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Precarious hudna
by Khalid
Amayreh
Palestinian Authority (PA)
leaders, like most Palestinians, reacted coolly to the Israeli decision to
free some 424 Palestinian prisoners. PA Chairman Yasser Arafat described
the decision as a "scandalous deception".
"This is a scandalous
deception. They [Israel] arrested twice as many people during the past few
days, 239 in Hebron alone," said Arafat, while addressing supporters in
Ramallah on Monday.
Even the usually more
circumspect PA Premier Mahmoud Abbas criticised "this modus operandi of
deception and cheating" on Israel's part. "They are equivocating and
bluffing which means they are not sincere about implementing the roadmap,"
he said.
Indeed, among the 424
prisoners slated to be released on Wednesday, 82 had been convicted of
criminal offences, including car theft and entering Israel without
possessing a valid permit. Of the remaining 342 prisoners, 159 are
actually administrative detainees who have been detained without charge or
trial in violation of international law.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to
hold as many as 1,100 administrative detainees.
What is irking the
Palestinians most, however, is the fact that the jail terms of nearly all
the 183 convicted prisoners Israel has agreed to free have either expired
or are about to expire.
According to Issa Qaraqi,
director of the Palestinian Prisoner Club, of the 183 due to be freed,
there is only one prisoner whose jail term will expire a year from now,
with the jail terms of the rest (182) due to expire in a few days or a few
weeks.
Palestinian official Hisham
Abdul-Razzaq, who is in charge of the Prisoners Portfolio in the Abbas
government, is furious at the way Israel has dealt with the issue. "They
didn't even consult with us, they are ignoring us completely. The way they
deal with us is unacceptable," he said.
Israel's conspicuous parsimony
and perceived deception on an issue as sensitive and emotional as the
release of Palestinian prisoners seem to be galvanising the Palestinian
public anew.
Indeed, for the past two
weeks, Palestinian towns in the West Bank and Gaza have been witnessing
daily protests and demonstrations demanding the release of "all" the
prisoners, without discrimination due to political affiliation. While
Israel and the United States are the usual villains, the reformist
Palestinian government has been increasingly blamed for not doing enough
to free the prisoners and especially for "succumbing to Israeli
deception".
Sensing the growing public
impatience and indignation over the prisoners' plight as well as the
continuation of crippling Israeli restrictions within the West Bank, Abbas
reportedly decided to cancel a proposed meeting with Sharon, which was to
take place Wednesday.
The symbolic and desperate
step will not do much to soothe mounting public anger which is also
forcing the resistance groups, including Hamas, to "reconsider" the
suspension of "resistance activities," a reference to the three-month
hudna (or cease-fire) declared on 29 June.
According to Islamist sources
in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad plan to hold "intensive meetings" in Gaza
in the coming days to reevaluate their posture in light of Israel's
non-compliance with truce conditions, including the refusal to withdraw
the Israeli army from Palestinian population centres in the West Bank.
This stance, declared by the
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz on Monday 4 August, coincided with
what looks like a resumption of the Israeli policy of assassination
against Palestinian Intifada activists.
This week, the Israeli army
killed two Palestinians near Tulkarm in what eyewitnesses described as
"cold- blooded murder". The new killings brought to 10 the number of
Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by the Israeli army since the
conclusion of the truce on 29 June. As many as a hundred other
Palestinians were injured by Israeli army bullets in the same period. Last
week, an Israeli soldier in the northern West Bank "accidentally" opened
fire from a heavy machinegun mounted on an armoured personnel carrier on
Palestinian cars at an army roadblock, instantly killing a five-year-old
child and wounding his six and seven- year-old sisters.
In an apparent reaction to the
killing and other Israeli provocations, Palestinian guerillas on 3 August
opened fire on a settler car near the Jewish settlement of Gilo south of
Jerusalem, wounding four settlers. Capitalising on this seemingly isolated
incident, Israel demanded a "sustained and effective operation against
those involved in terrorism".
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,
the armed branch of Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying
it came as a warning to Israel against "continuing to hound and target our
fighters".
Israel had been pressuring the
PA to send some 20 activists from the armed resistance group to the desert
town of Jericho or to Gaza as a precondition for an Israeli pullback from
Ramallah which would ease Yasser Arafat's 19-month confinement.
Initially, Arafat agreed to
confine the 20 "wanted" activists to a single room to stave off a threat
by the Al- Aqsa Martyrs Brigade to break the hudna in case they
were transferred to Jericho.
However, 19 of the 20 men were
eventually quietly transferred to a Jericho prison in accordance with a
tacit understanding with representatives of the sponsors of the roadmap
(US, UN, EU and Russia).
Moreover, Israel's continued
construction of the "apartheid wall" in the West Bank, despite ostensibly
disingenuous American objections, is effectively killing the roadmap and
evaporating whatever modicum of hope among Palestinians that the Bush
administration will rein in Israel.
The Palestinians had hoped
that Bush's public criticisms of the wall, voiced during Abbas's visit to
the White House on 25 July, would be translated into a meaningful pressure
on Israel to stop construction on the wall. However, Bush's remarks during
his joint press conference with visiting Ariel Sharon last week, in which
he spoke of a "fence" rather than a "wall" showed that the American
president was adopting the Israeli position.
As Israel continues to build
the wall and create new realities on the ground, and with Israeli
roadblocks and checkpoints strangulating the daily lives of Palestinians,
a fresh incendiary atmosphere is being fostered in the occupied
territories.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2003 Al-Ahram Weekly & Khalid Amayreh
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