalem Post newspaper: “This policy is illegal and in contravention to international law because you cannot leave someone stateless.”
Palestinian citizens, one in five of Israel’s population, are descended from Palestinians who survived a mass ethnic cleansing campaign waged during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Today, some 200,000 Bedouins live in Israel, most of them in a semi-desert area known as the Naqab.
One of the two fastest-growing [PDF] groups in Israel’s population, the Bedouins have faced especially harsh treatment. Israel continued expelling them to Jordan, Egypt and Gaza through the 1950s and to this day tightly limits the areas in the Naqab where the Bedouins can live.
Revelations of the revocations emerged as Ayelet Shaked, the far-right justice minister, warned Israel’s judges to prioritize demographic concerns and maintenance of the state’s Jewishness over human rights. She called growing numbers of non-Jews in the state “national challenges” that risked turning a Jewish state into “an empty symbol.”
According to Adalah, Bedouins typically learn that they have been stripped of citizenship when they approach the interior ministry for routine services such as renewing an identity card or passport, obtaining a birth certificate, or declaring a change of address.
Some have discovered their loss of status when seeking a passport to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the obligations for Muslims.
Tip of the iceberg?
ida Touma-Sliman, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, said the policy of revocations had intensified over the past 18 months.
“I’m afraid that what has been exposed is only the tip of the iceberg and what hasn’t been revealed yet is even more serious,” she told the Haaretz newspaper.
The legislator fears that many other Bedouins have been stripped of citizenship, but have yet to learn of the fact.
She said she believed that the government was in part targeting Bedouins with revocation of citizenship to weaken long-standing land claims against the state.
Tens of thousands of Bedouins have been mired [PDF] in legal action for decades trying to claim back the title deeds to ancestral lands seized from them by military officials in the first years after Israel’s creation.
Israel has declared the surviving communities as “unrecognized,” effectively criminalizing their inhabitants and denying them basic services such as water and electricity. Officials have also been trying to revive the Prawer Plan, which seeks to evict some 40,000 Bedouins – Adalah puts the figure at 80,000-90,000 – and force them into poor “townships.” The original plan was ostensibly frozen in late 2013 after mass protests across the Naqab.
Touma-Sliman said that without citizenship, Bedouins would be largely defenseless against steps to evict them.
Endless foot-dragging
Mahmoud al-Gharibi, an unemployed carpenter from the al-Azazme tribe, was one of several Bedouins who spoke to Haaretz in August during a protest rally in the Naqab village of Bir Hadaj.
He was told his citizenship had been revoked when he applied for a new identity card in 2000. “Since then I’ve applied 10 times [for renewed citizenship], getting 10 rejections, each time on a different pretext,” he said. “I have two children who are over 18 and they too have no citizenship.”
Another Bedouin who spoke anonymously to Haaretz said: “No one explains anything and all of a sudden your status changes. You go in as a citizen and come out deprived of citizenship, and then an endless process of foot-dragging begins.”
Zaher pointed out that many of those recently stripped of citizenship had been voting in parliamentary elections for years, even though it is a right available solely to citizens.
Adalah has warned that revoking citizenship is not only illegal according to Israel’s own laws, but violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which Israel signed in 1961.
The group has appealed to Israel’s interior ministry and attorney general, demanding that they cancel the policy. Israeli officials have justified the revocations on the grounds that bureaucratic errors made in the state’s early years meant that the affected Bedouin’s parents or grandparents were not properly registered.
Israel did not pass its Citizenship Law – governing citizenship for non-Jews – until 1952. The legislation’s primary purpose was to strip some 750,000 Palestinians who had been made refugees by the 1948 war, and their millions of descendants, of a right to live in Israel.
A separate law, the 1950 Law of Return, entitles all Jews around the world to instant Israeli citizenship.
Martial law
The failure to register many Bedouins in Israel is related to a draconian period of martial law imposed on the Palestinian minority during Israel’s first 18 years.
Bedouins, like other Palestinian citizens, were not allowed to leave their communities without a special permit. But the remoteness of their communities and Israel’s continuing efforts to expel them through the 1950s mean that officials may have preferred to avoid registration in many cases.
According to reports by the United Nations and others, thousands of Bedouins were secretly expelled [PDF] into neighboring Egypt and Jordan during the early years of the military government.
Even those who were not expelled outside Israel were often evicted from their ancestral lands and forced into overcrowded “townships.”
This intentionally murky period in Israel’s history has made it hard for the Bedouins to prove many decades later what happened to their parents or grandparents.
Adalah’s Zaher told The Jerusalem Post: “Basically, we’re talking about the grandparents of the people who are now affected and don’t know what happened under military rule. And then suddenly in 2010 they were told that because their grandparents were granted citizenship by mistake, now they will be stripped of their citizenship.”
The interior ministry has downgraded those Bedouins stripped of citizenship to “permanent residents” – the same status accorded to Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
However, in practice, Israel does not treat “permanent residency” as permanent. Figures show that Israel has voided the residency status of nearly 15,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem since the city’s occupation began in 1967.
Treated as foreigners
Bedouins have been told they are eligible to apply for citizenship again through a naturalization process, treating them effectively as foreigners.
However, according to Adalah, many have found that when they apply they continue to be denied citizenship, often on grounds that documents cannot be located or they lack sufficient proficiency in Hebrew.
There is no Hebrew language test for foreigners seeking citizenship, either Jews immigrating under the Law of Return, or non-Jewish spouses of Israeli citizens naturalizing under the Citizenship Law.
According to Haaretz, other Bedouins have found the interior ministry so unresponsive they have given up in despair.
The only provision allowing citizenship to be canceled is for recent arrivals who provided false information in their applications. Even then, the interior ministry was required to act within three years – otherwise it had to make an application for revocation through the courts.
Adalah has complained that those affected were not given a hearing before their citizenship was rescinded or the chance to appeal. Zaher said the policy was also blatantly discriminatory as no Jews had been denied citizenship because of errors in their parents’ or grandparents’ registration under the Law of Return.
Equal rights for equal burden?
The treatment of Bedouins gives the lie to one of Israel’s most familiar claims: that Palestinian citizens will receive the same rights as Jewish citizens if they share an equal burden. Avigdor Lieberman, the defense minister, has repeatedly campaigned on a platform of “no loyalty, no citizenship.” He argues that Palestinian citizens who do not serve in the Israeli army or perform an equivalent form of national service should lose their citizenship.
However, a proportion of those stripped of citizenship are from Bedouin families that have served in the Israeli army as desert trackers.
Several unrecognized villages, home to some 100,000 Bedouins, have a tradition of military service, but have still been denied services. Their homes are all under threat of demolition.
Some of the residents of Umm al-Hiran, which is currently being demolished to make way for the exclusively new Jewish community of Hiran, served as trackers for the Israeli army.
Atalla Saghaira, a resident of the unrecognized village of Rahma, told Haaretz he had been stripped of his citizenship in 2002 when he applied for a passport, even though his father was a tracker for the Israeli army. After 13 years of struggle, he eventually managed to regain citizenship, but three of his brothers were still stateless.
No harm intended?
The Israeli parliament’s interior committee held a meeting last year at which officials for the first time gave details of the revocation policy.
The head of the interior ministry’s citizenship department, Ronen Yerushalmi, submitted a report stating that as many as 2,600 Bedouins were affected. He admitted, however, that the data was not precise and the figure could be even higher.
At another meeting, the committee’s legal adviser, Gilad Keren, warned that the ministry was most likely breaking Israeli law. He said he could not “understand how, when a person has been a citizen for 20 years and the state makes a mistake, that person’s status is changed.”
In a statement to The Jerusalem Post, the interior ministry denied the evidence heard by the committee, claiming that only about 150 people had been affected. “No one means to harm them,” a spokesperson said. “Now the ministry is asking them to legally re-register so they will remain citizens.”
Revelations of the mass revocations came as an Israeli court last month approved for the first time stripping of citizenship a Palestinian convicted of carrying out an attack.
The interior ministry gave Alaa Zayoud, from the town of Umm al-Fahm in present-day northern Israel, the status of temporary resident after he was sentenced to 25 years for carrying out a car-ramming attack last October on Israeli soldiers. Four people were injured in that incident.
The revocation was made on the basis of a 2008 amendment to the Citizenship Law that allows citizenship to be rescinded for “breach of loyalty” to the state.
Adalah, which opposed the government’s decision, pointed out a double standard in not applying the amendment to Israeli Jews. It cited recent cases such as that of a Jewish man and two Jewish juveniles who burned alive a 16-year-old Palestinian, Muhammad Abu Khudair, in Jerusalem in 2014, and that of Jewish settlers behind an arson attack a year later that killed three members of the Dawabsha family in the occupied West Bank village of Duma. None had citizenship revoked.
In 1996, Israel’s high court also refused a request to rescind the citizenship of an Israeli Jew, Yigal Amir, who a year earlier had assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister. The judges ruled that such offenses should be dealt with in the criminal courts, not by revoking citizenship.
Previous revocations, though rare, have solely targeted Palestinian citizens. In 2002, Eli Yishai, then interior minister, stripped Nahad Abu Kishaq and Kais Obeid of citizenship.
Zayoud’s case was different because the interior ministry needed to seek court approval, therefore setting what Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel have called a “dangerous precedent.”
The fear is that Israel will use the case to justify many more such revocations or condition citizenship for the Palestinian minority on loyalty.
Ethnic cleansing
The question of whether Palestinians should have been awarded citizenship in the state’s early years is one that has exercised the Israeli leadership for decades. Many have feared that a growing Palestinian population in Israel poses a “demographic threat” to the state’s Jewishness.
Writing in 2002, Israeli historian Benny Morris suggested that Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion, should have “gone the whole hog” in 1948 – ethnically cleansing all Palestinians from the newly founded state of Israel.
Research has shown that Ben Gurion gave citizenship only reluctantly to the 150,000 Palestinians who survived the mass expulsions. They were initially assigned residency, chiefly as a way to aid in identifying and expelling Palestinian refugees trying to cross back into the new state of Israel to reach their villages.
Only in 1952, under international pressure, did Israel award the Palestinian minority citizenship through the Citizenship Law, legislation separate from that for Jews.
However, scholars have noted that for more than a decade Israeli leaders repeatedly attempted to find ways to expel Palestinian citizens or establish incentive schemes to encourage them to leave.
Israeli scholar Uri Davis has noted that 30,000 Palestinians living in Israel remained stateless until 1980, when Israel passed an amendment to the Citizenship Law belatedly awarding them citizenship.
Ben Gurion himself hoped to fix the percentage of Palestinians in Israel at no higher than 15 percent of the population. But with the proportion of Palestinian citizens now at one in five, Israeli politicians have been seeking ever more desperate ways to rid Israel of sections of the minority.
In July, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, was reported to have urged the Trump administration in the US to agree to a land swap that would move an area home to some 250,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel to Palestinian control.
The proposal echoed Avigdor Lieberman’s long-standing plan to redraw Israel’s internationally recognized borders as a way to deny hundreds of thousands of Palestinians their citizenship.
In early 2014, the Maariv newspaper reported that Netanyahu had first posited a land and population exchange as a quick fix to reduce Palestinian citizens to no more than 12 percent of the population.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). Website: jonathan-cook.net
Israel has quietly revoked the citizenship of thousands of members of its large Palestinian minority in recent years, highlighting that decades of demographic war against Palestinians are far from over.
The policy, which only recently came to light, is being implemented by Israel’s population registry, a department of the interior ministry. The registry has been regularly criticized for secrecy about its rules for determining residency and citizenship.
According to government data, some 2,600 Palestinian Bedouins are likely to have had their Israeli citizenship voided. Officials, however, have conceded that the figure may be much higher.
The future offspring of those stripped of citizenship are likely to suffer problems gaining citizenship too.
Human rights groups have severely criticized Israel for violating its own laws, as well as international conventions to which it is a party, in carrying out such revocations.
Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal center for Israel’s Palestinian minority, told The Jerusalem Post newspaper: “This policy is illegal and in contravention to international law because you cannot leave someone stateless.”
Palestinian citizens, one in five of Israel’s population, are descended from Palestinians who survived a mass ethnic cleansing campaign waged during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Today, some 200,000 Bedouins live in Israel, most of them in a semi-desert area known as the Naqab.
One of the two fastest-growing [PDF] groups in Israel’s population, the Bedouins have faced especially harsh treatment. Israel continued expelling them to Jordan, Egypt and Gaza through the 1950s and to this day tightly limits the areas in the Naqab where the Bedouins can live.
Revelations of the revocations emerged as Ayelet Shaked, the far-right justice minister, warned Israel’s judges to prioritize demographic concerns and maintenance of the state’s Jewishness over human rights. She called growing numbers of non-Jews in the state “national challenges” that risked turning a Jewish state into “an empty symbol.”
According to Adalah, Bedouins typically learn that they have been stripped of citizenship when they approach the interior ministry for routine services such as renewing an identity card or passport, obtaining a birth certificate, or declaring a change of address.
Some have discovered their loss of status when seeking a passport to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the obligations for Muslims.
Tip of the iceberg?
ida Touma-Sliman, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament, said the policy of revocations had intensified over the past 18 months.
“I’m afraid that what has been exposed is only the tip of the iceberg and what hasn’t been revealed yet is even more serious,” she told the Haaretz newspaper.
The legislator fears that many other Bedouins have been stripped of citizenship, but have yet to learn of the fact.
She said she believed that the government was in part targeting Bedouins with revocation of citizenship to weaken long-standing land claims against the state.
Tens of thousands of Bedouins have been mired [PDF] in legal action for decades trying to claim back the title deeds to ancestral lands seized from them by military officials in the first years after Israel’s creation.
Israel has declared the surviving communities as “unrecognized,” effectively criminalizing their inhabitants and denying them basic services such as water and electricity. Officials have also been trying to revive the Prawer Plan, which seeks to evict some 40,000 Bedouins – Adalah puts the figure at 80,000-90,000 – and force them into poor “townships.” The original plan was ostensibly frozen in late 2013 after mass protests across the Naqab.
Touma-Sliman said that without citizenship, Bedouins would be largely defenseless against steps to evict them.
Endless foot-dragging
Mahmoud al-Gharibi, an unemployed carpenter from the al-Azazme tribe, was one of several Bedouins who spoke to Haaretz in August during a protest rally in the Naqab village of Bir Hadaj.
He was told his citizenship had been revoked when he applied for a new identity card in 2000. “Since then I’ve applied 10 times [for renewed citizenship], getting 10 rejections, each time on a different pretext,” he said. “I have two children who are over 18 and they too have no citizenship.”
Another Bedouin who spoke anonymously to Haaretz said: “No one explains anything and all of a sudden your status changes. You go in as a citizen and come out deprived of citizenship, and then an endless process of foot-dragging begins.”
Zaher pointed out that many of those recently stripped of citizenship had been voting in parliamentary elections for years, even though it is a right available solely to citizens.
Adalah has warned that revoking citizenship is not only illegal according to Israel’s own laws, but violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which Israel signed in 1961.
The group has appealed to Israel’s interior ministry and attorney general, demanding that they cancel the policy. Israeli officials have justified the revocations on the grounds that bureaucratic errors made in the state’s early years meant that the affected Bedouin’s parents or grandparents were not properly registered.
Israel did not pass its Citizenship Law – governing citizenship for non-Jews – until 1952. The legislation’s primary purpose was to strip some 750,000 Palestinians who had been made refugees by the 1948 war, and their millions of descendants, of a right to live in Israel.
A separate law, the 1950 Law of Return, entitles all Jews around the world to instant Israeli citizenship.
Martial law
The failure to register many Bedouins in Israel is related to a draconian period of martial law imposed on the Palestinian minority during Israel’s first 18 years.
Bedouins, like other Palestinian citizens, were not allowed to leave their communities without a special permit. But the remoteness of their communities and Israel’s continuing efforts to expel them through the 1950s mean that officials may have preferred to avoid registration in many cases.
According to reports by the United Nations and others, thousands of Bedouins were secretly expelled [PDF] into neighboring Egypt and Jordan during the early years of the military government.
Even those who were not expelled outside Israel were often evicted from their ancestral lands and forced into overcrowded “townships.”
This intentionally murky period in Israel’s history has made it hard for the Bedouins to prove many decades later what happened to their parents or grandparents.
Adalah’s Zaher told The Jerusalem Post: “Basically, we’re talking about the grandparents of the people who are now affected and don’t know what happened under military rule. And then suddenly in 2010 they were told that because their grandparents were granted citizenship by mistake, now they will be stripped of their citizenship.”
The interior ministry has downgraded those Bedouins stripped of citizenship to “permanent residents” – the same status accorded to Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
However, in practice, Israel does not treat “permanent residency” as permanent. Figures show that Israel has voided the residency status of nearly 15,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem since the city’s occupation began in 1967.
Treated as foreigners
Bedouins have been told they are eligible to apply for citizenship again through a naturalization process, treating them effectively as foreigners.
However, according to Adalah, many have found that when they apply they continue to be denied citizenship, often on grounds that documents cannot be located or they lack sufficient proficiency in Hebrew.
There is no Hebrew language test for foreigners seeking citizenship, either Jews immigrating under the Law of Return, or non-Jewish spouses of Israeli citizens naturalizing under the Citizenship Law.
According to Haaretz, other Bedouins have found the interior ministry so unresponsive they have given up in despair.
The only provision allowing citizenship to be canceled is for recent arrivals who provided false information in their applications. Even then, the interior ministry was required to act within three years – otherwise it had to make an application for revocation through the courts.
Adalah has complained that those affected were not given a hearing before their citizenship was rescinded or the chance to appeal. Zaher said the policy was also blatantly discriminatory as no Jews had been denied citizenship because of errors in their parents’ or grandparents’ registration under the Law of Return.
Equal rights for equal burden?
The treatment of Bedouins gives the lie to one of Israel’s most familiar claims: that Palestinian citizens will receive the same rights as Jewish citizens if they share an equal burden. Avigdor Lieberman, the defense minister, has repeatedly campaigned on a platform of “no loyalty, no citizenship.” He argues that Palestinian citizens who do not serve in the Israeli army or perform an equivalent form of national service should lose their citizenship.
However, a proportion of those stripped of citizenship are from Bedouin families that have served in the Israeli army as desert trackers.
Several unrecognized villages, home to some 100,000 Bedouins, have a tradition of military service, but have still been denied services. Their homes are all under threat of demolition.
Some of the residents of Umm al-Hiran, which is currently being demolished to make way for the exclusively new Jewish community of Hiran, served as trackers for the Israeli army.
Atalla Saghaira, a resident of the unrecognized village of Rahma, told Haaretz he had been stripped of his citizenship in 2002 when he applied for a passport, even though his father was a tracker for the Israeli army. After 13 years of struggle, he eventually managed to regain citizenship, but three of his brothers were still stateless.
No harm intended?
The Israeli parliament’s interior committee held a meeting last year at which officials for the first time gave details of the revocation policy.
The head of the interior ministry’s citizenship department, Ronen Yerushalmi, submitted a report stating that as many as 2,600 Bedouins were affected. He admitted, however, that the data was not precise and the figure could be even higher.
At another meeting, the committee’s legal adviser, Gilad Keren, warned that the ministry was most likely breaking Israeli law. He said he could not “understand how, when a person has been a citizen for 20 years and the state makes a mistake, that person’s status is changed.”
In a statement to The Jerusalem Post, the interior ministry denied the evidence heard by the committee, claiming that only about 150 people had been affected. “No one means to harm them,” a spokesperson said. “Now the ministry is asking them to legally re-register so they will remain citizens.”
Revelations of the mass revocations came as an Israeli court last month approved for the first time stripping of citizenship a Palestinian convicted of carrying out an attack.
The interior ministry gave Alaa Zayoud, from the town of Umm al-Fahm in present-day northern Israel, the status of temporary resident after he was sentenced to 25 years for carrying out a car-ramming attack last October on Israeli soldiers. Four people were injured in that incident.
The revocation was made on the basis of a 2008 amendment to the Citizenship Law that allows citizenship to be rescinded for “breach of loyalty” to the state.
Adalah, which opposed the government’s decision, pointed out a double standard in not applying the amendment to Israeli Jews. It cited recent cases such as that of a Jewish man and two Jewish juveniles who burned alive a 16-year-old Palestinian, Muhammad Abu Khudair, in Jerusalem in 2014, and that of Jewish settlers behind an arson attack a year later that killed three members of the Dawabsha family in the occupied West Bank village of Duma. None had citizenship revoked.
In 1996, Israel’s high court also refused a request to rescind the citizenship of an Israeli Jew, Yigal Amir, who a year earlier had assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister. The judges ruled that such offenses should be dealt with in the criminal courts, not by revoking citizenship.
Previous revocations, though rare, have solely targeted Palestinian citizens. In 2002, Eli Yishai, then interior minister, stripped Nahad Abu Kishaq and Kais Obeid of citizenship.
Zayoud’s case was different because the interior ministry needed to seek court approval, therefore setting what Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel have called a “dangerous precedent.”
The fear is that Israel will use the case to justify many more such revocations or condition citizenship for the Palestinian minority on loyalty.
Ethnic cleansing
The question of whether Palestinians should have been awarded citizenship in the state’s early years is one that has exercised the Israeli leadership for decades. Many have feared that a growing Palestinian population in Israel poses a “demographic threat” to the state’s Jewishness.
Writing in 2002, Israeli historian Benny Morris suggested that Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion, should have “gone the whole hog” in 1948 – ethnically cleansing all Palestinians from the newly founded state of Israel.
Research has shown that Ben Gurion gave citizenship only reluctantly to the 150,000 Palestinians who survived the mass expulsions. They were initially assigned residency, chiefly as a way to aid in identifying and expelling Palestinian refugees trying to cross back into the new state of Israel to reach their villages.
Only in 1952, under international pressure, did Israel award the Palestinian minority citizenship through the Citizenship Law, legislation separate from that for Jews.
However, scholars have noted that for more than a decade Israeli leaders repeatedly attempted to find ways to expel Palestinian citizens or establish incentive schemes to encourage them to leave.
Israeli scholar Uri Davis has noted that 30,000 Palestinians living in Israel remained stateless until 1980, when Israel passed an amendment to the Citizenship Law belatedly awarding them citizenship.
Ben Gurion himself hoped to fix the percentage of Palestinians in Israel at no higher than 15 percent of the population. But with the proportion of Palestinian citizens now at one in five, Israeli politicians have been seeking ever more desperate ways to rid Israel of sections of the minority.
In July, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, was reported to have urged the Trump administration in the US to agree to a land swap that would move an area home to some 250,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel to Palestinian control.
The proposal echoed Avigdor Lieberman’s long-standing plan to redraw Israel’s internationally recognized borders as a way to deny hundreds of thousands of Palestinians their citizenship.
In early 2014, the Maariv newspaper reported that Netanyahu had first posited a land and population exchange as a quick fix to reduce Palestinian citizens to no more than 12 percent of the population.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). Website: jonathan-cook.net
18 sept 2017
A great deal of ambivalence persists as to the position adopted by the Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas regarding a much-praised decision by Hamas to disband Gaza’s administrative committee.
Abbas only commented on Hamas’s move in a brief statement released by the PA-owned Wafa News Agency, in which Abu Mazen was quoted as expressing his satisfaction with the Cairo-brokered decision announced by Hamas.
Abbas’s reticence has been attributed to his current dedication to the coming session of the United Nations General Assembly, slated to be held in New York.
Abbas arrived in New York on Sunday to take part in the proceedings of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly. He is to meet US President Donald Trump there on Wednesday, ahead of his speech at the UN on Wednesday.
The government of Abbas Sunday said there was a "historic chance" to end a long-running rift with Hamas, hours after the latter pledged key concessions on its control of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas said it was ready to hand hold general elections both in the enclave and the West Bank.
Hamas also promised to dissolve a disputed administrative committee in Gaza and invited Abbas' government to assume responsibility in the coastal enclave.
The group's announcement came after talks in Cairo between officials from Hamas and Abbas' Fatah party with Egyptian intelligence officials.
"This round of talks sponsored by Egypt represents a real historic chance to end divisions," spokesman for the Palestinian government, Youssef al-Mahmoud, said.
"Hamas' decision to dissolve its administrative committee is a step in the right direction," he added in a statement.
The spokesman was cautious about showing too much optimism, however.
"There should be clarifications for the nature of this decision and the [Palestinian] government should take over all ministries and [border] crossings," al-Mahmoud said.
Abbas only commented on Hamas’s move in a brief statement released by the PA-owned Wafa News Agency, in which Abu Mazen was quoted as expressing his satisfaction with the Cairo-brokered decision announced by Hamas.
Abbas’s reticence has been attributed to his current dedication to the coming session of the United Nations General Assembly, slated to be held in New York.
Abbas arrived in New York on Sunday to take part in the proceedings of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly. He is to meet US President Donald Trump there on Wednesday, ahead of his speech at the UN on Wednesday.
The government of Abbas Sunday said there was a "historic chance" to end a long-running rift with Hamas, hours after the latter pledged key concessions on its control of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas said it was ready to hand hold general elections both in the enclave and the West Bank.
Hamas also promised to dissolve a disputed administrative committee in Gaza and invited Abbas' government to assume responsibility in the coastal enclave.
The group's announcement came after talks in Cairo between officials from Hamas and Abbas' Fatah party with Egyptian intelligence officials.
"This round of talks sponsored by Egypt represents a real historic chance to end divisions," spokesman for the Palestinian government, Youssef al-Mahmoud, said.
"Hamas' decision to dissolve its administrative committee is a step in the right direction," he added in a statement.
The spokesman was cautious about showing too much optimism, however.
"There should be clarifications for the nature of this decision and the [Palestinian] government should take over all ministries and [border] crossings," al-Mahmoud said.
The National Islamic Commission for Development and Social Solidarity (Takaful) has called on Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas to end all his punitive measure against the Gaza Strip after Hamas dissolved its administrative committee.
In a press release on Sunday, the commission, Takaful, demanded the government in Ramallah to immediately assume its responsibilities towards Gaza in order to alleviate the suffering of the population.
Takaful welcomed Hamas’s decision to disband the administrative committee and valued the Egyptian efforts to restore the Palestinian unity.
It also called for restoring the prestige of the national, legislative and judicial institutions away from the policies of monopoly and intimidation so as to establish democracy, promote the culture of election, and protect the freedom of opinion.
In a press release on Sunday, the commission, Takaful, demanded the government in Ramallah to immediately assume its responsibilities towards Gaza in order to alleviate the suffering of the population.
Takaful welcomed Hamas’s decision to disband the administrative committee and valued the Egyptian efforts to restore the Palestinian unity.
It also called for restoring the prestige of the national, legislative and judicial institutions away from the policies of monopoly and intimidation so as to establish democracy, promote the culture of election, and protect the freedom of opinion.
Member of Hamas’s political bureau Fathi Hammad has reiterated his Movement’s adherence to the option of armed resistance against the occupation, vowing to frustrate all conspiracies against the Palestinian people and their national cause.
During a memorial service held on Sunday evening for a resistance fighter from al-Qassam Brigades, Hammad said that Hamas alongside the Palestinian people would trample underfoot all schemes being hatched against them and would keep marching towards liberation.
He paid tribute to what he said the martyrs of tunnels and preparation, describing them as “a beacon for those walking on the path of the liberation battle.”
The Hamas official also expressed his belief that the blockade on Gaza would end. “Our message to those who are besieging Gaza says that your siege is about to collapse and break.”
During a memorial service held on Sunday evening for a resistance fighter from al-Qassam Brigades, Hammad said that Hamas alongside the Palestinian people would trample underfoot all schemes being hatched against them and would keep marching towards liberation.
He paid tribute to what he said the martyrs of tunnels and preparation, describing them as “a beacon for those walking on the path of the liberation battle.”
The Hamas official also expressed his belief that the blockade on Gaza would end. “Our message to those who are besieging Gaza says that your siege is about to collapse and break.”
Zaher al-Shashtri, senior official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has hailed the Hamas Movement for dissolving its administrative committee in the Gaza Strip as a prelude to enabling the Ramallah-based government to assume its responsibilities.
In press remarks on Sunday, Shashtri described the decision that was taken by Hamas in this regard as “an important step in the right direction,” calling for working immediately on honoring the previous reconciliation agreements, especially the one signed in Cairo in 2011.
The PFLP official urged Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas to end all measures he had taken in recent months against Gaza and launch a comprehensive national dialog to develop mechanisms agreed upon to heal the rift in the Palestinian arena and rearrange the Palestinian house.
He also stressed the need for agreeing on dates to hold legislative and presidential elections and rebuilding the Palestinian Liberation Orgnization (PLO) in accordance with the 2005 Cairo agreement.
In press remarks on Sunday, Shashtri described the decision that was taken by Hamas in this regard as “an important step in the right direction,” calling for working immediately on honoring the previous reconciliation agreements, especially the one signed in Cairo in 2011.
The PFLP official urged Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas to end all measures he had taken in recent months against Gaza and launch a comprehensive national dialog to develop mechanisms agreed upon to heal the rift in the Palestinian arena and rearrange the Palestinian house.
He also stressed the need for agreeing on dates to hold legislative and presidential elections and rebuilding the Palestinian Liberation Orgnization (PLO) in accordance with the 2005 Cairo agreement.
Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Ministry commended on Sunday a decision by the Palestinian Movement Hamas to disband an administrative committee it has formed to run the internal affairs of the blockaded Gaza Strip.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it welcomes the recent statement by Hamas announcing the dissolution of the Administrative Committee in Gaza.
The statement urged all parties to use this opportunity to turn a new page for the Palestinian people and prop up national consensus.
The ministry stressed Turkey’s unending support for Palestinian unity, which it said makes part of the country’s tireless efforts to boost peace in the region.
Hamas said on Sunday that it had agreed to steps toward resolving a decade-long split with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, announcing it would dissolve a body seen as a shadow government and was ready to hold elections.
The statement comes after Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian officials last week.
Hamas said it had agreed to a key demand made by Fatah: dissolving the so-called “administrative committee” created in March, while saying it was ready for elections and negotiations toward a unity government. It called on the Palestinian Authority government based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank “to come to Gaza to exercise its functions and carry out its duties immediately”.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it welcomes the recent statement by Hamas announcing the dissolution of the Administrative Committee in Gaza.
The statement urged all parties to use this opportunity to turn a new page for the Palestinian people and prop up national consensus.
The ministry stressed Turkey’s unending support for Palestinian unity, which it said makes part of the country’s tireless efforts to boost peace in the region.
Hamas said on Sunday that it had agreed to steps toward resolving a decade-long split with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, announcing it would dissolve a body seen as a shadow government and was ready to hold elections.
The statement comes after Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian officials last week.
Hamas said it had agreed to a key demand made by Fatah: dissolving the so-called “administrative committee” created in March, while saying it was ready for elections and negotiations toward a unity government. It called on the Palestinian Authority government based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank “to come to Gaza to exercise its functions and carry out its duties immediately”.
17 sept 2017
Member of Fatah Central Committee, Azzam al-Ahmed, welcomed on Sunday Hamas Movement's decision to dissolve an administrative committee it has formed to run the affairs of the Gaza Strip.
Al-Ahmed, who is currently in Cairo for Egyptian-led reconciliation talks with Hamas, told WAFA that a lengthy meeting was held between the Fatah delegation in Cairo with the head of the Egyptian intelligence service, Minister Khaled Fawzi, in which they reviewed the continuous efforts exerted by Egypt to end the Palestinian internal split.
Al-Ahmed also revealed that the Fatah delegation met with the Hamas leadership, expressing appreciation for Hamas decision to dissolve the administrative committee it had formed.
He also hailed Hamas's call for the unity government to resume its normal work in Gaza as well as its approval to hold presidential and legislative elections.
He added that there will be a bilateral meeting between Fatah and Hamas officials followed by a meeting of all the Palestinian factions that signed the reconciliation agreement on 5/5/2011 in order to begin practical steps to implement the deal.
Al-Ahmed said the coming days will witness tangible practical steps starting with the national reconciliation government resuming its work in Gaza.
He expressed great appreciation for Egypt’s efforts to end the Palestinian division and achieve national unity.
Al-Ahmed, who is currently in Cairo for Egyptian-led reconciliation talks with Hamas, told WAFA that a lengthy meeting was held between the Fatah delegation in Cairo with the head of the Egyptian intelligence service, Minister Khaled Fawzi, in which they reviewed the continuous efforts exerted by Egypt to end the Palestinian internal split.
Al-Ahmed also revealed that the Fatah delegation met with the Hamas leadership, expressing appreciation for Hamas decision to dissolve the administrative committee it had formed.
He also hailed Hamas's call for the unity government to resume its normal work in Gaza as well as its approval to hold presidential and legislative elections.
He added that there will be a bilateral meeting between Fatah and Hamas officials followed by a meeting of all the Palestinian factions that signed the reconciliation agreement on 5/5/2011 in order to begin practical steps to implement the deal.
Al-Ahmed said the coming days will witness tangible practical steps starting with the national reconciliation government resuming its work in Gaza.
He expressed great appreciation for Egypt’s efforts to end the Palestinian division and achieve national unity.
16 sept 2017
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process expressed support for Hamas’ expressed willingness to reconcile with the Fateh movement, head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), in a statement released on Wednesday.
Nickolay Mladenov said that he welcomed developments this week, after a Hamas delegation in Cairo stated that it was ready to hold meetings with the Fateh movement, Hamas’ longtime rival.
“Reconciliation is critical to addressing the grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza, preventing the continuing militant buildup and restoring hope for the future,” Mladenov said.
He urged parties to “seize the current positive momentum” in order to “immediately take up its responsibilities in Gaza.”
“Gaza is and must be an integral part of any future Palestinian state. Unity is an essential step towards the peaceful realisation of the Palestinian national aspirations,” Mladenov added, according to Ma’an News Agency.
Hamas said in a statement, following meetings in Cairo, that it was ready to “immediately” sign an agreement with Fateh, and also reiterated claims it was ready to disband its administrative committee — formed earlier this year to the outrage of the PA, which accused Hamas of attempting to form a shadow government and run Gaza independent of the occupied West Bank.
The PA has since been accused of deliberately sending the impoverished Gaza Strip further into a humanitarian catastrophe — by slashing funding for Israeli fuel, medicine, and salaries for civil servants and former prisoners — in order to wrest control of the territory from Hamas.
Hamas leadership told Egyptian intelligence officials they would allow the Palestinian national consensus government to take charge and carry out elections, on the condition that all Palestinian factions hold a conference in Cairo afterwards to elect a national government responsible for the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
Previously, Hamas’ offers for reconciliation have called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to put an end to recent policies imposed on the besieged coastal enclave.
Abbas has meanwhile threatened to undertake further repressive measures against the impoverished territory should Hamas not unconditionally abide by the PA’s demands to end the administrative committee, relinquish control of the enclave to the PA, and hold presidential and legislative elections.
Meanwhile, Majid al-Fitiani, an official in the Fateh movement, told China’s Xinhua news outlet on Wednesday that Hamas was advancing a policy of “maneuvering by calling for new meetings,” emphasizing that national reconciliation did not require new meetings “because we have held innumerable meetings with Hamas in the past ten years without actual implementation for what is agreed upon.”
Hamas “aims at inspiring the Palestinian people with efforts to achieve reconciliation, while on the ground the internal division is being consecrated,” he reportedly said.
The two parties have been embroiled in a bitter conflict for more than a decade, since Hamas won legislative elections in the occupied Palestinian territory in 2006.
Nickolay Mladenov said that he welcomed developments this week, after a Hamas delegation in Cairo stated that it was ready to hold meetings with the Fateh movement, Hamas’ longtime rival.
“Reconciliation is critical to addressing the grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza, preventing the continuing militant buildup and restoring hope for the future,” Mladenov said.
He urged parties to “seize the current positive momentum” in order to “immediately take up its responsibilities in Gaza.”
“Gaza is and must be an integral part of any future Palestinian state. Unity is an essential step towards the peaceful realisation of the Palestinian national aspirations,” Mladenov added, according to Ma’an News Agency.
Hamas said in a statement, following meetings in Cairo, that it was ready to “immediately” sign an agreement with Fateh, and also reiterated claims it was ready to disband its administrative committee — formed earlier this year to the outrage of the PA, which accused Hamas of attempting to form a shadow government and run Gaza independent of the occupied West Bank.
The PA has since been accused of deliberately sending the impoverished Gaza Strip further into a humanitarian catastrophe — by slashing funding for Israeli fuel, medicine, and salaries for civil servants and former prisoners — in order to wrest control of the territory from Hamas.
Hamas leadership told Egyptian intelligence officials they would allow the Palestinian national consensus government to take charge and carry out elections, on the condition that all Palestinian factions hold a conference in Cairo afterwards to elect a national government responsible for the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
Previously, Hamas’ offers for reconciliation have called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to put an end to recent policies imposed on the besieged coastal enclave.
Abbas has meanwhile threatened to undertake further repressive measures against the impoverished territory should Hamas not unconditionally abide by the PA’s demands to end the administrative committee, relinquish control of the enclave to the PA, and hold presidential and legislative elections.
Meanwhile, Majid al-Fitiani, an official in the Fateh movement, told China’s Xinhua news outlet on Wednesday that Hamas was advancing a policy of “maneuvering by calling for new meetings,” emphasizing that national reconciliation did not require new meetings “because we have held innumerable meetings with Hamas in the past ten years without actual implementation for what is agreed upon.”
Hamas “aims at inspiring the Palestinian people with efforts to achieve reconciliation, while on the ground the internal division is being consecrated,” he reportedly said.
The two parties have been embroiled in a bitter conflict for more than a decade, since Hamas won legislative elections in the occupied Palestinian territory in 2006.
14 sept 2017
US administration is working to halt financial aid to Palestinians, over Palestinian Authority's long-standing practice of rewarding Palestinian terrorists who have killed Americans and Israelis; 'Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded,' Trump reportedly told Abbas during their meeting in May.
The Trump administration is backing legislation that would suspend US financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority until it ends what critics say is a long-standing practice of rewarding Palestinians who kill Americans and Israelis.
In comments Thursday, the State Department says the administration "strongly supports" the bill. The State Department said President Donald Trump raised the issue with President Mahmoud Abbas during meetings in May. "Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded," Trump reportedly told Abbas at the time.
The measure is named after Taylor Force, an MBA student at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and a West Point graduate. He was visiting Israel in March 2016 when he was stabbed to death by a Palestinian. Force was from Lubbock, Texas.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the bill in early August.
The Trump administration is backing legislation that would suspend US financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority until it ends what critics say is a long-standing practice of rewarding Palestinians who kill Americans and Israelis.
In comments Thursday, the State Department says the administration "strongly supports" the bill. The State Department said President Donald Trump raised the issue with President Mahmoud Abbas during meetings in May. "Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded," Trump reportedly told Abbas at the time.
The measure is named after Taylor Force, an MBA student at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and a West Point graduate. He was visiting Israel in March 2016 when he was stabbed to death by a Palestinian. Force was from Lubbock, Texas.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the bill in early August.
13 sept 2017
A Palestinian citizen was pronounced dead and another injured at daybreak Wednesday in fierce clashes with the Palestinian Authority (PA) forces in al-Khalil’s Yatta town, in the southern occupied West Bank.
Eyewitnesses told the PIC that the confrontations claimed the life of Abduljaleel al-Harmoush and left Fawzi Abu Tabikh seriously wounded.
Major General Adnan al-Dhamiri said the casualty was killed during a manhunt targeting wanted persons.
The 34-year-old victim’s name allegedly appears in a blacklist of wanted suspects. He was also sentenced in absentia on charges of drug trafficking.
According to a statement by the PA forces, the suspects fired multiple gunshots before they were gunned down by the PA troops.
Al-Dhamiri added that a probe has been launched to determine the circumstances of the incident.
Eyewitnesses told the PIC that the confrontations claimed the life of Abduljaleel al-Harmoush and left Fawzi Abu Tabikh seriously wounded.
Major General Adnan al-Dhamiri said the casualty was killed during a manhunt targeting wanted persons.
The 34-year-old victim’s name allegedly appears in a blacklist of wanted suspects. He was also sentenced in absentia on charges of drug trafficking.
According to a statement by the PA forces, the suspects fired multiple gunshots before they were gunned down by the PA troops.
Al-Dhamiri added that a probe has been launched to determine the circumstances of the incident.
3 sept 2017
Hebron governor Kamel Hameed, on Saturday, said that the Israeli army’s decision to expand municipal powers of illegal settlers in the city of Hebron is “the most dangerous since 1967”.
He told the official radio station ‘Voice of Palestine’ that the decision is paving the way for undermining Palestinian authority and imposing an Israeli one instead. “The order jeopardizes any political settlement in the area, which stands in contradiction with the peace process and the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Hebron was divided into two sections in the Hebron Protocol signed by the late leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 1997; “H1 is under full Palestinian control and H2 is under Israeli control”.
While H2 is under Israeli military control, civil issues, such as infrastructure, construction, traffic arrangements, in the settlers section continue to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
The Israeli army’s order transfers municipal powers from the Palestinian Authority to the Hebron municipal committee under the jurisdiction of Israel’s Ministry of Interior, which constitutes a violation of the Hebron Protocol.
According to WAFA, Hameed warned from the consequences of such decision in the future, saying it will lead to a state of confusion and chaos and will threaten order and stability in the area. He called for urgent political, diplomatic and legal action.
Peace Now, Israeli watchdog group, criticized the decision, “By granting an official status to the Hebron settlers, the Israeli government is formalizing the apartheid system in the city.”
The group said the step, which followed the evacuation of the settlers who took over a house in Hebron, is “another illustration of the policy of compensating the most extreme settlers for their illegal actions.”
The group warned that the order might bring about several implications, including formalizing an apartheid system in Hebron and less transparency regarding fund allocation if municipal issues are handled directly by Israeli settlers in Hebron.
He told the official radio station ‘Voice of Palestine’ that the decision is paving the way for undermining Palestinian authority and imposing an Israeli one instead. “The order jeopardizes any political settlement in the area, which stands in contradiction with the peace process and the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Hebron was divided into two sections in the Hebron Protocol signed by the late leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January 1997; “H1 is under full Palestinian control and H2 is under Israeli control”.
While H2 is under Israeli military control, civil issues, such as infrastructure, construction, traffic arrangements, in the settlers section continue to be controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
The Israeli army’s order transfers municipal powers from the Palestinian Authority to the Hebron municipal committee under the jurisdiction of Israel’s Ministry of Interior, which constitutes a violation of the Hebron Protocol.
According to WAFA, Hameed warned from the consequences of such decision in the future, saying it will lead to a state of confusion and chaos and will threaten order and stability in the area. He called for urgent political, diplomatic and legal action.
Peace Now, Israeli watchdog group, criticized the decision, “By granting an official status to the Hebron settlers, the Israeli government is formalizing the apartheid system in the city.”
The group said the step, which followed the evacuation of the settlers who took over a house in Hebron, is “another illustration of the policy of compensating the most extreme settlers for their illegal actions.”
The group warned that the order might bring about several implications, including formalizing an apartheid system in Hebron and less transparency regarding fund allocation if municipal issues are handled directly by Israeli settlers in Hebron.
31 aug 2017
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for large-scale humanitarian aid to Gaza on Wednesday in his first visit to the blockaded territory as U.N. chief and ordered the immediate release of $4 million from the world body's emergency relief fund.
"I am deeply moved to be in Gaza today, unfortunately to witness one of the most dramatic humanitarian crises that I've seen in many years working as a humanitarian in the United Nations," Guterres said.
He later said it was "important to open the closures," in a reference to Israel's decade-long blockade of Gaza and its border with Egypt that has remained largely closed in recent years.
Guterres made the comments at a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Guterres also called for unity among the Palestinian groups. "The division only undermines the cause of the Palestinian people," he said, adding that he had a dream to "come back to Gaza one day and to see Gaza as part of a Palestine state in peace and prosperity."
Guterres is on his first visit to the region since taking office at the beginning of the year. He has met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders aiming to encourage the resumption of peace talks.
"I am deeply moved to be in Gaza today, unfortunately to witness one of the most dramatic humanitarian crises that I've seen in many years working as a humanitarian in the United Nations," Guterres said.
He later said it was "important to open the closures," in a reference to Israel's decade-long blockade of Gaza and its border with Egypt that has remained largely closed in recent years.
Guterres made the comments at a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Guterres also called for unity among the Palestinian groups. "The division only undermines the cause of the Palestinian people," he said, adding that he had a dream to "come back to Gaza one day and to see Gaza as part of a Palestine state in peace and prosperity."
Guterres is on his first visit to the region since taking office at the beginning of the year. He has met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders aiming to encourage the resumption of peace talks.
23 aug 2017
Amnesty International said that the Electronic Crimes Law, adopted by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in July, violates citizens’ rights to privacy and freedom of expression and blatantly flouts the State of Palestine’s obligations under international law.
Amnesty said in a report, that the law imposes heavy fines and permits the arbitrary detention of anyone critical of the Palestinian authorities online, including journalists and whistleblowers.
It could also be used to target anyone for simply sharing or retweeting such news. Anyone who is deemed to have disturbed “public order”, “national unity” or “social peace” could be sentenced to imprisonment and up to 15 years hard labor, the report pointed out.
“Instead of presiding over a chilling campaign designed to silence dissent, intimidate journalists and breach the privacy of individuals, the Palestinian authorities must stop arbitrarily detaining journalists and drop charges against anyone prosecuted for freely expressing themselves. They must also urgently repeal the Electronic Crimes Law,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.
In June, several weeks before the Electronic Crimes Law came into force, Palestinian Authority arbitrarily ordered internet service providers in the West Bank to block access to 29 websites. They include websites belonging to political parties, opposition and independent media outlets and the al-Quds network, a volunteer-run community online news outlet.
According to the report, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is responsible for 81 attacks on media freedom since the start of the year.
Amnesty said in a report, that the law imposes heavy fines and permits the arbitrary detention of anyone critical of the Palestinian authorities online, including journalists and whistleblowers.
It could also be used to target anyone for simply sharing or retweeting such news. Anyone who is deemed to have disturbed “public order”, “national unity” or “social peace” could be sentenced to imprisonment and up to 15 years hard labor, the report pointed out.
“Instead of presiding over a chilling campaign designed to silence dissent, intimidate journalists and breach the privacy of individuals, the Palestinian authorities must stop arbitrarily detaining journalists and drop charges against anyone prosecuted for freely expressing themselves. They must also urgently repeal the Electronic Crimes Law,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.
In June, several weeks before the Electronic Crimes Law came into force, Palestinian Authority arbitrarily ordered internet service providers in the West Bank to block access to 29 websites. They include websites belonging to political parties, opposition and independent media outlets and the al-Quds network, a volunteer-run community online news outlet.
According to the report, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is responsible for 81 attacks on media freedom since the start of the year.
