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Palestinian President Abbas calls for renewed peace negotiations with Israel

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during the 74th United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations on September 26, 2019 in New York City. Abbas renewed his pledge to hold parliamentary elections once he returns home, though he has made similar pledges in recent years. Palestinians last held elections in 2006. (UNGA photo)
Updated 27 September 2019
RAY HANANIA
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Palestinian President Abbas calls for renewed peace negotiations with Israel

  • Condemns recent attacks against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia
  • ‘We stand with the Kingdom and we support its decisions and position’
Updated 27 September 2019
RAY HANANIA

NEW YORK: A defiant Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that Palestine stands ready to negotiate for peace, despite a wave of racism and discriminatory apartheid policies from Israel’s government.

In a separate press briefing, meanwhile, Jordan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi brushed aside concerns of “a chill” between Jordan and Israel on the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement between the two countries. However, he restated his concerns about Israel’s actions and said the bilateral agreement is only one part of a comprehensive peace accord that has yet to be signed and must include Palestine.

In his address, Abbas accused Israel of grave breaches of international law and warned that unilateral actions such as the call to annex the West Bank area of the Jordan Valley could have dire consequences.

“It is our right to defend our rights by all possible means, regardless of consequences, while remaining committed to international law and combating terrorism,” Abbas said during a 26-minute speech in Arabic that was interrupted numerous times by applause from General Assembly delegates.

“Our hands will remain extended for peace through negotiations…anything else will be null and void if Israel or any Israeli government led by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, or any other Israeli leader, will follow this plan he announced…of annexation.”

Abbas, who was accompanied by Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour, negotiator Saed Erakat and advisers from Palestine’s UN mission, said that when he returns home he will seek to kick-start elections on a local level, in the West Bank, occupied Jerusalem and in the Gaza Strip, where he accused Hamas of seeking to undermine his government.

Only about 20 percent of General Assembly delegates were in the chamber on Thursday before the Palestinian president gave his speech, but many more took their seats when he was introduced and the chamber was more than half full when he spoke. Delegates from Israel and the US were present but not their ambassadors.

Abbas cited the widespread support Palestine receives from the majority of the UN General Assembly before criticizing the US indirectly for imposing unilateral decisions on the status of occupied Palestinian lands, and calling on the UN to grant Palestine “full member status.” It was granted non-member observer state status in 2012.

“Palestine is a state party to 110 international instruments and organizations,” he said. “Palestine has received the recognition of 140 states from around the world. It is chairing the Group of 77 in China.

“Palestine continues to assume its responsibilities…Palestine deserves to be a full member of the UN…After all we have suffered, we deserve to be a full member. Give me just one reason why we do not deserve to be a full member of the UN?”

Abbas gave details of Israel’s continued violations of international law, and of bullying by withholding funds collected from Palestinian workers and blocking international aid.

“In Jerusalem, the occupying power is waging a reckless, racist war against everything that is Palestinian, from the confiscation, the demolition of homes, to the assaults on clergymen, to the eviction of our citizens from their homes, to attempts to violate the sanctity of the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of Holy Sepulchre, to the legislation of racist laws,” he said.

“Similar laws (to Apartheid) in Israel discriminate against people based on their nationality and their race, and the world remains silent. They deny worshipers access to the holy places, which will lead to dangerous, unfathomable consequences. The results will be a religious war. We want to avoid such a war but Israel is making every effort to reach and wage such a war.”

After stating his firm support for the two-state solution, Abbas mildly ridiculed US President Donald Trump, indirectly, by mocking his much-hyped “deal of the century” for Israeli-Palestinian peace and the favoritism shown by the Trump administration toward Israel.

“It speaks to the so-called ‘deal of the century’ and peddles elusive solutions…it destroyed all possibilities to achieve peace...it is rejected,” he added to lengthy applause.

Abbas said the US president’s actions have “jeopardized” the two-state solution. The Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in December 2017 and moved the US Embassy there in May the following year. It also cut hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to the Palestinians, blaming the refusal of the Palestinian Authority to participate in the administration’s peace initiative

“This US policy has emboldened the government of the Israeli occupation to renege all signed agreements with us and its commitments to peace, depriving the peace process of any credibility and pushing large segments of the Palestinian people to lose hope in the possibility of a long-awaited peace. It has jeopardized the two-state solution,” Abbas said. “Now, many wonder if the two-state solution has become impossible. Can we have a one-state solution where everyone can live equally? Some are starting to wonder.”

He added: “I will not accept a one-state solution. I will not accept apartheid. We want a two-state solution based on international legitimacy.”

Abbas also renewed the call for an international peace conference.

“We have never missed an opportunity to hold serious negotiations with the Israeli side,” he said. “We have constructively engaged with all initiatives. They say Palestine does not want peace or negotiations but we say we extend our hands to peace because peace will only be able to be achieved through negotiations and negotiations alone.

“But has Netanyahu ever agreed to negotiations behind closed doors on a bilateral basis, a multilateral basis? He never accepted any negotiations. We have both received several invitations from several countries to meet and start the negotiation process. He has rejected that.”

Abbas went on to denounce terrorism and political violence, specifically referencing the recent attacks on two oil fields in Saudi Arabia that have provoked an international confrontation with Iran.

“We affirm our firm position and condemnation against terrorism,” he said. “We always say we can relinquish anything, but we will never relinquish our fight against terrorism. We have adopted a protocol alongside more than 80 countries to combat terrorism around the world.

“We condemn the recent attacks against the oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. We stand with the Kingdom and we support its decisions and position.”

Jordanian Foreign Minister Safadi echoed many of points made by Abbas and said Jordan has been encouraged by the announcement by many UN members that they will recommit to funding the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees. He added that political rhetoric from candidates during the recent Israeli campaign that they will annex the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank has caused great concern in Jordan.

“The path to a solution is clear,” he said. “Comprehensive peace is a strategic Arab choice. We want a peace to be lasting and to be comprehensive and it has to address the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

“We have a peace treaty with Israel…but statements about plans to annex a third of the West Bank will affect the treaty. We are committed to our peace treaty. We are committed to peace. Our region does not need more conflict and more crisis. We remain committed but what we need to look at is the overall picture. The overall picture has not been very promising.

“How do we go forward? How do we create hope? How do we create credible and serious negotiations for the two-state solution? … Lack of progress on the Palestinian front affects all of this. We are committed to peace but peace has to be comprehensive.”

Several heads of state talked at the UN about the need to recognize Palestine and pursue a two-state solution, including Bulgarian President Rumen Radev. He also denounced the rise in antisemitism and proudly described how his country resisted the Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II.

Topics: Middle East Palestine Israel Mahmoud Abbas UN UNGA UN General Assembly UN General Assembly 2019

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Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival

Updated 9 sec ago
Reuters
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Film’s ‘search for Palestine’ takes center stage at Cairo festival

  • The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints
Updated 9 sec ago
Reuters

Cairo — EGY
Cairo, Nov 15, 2024 : The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip — through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints — takes center stage in director Rashid Masharawi’s latest film, which debuted at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival.
“It’s a search for home, a search for Palestine, for ourselves,” Masharawi told AFP on Wednesday after the world premiere of his new film “Passing Dreams.”
It kicked off the Middle East’s oldest film festival, which opened with a traditional dabkeh dance performance by a troupe from the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Masharawi’s film follows Sami, a 12-year-old boy, and his uncle and cousin on a quest to find his beloved pet pigeon, which has flown away from their home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Told that pigeons always return to their birthplace, the family attempts to “follow the bird home” — driving a small red camper van from Qalandia camp and Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Israeli city of Haifa.
Their odyssey, Masharawi says, becomes a “deeply symbolic journey” that represents an inversion of the family’s original displacement from Haifa during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel — a period Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”
“It’s no coincidence we’re in places that have a deep significance to Palestinian history,” the director said, speaking to AFP after a more intimate second screening on Thursday.


The bittersweet tale is a far cry from Masharawi’s other project featured at the Cairo film festival: “From Ground Zero.”
The anthology, supervised by the veteran director, showcases 22 shorts by filmmakers in Gaza, shot against the backdrop of war.
For that project, Masharawi — who was the first Palestinian director officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival for his film “Haifa” in 1996 — “wanted to act as a bridge between global audiences” and filmmakers on the ground.
In April, he told AFP the anthology intended to expose “the lie of self-defense,” which he said was Israel’s justification for its devastating military campaign in Gaza.
The war broke out following Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel has since killed more than 43,700 people in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry.
“As filmmakers, we must document this through the language of cinema,” Masharawi said, adding that filmmaking “defends our land far better than any military or political speeches.”


Speaking to an enthralled audience, the 62-year-old director — donning his signature fedora — called for change in Palestinian filmmaking.
“Our cinema can’t always only be a reaction to Israeli actions,” he said.
“It must be the action itself.”
A self-taught director born in a Gaza refugee camp before moving to Ramallah, Masharawi is intimately familiar with the “obstacles to filmmaking under occupation” — including “separation walls, barriers, who’s allowed to go where.”
Like the family in the film, “you never know if authorities will let you get to your location,” he said, especially since Masharawi refuses “on principle” to seek permits from Israeli authorities.
Instead, his crew often resorts to makeshift schemes — including “smuggling in” actors from the West Bank who do not have permission to visit Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
“If you ask (Israeli authorities) for permission to shoot in Jerusalem, you’re giving them legitimacy that Jerusalem is theirs,” he said Thursday to raucous applause from audience members, many of them draped in Palestinian keffiyehs.
Organizers canceled the Cairo film festival last year after calls for the suspension of artistic and cultural activities across the Arab world in solidarity with Palestinians.
But this week, keffiyehs have dotted the red carpet, while audience members wore pins bearing the Palestinian flag and the map of historic Palestine.
Festival president Hussein Fahmy voiced solidarity “with our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon,” where Israel’s bombing campaign and ground offensive have killed 3,360 people.
Pride of place, Fahmy said, has been given to Palestinian cinema, with a handful of films showing during the festival and a competition to crown a winner among the 22 filmmakers in “From Ground Zero.”
vid-bha/smw

Topics: Middle East

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Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call

Updated 45 min 8 sec ago
AFP
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Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call

  • Israeli drone fires two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a ‘very heavy’ strike
  • Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops
Updated 45 min 8 sec ago
AFP

BEIRUT: An air strike hit the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs on Friday, sending plumes of grey smoke into the sky after the Israeli military called for people to evacuate, AFPTV images showed.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli drone fired two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a “very heavy” strike that levelled a building near municipal offices.
The evacuation order posted on X by Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents to leave, warning of imminent strikes.
“All residents in the southern suburbs, specifically ... in the Ghobeiry area, you are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah,” Adraee said in his post.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately.”
His post included maps identifying buildings in the area near Bustan High School.
Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians from the Hezbollah stronghold, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.
NNA also reported pre-dawn strikes on the southern city of Nabatieh.
The Israeli military said it had struck “command centers” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and launchers used to fire rockets at Israel on Thursday.
It said that over the past day, the air force had struck more than 120 targets across Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities, command centers and a large number of rocket launchers.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities say that more than 3,380 people have been killed since October last year, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire.
The conflict has cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Lebanon Israel Beirut

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Israel’s warfare in Gaza consistent with genocide, UN committee finds

Updated 15 November 2024
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Israel’s warfare in Gaza consistent with genocide, UN committee finds

  • Committee’s report states ‘Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life’
  • It raises ‘serious concern’ about Israel’s use of AI to choose targets ‘with minimal human oversight,’ resulting in ‘overwhelming’ casualties among women and children
Updated 15 November 2024
Ephrem Kossaify

NEW YORK: Israel’s methods of warfare in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a weapon, mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions deliberately inflicted on Palestinians in the territory, are consistent with the characteristics of genocide, the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices said in a report published on Thursday.

“Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life: food, water and fuel,” the committee said.

Statements from Israeli authorities and the “systematic and unlawful” blocking of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza make clear “Israel’s intent to instrumentalize life-saving supplies for political and military gains,” it added.

The committee, the full title of which is the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, was established by the UN General Assembly in 1968 to monitor the human rights situation in the occupied Golan heights, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. It comprises the permanent representatives to the UN from three member states, currently Malaysia, Senegal and Sri Lanka, who are appointed by the president of the General Assembly.

Its latest report, which covers the period from October 2023 to July 2024, mostly focuses on the effects of the war in Gaza on the rights of Palestinians.

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the committee said.

The “extensive” Israeli bombing campaign has wiped out essential services in Gaza and caused an “environmental catastrophe” that will have “lasting health impacts,” it adds.

By early 2024, the report says, more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives, equivalent to two nuclear bombs, had been dropped on Gaza, causing “massive” destruction, the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation and toxic pollution. This has created a “lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come,” the committee said.

The report notes “serious concern” about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence technology to choose its targets “with minimal human oversight,” the consequence of which has been “overwhelming” numbers of deaths of women and children. This underscores “Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” it adds.

In addition, Israel’s escalating censorship of the media and targeting of journalists are “deliberate efforts” to block global access to information, the committee found, and the report states that social media companies have disproportionately removed “pro-Palestinian content” in comparison with posts inciting violence against Palestinians.

The committee also condemned the continuing “smear campaign” and other attacks on the reputation of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and the wider UN.

“This deliberate silencing of reporting, combined with disinformation and attacks on humanitarian workers, is a clear strategy to undermine the vital work of the UN, sever the lifeline of aid still reaching Gaza, and dismantle the international legal order,” it said.

It called on all states to honor their legal obligations to stop and prevent violations of international law by Israel, including the system of apartheid that operates in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to hold Israeli authorities accountable for their actions.

“Upholding international law and ensuring accountability for violations rests squarely on member states,” the committee said.

Failure to do this weakens “the very core of the international legal system and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing atrocities to go unchecked.”

The committee will officially present its report to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on Monday.

Israel’s attorney general tells Netanyahu to reexamine extremist security minister’s role

Updated 15 November 2024
Reuters
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Israel’s attorney general tells Netanyahu to reexamine extremist security minister’s role

  • National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir criticized for interfering in police matters
Updated 15 November 2024
Reuters

JERUSALEM, Nov 14 : Israel’s Attorney General told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reevaluate the tenure of his far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his apparent interference in police matters, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday.
The news channel published a copy of a letter written by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in which she described instances of “illegitimate interventions” in which Ben-Gvir, who is tasked with setting general policy, gave operational instructions that threaten the police’s apolitical status.
“The concern is that the government’s silence will be interpreted as support for the minister’s behavior,” the letter said.
Officials at the Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
Ben-Gvir, who heads a small ultra-nationalist party in Netanyahu’s coalition, wrote on social media after the letter was published: “The attempted coup by (the Attorney General) has begun. The only dismissal that needs to happen is that of the Attorney General.”

Topics: War on Gaza Itamar Ben Gvir Benjamin Netanyahu Israel

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Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem

Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem

Updated 15 November 2024
Arab News
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Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem

  • Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities
Updated 15 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: Israeli forces demolished the office of the Palestinian Al-Bustan Association in occupied East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Silwan, whose residents are under threat of Israeli eviction orders. 

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Culture condemned on Thursday the demolition of Al-Bustan by Israeli bulldozers and a military police force. 

The ministry said that “(Israeli) occupation’s arrogant practices against cultural and community institutions in Palestine, and specifically in Jerusalem, are targeting the Palestinian identity, in an attempt to obliterate it.” 

Founded in 2004, the Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities alongside hosting meetings for diplomatic delegations and Western journalists who came to learn about controversial Israeli policies in the area. 

Al-Bustan said in a statement that it served 1,500 people in Silwan, most of them children, who enrolled in educational, cultural and artistic workshops. In addition to the Al-Bustan office, Israeli forces also demolished a home in the neighborhood belonging to the Al-Qadi family. 

Located less than a mile from Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s southern ancient wall, Silwan has a population of 65,000 Palestinians, some of them under threat of Israeli eviction orders.  

In past years, Israeli authorities have been carrying out archaeological digging under Palestinian homes in Silwan, resulting in damage to these buildings, in search of the three-millennial “City of David.” 

Topics: Silwan Jerusalem Israel Occupation

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