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Palestinian Elections: The need for social justice

Rami Almeghari 21 January 2006


Some 30 meters away from election campaigning by the largest Palestinian parties, the ruling Fatah and Hamas, in the refugee camp of Maghazi, central Gaza Strip, the house of Kamal Taha, 55, is located in one of the camp’s alleys. About 400 Palestinian candidates in the West Bank, Gaza and Occupied East Jerusalem are competing in an election campaign that began on January 3 and would end by January 24, to be elected as members of the Palestinian Legislative Counci. Kamal had used to work in Israel as a porter prior to the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, and since then he has been unemployed due to closure by Israeli authorities of the occupied Palestinian territories. 

No reduction in medical care for refugees, says UNRWA

18 January 2006


The UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) refuted accusations that it had reduced the quality of medical care for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, following reports of deteriorating health services. “UNRWA has reduced neither the quantity nor the quality of medical care,” said Hoda al-Turk, assistant public information officer at UNRWA. “On the contrary, it has signed an agreement with a hospital that offers first class medical care at a very reasonable cost.” BUH is situated 40 km and 75 km respectively from the southern camps of Sidon, and Tyre. More than 60 km separate it from the northern camps of Tripoli, and 75 km from the camps of Baalbak in the east. 

Ring Around the Rosy, Pockets Full of Palestinians

Sam Bahour and Michael Dahan 19 January 2006


The 38-year Israeli military occupation of Palestine and 57 years of ongoing Palestinian dispossession at the hands of the State of Israel has brought us to a point of total despair. Today, in 2006, Palestinians have been condensed into pockets of caged-in communities, taking on varying shapes and forms. Over 50 percent of the Palestinian population lives in exile and squalid pockets called refugee camps. Having being forced out of their homeland, they eke out a meager existence in the land and countries surrounding Israel and yearn to return home. All of the political activity in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip completely ignore these pockets of people living outside of Israel/Palestine. The end result will be that the majority of Palestinians, those living as refugees and in exile, will not be part of any organized process of governance, and thus the chance for any stability at all has been reduced dramatically. 

"Paradise Now" wins Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film

16 January 2006


Paradise Now won the Best Foreign Language Flm category in today’s 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards. The film was directed by Palestinian Hany Abu-Assad from a screenplay he cowrote with Bero Beyer, the film’s Dutch producer, both of whom ascended to the podium to collect the award. Paradise Now chronicles the 48 hours before two best friends in Nablus are sent on a suicide mission to Israel. The New York Times said it “accomplishes the tricky feat of humanising the suicide bombers depicted in the film”. The paper dubbed the film “a taut, ingeniously calculated thriller”. 

Editorial: A misguided conception

Yacov Ben Efrat 16 January 2006


The illusion of Oslo has been replaced by a new illusion of unilateral separation. If Oslo disregarded issues that are central to the Palestinian people, the unilateral agenda disregards the Palestinian people itself! It is as if we’d returned to the days of Golda Meir, who used to ask with wondering eyes, “Is there a Palestinian people?” The new Israeli consensus, applauded by so many, is founded on the notion, “What we do not see does not exist,” or on the campaign slogan of former PM Ehud Barak, “Them there, us here.” The trouble is, those whom we don’t see - those who live “there” - are a people besieged, without sources of livelihood, without control of territory, and under a crumbling local regime. 

PLC candidates protest against Jerusalem arrangements

11 January 2006


PLC candidates in Jerusalem confirm that the Palestinian Election Process in terms of candidacy and voting is a sacred right for all Palestinians. The Candidates insist that the Legislative Council Elections should be held as scheduled, and should not be postponed due to disruption caused by the Israeli authorities. The Candidates commend the favorable position and statements of the International Community and Agencies in support of fair, free and transparent elections in occupied East Jerusalem. They request US and EU officials to boost up their initiatives that propose additional polling stations to allow for fair elections and support proposals to place their premises at the disposal of the CEC to be used as polling stations. 

Jerusalem voters mount pressure on PA and Israel to allow free elections

14 January 2006


Israel has not officially pronounced its position to refuse or to allow the Palestinians of Occupied East Jerusalem, including ourselves, to participate in the upcoming Palestinian Legislative Council Elections in blatant violation of International law-specifically the right of self determination. Palestinians demand enough voting stations in Jerusalem. Since, Israel closed down registration stations in OEJ, and no voter’s registration lists were prepared, electors should vote using their Identification Cards. The Israeli Government should officially state that voting in Jerusalem does not affect the rights of the Palestinians in the City, and we request that the Post Offices cameras be shut off on Election day. 

Arrangements of Jerusalem vote draws criticism

8 January 2006


Out of the 120,000 eligible Palestinian voters, only 5,767 are allowed to elect in East Jerusalem. Voters are not allowed to cast their vote in a secret ballot, but in an absentee ballot form. During the Presidential election on January 9, 2005, Israel disrupted the voting process, intimidated the electorate, forbade campaigning and referred to Palestinian voters as Post Office customers. All Palestinian efforts to renegotiate and coordinate for the upcoming legislative elections came to little avail. Since yesterday Israel allowed for conditional election campaigning. This is insufficient to lead to free, fair and transparent elections. 

WasPR Delegation Diary 6: Stuck at Eretz Crossing, Having Coffee with Kareem

Bill Dienst Palestine 2 February 2006


Have I been blacklisted? What will happen when we are separated from the rest of the group? After fumbling through my bags on the terminal floor to find the gifts going into Gaza, I am flabbergasted, and a bit panicky. I am sent back to the desk to pick up a piece of paper so I can disembark on the Israeli side of the checkpoint. I feel nervous. I leave the desk and then return, thinking that the soldiers have not given me back my passport. They say they can’t find it, and after a cold sweat, I discover it in my shirt pocket, right where it belongs! Part of the art of living in this part of the world is being appropriately paranoid, without being excessively so. We all miss the mark at times. That goes for Israelis, Palestinians, and also human rights activists. 

Suffocation in isolated Bethlehem

Nora Barrows-Friedman Bethlehem, Palestine 14 January 2006


Today is my mother’s birthday. She called my cellphone as my dear friend Areej and I were walking in the late afternoon shadow of the brand-new Apartheid Wall and “terminal” seperating Bethlehem from the rest of the goddamn world. To prove that i was there, i held the phone up to the wall and slapped it as hard as i could. The “terminal,” as it is being called, is a cattle-catch maze of turnstyles and x-ray machines, all enclosed in an enormous building of wire and steel and sniper weapons with crosshairs tuned like a fiddle. This is on the “Jerusalem” side of the wall, which one is able to access only after papers are shuffled, cars are inspected, and people are humiliated and intimidated, or perhaps beaten and arrested and tortured.