3 may

Full text of the Agreement between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo
This document is currently in the process of being signed by all of Palestine's factions and parties.

Under the auspices of Egypt, delegations from the Fatah and Hamas movements met in Cairo on April 27, 2011 to discuss the issues concerning ending the political division and the achievement of national unity. On top of the issues were some reservations related to the Palestinian National Unity Accord made in 2009.

Both political parties mutually agreed that the basis of understanding made during the meeting are committing to both parties in the implementation of the Palestinian National Reconciliation Agreement. The basis of understanding agreed upon by Fatah and Hamas are as follows:
1. Elections

A. Election Committee:

Both Fatah and Hamas agree to identify the names of the members of the Central Election Commission in agreement with the Palestinian factions. This list will then be submitted to the Palestinian President who will issue a decree of the reformation of the committee.

B. Electoral Court:

Both Fatah and Hamas agree on the nomination of no more than twelve judges to be members of the Electoral Court. This list will then be submitted to the Palestinian President in order to take the necessary legal actions to form the Electoral Court in agreement with the Palestinian factions.

C. Timing of Elections:

The Legislative, Presidential, and the Palestinian National Council elections will be conducted at the same time exactly one year after the signing of the Palestinian National Reconciliation Agreement.

2. Palestine Liberation Organization

The political parties of both Fatah and Hamas agree that the tasks and decisions of the provisional interim leadership cannot be hindered or obstructed, but in a manner that is not conflicting with the authorities of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

3. Security

It was emphasized that the formation of the Higher Security Committee which will be formed by a decree of the Palestinian President and will consist of professional officers in consensus. 4.Government

A. Formation of the Government:

Both Fatah and Hamas agree to form a Palestinian government and to appoint the Prime Minister and Ministers in consensus between them.

B. Functions of the Government:

1. Preparation of necessary condition for the conduction of Presidential, Legislative and the Palestinian National Council elections. 2. Supervising and addressing the prevalent issues regarding the internal Palestinian reconciliation resulting from the state of division. 3. Follow-up of the reconstruction operations in the Gaza Strip and the efforts to end the siege and blockade that is imposed on it. 4. Continuation of the implementation of the provisions of the Palestinian National Accord. 5. To resolve the civil and administrative problems that resulted from the division. 6. Unification of the Palestinian National Authority institutions in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. 7. To fix the status of the associations, Non-Governmental Organizations and charities. 5. Legislative Council:

Both Fatah and Hamas agree to reactivate the Palestinian Legislative Council in accordance to the Basic Law.

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March 2011

13 March

On the ground in Gaza

by: Dan Hurwitz , Contributing Writer

Journalist Mohammed Omer on prospects for Palestine

Gaza-born journalist Mohammed Omer spoke in the University District Feb. 25.
Photo by: Aditya Ganapathiraju , Contributing Photographer

With a demeanor that was warm yet unmistakably serious, Mohammed Omer, an award-winning journalist born in Gaza, gave a talk on the Arab-Israeli conflict Friday, Feb 25 at the Friends University Meeting House.

For Omer the subject was intensely personal, as his brother, Hussam, to whom the lecture was dedicated, was killed by Israeli forces. Omer spoke of the day-to-day difficulties faced by Gazan residents by focusing on what he termed “the structural violence in Gaza.”

The Israeli military places severe restrictions on travel, goods going into the country, and goods going out, as a means of suppressing and demoralizing the Gazan population, as well as suffocating the local economy, he said. Many of the slides shown were quite graphic in nature, showing Palestinian men, women and children who have been killed by the Israeli military. Several slides, and their accompanying stories, elicited gasps and groans from the audience, and sometimes even — as when Omer employed his acute sense of irony — what might be best described as a kind of macabre laughter.

As of February of this year 95 percent of the water in Gaza is polluted, Omer said. Gasoline is in short supply, due to Israeli sanctions, and electricity is available only intermittently. Residents have to wait, sometimes for days, to cross the Egyptian border in order to see family members and obtain goods.

Omer told one story that was related to him in a discussion with an aide to Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who had recently had a meeting with Israeli officials to discuss why certain commonplace kitchen items were banned from entering Gaza. When, in the meeting, Senator Kerry asked specifically why pasta was prohibited, the Israeli official told him that pasta was “too much luxury” for the Gazans. The ban on pasta has since been lifted.

Another story describes a florist unable to sell his carnations because of Israeli restrictions on exports. He instead feeds it to his livestock. Thus it is horses that are given the flowers, instead of — as Omer notes dryly — people who love each other.

When the discussion gravitated toward the current unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa, there was some talk — one of the few times all night — of optimism. Omer, who spent time with youth protesters in Cairo during the revolt that overthrew President Mubarak’s autocratic regime, was inspired by the energy and determination of the young people. He expressed doubts that the Islamist group known as the Muslim Brotherhood would garner much support in upcoming elections, and said he hoped a new Egyptian government would put pressure on Israel regarding the human rights of Palestinians.

Though he denounced President Obama as a man whose words do not always translate into actions, Omer seemed to unwittingly channel the President, at least rhetorically.

“A change,” he said hopefully, “is coming to the whole region.”

February 2011

28 February

Mohammed Omer to Discuss Structural Violence in Gaza

Mohammed Omer, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Gaza correspondent, will talk about "The Siege; The Crises; The People and The Land" on his current East Coast tour, sponsored by Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb. He will be speaking at the following venues:

March 2, 2011, 7 PM
Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ
Main Lounge in Mackay Campus Center, Princeton Seminary
Sponsored by the Princeton Middle East Society, Interfaith Network for Understanding

March 3, 2011, 7 PM
Temple University (speaking with Julia Hurley)
1801 North Broad Street, Conwell Hall 103
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122-6096

March 4, 2011, 7 PM
Riverside Church, NYC
490 Riverside Drive New York, NY 10027-5788
(212) 870-6700
Subway: 116th St - Columbia University

March 5, 2011, 11-4 PM
Stony Point Center
Allison House 142 W. Main St. Stony Point, NY (reservation required, e-mail Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb at rabbilynn@earthlink.net)
Co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace Westchester, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, and The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

 

3 February

Egypt: Why the Army Won’t Shoot Protesters

With the army on their side, many demonstrators want to keep up the pressure.

CAIRO, Feb 2, 2011 (IPS) - Khalid Ibrahim Al-Laisi has been a soldier in the Egyptian army for 20 years. Today, far from shooting protesters, he says the time has come "to revolt against oppression."

And as protesters vow to continue to press for President Hosni Mubarak to leave now, rather than at election time later in the year as he offered to do Tuesday, Al-Laisi, 38, is the face of an army that is one with protesters, not against them.

Khalid tells IPS just why. "My monthly wage is 1,100 Egyptian pounds (188 dollars). It’s not enough, and I have to do another job in the evenings." He and his wife struggle to bring up their three children, aged 13, nine and four in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood of Cairo.

"No one can afford to live on these wages," he says. "There is no joy in life. You bring a child into this world to enjoy life, not to feel trapped. One kilo of meat costs 60 Egyptian pounds (EGP) in today’s market. To eat meat once a week costs me 300 (Egyptian) pounds a month. That leaves no money to go out and do anything else."

Al-Laisi was promoted recently, and that added 100 EGP to his salary. That went partly to pay for extra tutoring for his son Mohammed. The tutoring costs 300 EGP a month.

The demonstrations have been effective, he says. "The bullet that does not hit, at least makes some noise," he says, repeating a popular saying in the army. "Nothing comes overnight. But I am going to ask for my needs, because my life, like the life of so many others, has simply become intolerable."

The army man’s suffering is one with that of the people determined to continue the struggle to get Mubarak out. Mubarak’s declaration that he would leave was a triumph for the demonstrators, but not what many seemed prepared to be satisfied with, although crowds seemed divided on this.

"We still insist he should leave now," political activist Buthaina Kamel said at Cairo's Al Tahrir square after Mubarak’s television address Tuesday. Many demonstrators see their success as a revolution, and don’t want to give up.

Mustapha Al-Iraqi, a young oil engineer said he will not leave the square, and expects more protestors through the week. "President Mubarak is fooling around with our demands," he said.

A high-ranking Egyptian official confirmed that the Egyptian Army will not shoot at protesting people. The officers are expressing the sentiment of the soldiers, says Al-Laisi. "Who are we going to shoot? Our brothers and sisters?"

Groups of demonstrators were planning meanwhile to take their protests closer to Mubarak’s presidential palace. Units of the Egyptian Army are surrounding the palace, which has been fortified with barbed wires and checkpoints.

It is still unclear how far the army will let protests go, and at what point at least some units of the army may step in against the demonstrations if the protesters go that far.

Army units deployed so far have been popular among the people, and particularly the demonstrators. "The army and the people are one – hand in hand", a group chanted. There has been an outpouring of expressions of support for the army.

The regime clearly wants to defuse the situation for now. Yasmine Al- Jayyoshi, among the organizers of the demonstration, said she feared the regime would punish demonstrators. That was only another reason to stay on and protest, she said.

Al-Laisi said the violence was regrettable, and "private and public properties must be protected." But, he said, "if the demonstrations are too peaceful, officials do not understand the urgency among the people."

The protests are undoubtedly people driven, and not organized by parties. Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic party whose members won a fifth of seats in the last parliament despite reports of widespread rigging by the ruling party, seems to hold little sway over the thrust of the demonstrations.

The protests seem driven by wages and prices, and less by politics and ideology. (END)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54323#pictures

1 February

Unrest Spreads to Sinai

A lone soldier is no threat to a crowd in Cairo.

SINAI, Feb 1, 2011 (IPS) - A Bedouin youth casually spreads out a piece of cloth before a police headquarters in Sheikh Zwayyed town in Sinai, the vast desert area to the east of Cairo across the Suez. "I will leave when Mubarak leaves," he says.

He joins hundreds of others. They have broken through into the police station already, and are now camping there to demand a change in government. Most youth are Bedouin, originally a nomadic tribe in the desert, who’ve been fighting for their rights for years. Over the last few days they feel they’re winning.

The police are rapidly leaving their posts, but some still appear in uniform. One uniformed policeman stands quietly to a side. He is in danger, he seems no danger to others at all. What would he do if attacked? "Just take my uniform off and join the protest," he tells IPS. "Or maybe just go over to the Palestinian side."

A youth who gives his name as Hassan Washah has headed off towards Gaza already. To the tunnels underneath the Egyptian-Gaza border, and then in hope of heading home at last to the Buriej refugee camp in Gaza.

Washah had been in prison for years. He was freed by a vast crowd of Bedouin youth who advanced on the jail where he had been kept with scores of others. There was no resistance reported from the police and jail staff; many in fact were reported to have offered assistance.

Sinai is home to many prisons. Countless prisoners have found sudden freedom – nobody seems to know what they were in jail for, and no one wants to ask.

New groups have taken charge, and it’s hard to say who these are. Several check-posts have been set up all the way between Cairo and Sinai. "Who are you," says a man at one of these checkpoints. This IPS correspondent offers him his Palestinian passport. He glances at it, upside down, and pockets it. After some time he gives it back.

State security in plain clothes, riot police, secret police, the army, Bedouin youth, protesters who had come from Cairo to spread the word – no one seems to know who the people at these check-points are.

Makeshift barricades have been set up all over Sheikh Zwayyed. Looters have run amok. Shops and houses have visibly been stripped of chairs, tables, telephones, files, desks. Some of all this has been burnt in heaps.

Cars have been wrecked. Some had been driven into storefronts so the shops could be looted. Others were overturned and burnt. It seems a shattered war zone. There has been at least some resistance by police.

"There have been many clashes between Bedouin youth and the security forces," says a young man sitting on the side of the road. A few minutes later, shooting begins, not far away. "It will end soon," the young man says calmly. He semed in no doubt who would prevail.

There is no doubt either that Bedouin youth are fully armed. It is not clear where they got their weapons from. Nothing seems certain here, and nobody asks questions.

By all accounts there have been many casualties. Again, nobody knows how many, and no one can say what treatment they have been able to get, if any.

The sound of the shooting intensifies. It seems to be directed towards the state security building nearby. The building also houses a large number of prisoners. The youth are determined to clear the building of any police loyal to the regime, and to free all prisoners.

The area appears to have drawn many powerful and armed groups that have converged to free their associates and relatives from the prisons. They look determined to succeed. Some of the men carry heavy weapons.

The groups mingle freely with local Bedouin youth. The deprivation across this area is greater than Cairo has ever known. And the anger seems greater too.

With the anger, Bedouin youth now present a face of triumph. "It is a revolution," one says simply. (END)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54309

January 2011

21 January

Operation Cast Lead Is Over, But the Nightmare Continues

Abdullah (in red shirt) and his little brother (r) play “Arabs and Israelis” with their friends in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. (Photo M. Omer)

The Sept. 6, 2010 issue of the leading German newspaper Der Spiegel included the article "Studies Show Nurture at Least as Important as Nature" by Joerge Blech on the findings of a groundbreaking study on intelligence. Researchers found that prolonged poverty, stress and other environmental factors—including war and the deprivation of basic needs—directly affect a child's intelligence and, therefore, his or her life prospects.

Previously it was believed that intelligence was 80 percent genetic. These latest findings, however, show that at least 50 percent of an individual's intelligence is actually determined by environmental factors. More specifically: the more stress, the more arrested mental development. As one of the researchers, Richard Nisbett, a psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, noted: "During World War II, some children in Holland started school late because of the Nazi occupation—with momentous consequences. The average IQ for these children was seven points lower than for children who came of school age after the siege."

The Nazi persecution and World War II in Europe, which lasted from 1933 to 1945, affected an entire generation of children. By contrast, Israel's dispossession and occupation of Palestine has lasted some six decades—and counting. Generations of Palestinian children have been affected physically, psychologically and materially. Since Ariel Sharon instigated the al-Aqsa intifada in late 2000, Israeli repression has been most restrictive, and most steadily escalated, in Gaza. According to "Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion," a 16-page BBC report released in March 2008: "In September 2007, an UNRWA survey in the Gaza Strip revealed that there was a nearly 80 percent failure rate in schools grades four to nine, with up to 90 percent failure rates in Mathematics. In January 2008, UNICEF reported that schools in Gaza had been cancelling classes that were high on energy consumption, such as IT, science labs and extra curricular activities."

The report adds that "The number of people living in absolute poverty in Gaza has increased sharply. Today, 80 percent of families in Gaza currently rely on humanitarian aid, compared to 63 percent in 2006. This decline exposes unprecedented levels of poverty and the inability of a large majority of the population to afford basic food."

War, poverty, stress caused by financial and personal insecurity due to living under occupation, the constant scarcity of basic necessities including food, sewer treatment, water and medical care, the threat of constant attack by military forces, forced imprisonment, lack of movement, lack of rights—these are the daily realities of children in Gaza, realities they, their parents and their grandparents have known their whole lives.

This is the recurring nightmare that is Gaza.

A Child's Life

At first glance, 13-year-old Khalil seems like your average teenager. His young body is just beginning to mature, and he is curious, easily distracted and slightly mischievous. A closer inspection, however, reveals a vacant look in his eyes more associated with age. In fact, if one saw only his eyes, one would guess Khalil is close to 50, not 13. What's missing is that sense of invincibility and heightened optimism common among youth his age elsewhere in the world. Where American and European children talk about the latest rap band, their school vacation or their latest crush, Khalil simply shrugs apathetically.

"Excuse me, but the war has wiped blank all my beautiful memories," he says somewhat sarcastically. "The front half of my house was damaged, so that I am transferred to a life-situation that I never dreamed I would be experiencing. After years of living in a large house," he explains, "I now live at Al Zahra city."

Khalil's home was destroyed in January 2009, during Israel's "Operation Cast Lead" assault, plunging his middle-class family into homelessness in an instant. Unlike in a natural disaster, insurance funds and global assistance were not available. His situation was man-made—and Khalil is far from alone.

Still traumatized, he remembers a friend of his being blown to pieces when an Israeli missile struck his neighborhood.

Understandably, these are things he would rather forget—but can't. Because of Israel's siege, few resources are available to help him cope with his trauma and move on with his life.

The children's stories are difficult to hear, of course. But as any parent knows, the pain of their children is felt two-fold by those responsible for care giving. Love, after all, can go only so far.

A Parent's Frustration

Abu Abdullah of Rafah expresses the pain of most parents in Gaza: the inability to protect his children. His wife frets because she cannot comfort them. The younger children, aged 10, 7 and 4, wet their beds and she feels helpless to quell their fears. "It's like a cancer you can't control or stop," Umm Abdullah says.

Nodding, Abu Abdullah sits on the stoop of his house watching his children play "Arabs and Israelis," the occupied territory's version of "Cowboys and Indians" or "Cops and Robbers." In the role of a soldier, his oldest son, Abdullah, aims a plastic Chinese toy gun at his brother's head. "I am going to kill you right now," the teenager says.

The game is popular among children who've had few outlets to channel their emotions since Operation Cast Lead. Abu Abdullah would rather they play soccer, but this game reflects the reality of their lives and gives his children some sense of control.

Even when he's awake Abu Abdullah's 12-year-old son suffers from nightmares about Israeli F-16s bombing his neighborhood. In his dreams, all the children are running away from home or school. Some of his friends are injured, others dead, and ambulance sirens scream incessantly in his head. But it's more than a dream: it's what he actually witnessed, and it replays in his mind ad nauseam, rarely giving him peace.

Nor are Abdullah's fears imaginary. When his mother sent him to buy lentils from the nearby grocery store less than three minutes away, the boy returned home with no lentils and his pants soaked in urine. Asked about the lentils, Abdullah began crying and told his mother in a voice quaking with fear that "the drones are bombing."

Teachers who work with at risk students in inner-city neighborhoods around the world can attest to the effect poverty, violence, guns and fear have on the children forced by circumstance to live in these situations. Gaza is the inner city on steroids. Its children deal not only with gangs in the form of resistance, but they also must endure the assaults—usually in the middle of the night—of the world's fourth most powerful military. The effects on the children are predictable: Fights and violent behavior, in schools and on the streets, have escalated in frequency and intensity, according to psychologists who visit Gaza's schools.

Psychologist Zahia Al Qarra with the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) says that 79.9 percent of the children she sees feel they are in a big prison. Another 79.3 percent say that they cannot afford to buy what they need or want.

According to a recent GCMHP study, 20 percent of Gaza's children suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD], and another 13 percent are diagnosed with depression. In Gaza's UNRWA-run schools, where literacy and academic standards are usually high, 9,000 primary students failed their school work and exams last academic year.

Another GCMHP psychiatrist confirms that cases of disease, behavioral problems and psychological traumas have multiplied among Gaza's children, citing increases in autistic behavior, bedwetting, thumb-sucking, nail biting, anger, slow-motion flashbacks, reliving war scenes in familiar neighborhoods, fear of the dark, agoraphobia, panic at the sound of planes overhead, and disinterest in taking part in social and group activities—all symptoms of PTSD and depression.

"It's not just the children" says Abu Diaa, a father of seven. "It's also we adults who need psychological counseling."

Like most parents in Gaza, Abu Diaa, whose only income is a disability pension from a 2003 injury, worries constantly about finding food and clothing for his children.

"It is two different types of traumas," Abu Diaa explains, "living in fear of attacks and worrying about not having a job to protect one's family."

Psychiatrists and general practitioners in Gaza observe that parents often do not realize the extent to which their children are traumatized. Many are trying to deal with their own pain and stress and often neglect or delay their own treatment. Add to this the stigma about seeking psychological treatment for themselves or their children. Palestinian and Arab society does not embrace victimhood, and seeking help is often equated with admitting one is powerless and therefore a victim. GCMHP director Dr. Ahmed Abu Tawahinah notes that when a patient visits a doctor, he "never says I am depressed or I have PTSD." Rather he'll say something like, "I have a headache."

A Society Under Stress

The physical and psychological effects of Gaza's plight are pervasive. According to the GCMHP's Al Qarra, divorces have increased, often due to poverty. When parents are unable to fully care for their children due to their own trauma, she adds, increasing numbers of children are forced to leave home or run away. They find themselves on the streets, digging through garbage containers for a few things to sell to make a bit of money or eat. Incidents of sexual abuse, previously unheard of in Gaza, also are being reported.

This past September, 20 months after Israel's war on Gaza, Dr. Jamil Al Tahrawi, a university lecturer in social psychology, decided to analyze the art work of children in Gaza to try and assess the depth of their psychological trauma. He asked 455 children to draw whatever they wanted. More than 82.3 percent drew images directly related to Israeli attacks on Gaza. Some of these drawings show Palestinian resistance fighters, Israeli soldiers, tanks, bulldozers, ambulances, helicopters, F-16s, and pilotless Israeli drones.

The children mainly used light colors in their drawings, avoiding dark colors as if they were afraid of them. Dr. Al Tahrawi and other doctors in Gaza saw a clear indication in the drawings of trauma following war crimes similar to those mentioned in Judge Richard Goldstone's report for the U.N. Human Rights Council. Indeed, Dr. Al Tawahiha confides, all 1.6 million residents of Gaza are traumatized to some extent—"including myself."

As Israel continues its attacks on Gaza, the nightmare continues for Abdullah and all residents of Gaza. Nearly two years after Operation Cast Lead, Abdullah still is afraid to sleep, afraid to play and afraid to walk to school in the daytime, even with his father by his side. One can only guess at the long-term physical, emotional and intellectual effects Israel's continued occupation and siege will have on his life and millions of other Palestinians. One thing is certain, however: It is affecting everyone. 

January 2011

3 January

Mohammed has completed his MA degree in International Political Economy and Development from Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands with distinction in his research paper. His research paper has been nominated for ISS Best Research Paper Award 2010.