Palestinians demand 'right to resist' clause in pact

[TriWooOx]

Quote:Hamas along with the Damascus-based Palestinian resistance groups have rejected the Egyptian proposal for a unity deal unless it mentions the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation.

"The Egyptian reconciliation proposal lacks a political vision concerning the conflict (with Israel) and the aggression against our people," said the spokesman for Palestinian groups based in Damascus, Khaled Abdel Majid, quoted by AFP on Thursday.

"The Palestinian factions will not sign the accord... unless the text includes the principles and the rights of Palestinians, especially that of resisting the Zionist occupation," he went on to say. "We urge all Palestinian groups and national personalities to act rapidly and take the measures necessary to preserve the Palestinian cause from the dangers that threaten it, and to insist on the historic rights of our people."

Khaled Abdel Majid also noted that the deal proposed by Egypt should also address the dangers of 'Judaization' and 'permanent aggression,' which threaten al-Quds (Jerusalem), as well as the right of return for the Palestinian refugees.

Hamas and Fatah have long been wrangling with each other over substantial discords that have led do real bottlenecks in mending fences and repairing the internal Palestinian divisions. Meanwhile, Egypt has been struggling for months to get rival Palestinian factions to sign a reconciliation deal. The latest Cairo proposal aims to lay the groundwork for new presidential and legislative elections next summer.

Ever since Hamas won an outright majority in 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, the two factions have pursued bitter rivalry featuring sporadic fighting and tit-for-tat arrests. Mutual hostilities boiled over in the summer of 2007, when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Fatah faction.

Since then, Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip, while Fatah has continued to control the West Bank from Ramallah. Further complicating the situation, Israel and Egypt, with the blessing of the Palestinian Authority, have both sealed their borders with the Gaza Strip, effectively cutting off the coastal enclave from the rest of the world.

http://presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=108758&am...ionid=351020202

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Quote:Rising tension in Palestine between Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, and their political opponents - the Western-backed Fatah - has led to the possible postponement of an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation pact between the two parties.


By Karl Dowling

The recent escalation in tension surrounds a decision by the United Nations Human Rights Council’ to postpone voting on a report into the Gaza conflict earlier this year. South African judge Richard Goldstone led the UN fact-finding mission to Gaza and presented the team’s final report to the Human Rights Council last month. The report concluded that , both Israel and Palestinian groups committed war crimes and recommended that both parties should launch investigations into the allegations, under the supervision of independent international experts.

The Rights Council was expected to vote on the report last week, but postponed the vote under pressure from the US. Ian Kelly, US State Department spokesman, said such a delay could help contribute to creating an atmosphere favourable to the ongoing peace talks between Israel and Palestine. "All of our energies right now are being employed to move this process forward, and we want to clear the decks of any issues that might impede our progress towards this", he said.

In a surprise move, the Fatah led Palestinian Authority (PA) supported the call for deferral.
Hamas has spearheaded the pronouncements of consternation and betrayal at the PA’s decision to delay the vote. The feeling among the Palestinian people of Gaza was evident on Wednesday when crowds gathered to throw shoes at a defaced picture of PA leader, President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas defended his decision to back the deferral of the vote on Sunday, saying he wanted to secure broad support for the document.


“Shocked”
Speaking to RNW’s Karl Dowling, Dr. Haytham Manna, spokesperson for the Arab Commission for Human Rights, said that the Palestinian people were shocked by the PA’s actions and that many Palestinians were calling the move a “crime against victims”.

Abbas, however, has denied issuing instructions to the Palestinian delegation at the Human Rights Council that allowed for the deferral of the vote. Media reports claim that Abbas plans to establish a commission of inquiry into what led the PA to request the deferral. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the decision was made during a telephone call between Abbas and Yasser Abed Rabbo, who serves as secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee.

Asked whether recent events surrounding the Goldstone report have derailed the Palestinian reconciliation deal, Dr. Manna said the deal could survive if the PA had “the intention to make a real investigation into what happened in Geneva […] If not, there is a real crisis.”

Reconciliation talks
Hostilities grew between the rival Palestinian factions following parliamentary elections in 2006. Hamas won the election and tensions reached fever pitch in 2007 when they drove Fatah out of Gaza in bloody scenes that threatened to ignite a full-blown civil war. Two years later, remaining points of contention between the parties centre on the issue of establishing a unity government, security responsibilities and how to deal with Israel. A meeting between rival Palestinian groups, scheduled to take place in Cairo later this month was expected to result in the signing of a reconciliation pact.

Egyptian mediators have been working closely with the Palestinian national movement in a yearlong diplomatic process. However, recent developments appear to have postponed the process. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri declared "The problem is not in the Egyptian paper (for reconciliation), the problem is in the shameful Fatah position over the Goldstone report”.

"Hamas told Egypt that the popular shock caused by the Palestinian Authority's delaying of the vote on the Goldstone report was a blow to their efforts and sabotaged the atmosphere for such an event," a Palestinian official close to the talks told Reuters in Gaza.

Fatah have hit back at these claims by accusing Hamas of using the Gaza report as an excuse to torpedo a unity deal.

12 Oct 2009

http://www.rnw.nl/int-justice/article/pale...ion-pact-stalls