Missing from the IMEU FAQ

Here's the content of a mailout from the Institute for Middle East Understanding.  As far as I can see there are some crucial points missing but I just want to let it hang here while I think of what they are

Q – Who is represented in the new Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet?

A – Based on the agreement announced on April 23, the new government is composed of a consensus cabinet consisting of individuals agreed upon by all of the major Palestinian political parties. The cabinet does not include members of the two largest Palestinian parties, Fatah or Hamas. Instead, it’s made up of independent technocrats whose job is to prepare the groundwork for elections for the PA.


Q – Is Hamas part of the new government?

A – No. Although Hamas supports the government, none of the members of the new cabinet is affiliated with Hamas.


Q - Will this government abide by the Quartet's conditions?

A - In 2006, the members of the so-called “Quartet,” consisting of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, laid out several conditions that Palestinians must meet before they agree to cooperate with or recognize any Palestinian government. They include the renunciation of terrorism, agreeing to abide by previously signed agreements, and recognition of Israel. PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah have said the new government will abide by the Quartet's conditions. However, it is important to note that no Israeli government, including the current one, has ever officially recognized the Palestinian right to statehood or self-determination. Israel has and continues to systematically violate the terms of numerous previously-signed deals, including the Oslo Accords and the 2002 Road Map to Peace, and Israel continues to practice what amounts to state terrorism, systematically using excessive force against Palestinians, including unarmed civilians as documented by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International.


Q - Will the US cut off ties and funding to the PA?

A – Some members of Congress have called for the US to cut off funding to the PA, however the Obama administration has stated that because the new government doesn’t include members of Hamas, and in light of assurances from President Abbas and Prime Minister Hamdallah that it will abide by the Quartet's conditions, the US will continue to work with and fund the PA while continuing to monitor the situation.


Q – Will Israel deal with the new PA government?

A - Although the new unity government does not include members of Hamas, Israel has said it still won’t deal with it because it is supported by the group, and has threatened to punish the PA as a result. Senior Israeli government officials have also criticized the US, accusing the Obama administration of “naïveté” and sending a message that “terrorism pays.” In response, the State Department rejected the Israeli allegations, pointing out that Hamas is not part of the cabinet and stating that the US will judge the new government by its actions.


Q – Does the unity government help efforts to make peace or harm them?

A – There can be no lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis that excludes a major player like Hamas. Although Israel officially withdrew from US-sponsored negotiations following the announcement of the unity agreement in April, according to all accounts there was little or no progress made over the previous nine months of talks. Critics of the Israeli government argue that Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government were looking for an excuse to pull out of negotiations while placing the blame on the Palestinians, citing as evidence the repeated provocations Israel engaged in while talks were ongoing, most notably the announcement of some 14,000 new settlement units to be built on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law and official US policy.


Q - What happens next?


A - This new technocratic government is tasked with managing the PA until elections take place in six months. Meanwhile, Israel will likely continue to apply economic pressure on the PA, withholding tax money that it is supposed to transfer and maintaining its crippling and illegal blockade of Gaza, leading to further humanitarian crises, particularly in besieged Gaza. However, it's unlikely that Israel will apply too much pressure on the PA, for fear that it could collapse and leave Israel directly responsible for all the residents of the occupied territories once again.

Israel refuses to define boundaries

Here's a small throwaway article in the Jewish Press about Israel's refusal to set any kind of boundary as a basis for negotiations with the so-called Palestinian Authority:

The PA is now demanding that Israel hand over maps of their vision of a final arrangement, to use them as a starting point for negotiations....

In response, Israeli government officials said they would not be delivering any maps or a list of other concessions...

 There are really two boundaries which are problematic for Israel's self-definition as a state for the world's Jews.  The titular nations for most states are defined by the territory they come from.  This of course doesn't define Jews.  Jews are not the citizens of the Jewish state.  So where are the boundaries?

There's also another problem.  Israel defines a Jew as a person with a Jewish mother and someone who is Jewish enough for an automatic right to citizenship as someone with a Jewish grandparent.  It doesn't take much analysis to realise that this is circular. I mean, if a Jew is someone with a Jewish mother, how do we define a Jewish mother?  So what are the boundaries of the Jews and what are the boundaries of Jewishness.

Now the way I see it there are two reasons why a state that is specially for the world's Jews cannot define its boundaries.  Jews are not an identity defined by boundaries.  That is, Jews are not a nation unless we use nation to mean any identity group, in which case we would have to say Jews are a non-territorial nation, like Roma, Sinti and others.  And then there's the problem of defining Jews.  No matter how you view it, the Jews are not the people of Israel.  The children of Israel, yes, but not people of Israel.

When I started this blog, Jews sans frontieres, was just a play on Jeux sans frontieres.  It turns out it's actually a truism.  No wonder Israel can't define its boundaries.  We are all Jews sans frontieres!

Abbas notices that peace process isn't happening

Wow! I've heard many times that Abbas got a doctorate for denying the holocaust so he won't be getting one for stating the bleedin' obvious, but he certainly deserves one this time; possibly more so than last time.

Here's Ha'aretz:

The time frame that the Palestinians have allowed for talks with Israel in Amman under Jordanian auspices expires on Thursday. According to diplomatic sources associated with the Middle East Quartet - the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia - last-minute efforts are underway to head off the talks' collapse, but the prospects seem slim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's representative to the Amman talks, Isaac Molho, met on Wednesday in the Jordanian capital for a fifth time with the head of the Palestinian negotiating team Saeb Erekat - but at this point no formula has been reached that would enable the talks to continue. Erekat made it clear that because Israel has not presented its position on the issue of borders with a Palestinian state, from the Palestinians' standpoint, the talks have ended.....

......Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in Amman with Jordanian King Abdullah and told the monarch from his standpoint talks with Israel had run their course without results.

No sh*t Sherlock?

World laughs at Israel

Listen up for when Israel's casts its vote at the UNESCO conference:





UK abstains, Austria yes, Germany no, France yes, China yes, Russia yes.... voting 173 members , abstentions 52 , majority needed 81, votes in favor 107, votes opposed 14!

BICOM briefing boob

Many thanks to Mike Cushman on the Just Peace UK list for linking to this Guido Fawkes' blog post about an embarrassing mispost by BICOM CEO, Lorna Fitzsimmons.  It appears that an email from her intended only for the eyes of donors to the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre got sent instead to the media.  As it happens, Fitzsimmons's mistake was first reported in the Daily Mail which, remarkably, stands to the left of the Guido Fawkes' blog but the latter's post is more detailed:

After his story earlier in the week about pro-Israel lobby group BICOM, Guido was tipped that their CEO Lorna Fitzsimons, the former Labour MP, was in some serious trouble. He was tracking down an email that was accidentally sent out on Monday to some of BICOM’s media list instead of the intended recipients – the donors. Annoyingly Ephraim Hardcastle beat him to it this morning and reveals how Lorna blurted to the world that she has been:

“…liaising with BBC and Sky to ensure ‘the most objectively favourable line was taken…I briefed Jonathan Ford, the Financial Times leader writer for his upcoming leading article… BICOM had regular contact with the Editor at Large of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, helping to inform him about the forthcoming UN vote on Palestinian statehood…”

We have put the whole email online here. It’s standard lobbyist boasting, but Guido imagines the FT editors will take a dim view of any sign of them being influenced by a PR operation. A BICOM source tried to play down the story as“mildly embarrassing”, but it was the comment given to the Mailthat really tickled Guido: “A BICOM spokesman denies that Ms Fitzsimons is to lose her job.” If you have to say it…

There's a little bit more to the post and the pdf of the email is worth a look at.

Palestinian bid for statehood

As anyone who follows these things will know, the Palestinian Authority leadership is intending to make a bid for statehood at the UN. Quite honestly I can't say what it all means but I have grave misgivings about the exercise because I don't see how a state with no land and no power differs from the situation for the Palestinians now. Of course the PA has nominal power in the West Bank but it is considered by many to be hopelessly corrupt both financially and criminally and so in thrall to Israel as to be an appendage of the Israeli state. So, if the UN recognises such an entity as a state can't zionists carry on expanding, colonising, segregating, ethnic cleansing and slaughtering business as usual only at the same time as saying that the Palestinians have what they wanted?

That was just off the top of my head but there are also warnings coming out of Palestinian quarters to the effect that the PA does not represent the entirety of the Palestinian people so the statehood bid would not enhance the rights of the Palestinians but curtail them. The PA does not represent the Palestinians in Israel, Gaza or the diaspora. It doesn't even truly represent the Palestinians of the West Bank. This means that the PA doesn't have the required authority to make the bid but also any state emerging from the bid would have the same lack of authority but would be assumed by many to have authority, even to write off the rights of the bulk of the Palestinian people.

There's a statement here from the Palestinian Youth Movement titled Statement on the September 2011 Declaration of Statehood.  Here's a little chunk:

This declaration serves as a mechanism for rescuing the faulty peace framework and depoliticizing the struggle for Palestine by removing the struggle from its historical colonial context. The attempts to impose a false peace with the normalizing of the colonial regime has only led us to surrender increasing amounts of our land, the rights of our people, and our aspirations by delegitimizing and marginalizing our people’s struggle and deepening the fragmentation and division of our people. This declaration jeopardizes the rights and aspirations of over two-thirds of the Palestinian people who live as refugees in countries of refuge and in exile, to return to their original homes from which they were displaced in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and subsequently since then. It also jeopardizes the position of the Palestinians residing in the 1948 occupied territories who continue to resist daily against the ethnic cleansing and racial practices from inside the colonial regime. Furthermore, it corroborates and empowers its Palestinian and Arab partners to act as the gatekeepers to the occupation and the colonization of the region within a neo-colonial framework.

Still, The Guardian's main resident zionist, Jonathan Freedland, supports the bid, and why wouldn't he?

PA bid for statehood

There's an article in the Financial Times on the PA's coming bid for admission to the UN.  Here's a piece:

This year’s strange diplomatic beauty contest between Israel and the Palestinians is entering a crucial phase: excitement is building, the tantrums are becoming louder – and the jury is showing signs of strain.

The final pageant starts in September, and will see the two contestants appear before a panel of no fewer than 193 judges. That, of course, is the number of states that sit in the UN general assembly. Facing it, as things stand, will be a draft resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

I don't think there's much to get worked up about one or another here but I could be missing something, as I often do. But I couldn't help noticing that if there are 193 member states of the General Assembly, which I think is because the Holy See is a non-member state of the UN but represented at the General Assembly then Palestine would become UN General Assembly member state number 194. And wouldn't that be a coincidence?

Unity until.....?

Guardian editorial on the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas:

The Arab spring has finally had an impact on the core issue of the region, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It came in the form of a draft agreement between Fatah and Hamas which took everyone by surprise. There are three chief reasons why, after four years of bitter and violent conflict between the rivals, Fatah acceded to all of Hamas's political conditions to form a national unity government.

The first was the publication of the Palestine papers, the secret record of the last fruitless round of talks with Israel. The extent to which Palestinian negotiators were prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate Israel surprised even hardened cynics. The Palestinian Authority found itself haemorrhaging what little authority it had left. The second was the loss to the Palestinian president, Abu Mazen, of his closest allies in Hosni Mubarak and his henchman Omar Suleiman. While they were still around, Gaza's back door was locked. But the third reason had little to do with either of the above: Abu Mazen's faith in Barack Obama finally snapped. For a man who dedicated his career to the creation of a Palestinian state through negotiation, the turning point came when the US vetoed a UN resolution condemning Israel's settlement-building. In doing so, the US vetoed its own policy. To make the point, the resolution was drafted out of the actual words Hillary Clinton used to condemn construction. Fatah's frustration with all this has now taken political form.

Israel's politicians reacted darkly to the news of reconciliation. From right to left, they shared an assumption which is out of date. It is that they retain the ability – and the right – to dictate what sort of state Palestinians will build on their borders. Having spent years fashioning the environment, the penny has yet to drop that a future environment composed of free Egyptians, Jordanians and even possibly Syrians could well fashion Israel's borders. Even after Mubarak fell, the consensus was that Cairo was so preoccupied with internal problems that it lacked the energy to make foreign policy.

Not so. Yesterday foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi announced that Egypt would shortly be lifting the siege of Gaza. These events pose a direct challenge to the status quo that Israel, the US and the EU have fashioned. Do they now subvert the will of the Egyptians they claim to champion? Does the US do what it did the last time Fatah and Hamas reconciled at Mecca, and pull the plug on the unity government? Do the Quartet threaten to withdraw the PA's funds, because, as is very likely, Salam Fayyad will no longer be there to disburse them? The US could twist Fatah's arm, but Fatah might just sign on the dotted line all the same.

Comments are still open. I wouldn't say they're free, but they are still open.

Obama allows PLO to fly the flag

I had no idea that Palestinian representatives, even not very representative ones, had no right to fly their flag in washington. See this from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

The Obama administration will allow the PLO office in Washington to fly the Palestinian flag and assume the title of "delegation."

The change in status comes with no enhancement in diplomatic status, U.S. officials said.

The new privileges for the Palestine Liberation Organization office do not mean the representation has "any diplomatic privileges or immunities," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said last Friday.

"At the request of the PLO representative, which we have granted given the improvement in the relations between the United States and Palestinians, they have requested permission to fly the Palestinian flag," he said. "And they have requested permission to call themselves the General Delegation of the PLO, which is a name that conforms to how they describe their missions in Europe, Canada, and several Latin American countries."

But Israel lobbyists shouldn't worry:

Crowley said the steps have symbolic value and reflect improved relations between the United States and Palestinians, but they have no meaning under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

It's only a flag after all.

So no diplomatic status for the PLO but still not all of Israel's representatives are happy:

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking member on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, tied her efforts to eject the PLO from Washington to congressional efforts to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, another law that presidents have routinely waived since its passage in 1995.

"Instead of giving more undeserved gifts to the PLO, it’s time for us to kick the PLO out of the U.S. once and for all and move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, where it belongs," she said in a statement.

No Palestine flag, no Palestine representation, no Palestine at all. The whole shebang is Israel according to Rep.Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla).

PA helping the occupation

This Comment is free article highlighting collaboration between the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas and the State of Israel with specific regard to the occupation of the West Bank is nothing new but it is well put and it's been well received in the comments section:

The Fatah leadership running the PA has been unwilling to make the concessions necessary for national unity, while simultaneously the PA security forces (western and Jordanian trained) continue arresting and torturing those tied to resistance, primarily Hamas-connected. These days the political establishment in Ramallah has expressed a far greater interest in retaining western support than resolving national division and leading a unified resistance to the occupation.

Indeed, it seems that the western countries backing Israel and calling on Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table are also those turning a blind eye to the illegal arrests and torture. According to Wisam Ahmed, advocacy officer at Al-Haq – West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists – both PA and American officials have been notified about the widespread use of illegal political detention and torture by PA security, yet it has continued.

"Some of the third parties' interests are different from what we feel are the interests of insuring Palestinian unity," Ahmed said on 21 December. "Their main interest is to ensure that there is no change to the status quo."

It is a status quo that accommodates shifts in public face, provided there is no real shift in relationship and co-ordination on the ground. Regardless of whether official talks are happening or not, the PA operates in constant dialogue and co-ordination with Israeli occupation.

Last month, when I spoke to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) prisoners' affairs representative Khalida Jarrar, she condemned the PA for continued political arrests of Palestinians and the maintenance of security co-ordination with Israel.

"The assassinations are a clear example of why [the PFLP] have a policy calling for the PA to end security coordination," she said in reference to the killings in Nablus last December.

Jarrar highlighted that both the security co-ordination and political arrests are part of PA compliance with the Quartet road map. "As Palestinians we have an opportunity to review our negotiations with Israel and our security co-ordination should stop. We should have a political overhaul of the process and this means a demand for the implementation of international resolutions and a relaunching of popular resistance," she stressed, illustrating the PFLP alternative to the current PA practice.

While Jarrar and her Marxist party have tapped into the common feelings on the West Bank street, the basis of power rests in the hands of the western countries keeping Abbas financially and militarily afloat. At the same time, Israel recognises the advantage of a policing partner in the West Bank that fuels internal Palestinian division, tolerating the rhetorical flourishes volleyed over the wall.

Joseph Massad has been writing about this stuff for several years now. A quick google search yields this, this and this.

The latest is titled Oslo and the end of Palestinian independence and it details what Massad calls the "classes" that benefit from this collaborationist fruit of Oslo:

The five main classes that the architects of Oslo created to ensure that the "process" survives are: a political class, divided between those elected to serve the Oslo process, whether to the Legislative Council or the executive branch (essentially the position of president of the PA), and those who are appointed to serve those who are elected, whether in the ministries, or in the presidential office; a policing class, numbering in the tens of thousands, whose function is to defend the Oslo process against all Palestinians who try to undermine it. It is divided into a number of security and intelligence bodies competing with one another, all vying to prove that they are most adept at neutralising any threat to the Oslo process. Under Arafat's authority, members of this class inaugurated their services by shooting and killing 14 Palestinians they deemed enemies of the "process" in Gaza in 1994 -- an achievement that earned them the initial respect of the Americans and the Israelis who insisted that the policing class should use more repression to be most effective......

Also: a bureaucratic class attached to the political class and the policing class and that constitutes an administrative body of tens of thousands who execute the orders of those elected and appointed to serve the "process"; an NGO class: another bureaucratic and technical class whose finances fully depend on their serving the Oslo process and ensuring its success through planning and services; and, a business class composed of expatriate Palestinian businessmen as well as local businessmen -- including especially members of the political, policing and bureaucratic classes -- whose income is derived from financial investment in the Oslo process and from profit-making deals that the PA can make possible. While the NGO class mostly does not receive money from the PA, being the beneficiary of foreign governmental and non- governmental financial largesse that is structurally connected to the Oslo process, the political, policing, and bureaucratic classes receive all their legitimate and illegitimate income from the PA directly.

At the time of writing, 18:42 GMT, comments are still open at Cif and you can write for publication to Al Ahram where Massad's piece appears.

Compare and contrast: Palestine and Afghanistan

From today's Independent:

Is it any wonder the West is seen as cynical and opportunistic? We had huge pressure applied to Afghanistan's President Karzai because we could not be seen to be supporting a leader who has so obviously fiddled his election as President.

In contrast, the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006 were judged by international ob-servers to be free and fair. What happened? The wrong party won and the winners, Hamas, were banned even when a unity government with Fatah was established that year. Three years later, we still have the blockade of Gaza and the Israeli attack with all the misery and destruction these have caused.

Mike Barnes

Watford

Abbas doing his best

to satisfy the marching orders he received from Emperor Obama last week in Washington. And his best is killing Palestinians who refuse to take orders from Washington.

Palestinians medical sources reported on Sunday at dawn that six Palestinians were killed in Qalqilia, in the northern part of the West Bank, during clashes that took place between Palestinian security forces and a group of fighters of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

Three Palestinian security officers were killed on Sunday at dawn; two of them were identified as Shaher Abu Al Tayyib, Abdul-Rahman Yassin, both were members of the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces, while the third is a security officer of the National Security forces.

Also, two members of the Al Qassam Brigades were killed after barricading themselves in a building during clashes with the security forces. They were identified as Samir Yassin and Mohammad Al Samman.

The owner of the building, Abdul-Nasser Al Basha, was also killed in the clashes.

The initial clashes took place after midnight as some members of the Al Qassam Brigades reportedly opened fire at security forces surrounding a building the fighters barricaded themselves in. (IMEMC)

In a really surreal twist, Mahmoud Abbas, reading from the IDF spokesperson's boilerplate press releases during the assault on Gaza, accused the victims of his U.S. trained security forces of "storing explosives in mosques."

“The security agencies will not allow anyone to endanger or risk the lives of innocent citizens, or to store weapons and explosives in the homes of citizens or mosques,” said Abbas. (PNN)

As Mondoweiss points out, this comes directly out of Emperor Obama's orders against reconciliation with hamas:

President Obama went out of his way in their joint press conference to remark that Abbas "has been under enormous pressure to bring about some sort of unity government and to negotiate with Hamas. And I am very impressed and appreciative of President Abbas' willingness to steadfastly insist that any unity government would have to recognize the principles that have been laid by the Quartet." (Mondoweiss)

The Obama administration follows in the imperial footsteps of its predecessor: bribe, repress, and murder; and if they resist, bribe, repress and murder some more. There is no other playbook.

With friends like Saudi Arabia, who needs enemies

Saudi Arabia awarded $1.8 billion dollars to a consortium that would build a rail link between Mecca and Medina. One company in the consortium is the French Alstom, which is also building a light rail that will connect the Jewish settlements around Jerusalem to the city center. The rail link will be another important step in the colonization of the Jerusalem center, enabling Jewish settlers to avoid the overcrowded, badly maintained and often blocked roads left to Palestinians. The rail will of course make the settlements around Jerusalem more attractive for Jewish Israeli settlers. The project involves the Israeli government and the French contractors in making permanent changes to the infrastructure of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids, without any military necessity but to facilitate the illegal colonization.

There is a campaign against the companies, mostly Veolia and Alstom, in Europe and Australia, which includes both lawsuits in France and popular appeals for boycotts. This campaign has already bore fruits, with the involved companies losing a number of big contracts and being excluded from pensions funds. The Australian ASN Bank divested from Veolia, and so did the Swedish National pension fund. Likewise, Veolia lost a $1.9 billion waste improvement plan with the Sanswell Metropolitan Borough, the contract to operate the subway in Stockholm and an urban Network in Bordeau (Nadia Hijab, The Israel Boycott is Biting). Saudi Arabia has other priorities.

It is noteworthy that, According to Gulf News, Palestinian authority officials, despite usually supporting normalization with Israel, are involved in putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to rescind that contract. If the U.S.-E.U.-Israel effort to normalize the occupation cannot rely even on Mahmoud Abbas's "authority" to stand against the global anti-apartheid movement, that is bad news for Israel.

As it were, at least according to Gulf News, the "authority"'s pressure is somewhat underwhelming.

Palestinian foreign ministry officials have expressed reservation at a recent Saudi announcement awarding the contract for the Haramain Express railway to a consortium consisting of French company Alstom Transport....Backchannel talks with the Saudis are ongoing," a Palestinian foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Not exactly a profile in leadership, but significant nonetheless.

Power of Culture v Culture of Power

But who won? And who will win? This is from the Observer, the Sunday newspaper version of the Guardian:

Armed Israeli police last night tried to halt the opening night of a prominent Palestinian literary festival in Jerusalem when they ordered a Palestinian theatre to close.

The week-long festival, supported by the British council and Unesco, has brought several high-profile international authors – among them Henning Mankell, Michael Palin and Ahdaf Soueif – on a speaking tour of Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Shortly before the opening event was due to begin, a squad of around a dozen Israeli border police walked into the Palestinian National Theatre, in east Jerusalem, and ordered it to be closed.

Police brought a letter from the Israeli minister of internal security which said the event could not be held because it was a political activity connected to the Palestinian Authority.

Members of the audience and the eight speakers were ordered to leave, but the event was held several minutes later, on a smaller scale, in the garden of the nearby French Cultural Centre.

Israeli police were deployed on the street outside.

"We're so taken aback. It's is completely, completely independent," Egyptian novelist Soueif, who is chairing the Palestine Festival of Literature, said.

"I think it's very telling," she told the crowd at the French centre. "Our motto, which is taken from the late Edward Said, is to pit the power of culture against the culture of power."

Israel regularly prevents political Palestinian events in east Jerusalem, but has recently also started to clamp down on cultural events in an apparent attempt to extend control over the city.

I think it's plainly obvious what the zionists are up to here. It's yet another attack on the Palestinian identity itself. But let the zios have a spin at this:

Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said the event was closed down because Israel believed it was organised or funded by the Palestinian Authority.

Rosenfeld said a signed order had been handed over by police.

"This is the policy being implemented with regard to any events which are either organised or funded by the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem," he said.

He added that previous Palestinian events in the city, including the press centre for the pope, had been closed under the same policy.

Ok, now let's throw in a little naivety from the Palestinian side:

Rafiq Husseini, the chief of staff to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who was in last night's audience, was dismissive of the Israeli actions.

"It shows how the Israelis are not thinking, he said. "This is a cultural event. There is no terrorism, there is nobody shooting. It's just a cultural event.

"They are creating enemies for themselves."

Unfortunately it shows that the Israelis are thinking and that they want to create enemies for themselves.

Still, Michael Palin is quite a celeb in the UK and possibly in the States too and he has now seen Israel's racist rule and its expansionism first hand. He has also seen how the zionists see expressions of Palestinian culture as a security issue. Perhaps he could report back when he gets home to the UK or when he travels to the US.

In PR terms this may come to be seen as a setback for hasbara. The Observer article was written by Rory McCarthy who has tried to spin the Jewish National Fund as "a humanitarian and environmental charity" rather than the instigator and beneficiary of ethnic cleansing that it actually is. If McCarthy is now exposing the racism and expansionism of the Israeli state maybe other hasbaristas in the media will also turn.

Protest Canadian museum decision to display stolen Palestinian antiquities

The Coalition Against Insraeli Apartheid calls for a campaign against the display in Canada of Palestinian antiquities stolen by Israel.

The Dead Sea scrolls, confiscated from East Jerusalem during Israel’s 1967 military invasion and occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, are coming to Toronto. The move is part of Israel consul general Amir Gissin’s official “Brand Israel” campaign that attempts to ‘rebrand’ apartheid Israel beyond its systematic repression of the Palestinian people.

Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of precious artifacts have been illegally removed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), Israeli soldiers, and illegally operating antiquities dealers from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. These removals of the joint cultural heritage of the region are in direct contravention of at least four international conventions or protocols on the treatment of illegally obtained cultural goods.

Please stand up and let the ROM know that you do not accept the right of museums to display illegally obtained artifacts stolen from occupied territories. The history of such theft and dispossession is a sad legacy of colonial history that Canada and its museums have also been complicit in. It is time to begin reversing this legacy by canceling the current exhibit in accordance with the precepts of international law and refusing to allow the ROM to be politicized for the rebranding of an apartheid state.

For more information please contact the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid at: endapartheid@riseup.net (http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6120)

The good news is that this is a rare occasion that the PA government dares to issue demands that effectively call for boycott.

JERUSALEM–A planned Toronto exhibit of ancient Middle Eastern manuscripts is threatening to plunge Canada, along with the Royal Ontario Museum, into the thick of the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Beginning in June, the ROM will host a six-month exhibit of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls, organized in co-operation with the Israel Antiquities Authority.

But top Palestinian officials this week declared the exhibit a violation of international law and called on Canada to cancel the show.

In letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and top executives at the ROM, senior Palestinian officials argue the scrolls – widely regarded as among the great archaeological discoveries of the 20th century – were acquired illegally by Israel when the Jewish state annexed East Jerusalem in 1967.

"The exhibition would entail exhibiting or displaying artifacts removed from the Palestinian territories," said Hamdan Taha, director-general of the archaeological department in the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

"I think it is important that Canadian institutions would be responsible and act in accordance with Canada's obligations."

The Palestinians say the planned ROM exhibit violates at least four international conventions or protocols on the treatment of cultural goods that were illegally obtained.

Both Canada and Israel are signatories to all of the agreements, the Palestinians say.

The letter of protest sent this week to Harper was signed by Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and its second-in-command. The letter to the ROM bore the signature of Khouloud Daibes, minister of tourism and antiquities. (The Star, April 9, 2009)

The Canadian authorities are the proverbial deer in the headlights. Listen to this lame reply.

"I'm just hearing about this issue," William Thorsell, CEO of the ROM, said yesterday. "I do understand the Palestinians are making an issue of the ownership. But I'm quite certain the scrolls fall within the parameters of the law."

Officials at Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs had no immediate response to the matter when contacted yesterday by the Star.

It is difficult to ignore the demand to observe international law in Canada, especially when it is being made by the darling PM appointed by the West, Salam Fayad. But don't expect therm not to try; to give in would be a win to the BDS arguments and strategies. We have yet to see whether the PA is going to act on this with the necessary persistence to win this very winnable battle. Let's hope so.

Click on the first link to see a suggested letter to the ROM. Send them your polite opinion. NOW!

Gulag archipelago?

The future of the West Bank?

Or maybe the present?

From Strange maps

PA head Mahmoud Abbas joins the boycott campaign

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Western-backed government warned European states on Monday against easing a boycott of Hamas Islamists, saying it could put unity talks at risk.

Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said he relayed that message last week to European leaders during talks in Brussels...

Malki said European overtures could undermine the unity talks by giving Hamas the impression that "the international community, and especially the European Union, is ready to change its position towards Hamas", whether the group agrees to abide by interim agreements or not. (Reuters)

Love the background.

Palestinian boy severely beaten for throwing shoe at PM car

According to JPost, Saher Ahmed Muhaisen, 15, from the Dehaishe refugee camp near Bethlehem, was severely beaten by PA thugs after he threw a shoe at the passing car of the Western backed but not terribly popular PA PM Salaam Fayad. The boy is allegedly in prison.

A Palestinian journalist living in Bethlehem told the Post that he and his colleagues have been warned by the PA security commanders not to report on the incident.

The journalist, who asked not to be identified out of fear for his safety, said that Fayad's convoy was attacked on two other occasions.

"Each time the convoy passed through the main streets, young men would throw different objects, especially vegetables, at the cars," he said.

The journalist added that the PA police have so far arrested eight suspects, including Muhaisen, in connection with the assaults. He said the families of two other teenagers have refused to hand their sons over to the security forces for questioning about the attacks. (J Post)

hmm, not sure why the JPost is the outlet. Let's hope more comes out.

Hillary Clinton shows Mahmoud Abbas the size of the future Palestinian state

he will get to be president for life of, if he follows orders and does not get any ideas ...

And this is what Mahmoud Abbas said in reply:

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we welcome Mrs. Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, in her first visit to the Palestinian territories, and we thank her for the positions, the supporting positions towards the Palestinian question, and for what His Excellency President Obama has expressed and demonstrated in terms of such positions, particularly what happened during the Sharm el-Sheikh conference, which – and the support to this vital conference for the reconstruction of the Palestinian territories in Gaza Strip.

And we also thank President Obama for this dynamism and for this vitality, and pushing the peace process forward, whether during the visit of Mrs. Clinton or during the visits of Mr. Mitchell to the region. And we have reiterated to Mrs. Clinton our insistence to move forward with the peace process according to the international legitimacy and the Roadmap plan and the two-state vision and our firm commitment towards that. ( U.S. State Department Press Release)