Open Letter to the French President by a Palestinian Journalist in Ramallah (Gatestone Institute): Dear Mr. President, many Palestinians nearly fell off their chairs upon seeing their president march at the front row of a rally in your capital to protest against terrorism and assaults on freedom of the media. Undoubtedly, you are unaware that President Abbas is personally responsible for punishing Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize him or express their views in public. Every day we see that the Western media, including French newspapers and magazines, does not care about such violations unless they are committed by Israel. Palestinians like me will now pay a heaver price because Abbas has been emboldened and will now step up his assaults. France will be helping to establish another corrupt and repressive Arab dictatorship - one that glorifies and rewards terrorists no different from those who carried out the Paris attacks. I hope now your Excellency understands why I am too scared to reveal my identity. Both the PA and Hamas know that they can continue to violate the human rights of their people because the international community simply does not care about Palestinians who are being targeted by their own governments. The international community cares about human rights violations only when Israel could be held responsible. Last week, Hamas authorities arrested several Fatah leaders in Gaza and stripped them to their underwear, forcing them to stand in the cold for several hours. According to Palestinian writer Hisham Sakallah, Hamas interrogators also severely beat the Fatah officials with plastic hoses. During the past two weeks, the PA has summoned for interrogation more than 20 Palestinians over their postings on Facebook. Most are university students suspected of posting comments in favour of Hamas or criticizing the PA. In recent weeks, PA security forces in the West Bank have arrested more than 25 university students on charges of criticizing Palestinian leaders in Ramallah or voicing support for Hamas. Fathi Hamad, a former Hamas interior minister, has been running secret armed cells to carry out attacks against Fatah and Western targets in Gaza over the past few months, in part to thwart any moves toward unity between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Sources said the cells were responsible for a series of bombings at the homes of 13 senior Fatah officials in Gaza two months ago, the bombing at the French Cultural Centre in Gaza City, and, most likely, the bombing last week near the home of unity government spokesman Ihab Bsiso. (Times of Israel) Escalating tension between Hamas and Fatah has pushed their unity government to the brink of collapse, harming efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip and complicating Palestinian statehood ambitions. Five months after Operation Protective Edge, Gazas residents are still occasionally jolted by explosions. But the blasts now are most often the result of the internal conflict tearing at the fabric of Palestinian politics. Hamas, which violently seized Gaza in a brief civil war in 2007, remains the dominant force in the territory -- even after it agreed last June to a reconciliation government. That governments inability to fully carry out its work has stalled rebuilding in Gaza, where around 100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the 50 days of fighting last summer, and undermined a unilateral Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations. In recent weeks the Hamas-Fatah stand-off has spiralled into violence, although it is not always clear who is behind it. On Friday, bombs exploded at a major Gaza bank used by the unity government to pay most of the 70,000 public sector workers hired before Hamas took over the coastal enclave. At the weekend, pictures emerged of Fatah activists in Gaza who said they had been stripped, beaten and left in freezing temperatures by Hamas security men. Hamas, meanwhile, accuses Fatah of rounding up its party members in the West Bank, where the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority prevails. Whenever Hamas is with its back against the wall, it reacts with some fighting, said Mattia Toaldo, a Middle East expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, although he described that as a worst-case scenario that remained unlikely for now. Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, who is based in the West Bank, says his technocrat government cannot begin to administer Gaza until Hamas fully relinquishes control, including over border crossings with Egypt and Israel. But there is no sign of that happening.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 22:14:16 +0000