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Election day polls open in Gaza

Arjan El Fassed Gaza, Palestine 9 January 2005


“It looks like Eid,” someone tells me. Indeed, it is a sunny day in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. In the early morning at some of the polling centers Gazans slowly show up. Members of the Central Election Commission are ready for the day. Boxes are sealed in front of the very few international observers in this part of the Gaza Strip. Local observers, including volunteers from various human rights organizations and party affiliates, are waiting to see what is going to happen. 

Election Irregularities: Israeli Claims of Military Withdrawal from West Bank a Fabrication

8 January 2005


Despite claims by the Israeli military, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights report that Israeli occupation forces have continued positioning forces at stable military checkpoints erected at the entrances to the major towns, and have also erected a number of sudden military checkpoints at the main crossroads on the eve of the Palestinian presidential election. In Nablus, Israeli forces maintained their presence at Beit Eiba checkpoint, Hawara and Za’tara and Beit Furik. They also continued to close several roads. Israeli forces remained also in other areas of the West Bank. 

Gaza on the eve of the elections

Arjan El Fassed Khan Younis, Palestine 8 January 2005


Arjan El Fassed talks to Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip on the eve of the election for president of the Palestinian Authority. El Fassed is a co-founder of the Electronic Intifada and a member of UCP’s election mission, accredited as international election observers. 

Slave Sovereignty: Palestinian Presidential Elections Under Occupation

Omar Barghouti 7 January 2005


Many Palestinians are boasting that they will soon enjoy, again, the most free and democratic elections in the entire Arab World. The only problem is that electing a Palestinian president while still under the boot of the occupier is an oxymoron. Sovereignty and occupation are mutually exclusive. The world, including many well-informed readers, seem to think that the Palestinian people is actually practicing the ultimate form of sovereignty by freely choosing its own president. This is easily extrapolated in the heads of many to mean that Palestinians are in a way free. So what’s all this talk about occupation? 

Mahmoud Abbas campaigns in Nablus

Genevieve Cora Fraser Nablus, Palestine 7 January 2005


Three days before the general election in Palestine - the first since January 1996 when Yassir Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian National Authority - Abbu Mazen a.k.a. Abbas was to visit Nablus. He had waited until the end of the campaign possibly because his nearest rival, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi is well loved in this, his mother’s native city. But on this day, January 6, 2005, the Israeli soldiers stationed at the Hawarra checkpoint were unusually polite as people passed through without incident or excessive waiting as international television cameras recorded the historic moment. 

EU's pivotal role in Middle East peace

Victor Kattan 7 January 2005


On 22 April 1980, during the hostage crisis in the American Embassy in Tehran, the EU imposed sanctions against Iran for violating the laws of diplomatic immunity. The EU acted after the Soviet Union vetoed a resolution in the UN Security Council that sought to impose sanctions on Iran. It justified its act by saying “the situation created a concern for the whole international community.” If the EU could then act without express authorisation from the Security Council, it could surely do so today. Victor Kattan reports. 

Election deflation

Rima Merriman 7 January 2005


With “election elation” in the air (as a Palestinian journalist put it), people ask me here in the United States how I feel about the potential for peace in the occupied Palestinian territories. Much as I long to feel elated, I must admit to a sinking heart. The reason for my pessimism is based on the rhetoric that continues to be put out by both sides and by the US and on Israel’s continuing project of “creating facts on the ground”. Neither side in the conflict is listening to what the other is saying. Certainly no one is listening to what the Palestinians have to say. 

Palestinian elections: A democratic exercise in futility

Maureen Clare Murphy 7 January 2005


It is fair to say that despite not having a presidential election since 1996, Palestinians are hardly euphoric over the upcoming vote. While President Bush stated December 20, “There will never be peace until a true democratic state emerges in the Palestinian territory,” Palestinians and anyone else who cares to examine the realities happening on the ground, know that peace depends on the cessation of the Israeli military occupation Palestinians have been enduring since 1967, the reaching of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, and the ability for both Israelis and Palestinians to exercise their self-determination. 

Barghouthi detained for over 2 hours in Jerusalem on last day of presidential campaign

7 January 2005


Palestinian Presidential Candidate Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi detained for over two hours in East Jerusalem on the last day of the presidential campaign. Barghouthi visited East Jerusalem on the last day of the presidential campaign. He met with President Jimmy Cater at the Seven Arches Hotel in East Jerusalem. He told President Carter that he was going to the Old City to attend Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque. President Carter indicated that if he got arrested he should let him know. He did not take this seriously, as he had a permit to enter Jerusalem up till 2 pm that afternoon. The permit, furthermore, does not specify places Dr. Barghouthi is not ‘allowed’ to visit. 

Israeli conduct in West Bank and Gaza did not change during election campaign

Arjan El Fassed 7 January 2005


Today, is the last day of the election campaign. Media reports say that the Israeli army will halt operations in the occupied Palestinian territories “to avoid interfering with Sunday’s elections”, however, Israel has already interfered with the elections since the start of the election campaign. Since November 25, Israeli forces have killed 68 Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories. Most of them in the Gaza Strip. Seven Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. EI’s Arjan El Fassed cautions media from reporting the elections were “free”.