Here is the latest update on what's happening in Palestine .
As of today, more than 110 people have died in the last 4 – 5 days and hundreds wounded.
Last night, as mentioned in my previous email, Abbas declared a state of emergency and dissolved the unity government. However, what the Israeli and Western media have failed to report that the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is still functioning and that it still remains the democratically elected body through which legislation must pass and it is still the body which must approve Abbas presidential decrees (even the Arab media have not reported this very clearly)
Under Section 7, Article 110 of Palestinian basic law, a state of emergency can be declared for 30 days (I have included a copy of Section 7 at the end of the email). However, the state of emergency can only be extended for another 30 days be a two third vote in the PLC.
Under Section 3, Article 45 of the Basic Laws (the section that deals with the Presidential powers),the President (in this case, Abbas) has the right to appoint and sack the PM and invite them to form the cabinet – ie. he as the right to sack the PM and the government ministry.
HOWEVER: there is nothing in the Basic Laws that give him the right to sack the entire Palestinian Legislative Council and call new elections (although in the past some in Fatah have argued that because the basic laws does not explicitly prohibit the president from calling new elections that he in fact has the right to do so – but this is all very gray)
This is why Haniyeh and Hamas have declared Abbas to have acted hastily, saying that Hamas members of the Unity government will continue to functions as the legitimate government – ie. that the currently democratically elected PLC, which is dominated by Hamas, is still the legitimate parliamentary body until 2010. If Abbas wants to extend the state of emergency after 30 days, he has to go back to the Hamas dominated PLC to get the extension and of course this most likely would not be granted.
Today, I spoke to one of the Palestinian diplomats I know, he confirmed that, yes, that in effect there are now "two governments" and that Abbas has no way of implementing his decrees because they need to approved by the PLC (outside of the initial sacking of the PM and govt and declaring the initial state of emergency). He like so many others, are not sure where this was all going to lead.
Haniyeh told Palestinian and Arab media that Hamas would seek "national reconciliation through the appropriate mechanisms and there is no change to the relations with the nationalistic forces. We will go ahead with the unity program alongside those who would like to work with us". Haniyeh went on to confirm that Hamas would adhere to "domestic treaties, including the Mecca agreement and the Cairo dialogues, and our relations with Arab states are still brother-relations".
According to Palestinian and Arab news reports, Abbas had appointed Salam Fayyad as the new head of the emergency government. Fayyad is not aligned with either Fatah or Hamas (although Fatah courted him in the run up to the 2006, promising him the PM position if they won). Fayyad, along with Hanan Ashrawi and Yasser Abed Rabbo set up the "Third Way Party", which won two seats in the 2006 elections. Fayyd is highly respected within Palestinian politics and also apparently by the Israelis, which is why he was appointed the finance minister in the Unity government.
In response to the sacking of Haniyeh and the dissolution of the unity government, Israel and the US have moved quickly to attempt to sure up Abbas. According to Israeli media reports, Olmert is looking to easy the economic blockade and hand over the taxes Israel stole. The Bush Administration has also announced that they want to "fast track" peace talks.
Both Abbas, Israel and the US are playing a dangerous game. While on one hand, as I mentioned last night, this is exactly what the US and Israeli have been pushing for and Abbas, the clique leading Fatah and the PLO desperate regain their once former dominant position in the Palestinian political landscape have obliged.
However, the US and Israel have not had it all their way. Despite spending millions and millions on shoring up around 40,000 presidential guard and other Fatah security forces, Hamas quickly over run them and took control of Gaza. This has completely undermined the US plan to use the newly trained Fatah forces to fight and over run Hamas. Now Israeli is demanding that an international force be sent into the Gaza , but not to keep peace but to fight Hamas (now that their proxy army has cut and run).
While both Israel and the US will be hoping that they can isolate Hamas in Gaza (and this could happen), Haniyeh and Mes'hal have been making clear overtures towards Abbas, while still remaining the dominant force in the PLC and also maintaining their position of control over the Gaza (today Mes'hal stated that Hamas has no interest in over throwing Abbas and are willing to "cooperate" with him in the name of the national interest).
Hamas's project is for a full Palestinian state not just a state in Gaza, in addition, they know that the Palestinian people as a whole will not accept such an arrangement. This is where Abbas is on the back foot.
He may be the legitimate president and have some control over the West Bank, but he has no control over Gaza. In addition, he has to deal eventually with the Hamas dominated PLC (unless he can somehow twist the Basic Law to allow him to call new elections).
The US and Israel are trying to shore him up, but Abbas while wishy washy is also not stupid, he knows that the Palestinian street will not support two separate states and he will be forced eventually to negotiate with Hamas (although, Israel and the US will do everything in their power to prevent this). Israel and the US have still not come to understand that they can not buy of the majority of the Palestinian people and that the majority of Palestinians are horrified by the factional fighting and will seek national reconciliation.
Some other things to note:
(1) Over the last two days, demonstrations have taken place in Gaza City, Khan Younis, Bethlehem and Hebron (and other cities) protesting the factional fighting. In Gaza city and Khan Younis, on Thursday before the Gaza fell to Hamas there were demonstrations of 1000 people in each city. There has been subsequent rallies organised by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) calling for an end to the factional fighting and national unity. Other demos have taken place as I mentioned in Bethlehem and Hebron.
(2) Pal media reported on Thursday, that Fatah in Gaza had split. According to one report, the new head of Fatah in the Gaza is now Abu Hilal, who went on to denounce Mohammed Dahlan and several other Fatah leaders as "collaborators". According to Abu Hilal, an emergency committee had been set up to rearrange affairs in the Fatah movement (not sure if this is at a national level or just in Gaza) and that he had reached an agreement with the leaders of Hamas and the Al Qassam brigades to ensure that the "good" people (ie. those not suspected of collaboration) were not harmed.
(3) Despite reports in Israeli and Western media, Hamas is not running around willy nilly killing every Fatah member they can get their hands on. On Wed and Thursday, Hamas definitely sought out Fatah members they believe to be collaborators and did carry out extra-judicial killings (as did Fatah of Hamas members). With Hamas taking control of the Gaza, they imposed a tense calm once the fighting was over. However, Hamas did carry out the execution of two Fatah members today, that they claimed was responsible for the killing of Hamas members.
However, Hamas has not made a point of going around rounding up Fatah members to execute them willy nilly. Today, Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders announced that Fatah members would be granted amnesty or clemency and that Hamas was only interested in routing out the collaborators within Fatah.
(4) In response to the Hamas victory in Gaza, Fatah fighters have started to target Hamas affiliated organisation and Hamas members, killing 1 Hamas member. Fighting has taken place in Nablus, Ramallah and Tulkarem. However, at least 12 people who were abducted from a Hamas aligned organisation on Thursday in Nablus were released unharmed by the Al Asqa Martyrs Brigade.
(5) With Hamas taking control of Gaza , the Israeli and Western media have gone into a feeding frenzy of speculation, including declaring that there will be a separate Islamic state in Gaza and/or that Hamas will impose Islamic rule over Gaza and that Gaza will become a "taliban style" strong hold.
This of course ignores completely that Hamas is nothing like the Taliban, other than the fact they both happened to be Islamic. However, even on this front, the two groups are widely divergent – Hamas does not engage in applying an extremist versions of Shari'a law like the Taliban, which prohibits listening to music, engaging in other cultural activities and it does not prohibit women from attaining an education or working (the main force behind Hamas electoral success were professional women – doctors, lawyers, teachers). As Haniyeh made clear when he was elected in 2006, he has no plans to enforce the hijab and/or strict reading shari'a law (it should be note that Section 1, Article 4, part 2 of the Palestinian laws, signed into effect by Arafat and Abbas state, already that shari'a law is the basis of Palestinian legislation)
In addition, Hamas under the leadership of Khaled Mes'hal and Haniyeh and others have prioritised the national liberation agenda over Hamas religious agenda. They have consciously worked to ensure they do not alienate secular and Christian Palestinians and recognise that if they are to stay in the mainstream of politics, they need to be more pragmatic and not alienate all of those Palestinians who voted for them but do not necessarily agree with their religious agenda. To say that they are suddenly going to become a carbon copy of the Taliban is hysterical clap trap and a deliberate black propaganda on behalf of Israel to scare not only their own citizens but also the West.
In response to these wild predictions, which have little basis in reality (much of which is emanating from both the Israeli and Bush administrations in order to generate fear amongst the US, Israeli and international community, so they can push their own agenda), Haniyeh has stated quite clearly that Hamas has no interest in setting up a separate state in Gaza. In addition, Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled Mes'hal has denied that Hamas will implement blanket Islamic law across Gaza.
I have include below the section of the Palestinian Basic Law referencing emergency powers and also an very good article by Ali Abunimah, one of the founders of Electronic Intifada
I will send another update in the next day or so.
Kim Bullimore
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A setback for the Bush doctrine in Gaza
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 14 June 2007
The dramatic rout of the US and Israeli-backed Palestinian militias in Gaza by forces loyal to Hamas represents a major setback to the Bush doctrine in Palestine .
Background
Ever since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in the occupied territories in January 2006, elements of the leadership of the long-dominant Fatah movement, including Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his advisors have conspired with Israel, the United States and the intelligence services of several Arab states to overthrow and weaken Hamas. This support has included funneling weapons and tens of millions of dollars to unaccountable militias, particularly the "Preventive Security Force" headed by Gaza warlord Mohammad Dahlan, a close ally of Israel and the United States and the Abbas-affiliated "Presidential Guard." US Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams -- who helped divert money to the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s and who was convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal -- has spearheaded the effort to set up these Palestinian Contras. (This background has been extensively detailed in a number of articles published by The Electronic Intifada in recent months). Abrams is also notorious for helping to cover up massacres and atrocities committed against civilians in El Salvador by US-backed militias and death squads.
Two recent revelations underscore the extent of the conspiracy: on 7 June, Ha'aretz reported that "senior Fatah officials in the Gaza Strip have asked Israel to allow them to receive large shipments of arms and ammunition from Arab countries, including Egypt ." According to the Israeli newspaper, Fatah asked Israel for "armored cars, hundreds of armor-piercing RPG rockets, thousands of hand grenades and millions of rounds of ammunition for small caliber weapons," all to be used against Hamas.
From the moment of its election victory, Hamas acted pragmatically and with the intent to integrate itself into the existing political structure. It had observed for over a year a unilateral ceasefire with Israel and had halted the suicide attacks on Israeli civilians that had made it notorious. In a leaked confidential memo written in May and published by The Guardian this week senior UN envoy Alvaro de Soto confirmed that it was under pressure from the United States that Abbas refused Hamas' initial invitation to form a "national unity government." De Soto details that Abbas advisers actively aided and abetted the Israeli-US-European Union aid cutoff and siege of the Palestinians under occupation, which led to massively increased poverty for millions of people. These advisors engaged with the United States in a "plot" to "bring about the untimely demise of the [Palestinian Authority] government led by Hamas," de Soto wrote.
Despite a bloody attempted coup against Hamas by the Dahlan-led forces in December and January, Hamas still agreed to join a "National Unity Government" with Fatah brokered by Saudi Arabia at the Mecca summit. Dahlan and Abbas' advisers were determined to sabotage this, continuing to amass weapons, and refusing to place their militias under the control of a neutral interior minister who eventually resigned in frustration.
A setback for United States and Israel
The core of US strategy in the Southwest and Central Asia, particularly Afghanistan, Iraq , Palestine, and Lebanon is to establish puppet regimes that will fight America 's enemies on its behalf. This strategy seems to be failing everywhere. The Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan . Despite its "surge" the US is no closer to putting down the resistance in Iraq and cannot even trust the Iraqi army it helped set up. The Lebanese army, which the US hopes to bolster as a counterweight to Hizballah, has performed poorly against a few hundred foreign fighters holed up in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp (although it has caused death and devastation to many innocent Palestinian refugees). Now in Gaza, the latest blow.
Israel's policy is a local version of the US strategy -- and it has also been tried and failed. For over two decades Israel relied on a proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, to help it enforce the occupation of southern Lebanon. In 2000, as Israeli forces hastily withdrew, this militia collapsed just as quickly as Dahlan's forces and many of its members fled to Israel . Hamas is now referring to the rout of Dahlan's forces as a "second liberation of Gaza."
A consistent element of Israeli strategy has been to attempt to circumvent Palestinian resistance by trying to create quisling leaderships. Into the 1970s, Israel still saw the PLO as representing true resistance. So it set up the collaborationist "village leagues" in the West Bank as an alternative. In 1976, it allowed municipal elections in the West Bank in an effort to give this alternative leadership some legitimacy. When PLO-affiliated candidates swept the board, Israel began to assassinate the PLO mayors with car bombs or force them into exile. Once some exiled PLO leaders, most notably Yasser Arafat, became willing subcontractors of the occupation (an arrangement formalized by the Oslo Accords), a new resistance force emerged in the form of Hamas. Israeli efforts to back Dahlan and Abbas, Arafat's successor, as quisling alternatives have now backfired spectacularly.
In the wake of the Fatah collapse in Gaza, Ha'aretz reported that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert will advise President Bush that Gaza must be isolated from the West Bank. This can be seen as an attempt to shore up Abbas whose survival Israel sees as essential to maintaining the fiction that it does not directly rule millions of disenfranchised Palestinians. A total collapse of the Palestinian Authority would expose Israel's legal obligation, as the occupying power, to provide for the welfare of the Palestinians it rules.
What now for the Palestinian under occupation?
Abbas has declared a "state of emergency" and dismissed Ismail Haniyeh the Hamas prime minister as well as the "national unity government." The "state of emergency" is merely rhetorical. Whatever control he had in Gaza is gone and Israel is in complete control of the West Bank anyway.
Haniyeh in a speech this evening carried live on Al-Jazeera rejected Abbas' "hasty" moves and alleged that they were the result of pressure from abroad. He issued 16 points, among them that the "unity government" represented the will of 96 percent of Palestinians under occupation freely expressed at the ballot box. He reaffirmed his movement's commitment to democracy and the existing political system and that Hamas would not impose changes on people's way of life. Haniyeh said the government would continue to function, would restore law and order and reaffirm Hamas' commitment to national unity and the Mecca agreement. He called on all Hamas members to observe a general amnesty assuring any captured fighters of their safety (this followed media reports of a handful of summary executions of Fatah fighters). He also emphasized that Hamas' fight was not with Fatah as a whole, but only with those elements who had been actively collaborating -- a clear allusion to Dahlan and other Abbas advisors. He portrayed Hamas' takeover as a last resort in the wake of escalating lawlessness and coup attempts by collaborators, listing many alleged crimes that had finally caused Hamas' patience to snap. Haniyeh emphasized the unity of Gaza and the West Bank as "inseparable parts of the Palestinian nation," and he repeated a call for the captors of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston to free him immediately.
The contrast between Abbas' action and the Hamas response is striking. Abbas, perhaps pushed by the same coterie of advisors, seems to be escalating the confrontation and doing so when there is no reason to believe he can prevail. Hamas, while standing firm and from a position of strength, spoke in a language of conciliation, emphasizing time and again that Hamas has a problem with only a small group within Fatah, not its rank and file. Abbas, Dahlan and their backers must be surveying a sobering scene -- they may be tempted to try to take on Hamas in the West Bank, but the scale of their defeat in Gaza would have to give them pause.
Both leaderships are hemmed in. Abbas appears to be entirely dependent on foreign and Israeli support and unable to take decisions independent of a corrupt, self-serving clique. Hamas, whatever intentions it has is likely to find itself under an even tighter siege in Gaza.
Abbas, backed by Israel and the US , has called for a multinational force in Gaza. Hamas has rejected this, saying it would be viewed as an "occupying force." Indeed, they have reason to be suspicious: for decades Israel and the US blocked calls for an international protection force for Palestinians. The multinational force, Hamas fears, would not be there to protect Palestinians from their Israeli occupiers, but to perform the proxy role of protecting Israel's interests that Dahlan's forces are longer able to carry out and to counter the resistance -- just as the multinational force was supposed to do in Lebanon after the July 2006 war.
Wise leaders in Israel and the United States would recognize that Hamas is not a passing phenomenon, and that they can never create puppet leaders who will be able to compete against a popular resistance movement. But there are no signs of wisdom: the US has now asked Israel to "loosen its grip" in the West Bank to try to give Abbas a boost. Although the Bush doctrine has suffered a blow, the Palestinian people have not won any great victory. The sordid game at their expense continues.
Ali Abunimah is cofounder of the online publication The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse .
PALESTINIAN BASIC LAW (updated and amended version, 2003)
TITLE SEVEN
PROVISIONS OF THE STATE OF EMERGENCY
Article (110)
1) The President of the National Authority may declare a state of emergency by a decree when there is a threat to national security caused by war, invasion, armed insurrection, or at a time of natural disaster for a period not to exceed thirty (30) days.
2)The emergency state may be extended for another period of thirty (30) days after the approval of two thirds of the Legislative Council Members. 3)The decree declaring a state of emergency shall state its purpose, the territory to which it applies, and its duration. 4)The Legislative Council shall have the right to review all or some of the procedures which have been implemented during the emergency state at the first session to be convened after the announcement of the state of emergency, or in the extension session whichever comes earlier, and to conduct the necessary questioning in this regard.
Amended Basic Law
Article (111)
It is not allowed, when declaring a state of emergency, to impose restrictions on the basic rights and freedoms, except to the level that is necessary to achieve the objective stated in the decree that announces the state of emergency Article
Article (112)
Any arrest resultant from the declaration of emergency situation shall be subject to the following minimum requirements:
1) Any detention done in accordance with the decree of the emergency situation, shall be reviewed by the Attorney General, or by the concerned court during a period not exceeding fifteen (15) days from the date of detention.
2 )The detained "arrested" individual shall have the right to appoint a lawyer of his choice. Article (113) The Palestinian Legislative Council shall not be dissolved or suspended during the emergency situation, nor shall the provisions of this chapter be suspended. Article (114) All provisions which regulate emergency states implemented in Palestine prior the implementation of this Basic Law shall be canceled, to include the mandate civil defense (Emergency) regulations issued in 1945.
