issue no 92

| 1

Issue No : 92 21st May, 2014

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1


PalestinianPalestinianP CulturalCulturalC Organization MalaysiaMalaysiaM

2 |


Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

P7P4

P11

FEATURED STORY

ARTICLEMalaysian events held in solidarity

with Palestinian hunger strikers

Hamas and Fatah take tentative steps to cement reconciliation

Bahar: The issue of the prisoners is always high on the resistance agenda

Euro-Mid calls for int’l emergency meeting on administrative detainees

Obscuring the Nakba with 1967 rhetoric

P5

P9

| 3



CONTENTS

News of Palestine

Articles & Analyses

Obscuring the Nakba with 1967 rhetoric 11

Hamas and Fatah take tentative steps to cement reconciliation 4

Euro-Mid calls for int’l emergency meeting on administrative detainees 5

Hunger strikers on the threshold of death, IPS paying no heed 6

Bahar: The issue of the prisoners is always high on the resistance agenda 7

International campaign for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails 8

Malaysia & Palestinian Cause

Malaysian events held in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers 9

PCOM: No one has the mandate to concede the right of return 10

PCOM’s News

4 |



News of Palestine

15/5/2014

Tayseer Jubeh’s news-stand in downtown Ra-mallah this week began stocking titles unseen in the city for the past seven years.Falasteen, a newspaper affiliated with Hamas ar-rived on Saturday; Risala, another Hamas title, went on sale on Monday with the front-page headline: “Peace be with you, West Bank”.“People want to see the news from Gaza, under-stand what is being talked about,” says Mr Ju-reh, who is selling about 50 copies of each paper daily.Newspapers from the West Bank, including al-Quds and al-Ayyam, have also sold well in Gaza.The lifting of mutual media bans marks an early, tentative sign that a Hamas-Fatah reconcilia-tion deal agreed last month is starting to deliver change on the ground.Politicians from both factions say they are on schedule to agree an interim government within three weeks, the deadline set as part of the rec-onciliation accord. Once in place, the cabinet

Hamas and Fatah take tentative steps to cement reconciliation

would begin preparations for the Palestinians’ first elections since 2006, to be held within six months.The two rival groups overcame their bitter di-visions at the end of March as US-sponsored peace talks with Israel headed towards collapse.Palestinians greeted the news of a truce with a mixture of optimism and scepticism. Similar pacts agreed in Cairo in 2011 and Doha in 2012 later unravelled. However, the latest deal has a better chance of success, Palestinian leaders and analysts say, because of the changed regional and economic realities both parties face.Hassan Yousef, an MP with the Palestinian Na-tional Council representing Hamas, said that his movement would “work hard” with Fatah to achieve reconciliation. “The Palestinian cause is in a critical and dangerous period,” he said on Monday, as Hamas leaders held meetings with Mr Abbas.

Source: Financial Times

| 5



Euro-Mid calls for int’l emergency meeting on administrative detainees

Euro-Mid, the Geneva-based human rights organization, has called on all signatories to the Geneva Conventions to hold an emergency meeting to dis-cuss the conditions of Palestinians held in administrative detention in Israeli jails, who have been on hunger strike for 25 days.Euro-Mid in a press release on Sunday said that the Fourth Geneva Conven-tion did not approve of the detention of civilians under administrative deten-tion unless in extraordinary security circumstances.The international human rights observer organization drew the attention to the fact that the so-called Israeli military governor had passed 5971 adminis-trative detention orders in the period from 2004 till the end of 2010.It said that according to international laws and conventions the administra-tive detainee should at least be informed with reasons for his detention, given a chance to defend himself before court, and considered as innocent until proven otherwise.

Source:PIC

6 |



Hunger strikers on the threshold of death, IPS paying no heed

The leadership of the Palestin-ian administrative hunger strike and Minister of ex-Detainees Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said on Saturday the Israeli Prison Ser-vice (IPS) is turning blind eyes and deaf ears to prisoners’ de-mands and exacerbated health status.According to the hunger strike leadership, the fact that no ne-gotiation sessions have been scheduled so far reveals IPS’ attempts to crack down on Pal-estinian detainees.The leadership further con-firmed in their fifth statement: “IPS has been dragging their feet vis-à-vis our demands de-spite the very critical stage we have fallen in.”“Our situation is far more alarming then the persecution of Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime. Administrative deten-tion is taking away our lives with no legitimate reasons, generating an ever-lasting ag-ony among our families, chil-dren and wives.”“We are proud to partake in the hunger strike. Yet the result has not been up to our sacrifices and aspirations so far,” the leadership declared.“We called on all local and Arab media to allot one hour time-span to cover the hunger strike. We emailed the Minister of Endowment and called on him to allocate Friday sermons to prisoners’ issue until the

strike is off, but all to no avail.”“We also called on other ministers and officials to earmark lectures, solidarity campaigns, and stu-dents’ activities, including candle marches and sit-ins, but none of this turned up a reality.”The statement further slammed PA security apparatuses for tar-geting the hunger strikers with ar-rests and called on PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to ensure the demonstrators’ protection. “We will keep on going. Victory looms in the horizon. We will either die or win,” the statement concluded. Along the same context, the Min-ister of Ex-Detainees’ Affairs in Ramallah Issa Qaraqe, said a state of alert is taking place inside of Israeli jails in anticipation of pro-jected deaths among Palestinian hunger strikers.Qaraqe said in a statement on Sat-urday security drillings are super-vised by Israeli security officials in coordination with IPS.The instructions handed to all prisons and hospitals, where Pal-estinian hunger strikers are held, called for the complete shutdown of the strikers’ cells, including all gates and windows and denial of

any access out of or into the cells, even for urgent medical check-ups under any spur-of-the-moment pretext.According to Qaraqe such se-curity regulations are flagrant breaches of humanitarian de-crees. To deny the medical crew access into the cell for anticipated emergency cases among the hunger strikers has tragic implications as the war-dens will not be able to figure out the case.In Qaraqe’s view such poli-cies are obvious signs of Is-raeli’s recklessness towards prisoners’ demands and their attempts to thwart the strike by all means, even by taking away the lives of the prisoners if needed.Qaraqe called for an urgent political move to save the lives of Palestinian hunger strikers, who have been with-out food for the 24th day.Qaraqe said meetings are to be held with European foreign consuls and ambassadors next Monday so as to find a way out of an anticipated humani-tarian tragedy among the hun-ger strikers.The minister warned of an of-ficial crime being currently committed against Palestinian prisoners, many among whom joined the strike in solidarity with their administrative fel-lows.

Source: AHRAR NETWORK

| 7



First deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC) Ahmed Bahar said that the issue of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails would always be a top prior-ity for the Palestinian resistance, which considers all options to extract their freedom.Bahar made his remarks on Saturday in a sit-in organized in solidarity with the hun-ger striking prisoners outside the Red Cross headquarters in the Gaza Strip.Bahar urged the families of prisoners to exercise patience and not to give up hope of seeing their relatives because the Palestinian people and their brave resistance would never forsake or forget them.“The brave Palestinian resistance will force this occupation to liberate our prisoners as it has done during the previous deal ‘Wafa Al-Ahrar,’” the lawmaker stated.The deputy speaker slammed the UN and international human rights groups for not taking action regarding the issue of the Palestinian administrative prisoners.“Where are human rights groups? Where is Ban Ki-moon? Our prisoners are jailed with no indictment at the pretext of secret files, and most of them are elderly people and patients whose administrative detention is extended every six months,” he said.

Source: PIC

Bahar: The issue of the prisoners is always high on the resistance agenda

8 |



International campaign for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails

An International campaign to support Palestinian prisoners, hashtag #Water_and_Salt, launched Fri-day the 9th of May 2014. The campaign is in support of prisoners who are in hunger strike (for the past 18 days) especially those detained on administrative basis without trial. “Denial of salt is a continuation of the punishments against hunger strikers, and despite the grave danger it imposes on the lives of the detainees, has been institutionalised by the Israeli Supreme Court. In 2004, the Israeli Supreme Court denied a petition by Adalah: The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and several other Palestinian and Israeli NGOs [non-governmental organ-isations that demanded the IPS provide salt on a daily basis to hunger-striking prisoners as its denial breaches the constitutional rights of the prisoner.” – Addameer. The campaign includes an electronic movement using twitter and social media websites. Different organisations and individuals across Europe are taking part and over 100 languages will be used including English, Arabic, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Danish, Spanish, Greek and Bosnian languages.It was launched by the General Secretariat of Palestinians Europe in conference and started Friday evening at 8pm London time, 9pm central Europe time. It is titled “Salt and Water” and the main hashtag is #Water_and_Salt. The campaign seeks to break the silence and expose the illegal practice of Israel against Palestinian prisoners who are held without trials for long periods of time. It also seeks to engage the human rights organisations worldwide to meet their obligations and act to end Israeli policies. Additionally, it aims at pressuring these organisations to visit and investigate the conditions of Palestinian prisoners. Parallel to the campaign information, reports and news stories will be published across the web, especially via Facebook and Twitter. The campaign escalates today Sunday, 11th May 2014 when media outlets join to raise awareness of the prisoners’ plight.

Source: UFREE NETWORK

| 9



18/5/2014

A series of solidarity events were held by several Malaysian hu-man rights organizations and institutions coinciding with the 66th anniversary of al-Nakba.An International Conference for the Defense of al-Aqsa Mosque was held by a number of Ma-laysian organizations, namely “Amal Malaysia”, “Muslim Care”, “Cakna Palestin”, “Pales-tine Action Coordination Secre-tariat” and “MAPIM”.Dozens of representatives for human rights institutions and or-ganizations from different coun-tries, including Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, and Indonesia, partook in the conference.The conference addressed prac-tical ways to support the Pales-tinian cause and the mechanisms needed for a fruitful cooperation

Malaysian events held in solidarity with Palestinian hunger strikers

Malaysia & Palestinian Cause

between the concerned institutions.A mass rally was staged on Saturday night (17th May) as part of the conference, where hundreds of activists revealed their unyielding concern over the administrative hunger strikers. “Mai and Malh” (“Water and Salt”) was among the slogans carried by the confer-ence participants in solidarity with the Palestinian hunger strikers.Sheikh Abdul Hadi Awang, President of the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), acclaimed the steadfastness and self-abnegation of the Palestinian prisoners. He also hailed the Palestinian resistance and praised its willingness to restore prisoners’ freedom, as it has done many times before.Muslim Imran, chairman of the Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia (PCOM) called, during a speech delivered to the masses, for the need to stage more solidarity events so as to promote the hunger strike and pressure Israeli occupation to meet the prisoners’ demands and halt their arbitrary detention.140 administrative prisoners, among many other Palestinian de-tainees, have been on an open-ended hunger strike for 25 uninter-rupted days, in what came to be known as the Battle of the Empty Stomachs, to protest Israeli arbitrary detention policy carried out against Palestinians with neither charge nor trial.

Source: PIC

10 |



PCOM: No one has the mandate to concede the right of return

The Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia (PCOM) said that the Pal-estinian people are com-memorating today the 66th anniversary of Nakbah (Catastrophe) day; the day when “their land was sto-len, thousands of innocents were massacred, hundreds of thousands were forced out of their land in a heinous act of ethnic cleansing, and the rest of Palestine’s residents re-mained under the apartheid Israeli occupation which in-flicted mass terror and per-secution upon the Palestin-ians”.In a press release published on Thursday (15/5), PCOM said that “Palestinians com-memorate this sad anni-versary this year at a time when the occupation has maximized its settlements construction, whereby over 15000 units were built since last May; one third of them were built in Jerusalem un-der the guise of negotia-tions”.PCOM warned of the dan-gers surrounding Al-Aqsa Mosque that is “facing spa-tial and temporal division by the Israeli rabbis and of-ficials who are trying to es-tablish a new reality on the ground through an organized daily storming and closure of the mosque exploiting the international silence and Arab preoccupation with in-ternal problems”.

On the issue of Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, PCOM said that “the Nakbah anniversary today coincides with the 22nd day of Pal-estinian administrative detainees’ hunger strike, who are protesting their unjust detention without trial and demanding their very basic human rights to be fulfilled”.“We salute the steadfastness of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and we urge all the free people of the world to stand by them in their ongoing hunger strike battle”, the statement addedPCOM also stressed on the Palestinian refugees’ right of return as “an inalienable individual right that no one has the mandate to con-cede under any circumstances”.“We completely reject any concession on a single inch of the Pal-estinian historical land or any of its holy Islamic and Christian shrines”, PCOM affirmed.On the reconciliation file, PCOM urged the Palestinian factions to achieve the reconciliation - despite the external threats and pressures - on the basis of political partnership and the preservation of the Palestinian rights and constants to stand up to Israeli aggression in a united and solid domestic front, according to the statement.PCOM appreciated the efforts made by all governments, NGOs, me-dia and people who extended their support to the Palestinian cause by all means and urged them to continue and intensify their support at this “critical stage of the Palestinian national struggle”.

Source: PCOM

PCOM’s News

| 11



Articles & Analyses

Obscuring the Nakba with 1967 rhetoric

Reiterating the right to memory has sustained Palestinian tenacity towards reclaiming their land and the right of return. However, their adamant statements on each Nakba commemoration are threatened by the increasing compromise trajectory echoed by Palestinian lead-ers who seek to prioritise 1967 over the 1948 imposition of settler-colonialism in Palestine. The latter characterises Israel’s perpetual state terror and gradual destruction of Palestinian freedom.The adopted stance, which exhibits the now established dependency upon achieving recognition from oppressors as opposed to attain-ing assertive support from within Palestine, threatens a further divi-sion between the leadership and the people in relation to memory. In light of the suspended negotiations and efforts towards implement-ing the unity government, diplomatic alternatives may prove to be a conspiracy against memory and the Palestinian right of return.Within the wider framework encompassing the hypothetical two-state solution rhetoric, 1967 has, erroneously, become synonymous with an allegedly permanent solution, despite the associated frag-mentation of memory and repudiation of Israel’s settler-colonial plans. The normalisation of atrocities, a common feature of UN propaganda discerned within its multitude of statements and resolu-tions, may well become incorporated within the discourse of a lead-ership that trades the remnants of Palestine while seeking legitimacy from the coloniser. In this regard, 1967 paves the way for oblivion that encompasses the ideological origins bequeathing the contempo-rary violation inflicted upon Palestinians.The current political framework and its insistence upon the 1967 borders repudiates the importance of memory associated with the

By: Ramona Wadi

12 |



1948-onwards Nakba, ren-dering Palestinian leader-ship complicit in dependence through association with impe-rialist concepts of what should constitute a future Palestinian state. Implicit in the frame-work is a silent acquiescence to the settler-colonial state’s refusal to recognise the Pales-tinian right of return, as well as the acceptance of a fabricated state that has perfected its in-stitutional violence against the indigenous population. In such a scenario, the additional sliv-ers of memory inflicted upon Palestinians will have to con-tend with the elusiveness al-ready characteristic of the right of return, which is the epitome of silent brutality perpetrated by Israel and condoned by in-ternational efforts to sustain the dependence and control of Palestinian refugees.While Palestinians have prov-en themselves to be capable of resilience in the wake of con-tinuous Zionist propaganda denying Israel’s destruction of both territory and people, Pal-estinian leaders have commit-ted themselves to facilitating

distortion and promoting a se-ries of ineffective declarations that ridicule resistance and liberation for all Palestinians into a travesty of exclusionary agreements weakening the col-lective.The futility of UN resolutions and the applicability of inter-national law has long been recognised, yet Palestinians are still coerced, through their leadership, into a series of im-plorations that enhance the conditions for perpetual exile. Return is incompatible with the politics of acquiescence, hence the enshrined right to resistance should take precedence over any agreement that recognises the existence of Israel to the detriment of all Palestinians.The compromise upon 1967 in-stigates differentiation within a history that necessitates recla-mation of its origin. Divesting the Nakba of its centrality to the narrative accommodates an imperialist perspective of what comprises Palestinian memory while strengthening the fabri-cated Zionist legitimacy serv-ing as the foundations for the settler-colonial state.

While Palestinians have prov-

en themselves to be capable

of resilience in the wake of

continuous Zionist propa-

ganda denying Israel’s de-

struction of both territory and

people, Palestinian leaders

have committed themselves

to facilitating distortion and

promoting a series of ineffec-

tive declarations that ridicule

resistance and liberation for

all Palestinians into a travesty

of exclusionary agreements

weakening the collective.

| 13


Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 13


PalestinianPalestinianP CulturalCulturalC Organization MalaysiaMalaysiaM

issue no 92

Documents

palestinian prisoners

palestinian leaders

hamas leaders

cabinet hamas

hamas title

hamas ar

tentative steps

palestinian national