Issue no 109

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Issue No : 109 17th NOVEMBER , 2014

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1


Palestinian Cultural Organization MalaysiaMalaysiaM

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Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

Activists crossed Separation Wall heading to Jerusalem

Tensions rise between Israeli army and Shin Bet

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FEATURED STORY

Articles & Analyses

Read in This Issue

Save the Gaza Strip from conspiracies

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Israeli soldier killed in stabbing

Thousands flock to al-Aqsa, following lift of age restriction

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UN demands Egypt and Israel to open cross-ings with Gaza

Israeli extremist settlers burn mosque near Ramallah overnight

P11Israel Insider

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CONTENTS

News of Palestine :

Activists crossed Separation Wall heading to Jerusalem 4

Thousands flock to al-Aqsa, following lift of age restriction 5

Israeli soldier killed in stabbing 6

French National Assembly to vote to recognise Palestine 6

UN demands Egypt and Israel to open crossings with Gaza 7

Israel to build 200 new settler homes in East Jerusalem 8

Israeli extremist settlers burn mosque near Ramallah overnight 9

EU confidential document includes sanctions against Israel: Haaretz 10Israel Insider

Israel Insider

Tensions rise between Israeli army and Shin Bet 11

Articles & Analyses

Save the Gaza Strip from conspiracies 12Inter-views

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News of Palestine

A group of local and foreign ac-tivists succeeded on Friday in crossing the Israeli Separation Wall near Qalandia Airport in the occupied Palestinian city of Je-rusalem, Palestinian local news agency Quds Net reported.

Under the name ‘Heading to Je-rusalem,’ about 100 Palestinian and foreign activists crossed the Separation Wall protesting the Israeli banning of Palestinians from accessing their holy sites in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

In a statement, the Popular Re-sistance against the Wall said: “Muslims and Christians have been banned from accessing their mosques and churches.” This measure was taken to coun-ter this ban.

The Israeli occupation forces faced the activists and under-mined their efforts regarding the entrance into the Holy City. In turn the activists blocked the roads taken by illegal Israeli set-tlers in the West Bank, but the Israeli forces violently dispersed them firing tear gas and metal-coated rubber bullets.

Earlier this week, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, has de-scribed the continuous violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque at the hands of Israel as “an indication of the occupation’s arrogance and its

Activists crossed Separation Wall heading to Jerusalem

increased stupidity,” Al-Araby Al-Jadid news website reported.

Salah further explained that, “the occupation believes if it vio-lates our land and homes and sheds our blood then we will wave the white flag and surrender from our duty of protecting Al-Aqsa Mosque.” However, he stressed that the occupation has been proven wrong.

During a telephone call, Sheikh Raed addressed dozens of Jorda-nians participating in the festival titled “Our victory is in your per-severance”, organised by Jordanian unions in Amman on Monday evening. Salah reiterated that, “the blood of our martyrs who were executed by the occupation has become the oil lighting the lamps of Al-Aqsa.” He also mentioned the difficulties and obstacles en-dured by the Palestinians in order to stage sit-ins in Al-Aqsa to defend it.

According to Al-Araby Al-Jadid, Salah added that: “the occupation believes that its foolish acts will allow it to impose a daily time divi-sion of the mosque, but we say, you are an illegal occupation and you have no rights to Al-Aqsa, not even for a second.”

“The occupation wants to impose a spatial division as well, but we say it has no right to even one stone in Al-Aqsa and the only thing that we will promise you is that you will be gone soon and you will not be coming back,” Salah said.

15/11/2014 Source: Agencies

Salah: We will not surrender in face of Israeli violations against Al-Aqsa

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Thousands of Palestinians were able to conduct Friday prayers for the first time in months, at al-Aqsa mosque, after Israel lifted age restrictions which have kept most worshipers out for months and aggravated serious tensions across Jerusalem.

General director of the Jerusalem endowment, Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, said that the number of worshipers reached between 35-40,000, despite the fact that Israeli security guards staffing the en-trances still held the ID cards of hundreds who entered.

Locals told Ma’an that many worshipers received parking ticket fines of 100-250 shekels ($26-66) as they left the courtyard after prayers.

The easing on restrictions reportedly comes following an announcement, by US Secretary of State John Kerry, regarding an agreement between Israeli and Palestinian authorities on steps to reduce tensions at the compound.

15/11/2014 Source: IMEMC

Thousands flock to al-Aqsa, following lift of age restriction

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Israeli soldier killed in stabbingA Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier near a train station in Tel Aviv. The soldier, reported to be in his twenties, died of his wounds in hospital late on Monday night.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, said offi-cers had arrested the Tel Aviv attacker, who had stabbed the soldier several times, adding that he was a Palestinian from the town of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. “He is currently under in-terrogation,” Rosenfeld said.

Ongoing unrest has been triggered by Muslim fears of Jewish encroachment at the sacred site where the Al-Aqsa mosque stands, a hilltop plateau known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanc-tuary, and to Jews as the Temple Mount. 10/11/2014 Source: Agencies

Sources in the French Na-tional Assembly said that the socialist MPs will present a proposal on the formal recog-nition of the State of Palestine; the vote is due to take place on November 28.

It is expected that the Socialist MPs, who constitute the ma-jority in the French parliament, will approve the recognition of Palestine, aiming to put pres-sure on Israel to push towards a solution that would put an end to the clashes and get the two parties to reach a final so-lution.

Observers believe that this vote remains a symbolic one even if approved by the Na-tional Assembly and Senate since it will not mean the of-ficial recognition of the State

French National Assembly to vote to recog-nise Palestine

of Palestine, a decision that has to be made by the executive authority, similar to the case in Britain.

Sweden recognised the State of Palestine a few days ago. It is consid-ered the first European Union member to recognise Palestine. Hungary, Poland and Slovakia recognised the State of Palestine before joining the EU. Some 130 countries around the world recognise Palestine as an inde-pendent state. 14/11/2014 Source: MEMO

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced the formation of an internal panel to investigate specified incidents which happened in the Gaza Strip between July 8th and Au-gust 26th , headed by the Dutchman Patrick Kammart.

Also to be investigated is the death of 11 UN staff members during last summer’s offensive.

The Palestinian mission welcomed the decision, expressing its hope that the panel works to serve as the beginning of accountability for all acts and violations committed against Pales-tinians in Gaza during which over 2,000 people were killed (mostly civilians), including 516 children and 283 women, and some 11,000 injured.

The mission called on panel members to perform their work with high accuracy and trans-parency, stressing on the full cooperation and commitment from the Palestinian side to facilitate their work.

In a related context, the UN on Wednesday called anew on Egypt and Israel to open Gaza border crossings and facilitate the entry of goods and individuals from and into the besieged enclave.

“We urge the Egyptian government and Israel to open their crossings with the Gaza Strip and allow the free movement of people and goods from and into Gaza,” UN spokesman Farhan Haq told a news conference.

“We called on Tuesday for necessarily opening the Gaza Strip crossing, and we said then that we meant Egypt and Israel to do so,” Farhan added.

The spokesman was answering questions posed by journalists about the UN’s silence on Egypt’s closure of its crossing with Gaza for more than four weeks.

13/11/2014 Source: Agencies

UN demands Egypt and Israel to open crossings with Gaza

UN to send investigative committee to Gaza

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Israel to build 200 new settler homes in East Jerusalem

Israeli authorities gave initial approval on Wednesday for the construction of 200 new homes in an urban settlement in Jerusalem, a move that could aggravate tensions with Palestinians.

The new housing is slated for Ramot, a sprawling hillside complex of apartment buildings and private homes at the northern edge of Jerusalem, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to the city in a move never recognised internationally. Palestinians want this territory as part of a future state.

Brachie Sprung, a spokeswoman for the Jerusalem municipality, said its planning committee granted preliminary approval for a private contractor to build the 200 housing units on land he purchased in Ramot. The project must pass several more stages before construction could begin, she said.

Nabil Abu Rdeineh, a senior aide to Abbas, said in response to the announcement: “It looks like during every visit by Kerry to the region, (Israel) threatens to build new settler homes. This is a continuous escalation and contributes to a negative atmosphere.”

Last month, an Israeli decision to accelerate planning for some 1,000 new settler homes in mainly Arab East Jerusalem drew Palestinian anger and international condemnation.

That project, along with Palestinian concerns about visits by far-right Jewish legislators to the Jeru-salem religious site - revered by Muslims as Nobel Sanctuary and Jews as Temple Mount - prompted an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

13/11/2014 Source: ALRAY

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Israeli extremist settlers on Wednesday overnight burned mosque in the village of Mu-gheer East Ramallah, tak-ing another aggravating step against Palestinians.

Villagers said that extremist settlers flamed the first floor of the mosque at 2:30 AM, burning furniture and Holy Qur’an books in it.

Settlers also sprayed racist slogans against Palestinians on the walls of the mosque.

Israeli extremist settlers burn mosque near Ramallah overnight

Worshipers managed to extinguish the fire before it reached the sec-ond floor.

Al-Aqsa foundation for Waqf and Heritage strongly denounced the action by Israeli Zionists, and warned of the escalating crimes of ex-tremists against sanctuaries in The West Bank and 1948 occupied lands.

Al-Aqsa foundation added that the “burning” crime can be followed by dangerous consequences throughout the region, and blamed re-sponsibility on Israeli police for breaking the international law, and demanded immediate halt of such actions.

The foundation reiterated the holiness and importance of the houses of worship, saying that they will remain an enduring monument in the face of Israeli occupation.

12/11/2014 Source: PNN

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EU confidential document includes sanctions against Israel: Haaretz

The European Union distributed recently a confidential document to its 28 member state that contains a draft of a proposal for sanctions to be imposed on Israel if it takes action in the West Bank that could make the two-state solution impossible, Haaretz revealed Sunday .

European diplomats ,spoke on condition of anonymity, described this document as top secret, noting that EU’s European External Action Service (EEAS) asked the countries to keep it secret and not show it to Israel yet.

Israeli diplomats in a number of European capitals reported the existence of the document to the Foreign Ministry , but they were unable to obtain the full document.

European diplomats familiar with the document say it discusses Israeli actions that would constitute a red line for the EU. For example, it mentions advancement of construction in the E1 area.

Sanctions mentioned by the document include marking products manufactured in the settlements in EU supermarkets; limiting cooperation with Israel in various areas; and even restrictions on the free-trade agreement with Israel.

Israeli diplomats expressed their grave concern over this document , since Christian Berger , the director for Middle East of the EEAs is the framer of the document.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman raised the issue of the docu-ment in his talks with the EU’s new high representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, two weeks ago in Jerusalem.

Lieberman asked Mogherini to make sure that any action taken by Berger conformed to EU policies and directives.

16/11/2014 Source: ALRAY

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Tensions rise between Israeli armyand Shin Bet

Tensions have escalated between the Israeli army and the Shin Bet security service after it was re-vealed yesterday evening that former Shin Bet chief, Yoram Cohen, sent a letter warning of Hamas’ intention “to wage war on Israel”, which allegedly was not taken seriously by the army.

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complaining about Cohen and warning of rising tensions and a lack of confidence ine each other.

Cohen responded by issuing a statement to Channel 10, in which he accused Gantz of speaking to the prime minister with “unnecessarily harsh language”.

The crisis arose between the two sides after Israel’s Channel 2 broadcast a programme at the begin-ning of this week in which three Shin Bet leaders said that they gave the army warnings about Hamas’ intentions and that they have been doing so since the beginning of the current year. Israeli military leaders categorically deny this claim.

Since the broadcast, Cohen wrote a letter describing the Israeli army as “being blatantly harsh in their treatment of Shin Bet officers”.

In his statements to Channel 2, Cohen said: “These statements are accurate and reflect the reality of the sequence of events. All information uttered by our officers on television is reliable and supported by factual documents. We are committed to our understanding of professional integrity and we continue to do our work despite the hardships that we have experienced in the previous years.”

14/11/2014 Source: MEMO

Israel Insider

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Save the Gaza Strip from conspiraciesBy: Dr Mohammed Al-Misfer

I was surprised last Friday by Palestinian Authority media outlets in Ramallah report-ing the 15 bombings near the Fatah headquarters in Gaza and the platform established to mark the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Presi-dent Yasser Arafat, held on Tuesday. The Fatah leader-ship held Hamas responsible for the bombings, although the Islamic movement denied this and condemned such criminal acts. Hamas also urged Fatah not to point fingers so quickly. The Fatah Central Committee held an emergency meeting led by Mahmoud Abbas and examined the events. Those present at the meeting in Ra-mallah took turns on television and microphones to blame Hamas and incite public opin-ion against the movement.

Azzam Al-Ahmed’s voice has grown hoarse from accusing Hamas repeatedly and insist-ing that the commemoration event marking the anniver-sary of Arafat’s would still be held on Tuesday “despite all the circumstances”. However, he knows that Fatah’s annual even for Arafat is held in Gaza every year and Hamas par-ticipates in it because he is an icon of the Palestinian revolu-

Articles & Analyses

tion, not as a member of Fa-tah. So why does Al-Ahmed need to reiterate this so much and challenge Hamas? Isn’t this an unnecessary provoca-tion on his part? In his tele-vised statement, he claimed that he had information from Hamas sources who said that Hamas is behind these bomb-ings and so the movement must disclose its involvement voluntarily. This was repeated by Mahmoud Abbas’s own statement.

Why didn’t Al-Ahmed dis-close the information that he claimed to have? The result of the Fatah Central Commit-tee meeting was the cancel-lation of a delegation to the Gaza Strip, as if Gaza is not a part of Palestine. What is even more strange, and contrary to

all norms, is that according to an official statement the Prime Minister of the National Rec-onciliation Government, Rami Hamdallah, who is also the Interior Minister, cancelled his scheduled visit to Gaza “as a result of security conditions”.

It is customary around the world for the head of state or prime minister to attend the scene of any natural disaster or political event, accompanied by their security chiefs, includ-ing the interior minister. Who prevented Hamdallah from going to Gaza and forming a committee of impartial judges to investigate these events un-der his supervision and to take control of the security situation as the acting interior minister? Impartial investigation will in-evitably reveal the truth.

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Remaining content with point-ing the finger of blame at any Palestinian faction will not serve the national cause. It is our right as observers and fol-lowers of Palestinian affairs to conclude from the series of events in Palestine that there is a conspiracy against Gaza, beginning with the effort be-ing made to disarm it, destroy its “tunnel” shelters, and ex-clude it from supervising the reconstruction of the territory. Instead, all of the financial aid provided in this regard is being poured into the PA’s accounts and is only given to Gaza through Ramallah.

I remember that the funds al-located for the reconstruc-tion of southern Lebanon by Qatar in 2006 after the Israeli war there did not go into the Lebanese government’s ac-counts. Instead, the money was supervised and managed jointly by the Qataris and the parties concerned with the re-construction.

Iran did the same thing when it reconstructed the south-ern suburbs of Beirut. It kept an eye on the reconstruction funds; the money was not giv-en to the Lebanese treasury, it went straight to the people af-fected and no one else. Why does the PA in Ramallah insist on putting all the reconstruc-tion funds into its accounts?

Qatar presented projects for the reconstruction of Gaza, such as the repair of roads, including Salah al-Din Street and the coast road, as well as

the construction of the Sheikh Hamad residential area which was donated to the Palestin-ians in their time of need. Qa-tar is also building schools and health centres, as well as oth-er vital projects. These devel-opments face many difficulties and will come to a complete halt next week when hun-dreds of Palestinian workers will be unemployed because the Egyptian authorities, with the knowledge of the Pales-tinian Authority, have blocked imports of construction materi-als, despite the fact that Qatar has pledged to pay the cost of international monitors tasked with monitoring the end use of the materials in an attempt to speed up the process. The PA has remained silent even though it has close relations with the government in Cairo. It seems as if the authority in Ramallah is dealing with the Gaza Strip as an arch-enemy, while it has been begging to negotiate with Israel since 1993 even though the negotia-tions have achieved nothing.

Although the Fatah Central Committee was moved enough to call a special meeting re-garding the bombs in Gaza, it has done nothing about the unrest in Jerusalem. Since last month the city has been any-thing but calm due to Israel’s attacks on worshippers, pre-venting them from praying in Al-Aqsa Mosque; senior Israeli officials and Jewish extrem-ists have entered the mosque courtyards on numerous occa-sions. In addition, the Israeli

authorities are demolishing the homes of Palestinian Je-rusalemites and confiscating their land and property, most recently in the village of Bayt Iksa. The leaders of the Fatah Central Committee have not batted an eyelid at such ter-rorist acts committed by the Is-raelis against the Palestinians nor called for an investigation into the attacks on Al-Aqsa. Instead, they remain content with issuing statements that have no value.

I believe that the accusations against Hamas and the actions of the leaders in Ramallah are merely an excuse to disen-gage with Gaza and cancel the reconciliation which led to the formation of a national unity government. This, of course, would serve Israel’s purposes and meet its demands, and al-low Israel and Al-Sisi’s Egypt to attack Gaza.

In conclusion, I would like to say that those who have free opinions in the Arab world condemn those bomb attacks against the leaders of Fatah in Gaza. It is a heinous criminal act for which those responsi-ble must be punished, but only after fair and unbiased inves-tigations. We also condemn the accusations made by one party against any other par-ties involved in the Palestinian cause over the events in Gaza without any physical evidence or due process, and no obvi-ously transparent, indepen-dent investigation.

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Issue no 109

Documents

Transcript of Issue no 109