Israel / Palestine

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Mr. Fayyad’s own father died when he was 17. But it was a different time, he said — the peace talks, the Oslo accords, the return of responsibility to Palestinians over their lives, Camp David. “We were exposed to the world, to politics, and yes, to Israelis,” he said.

Resistance and politics must go together,” he said. “Yasir Arafat knew how to use one for the other. Now, there is no politics, no talks, so the sacrifices of the youth are wasted and empty.”

Ayman, however, like most members of his generation, cannot imagine living in peace next to an Israel that has ripped up his town, or becoming friends with an Israeli who has rolled over his schoolyard in a tank.

“Israel should leave this land,” he said angrily, then repeats what he has been taught, that all of historic Palestine belongs to Muslims.

“The Jews should go back to where they came from, to Europe, Russia and America,” he said. “They have no place here.”

Israel breaks all its agreements, Ayman says. “How can you make peace with them?” he asks. “Even the Koran says there will be war with them until the day of judgment.”

Yet Mr. Fayyad has not given up all hope. He says he believes that this generation is still malleable, immature. “You can influence them through realistic solutions,” he said. “If you delivered a real, two-state solution, believe me, they would go into the streets and dance. But if nothing changes, believe me also, they are lost — lost to all of us.”

Leaving

Where young Palestinians once dreamed of staying to build a new state, now many are giving up and scheming to get out.

Moayyed Haj Hussein is 22, educated and well spoken. But after he failed to find a job in six months, his mother pressed his brother-in-law to give him work in a coffee shop near the Hawara checkpoint, which the Israeli Army uses to control who comes in and out of Nablus.

The Assanabel cafe is a simple place, offering decent Turkish coffee, mint tea, schwarma and sweets to the Palestinians who wait for hours to get through the checkpoint. For Mr. Hussein, the cafe has become a kind of soft prison, giving him some spending money but no prospect for a future.

He graduated with a degree in computer sciences seven months ago from An Najah in Nablus, where he lives. But he sleeps here in Hawara because as a male under 30 with a Nablus ID card, it is very difficult to get permission to exit the city to the south.

Mr. Hussein says he has never spoken to an ordinary Israeli. “The only Israelis I see here are either settlers or soldiers,” he said. “They all have guns.”

He hates waiting on people and washing dishes, and says he is still looking for a decent job. But he is also looking to get out — to the United States, if possible, where his sister lives, but “almost any place,” he said, “where I can work and live a normal life.”

He is a Palestinian patriot, he insists. “But there’s no hope here,” he said. “You see the situation. It’s useless to think it will improve. You see it; it just gets worse.”

According to Nader Said’s polls for Birzeit University, 35 percent of Palestinians over the age of 18 want to emigrate. Nearly 50 percent of those between 18 and 30 would leave if they could, said Mr. Said.

“That’s a huge indicator,” he said. “In the worst of times here, when Israeli troops were everywhere, the figure in the population was less than 20 percent.”

Palestinians talk about how they seem to be welcome in Cuba or China, now that it is hard for them to gain permission to go work in the Persian Gulf or Jordan. Others say it is possible upon arrival in some European countries to ask for humanitarian asylum. But first they need a visa to get there.

Some travel agents in Gaza sell fictitious invitations from foreign hosts in Cuba, China and elsewhere, along with fake visas and hotel bookings to go along with real and expensive air tickets through Cairo.

Even the young fighters of the Abu Rish brigade have tried to leave. Muhammad and Saado, both 27, sold their weapons, took bank loans and paid $2,000 for visas and tickets from Cairo to Beijing on Austrian Airlines. They made it out of Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, but the Egyptians put them on a bus, locked the door and drove straight to the airport. For the four days before their departure, they said, the Egyptians then locked them into a crammed airport waiting room.

“A dog wouldn’t use the toilet,” Muhammad said. “They charged us 150 Egyptian pounds a day ($26.30) to use a seat, even the little kids. One Egyptian said, ‘Even a dead body has to pay.’ ” They bribed guards to bring them food and water.

The day of their flight, a Friday, they were brought to the departure hall. But an airlines security guard examined their documents and turned them away. Presumably, the visas were fake. “He looked at us as if we were evil,” Saado said. “There was no respect for us. I hate the Israelis, but I hate the Egyptians more.”

They were returned to the fetid waiting room, and a day later, when there was a busload, they were shipped back, first to El Arish. There they waited for days in an even more disgusting detention area, they said, until the Rafah crossing opened.

“When we finally got back to Gaza, I kissed the soil,” Muhammad said, laughing at his humiliation. “We said, ‘Gaza is paradise!’ ”

In his own quest to leave, Mr. Hussein, the cafe worker, has contacted the American Consulate in East Jerusalem. But, he said, “I can’t get a permit to go to Jerusalem to make an application.”

What about those who would accuse you of giving up your rights in your land?

Mr. Hussein turned away. “I don’t care,” he finally said. “I want to live happily.”

[Rasputin]

توافق حماس و فتح در مورد ترکیب کابینه دولت وحدت ملی در فلسطین، فرصت تاریخی بی نظیری برای پایان دادن به حدود شصت سال جنگ و بی ثباتی در خاورمیانه فراهم آورده است، اما استفاده طرف های درگیر در بحران خاورمیانه از این فرصت تاریخی همچنان محل شک و تردید است.
در واقع تشکیل دولت وحدت ملی از طرف حماس و فتح نشانگر این است که این دو گروه قدرتمند رقیب، راه عبور از بحران خاورمیانه را تشکیل کشور مستقل فلسطینی در چارچوب سرزمین های اشغالی جنگ شش روزه اعراب و اسراییل از طریق تعامل سیاسی با جامعه بین المللی یافته اند، و سایر مسائل برایشان جنبه حاشیه ای دارد.

خاورمیانه اما منطقه ای است که اغلب اوقات، مسائل حاشیه ای بر مساله اصلی ارجحیت می یابد و سبب ادامه خشونت و بازتولید بی ثباتی می شود.

به عبارت دیگر، هم اسراییلی ها و هم فلسطینی ها و هم حامیان منطقه ای و بین المللی آنان، خود را اسیر یک سلسله واژه ها و عباراتی کرده اند که طرف مقابل شان برای غلبه بر مشکلات داخلی خود از آنها بهره می گیرد.

از این رو، در بحران خاورمیانه شکل بر محتوا و حاشیه بر متن غلبه کرده است و طرف های درگیر در بحران هیچ علاقه ای به در نظر گرفتن مشکلات طرف مقابل خود و نشان دادن انعطاف نسبت به برخی موضع گیری های زودگذر ندارند.

آیا این وضعیت پس از تشکیل دولت وحدت ملی در فلسطین نیز ادامه خواهد یافت؟

به نظر می رسد که کشورهای میانه رو عرب دریافته اند که امضای تفاهمنامه مکه توسط حماس، در عمل مفهومی جز پا نهادن این گروه در مسیری که فتح در یک دهه اخیر در آن حرکت کرده است، ندارد و از همین رو، آنها آماده اند که بدون توجه به پاره ای جزئیات، مشروعیت دولت وحدت ملی فلطسین را پذیرفته و با آن همکاری کنند.

مهم اما این است که جامعه بین المللی نیز به نتیجه مشابهی برسد، اتفاقی که هنوز رخ نداده است.

با آنکه اکثر کشورهای جهان از تفاهمنامه مکه استقبال کرده اند، ولی کمیته چهارجانبه بین المللی (شامل آمریکا، روسیه، اتحادیه اروپا و سازمان ملل) از شرایط سه گانه خود برای به رسمیت شناختن دولت وحدت ملی فلسطین عقب نشینی نکرده است.

قاعدتا حماس به دلیل مشکلات داخلی خود قادر نیست که فوری و بدون هر گونه ابهام هر سه شرط کمیته چهار جانبه را رسما بپذیرد، اما از قرائن چنین بر می آید که این گروه برای تطبیق دادن خود با شرایط فوق در یک روند زمانی مشخص مشکلی ندارد.

هم اینک گزارش های مطبوعاتی از بروز شکاف در بین رهبران حماس حکایت دارد. گفته می شود چهره هایی مانند سعید صیام و محمود الزهار، وزیران کشور و امور خارجی دولت سابق حماس که از ایفای نقش در دولت وحدت ملی باز مانده اند، به شدت مخالف تفاهمنامه مکه هستند و ادامه مخالفت آنها ممکن است در صفوف شبه نظامیان وابسته به حماس شکاف و درگیری ایجاد کند.

برای پیشگیری از تبدیل شدن این شکاف به درگیری، چهره هایی مانند خالد مشعل، رهبر در تبعید حماس، و اسماعیل هنیه، نخست وزیر دولت وحدت ملی، ناچار به در پیش گرفتن شیوه ای احتیاط آمیز در برابر شروطی مانند شناسایی رسمی اسراییل و تقبیح خشونت هستند و چنانچه اسراییل و متحدان آن در کمیته چهارجانبه بر شروط سه گانه خود برای به رسمیت شناختن دولت وحدت ملی فلسطین اصرار ورزند، احتمال بحرانی شدن دوباره شرایط داخلی فلسطین و از دست رفتن فرصت پیش آمده برای حل بحران خاورمیانه جدی خواهد بود.

البته دولت اهود اولمرت، نخست وزیر اسراییل، نیز برای نشان دادن نرمش در مورد شروط سه گانه کمیته چارجانبه بین المللی با مشکلات خاص خود روبروست. هم اینک رقیبان راستگرای دولت که در حال بهره برداری از ضعیف شدن موضع سیاسی آقای اولمرت بر اثر جنگ ۳۳ روزه لبنان هستند، هر گونه سازش دولت در برابر دولت وحدت ملی فلسطین را به عنوان ابزاری علیه او به کار خواهند گرفت.

از این رو، ظاهرا هم دولت اسراییل و هم حماس به دلیل مشکلات داخلی خود را ناچار می بینند که به ظواهر و حاشیه ها بیش از مساله اصلی بها دهند، اما به نظر می رسد که برای گریز از این تنگنا راهی پیش هر دو وجود دارد.

حماس می تواند ضمن خودداری از پذیرش صریح موجودیت اسراییل، به شیوه های ابهام آمیز توسل جوید و بخصوص از اظهار نظرهای صریح در مورد نفی شناسایی اسرییل که موجب تحریک این کشور و متحدانش می شود، به طور کامل پرهیز کند.

اسراییل نیز به نوبه خود می تواند حساب حماس را از دولت وحدت ملی فلسطین جدا کند و موضع گیری هر یک از رهبران حماس را متفاوت از موضع دولت وحدت ملی قلمداد کند.

به واقع نیز دولت وحدت ملی فلسطین، دولت حماس تلقی نمی شود زیرا وزارتخانه های کلیدی دولت به کنترل شخصیت های آکادمیک و میانه رو در آمده است، شخصیت هایی مثل سلام فیاض که حتی دولت اسراییل نیز احترام خود را نسبت به وی پنهان نمی کند.

به سخن دیگر، موضع دولت وحدت فلسطینی موضع حماس در مقام یک گروه سیاسی نیست، بلکه برایند نظرات اعضای کابینه است، اعضایی که بسیاری از آنها سال ها پیش از این، به شروط سه گانه کمیته چهارجانبه بین المللی تن داده اند.

[Rasputin]

Olmert rejects right of return demand

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in interviews published yesterday that Israel would not allow Palestinian refugees to return and that the country bore no responsibility for them because their plight resulted from an attack by Arab nations on Israel when it was a fledgling state.

Of all the issues coloring Israel's relationship with its neighbors, the fate of scattered Palestinians who lost their homes is among the most contentious.

This week, the nations of the Arab League revived a 2002 initiative offering Israel peace and acceptance as long as it withdraws to pre-1967 territorial boundaries, accepts an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and agrees to a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and their descendants.

To most Palestinians, that means the right to return to their original homes inside Israel, but most Israelis fear that allowing in large numbers of Palestinians would undermine the Jewish nature of the state.

Israeli officials say some Arab leaders acknowledge that their peace proposal can be only the basis for negotiation and that a final peace will involve some flexibility on boundaries and refugees.

But while Olmert said there were positive elements in the Arab proposal, on the issue of refugees he suggested there was little room for compromise. Unlike one of his predecessors, Ehud Barak, who negotiated with the Clinton administration about the possibility of even a symbolic return of some refugees to their prewar homes, Olmert said he could not accept the return of any Palestinian refugees to Israel.

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Olmert seemed to rule out any negotiation on refugees. He would not accept any notional Palestinian "right of return" to their homes, telling the newspaper: "I'll never accept a solution that is based on their return to Israel, any number."

Olmert said the refugee problem was caused by the Arab attack on Israel in 1948 and called it "a moral issue of the highest standard."

Palestinians say that even before the Arab nations attacked Israel, many Arabs fled or were forced to flee by Jewish fighters. After the war, Israel barred their return.

Olmert said a renewed Arab consensus on a peace plan was encouraging, because, as he told the daily newspaper Haaretz, "a bloc of states is emerging that understands that they may have been wrong to think that Israel is the world's greatest problem."

The Arab League endorsed the 2002 peace proposal once again at a meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that ended Thursday. The initiative calls for the refugee problem to be solved "in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194," passed in 1948.

Israel has always argued that the United Nations resolution gives no specific right of return to Palestinians.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the Arab peace proposal, but the militant group Hamas, which governs with Abbas's Fatah party in a coalition Cabinet, ruled out any possibility of recognizing Israel or compromising on a full refugee return.

In a separate interview with Time magazine that was released yesterday, Olmert called the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, a terrorist and accused him of transferring more than $1 million to militants to carry out attacks against Israel. Haniyeh is a member of Hamas.

Ghazi Hamad, an aide to Haniyeh, said Olmert's statements were "confused and irresponsible." Haniyeh formed a unity government with Abbas's Fatah faction this month.

In a separate development, the Bush administration yesterday assailed plans by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Syria and possibly meet its president, whom the United States has accused of helping destabilize the region.

The top House Democrat arrived in Israel yesterday and will meet senior leaders there as well as address the parliament in coming days.

Pelosi is expected to visit Damascus and Beirut next week.

[Rasputin]

Driven by War to a No Man's Land in Jordan

It was 10 a.m. when the desert winds began blowing sand into the tent, one of a gaggle perched across a moonscape along Jordan's border with Iraq. Its rickety wooden frame creaked like a decrepit rocking chair, and Samir Abdel-Rahim, stranded for the past four years in a no man's land with other Palestinians fleeing carnage in Iraq, recounted his tale.

It began in 1948, before he was born, when Israel was created. It stretched through the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when Saddam Hussein was toppled. Its denouement unfolds here, where Abdel-Rahim, 52, his wife and their four children simply wait.

"It's a long story," Abdel-Rahim said. "We're never a party to any of the wars, but we bear their consequences."

In this forlorn corner of Jordan, the border drawn as an arbitrary line in the sand, the remnants of six decades of conflict in the Middle East converge in the Ruweished camp and three others strewn along Iraq's western frontier. The camps are home to more than 1,300 Palestinians, dispossessed by conflict with Israel, driven from their homes by conflict in Iraq, and forced to wait by sometimes arbitrary politics barring their entry elsewhere. Many are the offspring of refugees from a war they are too young to know; their lives are now ordered by another that shows no sign of ending.

The magnitude of the Palestinians' plight in the camps along Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan pales before the sheer scale of Iraqis' exodus from their country, where millions have been displaced or forced to flee to neighboring countries. But it is rare in the Arab world for the lives of a handful of people to so closely chart the generations of war, dictatorship, vengeance and dispossession. By the Palestinians' own admission, their lives offer a uniquely Middle Eastern lesson in the caprice of fate.

"This is the destiny God delivered," said Abdel-Rahim's sister-in-law, Ikhlas Aziz.

The camp unfurled beyond their flimsy door, held shut by a bent nail. Colored in shades of brown, tents housing the nearly 100 Palestinians here stretched along two ribbons of ruptured black asphalt. A chain-link fence snared water bottles and plastic bags swept by gusts of wind. On this day, as on others for four years, sand, the kind that grits between the teeth, hung in the air like a morning fog.

"We're just biding our time, biding our time for something," said Abdel-Rahim's wife, Aida Qadsiya, in a black veil.

Abdel-Rahim and his family were among an estimated 35,000 Palestinians in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion. His parents had arrived in 1948, having followed the returning Iraqi army, which during that Arab-Israeli war fought in a swath of territory from the West Bank town of Jenin to Haifa on the coast.

Although Palestinians faced restrictions in Iraq that limited their access to land, cars and phone lines, they were perceived as a favored constituency under Hussein. Fashioning himself as a champion of their cause, he provided refugees free or subsidized housing and exempted them from military service. Many Iraqis resented Hussein's aid to families of suicide bombers and others killed in the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000. Weeks after his fall in April 2003, landlords set out to reclaim houses that the government had rented to Palestinians, sometimes for less than $1 a month.

"If you don't leave my house, I will burn it down -- you and your family inside," Abdel-Rahim, bearded and balding, said he was told by his landlord in the Baghdad neighborhood of Hayy al-Salam.

On May 4, 2003, he left with his family and his brother's family, buying bus tickets for the equivalent of about $7.

"We didn't have a choice," he said.

For a brief time in 2003, Jordan allowed Palestinians, including Abdel-Rahim's family and a few hundred others, into the Ruweished camp, built about 40 miles from Iraq to house a feared influx of Iraqis fleeing the U.S.-led invasion. Jordan then closed the border. In summer 2006, Syria allowed more than 300 Palestinians into al-Hol camp, on its side of the frontier. Then, like Jordan, it sealed the border again.

Of Iraq's neighbors, Jordan and Syria have disproportionately shared the burden of hosting hundreds of thousands of Iraqi exiles. Despite the relatively small number of the Palestinians, U.N. officials say both countries fear the precedent that would be set by allowing in more Palestinian refugees.

"The line is drawn -- that they're not going to admit them, that they're not going to absorb one more," said Robert Breen, the representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan. "If you open up for some, the rest are going to come."

The Palestinian Authority has offered the refugees sanctuary, but Israel, which controls the borders of the West Bank and Gaza, has denied U.N. requests to resettle them in the Palestinian territories, he said.

"I can't recall ever having seen this kind of situation in such a bleak environment," Breen said. "They can't go backward, and they aren't moving forward. They're literally stuck in the desert -- no way back, and nowhere to go."

It is spring in Ruweished, the season belied by the desolate environs but still weeks before the heat that residents call unbearable. Respiratory problems are rife because of the sandstorms, and on this day, nearly everyone was huddled inside their tents.

"Take a chair!" shouted Qadsiya, Abdel-Rahim's wife, as she brought out unsweetened coffee on a tray dusted with sand.

She offered a pillow to a guest seated on dirt packed as hard as concrete. Wind ruffled the tent's canvas roof and pelted the woolen blankets sewn with thick thread that served as a wall. A Koranic verse was on one flap, next to a prayer rug. A Lebanese variety show appeared on the couple's television; the satellite hookup was purchased from a Kurdish family that had been resettled. Three of their four children sat on cheap plastic mats, a single bulb overhead. Their oldest daughter, Saja, got married in the camp five months ago.

They spoke Palestinian dialect, sprinkled with Iraqi colloquialisms.

"If there were a one in a hundred chance that we could have lived safely in Baghdad, we would have never left," Abdel-Rahim said.

The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch has said that Shiite militias have murdered dozens of Palestinians in Baghdad and that Interior Ministry forces have arbitrarily arrested, beaten and tortured others. The group said entire communities of the 15,000 Palestinians still there have received threats of eviction. Rumors abound that Palestinians, as Sunni Muslims, have served as suicide bombers and supporters of the insurgency.

[Rasputin]

They have been systematically brutalized," said Anita Raman, a reporting officer with UNHCR in Amman.

"You kill a Palestinian, and what is the consequence?" she added.

Virtually everyone in the Ruweished camp knows someone who was killed in Baghdad. Essam Eissa, a 49-year-old veterinarian, sat in his tent underneath a poster for Royal Jordanian Airlines. "Change is in the air," it read. He remembered when Mahmoud Bakiza left the camp and returned to Baghdad in 2004. The 24-year-old was killed 10 days later in the Baghdad neighborhood of Baya. Mohammed Ziab, sitting in his tent and wheezing in the sandstorm, remembered another camp resident who returned to Iraq in 2003.

"I heard he was killed two days later," Ziab said.

In Abdel-Rahim's tent, his wife recalled the fate of her brother, Marwan Lutfi. Members of a Shiite militia, wearing police uniforms, entered his tailor shop on Baghdad's storied Rashid Street in April 2006, she said. His co-workers told her that the militiamen asked him to come with them for 15 minutes. "He walked with them," she said. For a moment, she was silent, tears welling in her eyes. "He never returned."

Four days later, her brother's body was found in the street, covered in acid burns, she said. He had been shot 21 times.

"My mother couldn't look at the body," she said. "Only the gravediggers did."

"I have to endure the circumstances here, but at least it's not Baghdad," Abdel-Rahim said, nodding.

As he spoke, his brother, Khalid, turned angry. It was the bravado of desperation. "I'd forget anything that's called Arab, anything that's called Islam, if I could find a place, anyplace in the world, for my children, with a safe future!" he shouted.

The others were taken aback by what they considered his blasphemy.

His brother wagged his finger.

"There is no god but God," his wife yelled.

Camp residents navigate the monotony with conversation, backgammon and cards. Routine is supplied by the United Nations, which delivers water daily, bread and vegetables every other day and rice, sugar, canned food, cooking oil and toiletries twice a week. Rumors swirl. "Every day there's a new one," said Abdel-Rahim's sister-in-law, Aziz.

This week, it was that American officials planned to visit and offer asylum. Before that, it was that the Canadian government, which had accepted 53 of the Palestinian refugees last year, planned to return. Abdel-Rahim had applied to go to Canada. He pulled out the letter he had received from the Canadian Embassy.

"You have not provided sufficient evidence that you have a well-founded fear of persecution nor that you have been and continue to be seriously and personally affected by civil war, armed conflict or massive violation of human rights," it read in part.

The last line concluded: "I am therefore refusing your application."

"I would have to die, my husband would have to be killed, or my children would have to be slaughtered in front of my eyes, so that I'd have the right to leave this place," his sister-in-law said. "Is that logical?"

By afternoon, the winds had subsided, and the family ventured outside, walking a little gingerly past some of the 10 cats that share their tent. A few other people were also tentatively opening their doors.

"If you look at the records, I've been here four years, but to be honest, it feels like 400 years," Abdel-Rahim said.

"We're here in a prison without committing a crime," his sister-in-law said.

Everyone shook their heads in agreement.

"But even a criminal knows the length of his sentence," his brother Khalid added.

Abdel-Rahim looked at him. He spoke without pity, almost clinically. "Our crime is that we're Palestinian," he said.

[Rasputin]

Dozens of Palestinian journalists and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) marked on Thursday one month for the abduction of Alan Johnston, a reporter of the BBC in Gaza by unknown Palestinian gunmen.

Alan Johnston still remains in captivity at unknown location one month after he was snatched away from the street of Gaza on March 12, despite all the efforts to secure his release.

BBC director general Mark Thompson appealed for Johnston's release at a news conference in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

After meeting with Abbas Wednesday, Thompson said that "he told me that he had credible evidence that Alan was safe and well."

Thompson told reporters there that there had been no contacts with Johnston's captors and no demands from them.

Early last month, Johnston, who has been working in Gaza as a reporter for BBC since 2004, was stopped by unknown masked gunmen while he was driving his car and abducted him at a gunpoint. Till now, no group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

It is the most lengthy case for abduction of a foreigner in the lawless Gaza Strip since the kidnapping wave started two years ago, during which about 18 foreign citizens, including ten journalists, had been taken.

Abduction of foreigners has plagued Gaza these two years, although it is different from the brutal and often fatal abduction in Iraq. Hostages in Gaza were usually kept for several hours or several days and then freed unhurt.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Human rights groups in Israel have accused the security services of routinely mistreating Palestinian detainees.
The two groups said detainees were held in appalling conditions, and were sometimes tortured.

They said the maltreatment was intended to "break the spirit" of those who were being interrogated.

Israel's justice ministry rejected the report - which was published on Sunday - as unrepresentative and inaccurate.

The report lists a number of techniques the two groups, B'Tselem and the HaMoked Centre for the Defence of the Individual, say are deployed by the Israeli Security Agency.

They range from preventing detainees from contacting their lawyers, to painful shackling to a chair, threats and intimidation, beating and sleep deprivation.

The groups drew on the testimony of 73 Palestinians detained over a six-month period.

International law

International law is clear in prohibiting ill-treatment or torture, and it allows for no extenuating circumstances.

However, the human rights groups point to a more ambiguous ruling from the Israeli High Court.

It decreed that members of the security service who abused detainees may be exempted from criminal liability, if they believed that the people they were interrogating had information about an imminent terrorist act.

The human rights campaigners also say that of more than 500 complaints about the behaviour of security service agents, not one criminal investigation has been opened.

The Ministry of Justice said the report was "fraught with mistakes, groundless claims and inaccuracies".

In a statement, the ministry also said that over the past few years, information obtained by security service agents - sometimes through interrogation - had saved the lives of many civilians.

[Rasputin]

استفاده حماس از تصوير «ميكي*موس» براي آموزش به كودكان فلسطيني


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

شبه*نظاميان حماس براي انتقال پيام خود مبني بر برتري اسلام به كودكان كه تاثيرپذيرترين مخاطبان هستند، تصاويري مشابه «ميكي*موس» را حمل كردند.


آسوشيتدپرس گزارش داد: «شبه*نظاميان حماس براي انتقال پيام برتري اسلام و مقاومت مسلحانه به كودكان كه تاثيرپذيرترين مخاطبان هستند، تصاويري مشابه ميكي*موس را حمل كردند.»





بنا بر اين گزارش، يك موش بزرگ سياه و سفيد ـ به نام «فارفور» يا «باترفلاي» كه بدون شك «دزدي آشكار» از شخصيت والت*ديسني است ـ هر جمعه در برنامه كودكان در تلويزيون «الاقصي» كه توسط حماس اداره مي*شود، سخنان تند و تيزي عليه آمريكا و اسرائيل مي*گويد. اين گروه شبه*نظامي كه دشمن قسم*خورده اسرائيل است، در قدرت با دولت فلسطين شريك است. «فارفور» در آخرين قسمت اين برنامه تلويزيوني به نام «پيشروان فردا»، با فرياد گفت: «من و شما بنيان دنيايي را مي*گذاريم كه با اسلام اداره مي*شود. ما جامعه اسلامي را مانند گذشته بزرگ مي*كنيم، بيت*المقدس را به اميد خدا آزاد مي*كنيم. به خواست خدا عراق را آزاد مي*كنيم و به خواست خدا همه كشورهاي مسلمان را كه توسط تجاوزكاران به آنها تهاجم شده، آزاد مي*كنيم.»


طبق اين گزارش،* كودكان فلسطيني به اين برنامه دعوت مي*شوند و بسياري از آنها سرود حماس درباره جنگ با اسرائيل را مي*خوانند.


گروه «ناظر رسانه*هاي فلسطين» كه سازماني اسرائيلي است كه رسانه*هاي فلسطين را نظارت مي*كند، اعلام كرد كه اين شخصيت شبيه «ميكي*موس»، از هر فرصتي براي آموختن آموزه*هاي اسلامي، تنفر از اسرائيل و آمريكا و حمايت از «مقاومت» استفاده مي*كند. مقام*هاي اسرائيلي برنامه روز سه*شنبه را تقبيح كردند. «ديويد بيكر» يك مقام دفتر نخست*وزيري اسرائيل گفت: «تحريك نسل جوان فلسطين به تنفر از اسرائيل هيچ چيز كمدي*اي نيست.»


اين در حالي است كه سخنگوي شركت والت*ديسني در كاليفرنيا در پاسخ به پرسشي درباره استفاده از شخصيتي شبيه والت*ديسني اظهارنظري نكرد.

[Rasputin]

ساعاتی پس از توافق گروه های رقیب فلسطینی برای برقراری آتش بس در باریکه غزه نبرد بین دو طرف مجددا آغاز شده و تلفاتی برجای گذاشته است.
آتش بس درنبرد بین شبه نظامیان گروه های فلسطینی حماس و فتح در ساعات اولیه بامداد روز دوشنبه، 14 مه، به اجرا گذاشته شد اما کوتاه مدتی پس از آن بین شبه نظامیان مسلح دو گروه مجددا درگیری روی داد که تا کنون به کشته شدن یک نفر و زخمی شدن بیش از ده نفر منجر شده است.

روز یکشنبه و در نخستین روز از دور جدید خشونت در باریکه غزه پنج نفر کشته و چندین نفر دیگر زخمی شدند اما در پی میانجیگری مصر، فتح و حماس با برقراری آتش بس از ساعت یک بامداد روز دوشنبه به وقت محلی موافقت کردند.

حماس و فتح دو گروه عمده فلسطینی هستند و در پی چند ماه درگیری خونین بین شبه نظامیان دو گروه که تا اوایل سال جاری ادامه یافت، سرانجام در ماه مارس با شرکت در یک دولت ائتلافی موافقت کردند.

محمود عباس، رییس تشکیلات خودگردان فلسطینی، رهبری جنبش فتح را برعهده دارد در حالیکه اسماعیل هنیه، نخست وزیر، از اعضای گروه حماس است.

انتظار می رفت تشکیل دولت وحدت ملی فلسطینی به خشونت بین دو گروه فتح و حماس خاتمه دهد اما بروز دور جدیدی از خشونت در غزه باعث نگرانی در مورد دوام دولت ائتلافی نیز شده است.

براساس توافق آتش بس، قرار بود فتح و حماس شبه نظامیان خود را از خیابان های غزه خارج کنند و نفرات پلیس فلسطینی به جای آنان حفظ نظم را بر عهده بگیرند.

شکاف در نیروی پلیس

هفته گذشته نفرات پلیس وفادار به هر دو گروه فتح و حماس به دستور مقامات دولت ائتلافی در عملیاتی مشترک برای خاتمه دادن به خشونت و بی قانونی در باریکه غزه شرکت کردند.

اختلاف در میان افراد نیروی پلیس باعث کاهش کارآیی آن شده است

با اینهمه، مقامات پلیس گفتند که افراد وفادار به این دو گروه از پوشیدن اونیفورم های مشابه خودداری می ورزند و آماده نیستند دستورات وزارت کشور را بپذیرند و عملا تابع تشکیلات گروهی خود هستند.

بر اساس توافق قبلی بین حماس و فتح، وزارت کشور از جمله وزارتخانه هایی در دولت ائتلافی است که در اختیار افراد مستقل از هر دو گروه قرار گرفته است.

در تابستان سال 2005، اسرائیل با برچیدن شهرک های یهودی نشین در باریکه غزه، نیروهای خود را از این بخش از سرزمین های فلسطینی خارج کرد و دولت خودگردان حفظ امنیت این منطقه را در دست گرفت.

با اینهمه، رقابت بین گروه های فلسطینی و شکاف در دستگاه های امنیتی تشکیلات خودگردان باعث شده است غزه به مکانی برای درگیری های خونین جناحی و قبیله ای، سرقت مسلحانه، گروگانگیری و باج خواهی مبدل شود.

از جمله تعدادی شهروند خارجی از جمله خبرنگاران مستقر در غزه توسط گروه های مختلف ربوده و ظاهرا پس از دریافت باج، آزاد شده اند هرچند هنوز از وضعیت الن جانستون، خبرنگار بی بی سی که هشت هفته پیش ربوده شد اطلاع موثقی در دست نیست.

مصطفی برغوثی، وزیر اطلاع رسانی در کابینه فلسطینی، از شبه نظامیان فتح و حماس در غزه خواسته به درگیری خاتمه دهند و هشدار داده است که در غیر این صورت، نه تنها آینده دولت وحدت ملی بلکه سرنوشت مردم فلسطین نیز به مخاطره خواهد افتاد.

[Rasputin]

سخنگوی دولت خودگردان فلسطین اعلام کرد که گروه های رقیب فلسطینی به یک توافق برای پایان دادن به درگیری ها در غزه دست یافته اند.
غازی حمد، سخنگوی دولت خودگردان فلسطین گفت که رهبران حماس و فتح وعده داده اند که افراد مسلح را از خیابان ها جمع کنند و به ایست های بازرسی پایان دهند.

به گفته آقای حمد، دو گروه همچنین متعهد به پایان دادن به نمایش قدرت در غزه و مبادله گروگان ها شده اند.

خبرنگاران مستقر در غزه می گویند با توجه به پیشینه توافق نامه های قبلی، باید نسبت به این موافقت نامه آتش بس جدید محتاط بود.

پیش از این و به دنبال شدت گرفتن تنش ها در غزه، دولت خودگران فلسطین اعلام کرد که دستور بسیج عمومی کلیه نیروهای امنیتی را صادر کرده است.

درگیری میان نیروهای وابسته به حماس و فتح تا کنون 8 کشته بر جای گذاشته است.

مصطفی برغوثی، وزیر اطلاع رسانی دولت خودگردان فلسطین پس از جلسه اضطراری دولت فلسطینی از تمام گروه های مسلحی که در خیابان های غزه حضور دارند خواست تا خیابان ها را تخلیه کنند تا نظم در شهر مجددا برقرار شود. وی همچنین از نیروهای امنیتی فلسطینی خواسته است تا در خیابان ها مستقر شوند.

علی رغم درخواست مقام های فلسطینی، زد و خوردهای خیابانی در سراسر روز دوشنبه ادامه داشت، این در حالی است که اسماعیل هنیه، نخست وزیر دولت خودگردان فلسطین که از اعضای برجسته حماس است، شخصا کنترل امور امنیتی غزه را عهده دار شده است.

خبرنگار بی بی سی در مناطق فلسطینی می گوید که قانع کردن شبه نظامیان فلسطینی برای پائین گذاشتن سلاح هایشان کار آسانی نخواهد بود.

اقدام آقای هنیه پس از آن صورت گرفت که هانی القواسمی، وزیر کشور دولت وحدت ملی فلسطینی از سمت خود کناره گیری کرد.


گزارش رادیویی در خصوص تحولات جدید شهر غزه -- برنامه جام جهان نما

درگیری میان افراد مسلح طرفدار اسماعیل هنیه، نخست وزیر از گروه حماس و محمود عباس، رییس دولت خودگردان فلسطین از گروه فتح از روز یکشنبه آغاز شد. بر اثر این درگیری ها 8 نفر کشته و بیش از 30 نفر زخمی شده اند.

خشونت های اخیر در غزه، از زمان آتش بس میان گروه های فلسطینی و تشکیل دولت وحدت ملی در فوریه امسال، بدترین درگیری ها در نوع خود گزارش شده است.

خبرنگار بی بی سی در شهر رام الله در کرانه غربی می گوید کنترل نیروهای امنیتی فلسطینی برای هر سیاستمداری از این منطقه کار بسیار دشواری خواهد بود.

فلسطینیان از ادامه درگیری های خشونت آمیز میان گروه های رقیب فلسطینی و تنش های احتمالی جدید نگران هستند.

هانی القواسمی، وزیر کشور مستعفی که شخصیتی مستقل در دولت وحدت ملی فلسطین به شمار می رفت، رسما سرپرستی نیروی پلیس فلسطینی را بر عهده داشت. وی پیش از این هم به علت وخامت اوضاع امنیتی در مناطق فلسطینی خواهان استعفا از سمت خود شده بود.

پیش از این در روز یکشنبه و در نخستین روز از دور جدید خشونت در نوار غزه، پنج نفر کشته و چندین نفر دیگر زخمی شدند اما با میانجیگری مصر، فتح و حماس با برقراری آتش موافقت کردند.

شکاف در نیروی پلیس

هفته گذشته نفرات پلیس وفادار به دو گروه فتح و حماس به دستور مقامات دولت وحدت ملی در عملیاتی مشترک برای خاتمه دادن به خشونت و بی قانونی و فعالیت گروه های تبهکار در نوار غزه شرکت کردند.

مقامات پلیس گفتند که افراد وفادار به این دو گروه از پوشیدن لباس های مشابه خودداری می کنند و آماده نیستند دستورات وزارت کشور را بپذیرند و عملا تابع تشکیلات گروهی خود هستند.

بر اساس توافق میان حماس و فتح، وزارت کشور باید در اختیار افراد مستقل قرار بگیرد تا افراد وابسته به هر دو گروه مانعی برای اطاعت ازفرمان ها نداشته باشند.

مصطفی برغوثی، وزیر اطلاع رسانی در کابینه فلسطینی، از شبه نظامیان فتح و حماس در غزه خواسته به درگیری خاتمه دهند و هشدار داده است که در غیر این صورت، نه تنها آینده دولت وحدت ملی بلکه سرنوشت مردم فلسطین نیز به مخاطره خواهد افتاد.

[Rasputin]

حمله شبه نظامیان به خانه رییس تشکیلات امنیتی جناح فتح در غزه دور جدیدی از درگیری بین دو گروه فلسطینی فتح و حماس را به همراه آورده است.
بامداد روز چهارشنبه، 16 مه، منابع امنیتی فلسطینی گزارش کردند که شبه نظامیان مسلحی که جنبش فتح آنان را حدود دویست تن از نفرات حماس توصیف کرده است به منظور قتل رشید ابو شباک، رییس تشکیلات امنیتی فتح در غزه، به خانه وی حمله کردند ودر درگیری با محافظان این محل شش تن از آنان را کشتند.

در زمان وقوع حمله، آقای ابو شباک در این محل نبود اما گزارش شده است که مهاجمان قسمتی از خانه وی را به آتش کشیده اند.

پیشتر، چند گلوله خمپاره در نزدیک ساختمان دفاتر محمود عباس، رییس تشکیلات خودگردان فلسطینی و رهبر فتح، در غزه منفجر شده و افراد مسلح به سوی یک پایگاه پلیس متعلق به حماس در مقابل ساختمان وزارت کشور در همین شهر نارنجک پرتاب کرده بودند.

با وقوع این حوادث، دور جدیدی از درگیری مسلحانه بین شبه نظامیان حماس و فتح در غزه آغاز شده است که همچنان ادامه دارد.

این درگیری ساعاتی پس از برقراری چند باره آتش بس روی داده و امید به توقف کامل خشونت ها را از میان برده است.

در جریان درگیری های اخیر، یک دیپلمات مصری که برای نظارت بر آتش بس در غزه مستقر شده بود نیز زخمی شده است.

در پی حمله به خانه رشید ابو شباک، یک منبع وابسته به فتح در غزه با تاکید بر اینکه مهاجمان به دستور رهبران حماس به این عملیات دست زده اند تمامی اعضای حماس را مسئول این اقدام دانست.

مقابله به مثل و ناتوانی رهبران سیاسی

چنین اظهاراتی باعث نگرانی در مورد ادامه عملیات تلافی جویانه فتح علیه حماس و تشدید خشونت های جاری بن دو گروه رقیب فلسطینی می شود.

کشته شدن اعضای دو گروه فلسطینی باعث تشدید اقدامات تلافی جویانه شده است

درگیری بین حماس، که اسماعیل هنیه، نخست وزیر، از اعضای ارشد آن است، و جناح فتح، به رهبری محمود عباس، کوتاه مدتی پس از تشکیل دولت فلسطینی به رهبری حماس آغاز شد و در اوایل سال جاری شدت گرفت.

با توافق رهبران فتح و حماس در اجلاس مکه در ماه فوریه و اعلام تشکیل دولت وحدت ملی در ماه مارس، عملیات مسلحانه افراد وابسته به این دو گروه برای چند هفته متوقف بود اما دور جدید خشونت ها از روز جمعه گذشته آغاز شد و از روز یکشنبه این هفته شدت گرفت.

در جریان این درگیری ها، تا کنون دست کم سی نفر کشته شده اند که از آن میان، قتل چهارده نفر در جریان حمله روز سه شنبه به یک مرکز آموزشی فتح در نزدیکی پاسگاه کرنی در مرز مشترک غزه و اسرائیل خونین ترین عملیات بوده است.

جنبش فتح مشخصا حماس را مسئول این حمله دانسته اما جنبش حماس اسرائیل را به اجرای این عملیات متهم کرده است و شبه نظامیان حماس چند موشک دست ساز به سوی شهرکی در داخل خاک اسرائیل پرتاب کردند که در اثر آن، چهار نفر زخمی شدند.

هواپیماهای اسرائیلی نیز به تلافی این عملیات، مناطق غیر مسکونی واقع در غزه را بمباران کردند اما از تلفات احتمالی این حمله و عملیات تلافی جویانه فلسطینیان در برابر آن گزارشی نرسیده است.

همزمان، مصر و عربستان سعودی به تلاش برای برقراری آتش بس ادامه می دهند و محمود عباس، رهبر فلسطینیان، و رهبران حماس از شبه نظامیان مسلح وابسته به تشکیلات خود خواسته اند عملیات نظامی را متوقف کنند.

در حالیکه به نظر می رسد که رهبران سیاسی گروه های فلسطینی از نفوذ کامل بر شبه نظامیان برخوردار نیستند، خشونت های جاری باعث بروز نگرانی جدی درباره شرایط امنیتی در باریکه غزه شده است که حفظ نظم در آن پس از خروج نیروهای اسرائیلی در تابستان گذشته به فلسطینیان سپرده شد.

[Rasputin]

Israeli Tanks Enter Gaza, Air Force Hits Hamas Base

Israel moved tanks into the Gaza Strip and staged a third airstrike in two days, after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to take tougher measures to stop Palestinian rocket fire over the border.

Israeli forces struck a three-story building used by Hamas security personnel in the middle of Gaza City at about 2:15 p.m. local time today, witnesses and a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces said. At least 10 people were injured in the attack, Moawiya Hassinin, a doctor at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, said by telephone.

The attack came as fighting between the Hamas and Fatah movements, which formally share control of a two-month-old national unity government, entered its fifth day.

Hamas may be staging the rocket attacks to lure Israeli troops into Gaza, said Meir Litvak, a professor of Middle East history at Tel Aviv University. ``It would unite all the Palestinians and divert attention from its failures,'' Litvak said by telephone.

``They probably hope to inflict heavy casualties on Israel, as Hezbollah did during the Lebanon War. If Israel invaded the Gaza Strip it would arouse world opinion against Israel.''

Hamas said it may retaliate with suicide attacks against Israeli targets, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing. ``If there are possibilities to carry out suicide attacks, we are ready,'' AFP quoted Obaida as saying.

Homemade Rockets

The army estimates that about 70 rockets have been launched from Gaza in the past three days, though not all landed inside Israel. Two more rockets hit southern Israel today, including one that crashed into a high school in the town of Sderot and caused minor injuries, the army said.

Meanwhile, at least three Palestinians associated with Hamas were killed today in two incidents, Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for Hamas's Executive Force, said by telephone. That brought the number of people killed to five since a cease-fire between the factions was declared late yesterday.

Clashes between Palestinian factions in Gaza have taken about 50 lives and left 200 injured in the last five days.

Israel is trying to ``convey the message to the Palestinian Authority, both militarily and otherwise, that this situation, from our standpoint, is intolerable,'' Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in an e-mailed statement today.

`Terrorist Infrastructures'

Olmert and Livni met with military and intelligence chiefs yesterday and decided on a series of responses concentrating on operations to ``disrupt launch capabilities and to strike at terrorist infrastructures,'' the prime minister's office said in an e-mailed statement.

Among the measures are renewal of Israel's strategy of ``targeted killings'' of commanders in the Palestinian militias that are firing the Qassam rockets.

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former chief of staff, said the army must initiate limited ground operations in Gaza to stop the rockets, he said in an interview with Israel Radio. An Israeli air strike yesterday killed four people in a Hamas training camp in Rafah, and a second aerial assault later in the day targeted a Hamas cell readying rockets for launch in northern Gaza.

A small group of Israeli tanks crossed the border into northern Gaza today, the army said. The armored unit was positioned near the border fence to be prepared in case the situation gets worse, according to a spokeswoman who couldn't be identified further under military rules.

Violence Erupts

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the the Fatah movement, canceled a planned trip today to Gaza from his West Bank headquarters during which he was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Ismael Hania, leader of Hamas, for talks on calming the violence. Abbas's office didn't give a reason for the cancellation immediately.

Although Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza in November, the Israel Defense Forces estimate that about 300 of the unguided, homemade Qassam rockets have since landed in Israel, launched mostly by other militant groups.

Violence between gunmen affiliated with Hamas, Fatah and other groups and clans in Gaza exploded over the weekend. While Hamas and Fatah sit in a coalition government formed in March, Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction, and the two sides compete for jobs, influence and funds.

Hamas and Fatah operate their own militias while most of the Palestinian Authority's official security establishment, including the Internal Security force, are loyal to Abbas and Fatah. Interior Minister Hani el-Qawasmeh quit three days ago after failing to win Cabinet backing for a security plan.