PALESTINIAN ELECTION NEXT WEEK -- STILL MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO
"Palestinian
deputy prime minister and Fatah's
campaign manager, Nabil Shaath, has said that
no
definitive decision on the elections will be made until
24 January, the day
before polling day."
MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 19 January:
In the end it may be that the failing remnants of
the disgraced 'Palestinian Authority' -- after so many years of
miserable corruption and co-optation -- are now too weak and fractured
to even manage to 'postpone' the long-promised Legislative
election. Until now, one way or another, they had managed to put
off this day of reconning -- always of course with the abundant
under-the-table help of the Americans, Israelis,and Europeans -- for
nearly a decade. Now the past is coming back to haunt the PA --
and their godfathers as well.
Having so badly fractured and tortured the
Palestinian people the U.S. and Israel are now witnessing the results
of their horrendous combination of subterfuge, repression, and deadly
dealings. About half of the Palestinian people after all,
now scattered throughout the Middle East, can't vote at all according
to the occupiers. Those who can are now everywhere
controlled and manipulated by the Israelis and the Americans -- for
they are now more like Indians on reservations or Blacks in the days of
Bantustans than the proud people of the once Holy Land they once were.
Even now the PA 'Prime Minister', the
Palestinian VIP long connected with both the CIA Americans and the
Mossad Israelis, Nabil Sha'ath, is saying out loud that the
now-prostrate PA won't decide until the day before whether or not this
already fatally-twisted election will actually take place. What
Chutzpah this Sha'ath displayeth. Those who have read MER for
years will remember that long ago there was a movement we endorsed in
the Ramallah Legislature to not only have Sha'ath thrown out but
brought up on corruption charges and imprisoned. But thanks to
his American and Israeli protectors Sha'ath remains at the center of
power and continues to manipulate things up to the last minute forcing
them if at all possible to go the way of the PA, Israel, and the
U.S.
Fatah Accused of Trying to Cancel Election
(IsraelNN.com - 13 January) Part of the ruling Fatah party in the
Palestinian Authority (PA) is operating to scuttle the legislative elections
planned for January 25, according to the Arab news web site
Al-Jazeera.
It reported that the PA's failure to stop anarchy has
prompted charges it wants a reason to postpone the vote if polls show that Fatah
will lose. The PA deputy prime minister and campaign manager for Fatah, Nabil
Shaath, has said that a final decision on holding the elections will be made one
day before the vote.
Fatah
accused of sabotaging vote
Critics say Fatah
would postpone the vote rather than lose
face
Al-Jazeera, 12 January: The
Palestinian leadership's failure to rein in militants operating in its name is
prompting accusations that elements within the ruling Fatah faction are seeking
a pretext to call off elections due in less than two weeks' time.
Deadly
violence and kidnappings of foreigners, blamed on militants loyal to Fatah, have
created a climate of insecurity in the Gaza Strip that Fatah opponents and
analysts argue is intended to create a reason for postponing the vote if the
party, which has dominated government for a long time, looks like losing.
Hamas,
the Islamist group, is taking part for the first time in what are only the
second Palestinian parliamentary elections and is expected to give Fatah a run
for its money.
Mahmoud
Abbas, the Palestinian leader, has said that the elections will go ahead as
planned after he received US assurances that Israel would allow voting in occupied and annexed
east Jerusalem.
Lack of
clarity
But
Washington has since said it has no position on
the issue and Israel says a decision will be made
only after a cabinet meeting on Sunday.
"They commit these acts because they have found no other
solution" 'Abu Qusay', Al Aqsa Martyrs'
Brigades
Consequently the Palestinian
deputy prime minister and Fatah's campaign manager, Nabil Shaath, has said that
no definitive decision on the elections will be made until 24 January, the day
before polling day.
Jihad
Hamad, a political scientist at GazaUniversity, said the Fatah leadership had
made a serious error in not purging elements within the party that had no
interest in a strong state that might deprive them of their longstanding
privileges and powers of patronage.
"If Fatah sees that it is losing
power, it won't accept it and will try to disrupt the electoral process," he
said.
Hani
Habib, another political analyst, said "Fatah officials want to maintain a
chaotic situation" to serve their own interests. "The armed groups are resorting
to these tactics as a form of protest," he said. "Before they were fighting
against Israel but since the withdrawal from
the Gaza Strip, their militants are out of work and the Palestinian Authority
has failed to resolve this growing problem."
Militants
opposed to Fatah said the problem was that the movement's leaders had
established armed offshoots during the five-year uprising that lacked any real
programme or discipline.
Last resort
A
commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the largest Fatah offshoot,
condemned the kidnappings as the actions of renegades, but expressed sympathy
for their plight amid the chronic unemployment plaguing the territory and the
Palestinian leadership's inability to offer them an alternative role.
The
commander, giving his name as Abu Qusay, said: "The kidnappers carry out their
actions on their own behalf. They are facing poverty and are asking for a better
life. They commit these acts because they've found no other solution."
H
In a message
from his prison cell in Israel on Wednesday, Marwan Barghuti, the intifada
leader who is heading the Fatah list into the elections despite having been
sentenced to five life terms, hit out at the actions of the militants and called
for a massive turnout for the vote.
But
a spokesman for Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhra, was in no doubt that the violence was a
deliberate ploy to force the postponement of the vote and said his movement
would not accept it.
"The
motives behind the security chaos are known - the goal is to block the elections
on the pretext that the security conditions are unacceptable," he
said.
Hamas support grows after Israelis shoot militant leader
By Donald Macintyre in Hizma, West Bank
The green Hamas flags were fluttering from the rooftops against a cold
grey sky when they brought the body of the militant Thabet Ayyadeh home
yesterday. As the mourners began making their way towards the cemetery
they could hear repeated bursts of Israeli gunfire - directed into the
air as a warning - to deter the teenagers throwing stones at the
waiting police jeeps.
Mohammed Abu Tir, number two on Hamas's national list of parliamentary
candidates, had arrived in good time to pay his condolences to the dead
24-year-old's tearful brother Ziad. As the January rain began to fall,
they kissed three times before Ziad Ayyadeh, 36, declared: "It is a
positive thing because people now will vote for Hamas."
The Israeli army said Thabet Ayyadeh, a leader of Hamas's military
wing, was shot dead in the early hours of yesterday when he opened
fire, slightly wounding a soldier, as he ran out of a house which the
army had been surrounding in Tulkarem with the intention of arresting
him.
His older brother reminded the Hamas leader that the dead man had
not been the family's first "martyr". For in November 2001, another
brother, Moayed, who at the age of 16 had met Mohammed Abu Tir in jail
during the latter's 20 year imprisonment, had blown himself up injuring
two Israeli commandos. "You were his teacher," he told the candidate
respectfully. "You were responsible for forming his character."
Mr Abu Tir replied that he saw the two dead brothers as "sons" and
added: "They did their duty. The blood of martyrs is precious to us."
He was quick to add: "We have not come here to use the incident for the
election. I participate in events like this without elections."
Nevertheless Mr Abu Tir's presence at this West Bank funeral was a
reminder that for all Hamas's appeal to voters who were fed up with the
Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and its reputation for
inefficiency and corruption, its leading candidates, fighting under the
banner of "Change and Reform", were making no effort to distance
themselves from the faction's past record of armed militancy.
Two rival candidates also attending the funeral in Thabet Ayyadeh's
impoverished home village of Hizma, encircled by the separation barrier
and the settlements to the north-east of Jerusalem, made clear their
fears that the killing would help Hamas when voters elected a new
Palestinian Legislative Council for the first time in nearly a decade
next Wednesday.
Hatem Abbas, a prominent local Fatah activist who is standing as an
independent, said it would have an "indirect" impact on the election.
"People will show solidarity with the martyrs and the organisation they
belong to."
And Hassan Ispeh, a candidate for Mustafa Barghouti's Independent
Palestine party, which is against the use of arms, said: "This will be
negative for me. This man is from Hizma and the vote will be higher now
for Hamas in Hizma and Tulkarem."
But with 50 per cent unemployment it may be other issues that
finally decide how the people of Hizma vote. Hamdan Nimr, 52, who used
to run a construction company which did work as far way as Tel Aviv but
now has no work, said he would not vote at all. As long as Israel is
here it's useless to vote. What can the PA do? Even the President needs
a permit from Israel. We are in a prison here."
As he spoke at the side of the lane descending from the Ayyadeh
family house, the young men brought down the body, draped with a green
Hamas banner, chanting in unison: "We sacrifice our blood and soul for
the martyr. There is no God but only one God and the martyr is the one
blessed by God."
Watching the procession Mr Nimr added reflectively: "Most people
here will vote for Hamas because the peace process has failed. If you
don't have hope, you vote for Hamas."
< style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">The Independent, UK - 18 January 2006: The green Hamas flags were fluttering from the rooftops against a cold
grey sky when they brought the body of the militant Thabet Ayyadeh home
yesterday. As the mourners began making their way towards the cemetery
they could hear repeated bursts of Israeli gunfire - directed into the
air as a warning - to deter the teenagers throwing stones at the
waiting police jeeps.
Mohammed Abu Tir, number two on Hamas's national list of parliamentary
candidates, had arrived in good time to pay his condolences to the dead
24-year-old's tearful brother Ziad. As the January rain began to fall,
they kissed three times before Ziad Ayyadeh, 36, declared: "It is a
positive thing because people now will vote for Hamas."
The Israeli army said Thabet Ayyadeh, a leader of Hamas's military
wing, was shot dead in the early hours of yesterday when he opened
fire, slightly wounding a soldier, as he ran out of a house which the
army had been surrounding in Tulkarem with the intention of arresting
him.
His older brother reminded the Hamas leader that the dead man had
not been the family's first "martyr". For in November 2001, another
brother, Moayed, who at the age of 16 had met Mohammed Abu Tir in jail
during the latter's 20 year imprisonment, had blown himself up injuring
two Israeli commandos. "You were his teacher," he told the candidate
respectfully. "You were responsible for forming his character."
Mr Abu Tir replied that he saw the two dead brothers as "sons" and
added: "They did their duty. The blood of martyrs is precious to us."
He was quick to add: "We have not come here to use the incident for the
election. I participate in events like this without elections."
Nevertheless Mr Abu Tir's presence at this West Bank funeral was a
reminder that for all Hamas's appeal to voters who were fed up with the
Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and its reputation for
inefficiency and corruption, its leading candidates, fighting under the
banner of "Change and Reform", were making no effort to distance
themselves from the faction's past record of armed militancy.
Two rival candidates also attending the funeral in Thabet Ayyadeh's
impoverished home village of Hizma, encircled by the separation barrier
and the settlements to the north-east of Jerusalem, made clear their
fears that the killing would help Hamas when voters elected a new
Palestinian Legislative Council for the first time in nearly a decade
next Wednesday.
Hatem Abbas, a prominent local Fatah activist who is standing as an
independent, said it would have an "indirect" impact on the election.
"People will show solidarity with the martyrs and the organisation they
belong to."
And Hassan Ispeh, a candidate for Mustafa Barghouti's Independent
Palestine party, which is against the use of arms, said: "This will be
negative for me. This man is from Hizma and the vote will be higher now
for Hamas in Hizma and Tulkarem."
But with 50 per cent unemployment it may be other issues that
finally decide how the people of Hizma vote. Hamdan Nimr, 52, who used
to run a construction company which did work as far way as Tel Aviv but
now has no work, said he would not vote at all. As long as Israel is
here it's useless to vote. What can the PA do? Even the President needs
a permit from Israel. We are in a prison here."
As he spoke at the side of the lane descending from the Ayyadeh
family house, the young men brought down the body, draped with a green
Hamas banner, chanting in unison: "We sacrifice our blood and soul for
the martyr. There is no God but only one God and the martyr is the one
blessed by God."
Watching the procession Mr Nimr added reflectively: "Most people
here will vote for Hamas because the peace process has failed. If you
don't have hope, you vote for Hamas."
January 2006
Magazine
Talking To The Enemy Indeed (January 31, 2006)
In Iraq the U.S. is secretly talking with the 'insurgent' enemy... There will have to be actual significant policy changes by the American Empire or else -- especially when it comes to reversing Israeli apartheid and realigning American policies and interests in truly new ways, not just more rhetorical trickery and obfuscation.
Abbas, Shaath, Safieh, Fateh Officials Should Resign or Be Sacked (January 30, 2006)
The danger of fractricidal conflict and civil war in Palestine -- an under-the-table goal pursued by the Israelis for some time no matter how much they deny it -- is now greater than ever. The major figures representing the exposed and corrupt remnants of Fateh are attempting to manipulate their way one way or another to retain money, guns, and power. Rather than resigning as he should Fateh's top man, Mahmoud Abbas, is using his considerable backing from the U.S., Israel, Europe, and the Arab 'client regimes' to attempt to keep himself and his cronies in power one way or another. It is an unprecedented dangerous political poker game of bluff, counter-bluff, and chicken being played out not just in occupied Palestine but on the regional and world stages as well and with quite unpredictable results at this point. Meanwhile the Iranians are racing ahead to prepare themselves for attack, the comatose 'peace process' is all but finally declared dead, international energy supply concerns and escalating prices could trigger more conflict and economic hard-times, and the Neocon/Evangelical regime in Washington (under unprecedented assault as the second article below suggests) is desperately seeking new ways for possible salvation and resurrection before the November 2006 mid-term election even as the still hesitant impeachment movement might yet gain traction.
LAWLESS WORLD Erupting Thursday in London (January 30, 2006)
"...likely to cause a fierce new controversy on both sides of the Atlantic" the new edition of this damning book LAWLESS WORLD will not be published until Thursday in London, just hours after President Bush's State of the Union 2006 address to Congress at 9pm tomorrow. Major pressures are now building in both Washington and London to actually attempt to remove from power those who brought about the Iraq war through such chicanery and duplicity. But if the pressures really get too strong expect the tension with Iran to escalate further and maybe explode into military exchanges and/or another major 'terrorist attack' either from the pertrators most expect or from the underground manipulators connected to those in power whom many now suspect with considerable damning circumstantial evidence
Assassination Backlash - Hamas Landslide (January 26, 2006)
When the Israelis released the founder of Hamas from prison some years ago they did so because they had attempted to assassinate in Amman the man who today heads Hamas from Damascus and they needed to provide King Hussein an excuse to give them back their caught and endangered Mossad henchmen. Then, a few years later, they assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a blind paraplegic who founded Hamas in the late 1980s, as he emerged from a Gaza Mosque one morning -- this on top of an ongoing anti-Hamas assassination campaign designed to dismember and weaken 'The Islamic Resistance Movement'. The actual result however is what happened yesterday in a sea of Hamas green.
Hamas Wins Big (January 26, 2006)
There's a long history to why Hamas has been so victorious in occupied Palestine. And whatever the Israeli p.r. spin about what has happened they and the U.S. are really the midwives.
Iran Crisis (January 25, 2006)
This day was destined to come sooner or later. With the Israelis having a considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons and the ability to delivery them
tactically to the battlefield as well as strategically by submarine and airplane a gross imbalance has been there in the region for some time already. Furthermore there should be no doubt that Israel's apartheid and bloodletting policies toward the Palestinians have been a major force enflaming Arab and Muslim sentiments throughout the region; while militant neo-imperialist U.S. policies on top of the
American-Israeli alliance and the rise of Christian Fundamentalism have fueled the raging passions and led to today's imbroglio.
Hamastan Indeed (January 24, 2006)
Hamas is not taking power tomorrow in occupied Palestine; it is instead asserting power in what can be seen as a kind of historic political blowback for so many awful years of miserable corruption, gross ineptitude and dastardly co-optation by those whom the U.S., Israel, and the Arab 'client regimes' pushed so hard to date to lord over the millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Call it as well a kind of democratic payback for the Israeli/U.S. assassinations of the senior generation of Palestinian leaders including in recent years the founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and the long-time Chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat.
Questions About 9/11 That Don't Go Away (January 23, 2006)
So much of what is happening now in our world can be traced back to the year 2001 when Bush/Cheney and the Neocons came to power in Washington, Ariel Sharon came to power in Israel, and what we all now simply call 9/11 happened. But just what did really happen? Nagging questions not only are not going away, they are surfacing from credible people and need to be very seriously and independently investigated.
U.S. Caught In The Act In Occupied Palestine (January 22, 2006)
American credibility has rarely been lower; American duplicity has rarely been higher; and the exposure of American lies and hypocrisy has rarely been more evident than in the lead story in today's Washington Post.
Torturing Palestinians (January 21, 2006)
From MER in January 1997: Torture of Palestinians is not only routine and systematic, in it actually sanctioned by the Israeli legal system that has been twisted to serve Israeli policies. Going back to the Shinbet scandal of the early 1980's, even more sadistic forms of torture have given way to the kinds of 'legalized' torture methods outlined in this important article from one of the few independent and courageous media sources in Israel, The Alternative Information Center (AIC). Among the reasons the Israelis get away with such systematic torture of Palestinians is that hardly anyone is willing to protest. The so-called "Palestinian Authority" practices similar and even worse torture techniques, as do nearly all of the Arab governments in the region -- so they are hardly in a position to protest. And the "liberal" American Jewish community has been morally bankrupt about such issues for so long now that to speak up at this point would be to condemn themselves for permitting, and even encouraging in many cases, such Nazi-like behavior by the Israelis for decades.
"WAR on TERRORISM" - Noam Chomsky Lecture on 18 Jan (January 20, 2006)
This important lengthy lecture was delivered a few days ago in Dublin. Plus information about how to get a unique and now rare video documentary about the start of the "New World Order" -- available now exclusively from MER. At the start of Gulf War I in 1991 -- the beginnings of the Bush-era "New World Order", Noam Chomsky came to Washington and spoke to a huge overflow audience at George Washington University. This video documentary captures the entirety of his speech as well as the extensive question and answer period that followed. This documentary is essential to a serious understanding of U.S. foreign policy worldwide today. Chomsky uniquely provides the background and understanding needed to appreciate what the War in Iraq is really all about as well as the many misrepresentations and lies Washington propogates so often about the Israeli-Palestinian "Peace Process". From the back of the video by Mark Bruzonsky: "There's no one like Chomsky if you want to truly understand the realities of both U.S. policies and the overall situation in the Middle East...
Palestinian 'Election' Approaches...Still Maybe (January 19, 2006)
In the end it may be that the failing remnants of the disgraced 'Palestinian Authority' -- after so many years of miserable corruption and co-optation -- are now too weak and fractured to even manage to 'postpone' the long-promised Legislative election... Now the past is coming back to haunt the PA -- and their godfathers as well.
PARADISE NOW or is it PARADISE LOST? (January 18, 2006)
Though they run a far more effective propaganda network the Jewish and Zionist establishments don't always get their way and have in fact lost quite a bit of credibility and following. This article from earlier this week in The Christian Science Monitor. And we certainly hope that those in Iraq who are legitimately and so courageously standing up against the US/UK/Israeli invasion/occupation will decide to release the CSM correspondent they are holding hostage, showing that they are sophisticated enough to distinguish between hostile and friendly Christians and thereby giving hope amidst so much despair and bloodletting.
ISLAM, SEX and the INTERNET (January 17, 2006)
The cultural and emotional differences between Islam and Christianity and Judaism are considerable -- never more so than in the areas relating to women and sexuality. This interesting but not really adequate article is from today's Guardian in the UK: SEMINAL QUESTIONS - As scholars question the place of nudity in marriage, Islamic clerics are hotly debating exactly what sexual practices are acceptable, writes Brian Whitaker
The Faster March To International War (January 16, 2006)
Joining the rising chorus is a growing group of sometimes neo-con, sometimes evangelical, sometimes hustling and/or sponsored academics. They are now contributing to the growing 'New World Order' hysteria that now dominates American political life through the pages of associated magazines and newspapers. While Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson for instance is right indeed to be warning about the great dangers now immediately ahead, his analogies and heroes are so misguided and off the mark one has to wonder just who is really orchestrating and behind this kind of thing. This Ferguson article appeared over the weekend in The Telegraph published in the U.K.
Historic Anti-U.S./Israel Crucible of Hatred and Revenge (January 15, 2006)
One day Pakistan will no longer be lead by a military General empowered by the U.S and manipulated by the CIA. Remember now that today's feared Zawahiri left his Cairo medical practice to oppose the U.S. when he felt Egypt was deceived and co-opted by the U.S. Bin Laden himself, after working with the Americans to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan and working intimately with the American-sponsored Royal Family of Saudi Arabia, turned against the U.S. when American troops on top of the CIA directly occupied his country. And of course Iraq is today a country erupting as a result of U.S. occupation and destruction while Iran is a country today still rebelling after so many years of tortuous rule by the Shah and so much CIA-plotting to control that country.
What Sharon Has Wrought; and What He Has Left (January 12, 2006)
Understanding what has happened between Israel and Palestinians over the years requires not only expert analysis but considerable memory, ideological as well as political understanding, and an ability to put the historical pieces all together. Meron Benviniste's article today in Ha'aretz is of considerable help in summarizing the situation past, present, and maybe future.
Ariel Sharon - by Robert Fisk (January 6, 2006)
There are few journalists who have the knowledge and perspective of Robert Fisk. This from his recent book, footnoted at the end and highly recommended.
