Hamas Boycotts Meeting of Palestinian Legislature

New York Times: By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, convened the Palestinian legislature today, but a boycott by the Hamas party meant there was no quorum, which was precisely what Mr. Abbas wanted. With parliament unable to transact business, he can extend the life of the emergency cabinet that he appointed after Hamas fighters took control of the Gaza Strip....

If the legislature is unable to convene, Mr. Abbas may be able to declare the government a “caretaker,” to hold power until new elections can be held. Hamas has said it will not allow new elections to take place before January 2010, when the regular term of four years will be over, and Mr. Abbas has already backed down once, after announcing last December that emergency elections would be held.

An aide to Mr. Abbas said the president is also considering dissolving the legislature and making the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Fatah controls, the caretaker parliament. ...And in any event, in Fatah’s struggle with Hamas, legal niceties are not being observed by either side, and the debate over what is or is not allowed in the flawed basic law is seen as essentially academic. ...

An independent legislator, Hanan Ashrawi, said: “We are in deep crisis. We cannot continue in this manner. Elections are the only way out of this dangerous constitutional crisis.”

Comment would be superfluous, and probably fatuous.

Hamas television to replace 'martyred' Mickey Mouse look-alike

Haaretz : By Reuters

A Hamas television station that last week killed off a Mickey Mouse look-alike who urged children to fight against Israel will use other famous characters to further their Islamist agenda, station officials said on Monday.

The host of the children's show 'Tomorrow's Pioneers,' Farfur, dressed in a full-body suit to resemble the Walt Disney cartoon character. The character was beaten to death in the show's final episode last week by a character posing as an Israeli.

Farfur and a female co-host instructed their young viewers on Hamas's militant brand of Muslim piety and urged children to support armed resistance against Israel.


Mohammad Saeed, the director of production at Al-Aqsa Television, told Reuters the station would use other famous cartoon characters in future shows.

'Farfur was a story alive and he has turned into another story as a [martyr]...

Hamas Rejects an Outside Force for Gaza

New York Times:

Hamas leaders have called on Mr. Abbas and his secularist Fatah movement to renew dialogue with them since their takeover of Gaza, but Fatah has rebuffed the overtures. Fatah leaders accuse Hamas of having carried out a coup in Gaza, and some have suggested that the Islamic group should no longer be included in the democratic process.

“In my opinion, after Gaza, Hamas ceased to be part of the Palestinian national fabric,” Nasser Jumaa, a Fatah legislator from Nablus, said recently. “I was one of those originally calling for Hamas to be absorbed and included,” he said, “but this experience was enough for me.”

Fatah leaders were especially upset at the scenes of Hamas militants breaking into the home of Mr. Arafat in Gaza during their victory celebrations, which included the looting of former symbols of Fatah power.

After touring the Arafat house on Saturday, accompanied by aides and reporters, Mr. Haniya telephoned the former Palestinian leader’s wife, Suha, in Tunis, in what appeared to be a gesture aimed at patching relations and restoring Palestinian unity. He told her that the house was untouched, and sent his regards to her and Mr. Arafat’s daughter, Zahwa.

Perhaps you could remind us of Suha's current net worth, in relation to that of the typical Gaza resident?

Saudi Religious Police Faces Backlash

New York Times:

As the car stopped outside a Riyadh amusement park, two bearded men dragged the driver from the wheel and took the three women on a wild ride of more than an hour, bouncing over sidewalks and finally abandoning them on a darkened street.

The women at first thought they had been kidnapped by terrorists. The two men however, said they were religious police.

It might have gone down as just one more excess of zealousness by the forces charged with upholding Islamic modesty, except that Umm Faisal, the senior of three women, did something that is believed unprecedented in Saudi Arabia: She went to court. ...

[Umm Faisal headed to the police to lodge a complaint. ''When questioned, the commission members claimed we were indecently covered,'' because her daughter's veil didn't cover her eyes, she said.]

The unusual publicity surrounding Umm Faisal's story comes on top of two cases involving the death in religious police custody of two Saudi men -- one arrested for allegedly consuming alcohol, another for being alone with a woman not of his family. ...

Taken together, the cases threaten to undermine the authority of the force's employer, the powerful, independent body called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

Since the commission's creation more than six decades ago, there has been no known public legal action taken against its members despite complaints they occasionally overstep their boundaries. The public view has tended to be that whatever their faults, they are acting in Islam's name to defend morality. ...

The Saudi government is reluctant to tamper with its religious establishments for fear of angering conservatives and weakening its credentials as custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines. The conservative impulse has lately been illustrated by a request from 14 faculty members of King Saud University's medical school to ban male students from treating women and vice versa, on the grounds that handling bodies of the other sex is un-Islamic. ...

Ali Farzat: Arab Cartoonist and Gadfly

Newsweek: MSNBC.com: By Hassan Abdallah
( Newsweek in Arabic)

Ali Farzat, Syria's best-known political cartoonist, began publishing Al-Doumari, the country's first independent satirical weekly in 2001. Although Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had initially encouraged Farzat's efforts, he soon soured on the experiment. The magazine's call for sweeping political reforms, its attacks on corruption and—most of all—Farzat's stinging cartoons infuriated the Baathist leadership. In 2003, the government shut the magazine down. ...

We used to cover important issues dealing with reform and the things holding it back, and we sent an open letter to the president asking him to institute needed reforms. They viewed that as a threat to their control. They wanted me to follow the official line, they offered all sorts of incentives, and then they threatened. Finally, they shut down the paper....

Is this adversity to criticism specific to you, or is it a Syrian policy in general?
It's generalized of course. [It] extends to many fields: literature, science, medicine and art. They want people to be subservient just like the members of the Syrian People's Assembly, who get elected based on the needs of the regime....

Are you a political dissident?
That's belittling my importance as an artist. An artist and creator is more important than a politician. They know the importance an artist has, which is why their response is harsh when you refuse to accept their misdeeds. I hate conformity, and a true artist must rebel against all this. I don't represent a political party, but I represent the people's conscience....

What's the future of the Syrian regime?
If they don't recognize the dangers and if they continue to deprive other national parties of true and effective participation, I foresee a monumental crisis. The regime is in need of total reform and change. Free elections are a must...

Did you ever draw a cartoon of the late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad or his son Bashar?
In Syria, drawing the president is forbidden...

Not that this would be of interest to British Lecturers Union or anything. The big problem confronting the world is Israeli academics...

Hamas TV Kills Off Mickey Mouse Double

washingtonpost.com:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children's television program was beaten to death in the show's final episode Friday.

In the final skit, 'Farfour' was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a 'terrorist.'

'Farfour was martyred while defending his land,' said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed 'by the killers of children,' she added.

The weekly show, featuring a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice, had attracted worldwide attention because the character urged Palestinian children to fight Israel. It was broadcast on Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV.

An inspiring commitment to working for peace and coexistence.

Palestinian Leaders Targeted in Rising Violence

By Israel? Uh, not exactly...
From The New York Times: By STEVEN ERLANGER and ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM, June 12 — Gunmen of Hamas and Fatah, ignoring pleas from Egypt and from the Palestinian president, sharply escalated their fight for supremacy in Gaza today, with Hamas taking over much of the northern Gaza Strip.

Both sides accused the other of attempting a coup in what increasingly began to look like a civil war. Hamas demanded that security forces loyal to the rival Fatah movement abandon their positions in northern and central Gaza, while Fatah’s leaders met in the West Bank to decide whether to pull out of the national unity government and even the legislature in protest.

The unity government, negotiated in March under Saudi auspices, put Fatah ministers into a Hamas-led government in an effort to secure renewed international aid and recognition and to stop already serious fighting between the two factions.

But the new government has failed to achieve either goal...

Mr. Okal (a Palestinian political scientist), who is now on the board of trustees of the Fatah-affiliated Al Azhar University in Gaza, said he would oppose Fatah pulling out of elected institutions, but he is not optimistic about Gaza. “We are heading toward a collapse — of both the political system and society,” he said. “And the chaos will in any event continue.”

Lest there be misunderstanding, I take no pleasure or satisfaction in intra-Palestinian turmoil and fratricide, and do not believe it bodes well for Israel, or for peace. If there is ever to be a viable two-state solution, robust institutions of Palestinian self-government must emerge and prove themselves capable of maintaining a some semblance of orderly government. Surely there are highly capable Palestinians not infected with Fatah-style corruption or Hamas-style ideological extremism who could win the respect of their own people, and of Israel. Where are they (perhaps some in Israeli prisons), and how can they emerge to provide improved leadership for their people? Are there arrangements (involving the UN, the EU, the Arab League, Egypt/Jordan/Saudi Arabia?) that might be conducive to progress in that direction?

Palestinian journalists slam use of 'TV' vehicle in Gaza attack

From Haaretz : By Reuters

The Palestinian journalists' union criticized militants Sunday for using a vehicle marked with a 'TV' sign to approach Gaza's frontier border with Israel and attempt to kidnap an Israel Defense Forces soldier from a position across the border. ...

News photographs showed the white armored vehicle, with "TV" in red letters on the front, at Kissufim Crossing after the attack, bullet holes in its windshield.

The Israel-based Foreign Press Association said in a statement the use of a vehicle marked with TV insignia represented "abuse of this recognized protection for the working journalist" and was "a grave development."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in broadcast remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, said Sunday that the attackers used "a vehicle marked 'TV' in order to fool Israeli soldiers."

He said the gunmen had tried "to take advantage of the
special sensitivity that we have in a democratic country such as ours, to the right of the media to operate freely and independently in security-sensitive areas."

To say nothing of ambulances.

Palestinians Clash With Israeli Soldiers

New York Times:

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, told leaders of his Fatah movement that a collapse of the unity government with Hamas would lead to further chaos. “The alternative to the national unity government is chaos and loss,” he said, according to the Palestinian daily Al Ayyam. He promised that “Fatah will not be the trigger to ignite the fire, but it will work to extinguish the fire.”

In Gaza, however, dozens of Palestinian doctors walked off their jobs and held a rally today to protest the kidnapping and shooting of a doctor with Hamas connections, Dr. Fouad al-Barawi. He was taken on Thursday by forces affiliated with Fatah, beaten, blindfolded, handcuffed and kneecapped — shot at least five times in the legs, then dumped in the street. He works at Beit Hanun hospital in northern Gaza and his case has received significant attention in the Palestinian media, causing Fatah to issue a denial of its involvement in his shooting.

The Boycott and the Palestinians

AJC Letter in Financial Times

Sir, While commendably rejecting the boycott call against Israel by the British University and College Union, you still manage to take some serious shots at Israel (editorial, May 31). Nowhere, however, amid charges aplenty against Israel, the "pro-Israel lobby in the US" and "Israel's irredentist right" is there a single reference to the challenges Israel faces in seeking a peace accord with the Palestinians. It is as if the only hurdle to achieving peaceful conflict resolution is Israel's "self-defeating" policy.

Speaking of self-defeating policies, what is to be made of the chaos, anarchy and violence in Gaza since Israel's total withdrawal in 2005? Or the smuggling in of weapons, the building of tunnels and the firing of thousands of Qassam rockets at southern Israel? Or Hamas rule, which is committed to Israel's annihilation and replacement by a Sharia-based Islamic state?

Polls in Israel consistently reveal support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. But those strong desires alone will not yield an accord unless the self-defeating policies of the Palestinians come to an end.
David A. Harris
Executive Director
American Jewish Committee

Compared to What?: Palestine

Common Ground News Service:

At this sad juncture, it has become apparent that neither Hamas nor Fatah, alone or combined, have learned the political art of working together in a coalition to serve their public, the Palestinian people. Party politics and the struggle over power have led to killings and almost to civil war. The only way to prevent total disaster is for the Arab nations, with the backing of the UN and acquiescence of Israel, to work together in order to prevent the growing snowball of violence from spreading all across the region.

* Hanna Siniora is the Co-CEO of IPCRI – the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Nobel laureate cancels London trip due to anti-Semitism

From Ynetnews:

An American Nobel laureate has cancelled a planned visit to a London university because of what he perceives to be 'a widespread anti-Israel and anti-Semitic current in British opinion', the Guardian newspaper reported Thursday.

Steven Weinberg, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, had been invited to Imperial College to speak in honor of a Pakistani physicist, Abdus Salam, and to deliver a talk at a conference on particle physics.

Compared to What? Until they accept responsibility

From Haaretz :

...With all due understanding and empathy to the Palestinians' suffering, the way the Nakba, the 'catastrophe,' is presented in the Palestinian and pan-Arab narrative raises several questions. It is portrayed as something terrible and evil that happened to the Palestinians. There is not even an iota of introspection, self-criticism and readiness to deal with the Palestinians' own contribution to their catastrophe.

We can understand - without justifying it - the Palestinians' rejection of the partition plan, just as we can understand - without justifying it - the Revisionist Zionist position negating the partition. But most of the Jewish community accepted the idea. And if most of the Palestinians had accepted it, then an independent Palestinian state would have risen on part of Mandatory Palestine in 1948, without war and without refugees.

The Palestinians are not prepared to deal with this complex reality. After 1948 quite a few books were written in Arabic about the Arabs' defeat in their war against Israel. To this day no book has raised the question of whether, perhaps, the Arabs erred in rejecting the compromise - painful as it may be - of the partition? Perhaps they would have done better if, like the Zionists, they had gritted their teeth and accepted the half-full glass?...

Shlomo Avineri is a professor of political science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Avineri is, in my view, one of the most acute and seasoned realist Israeli thinkers on "ha-Metsav"--the situation. With all the Israeli reflection and self-criticism (the best of which I try to reference here)--it would be nice to see some self-criticism emanating from "the other side." Today's NYT op-ed by Lebanon's prime minister does not make much of a contribution in that direction.

More on "Compared to What?"

Denial and Democracy in Egypt - From The New York Times:

All of this somehow has escaped the Bush administration’s ambassador to Egypt who, in a recent television interview in Cairo, painted a chillingly sunny picture of President Hosni Mubarak’s government. While he acknowledged there were “some infringements and violations” of human rights, he declared himself “optimistic” about democratic progress in Egypt, adding that the judiciary and the government’s “commitment to the opinion of the common Egyptian citizen” would carry the day.

That not only contradicts reality — freedom of expression and assembly is actually diminishing — it contradicts the State Department’s latest human rights report, which says that Egypt’s rights record remains poor. Egypt’s jailed bloggers and beaten protesters can certainly attest to that.