[ 22/05/2011 - 10:01 PM ] RAMALLAH, (PIC)– Dr. Abedl-Sattar Qasem, political science professor at al-Najah university in Nablus, said that the occupation wants a reconciliation tailored to its liking and which is based on resisting the resistance, but not a reconciliation that unites Palestinians and props up resistance.
Qasem said, in a press statement on Sunday, that the Palestinian national reconciliation is still not being felt on the ground and the people want to see its fruits quickly.
On Obama’s speech he said that anyone who counts on Obama is walking towards a mirage as the Palestinian state that Obama and Netanyahu want to see is a Palestinian state that looks after the security of Israeli and as such it is not a state.
He commented on Obama’s call for Hamas to recognise the occupation state by saying that if Hamas was to do that it would lose its raison d’etre and would become like the PA and this will not happen.
He finally stressed that any proposed solution or initiative that does not recognise the right of return in a practical manner will fail at the end pointing out that the Arab popular revolutions will support Palestinian rights and that refugees in the camps will not rest until they return to their homes. River toSeaUprooted Palestinian
NABLUS, (PIC)– Dr. Abdul-Sattar Qassem, political sciences professor at Al-Najah University in Nablus, has strongly criticized investigations carried out jointly between Israeli security forces and those of the Palestinian Authority after a Nablus shooting where Palestinians were suspected of killing a Jewish settler and injuring three more.
“The Fatah authority is tied with the Israeli occupier. It has no choice but to form such a committee immediately. If it doesn’t, it won’t operate, and won’t eat, and won’t receive funds,” Qassem said in statements to the PIC.
The political analyst condemned resistance forces over their shortcomings in carrying out duties in the West Bank.
“Our first duty is to confront the [Israeli occupier] in order to achieve freedom to establish a real Palestinian state and restore the national rights, most prominently, the right of return,” he said.
Qassem said operations like the one that occurred in Nablus Sunday morning place Israeli settlers in real trouble, forcing large numbers of them to leave the occupied West Bank.
He emphasized that there is no security calm in the West Bank but only “subservience and humiliation”.
“This is not a calm nor peace. There is an occupation. Those who suffer from occupation do not discuss a security calm but think instead about how to remove the occupation. The PA’s arguments [for security coordination with Israel] are desperate and outside the logic of human history. They always seek for justification to implement degrading agreements with the Zionist entity.”
Qassem called on the PA security agencies to terminate security agreements with Israel that force the Palestinians to coordinate with Israeli security apparatuses.
NABLUS, (PIC)– Dr. Abdul-Sattar Qassem political science professor at Al-Najah University in Nablus called for Palestinian response after Israel has closed off the West Bank for the Passover holidays.
Palestinian condemnation statements and going to the UN Security Council and human rights organizations ”relaxes Israel”, Prof. Qassem said in a press statement.
”We must ask ourselves what we must do to face the challenge. This question should be the topic of continued discussion, which we are lacking,” he said.
”[Israel] works according to its interests,” he said. ”We have no shortage cursing the enemy, but rather we lack means of facing it and working according to our interests.”
He added that ”real and mindful resistance” would ensure a response to Israel, and not resistance through the Security Council and media, because Israel would only receive verbal condemnation and thus continue attacks ”in comfort”.
”Official policies help Israel on the ground,” Qassem continued, ”because it only hears statements that won’t deter it from doing what it wants.”
GAZA, (PIC)– The Hamas Movement denied it has raised the ceiling on the national reconciliation after the uprisings that took place in the Arab world, stressing that the parameters that it talked about were the aspirations of all Palestinians.
Senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan said on Saturday that Fatah faction wanted the reconciliation in order to serve its negotiation agenda and not to achieve the national unity or a genuine political partnership.
Radwan affirmed that his Movement’s renewed talk about the parameters of the national reconciliation has nothing to do with the changes taking place in the Arab arena, but it is greatly related to the documents of Al-Jazeera channel that revealed the Fatah-controlled Palestinian authority’s conspiracies against the Palestinian people.
In this regard, professor of political science Abdusattar Qassem stated that Hamas and Fatah factions are concerned with pleasing the Palestinian street through calling for ending the internal division.
Qassem added in a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC) Fatah wants to end the division in order for Mahmoud Abbas and his security apparatuses to return to Gaza and Hamas seeks the reconciliation in order to protect the national constants.
He underlined that the changes in the Arab world put pressure on Fatah’s authority in Ramallah city and now it is losing the ground it is standing on because of its positions.
The high committee of Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails stated in its weekly letter on Saturday that Hamas is keen on achieving national reconciliation more than any other faction, but on strong national bases that could address the division from its roots.
The committee emphasized that the national reconciliation means an end to the security cooperation with the Israeli occupation and the rebuilding of the security apparatuses and the Palestinian liberation organization (PLO) on national and professional foundations.
The letter added that the reconciliation should ensure the holding of free and fair elections within two years in order for the current legislative council to assume its role and the formation of a new central election committee.
RAMALLAH, (PIC)– Dr. Abdul-Sattar Qasem, a professor of political sciences at the Al-Najah National University, called on Palestinian de facto president Mahmoud Abbas to step down from office, describing steps Abbas has taken to thwart West Bank settlement activity as ”worthless”.
“There is an attempt to disparage the people’s minds, ” Qasem told the PIC in an interview on Friday night. ”What is the value of a resolution from the United Nations regarding the illegality of settlement activity when there are already many resolutions stating settlement activity is illegal and not consistent with international law?”
Abbas has gone before the UN Security Council to pass a resolution condemning settlement activity, a move the US used its veto to thwart.
“Whether they go or do not go [before the UN] … nothing will change, and settlement activity will not be stopped,” Qasem said, adding that the PA has nothing left in its power.
An attention turner
Discussing marches Fatah called for Friday night in support of Abbas’s position, Qasem said: ”This is something trivial. Why are they gathering staff and security men and rallying them in marches similar to what Arab regimes that are beginning to fail have used to do?”
He said the move was designed to ”divert the attention” of movements in the Palestinian street which has rejected the concessions made by Abbas and Palestinian negotiators.
They must go
Qasem shed light on what is expected of the Palestinian Authority in coping with the current wave of change sweeping the region. ”What is required is that he (Abbas) leaves us along with his group. It is enough what they have engaged in throughout 23 years (in leadership).”
This is the demand of the general public throughout occupied Palestinian land especially the West Bank, he said. ”The Ramallah authority has insulted our people and made us a laughing stock and has caused havoc in the land and renounced our people’s rights and committed many acts our people are not pleased with.”
Qassem: PA call for elections doomed [ 14/02/2011 - 09:24 AM ]
RAMALLAH, (PIC)– Dr. Abdulsattar Qassem, professor of political science, said that the Palestinian Authority and the PLO should leave the Palestinian political arena and apologize for their mistakes to the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic peoples.
Qassem in a press release on Monday said that the PLO, PA call for election is doomed to failure.
“As usual the Oslo authority (PA) in Ramallah failed to face the truth as is, and failed to admit national, political, and ethical crimes committed against the Palestinian people over the past 23 years since the Palestinian national council’s recognition of Israel in 1988,” he said.
The professor, a former presidential candidate, called for the immediate release of all political detainees, halting security coordination with Israel, prosecuting corrupt elements, compensating those harmed by such corruption, sacking the Fayyad government, and finding new financial resources.
GAZA, (PIC)– The Hamas Movement said that de facto president Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to mandate Salam Fayyad to form a new government in Ramallah city is unacceptable and unconstitutional, adding that the current government in the West Bank is already illegal.
“Any government can only be legitimate after it is referred to the legislative council and gain a vote of confidence, and this thing was not there in Fayyad’s government,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri underlined in a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC).
Spokesman Abu Zuhri affirmed that the intended formation of a new de facto government in Ramallah is proactive step aimed at preventing the West Bankers from taking to the streets to protest against the Palestinian authority (PA) and its policies especially after Al-Jazeera channel’s revelations.
The spokesman emphasized that the PA has to straighten its political deviation and stop its security crimes and cooperation with the Israeli occupation or else the Palestinian street will certainly move against it.
[ 14/02/2011 - 04:32 PM ] GAZA, (PIC)– Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the reshuffle Abbas made Sunday to the Palestinian government was only a formality and had no connection with claimed reforms.
The move was not even to the interest of the people, Barhoum said.
As demands for government changes sweep the Arab world, Palestine’s de facto president Mahmoud Abbas has ordered the resignation of the PA government.
It was no more than a repositioning of the government’s leaders and a trend in Fatah to once again fortify its influence in the West Bank and give cover to the farce of coming elections, Barhoum said.
MP Yahya Moussa, who represents Hamas’s Change and Reform bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, condemned the move ordered by the de facto Prime Minister in Ramllah Salam Fayyad, saying Fayyad took authority without consulting the PLC.
”Choosing this time for the resignation of Fayyad and his illegitimate government is a kind of savvy and political cunning to change faces in light of revolution against injustice and changes occurring in the Arab world,” Moussa said.
Fayyad’s cabinet played the same game before, he said, in bids to absorb anger of the masses dissatisfied with the cabinet.
24/01/2011 Leaked controversial documents on allegedly secret talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), shows that Palestinian negotiators agreed to concede almost all of the occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) to Israel.
More than 16,000 documents on secret talks between 2000 and 2010 were released by the Guardian newspaper and Al-Jazeera TV.
The documents covered sensitive issues like the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the close cooperation between Israel and Palestinian Authority Security forces, land swaps in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and of Israeli warnings to the PA of the imminent invasion of the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. The documents said that the unprecedented proposal was just one of a string of concessions offered by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The report, released on Al-Jazeera on Sunday, said it has 16,076 confidential records of meetings, emails and communications between the Palestinian Authority, Israeli and US leaders.
According to the report, PA leaders were privately tipped off about Israel’s 2008-9 war in Gaza, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians and injured thousands of others.
The documents also maintain that Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat proposed that al-Quds’ Old City be divided, but he immediately denied he had made the offer.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Erakat condemned Al-Jazeera, saying the station “has declared war on the Palestinians.”
“This station serves the interests of the enemies of the Palestinians,” Erakat said, adding that the PA Chief Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently in Cairo, would decide on the PA’s response to the exposure of the documents in the coming hours.
Other documents showed that in May 2008, the PA negotiator at the time, Ahmed Qureia, had proposed that Israel annex all illegal settlements in East al-Quds except Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghneim), in a bid to reach a final deal.
“This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition,” he reportedly said, pointing out that this was a bigger concession than made at Camp David talks in 2000.
Meanwhile, other files showed how the PA allegedly agreed to allow only 10,000 Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and a total of 100,000 over a ten-year period.
Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East al-Quds and has settled close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 illegal settlements.
GAZA, (PIC)– The Hamas Movement said that the confidential documents leaked by Al-Jazeera satellite channel about the peace talks between the Fatah-controlled Palestinian authority (PA) and Israel is very serious poof of the PA’s involvement in attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that these documents revealed the PA’s attempts to undermine the Palestinian people’s rights, especially the right of return and the holy city as well as its cooperation with Israel against the Palestinian resistance and its involvement in the blockade and the last war on Gaza.
“We consider these documents are further evidence of the security and political decadence which the PA stooped to,” spokesman Abu Zuhri underscored.
For his part, Abdulsatter Qassem, a noted professor of political science in Nablus city, said that the documents which were disclosed by Al-Jazeera satellite channel about the process of negotiation between the PA and Israel and the consequent serious concessions made by the PA were known by many circles inside and outside Palestine.
Qassem in a statement to the PIC said that the PA negotiator was never honest with its people. “The whole issue should be returned to its root. Look for the origin of the negotiator, where he came from, how they came and on what ground he was standing?”
The professor pointed out that any Arab peace talks with Israel are always based on the protection of its security and any Arab party refusing to accept that would not be allowed by Israel to take part in these talks.
Al-Jazeera channel on Sunday started to unveil 1, 600 documents about the PA-Israeli talks, the first part of them showed considerable generous concessions made by the PA negotiation team without getting anything in return, especially with regard to the issues of Jerusalem, refugees, borders and security.
The channel initially presented documents related to the concessions made by the PA regarding the issue of Jerusalem and will show gradually in the coming days other documents related to the security cooperation with Israel, Gaza war and Goldstone report.
Among the documents are maps for the proposed Palestinian state prepared by PA negotiators. In a meeting on the fourth of May 2008, the PA delegation headed by chief negotiator Ahmed Qurei gave their Israeli counterparts these maps, together with Qurei’s confirmation that there was a common interest in retaining some of the Israeli settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
According to figures mentioned in these maps, the rate of land swap between the two sides in south Jerusalem was one percent for the Palestinians and 50 percent for Israelis.
The maps also illustrates that the PA offered to concede all of east Jerusalem as a historic concession for Israel in return for getting lands in places other than the holy city.
According to the leaked documents, PA negotiators privately discussed with Americans and Israelis in different meetings in 2008 and 2009 the possibility of giving Israel what they called the biggest Yerushalayim in history and giving up part of the flashpoint Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Rice: Let us not leave the issues and talk about potential threat….Israel defeated some armies and we defeated others. Then armies do no pose a threat but terrorism does…. At this time there is no threat from the east because our forces are in Iraq and will stay there for a long time.
NABLUS, (PIC)– Dr. Abdelsattar Qassem, a professor of political science at the Najah university, ruled out that the inquiry committee formed by de facto president Mahmoud Abbas could declare Fatah leader Mohamed Dahlan guilty of corruption charges and attempts to overthrow Abbas.
Qassem explained that Dahlan has many serious and big secrets about every official from the Palestinian Authority and Fatah and there are fears he would wash their dirty laundry in public if he was seriously interrogated, stressing that the history proved that the criminal is afraid of questioning those who knows about his crime.
“It is likely that Dahlan has made something against those who accused him, but they will not interrogate him seriously because they know the price, they may pay through the interrogation, is much higher than the price they will pay if he is not questioned,” the professor said.
He expressed his belief that the investigations will be nominal and confidential, and will not take a long time before the PA and Fatah use the higher national interests to justify closing the file against Dahlan.
In this regard, followers of Dahlan threatened to take action against Abbas and to use documents in their possession to turn the table upside down over the heads of senior PA officials if Dahlan was declared guilty of the accusations leveled against him.
Qassem: The PA-Israeli talks are only aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause
[ 23/10/2010 - 02:07 PM ]
RAMALLAH, (PIC)– Professor of political science Abdelsattar Qassem said that the Palestinian authority’s negotiations with the Israeli occupation state are only part of a long, old process aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause and serving the Israeli interests alone.
In a press statement to Quds Press on Friday, Qassem added that since the balance of power is unequal and in favor of the Israeli occupation, the peace talks will always serve its interests, noting that all those who think they can depend on these talks to restore the usurped Palestinian rights do not understand history at all.
“For years I have mistrusted the Palestinian negotiator and considered his political attempts part of the process of eliminating the Palestinian cause, and unfortunately this conviction becomes stronger everyday.”
“Now they are talking about stopping the direct negotiationswhile the security coordination is ongoing,and in fact what thenegotiations are intended for is the security coordination and as long as this was realized, the occupation is already in no need for the negotiations,” the professor stressed.
“So if the Palestinian side was sincere in stopping the negotiations and rejecting settlement expansion, it would have to end the security coordination first, or else there would be no sense if it already stopped these talks,” the professor added.
As for the inter-Palestinian division, Qassem said it does not need mediation efforts or long discussions for its solutions are crystal clear to anyone genuinely willing to achieve the national reconciliation in the Palestinian arena.
“I do not think there could be reconciliation as long as there are two opposite trends, and I do not think the reconciliation will be meaningful if it is with a party recognizing, normalizing ties and having security cooperation with the Zionist entity; if all this stopped, there would be automatically reconciliation without mediation,” he underscored.
For his part, Hamas spokesman Yousuf Farahat stated that the PA security apparatuses in the West Bank turned into exclusive agents for the Israeli occupation protecting its security and savage settlers.
In a press release on Saturday, Farahat emphasized that the PA’s security cooperation with the Israeli occupation is a big treason, condemning this level of collaboration while the Israeli government is persistent in its settlement activities and waging an eradication war against the people of occupied Jerusalem.
GAZA, (PIC)– The Hamas Movement strongly denounced security officers from the Palestinian Authority (PA) for visiting Rabin center in Tel Aviv, saying the security apparatuses in the West Bank stooped to a serious level in its relations with the Israeli occupation.
In a statement on Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stressed that such visits and meetings have repercussions on the internal front and the Palestinian people’s right to resist the occupation.
Spokesman Barhoum said that the national reconciliation poses a threat to the leaders of the PA security apparatuses who enjoy great advantages thanks to their relations with the Israeli occupation, warning that the fall of this group into this quagmire caused damage to the unity of the West Bank, the national cause and the inter-Palestinian reconciliation.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that head of PA security apparatuses paid on Thursday evening a secret visit to Rabin center located in Ramat Aviv neighborhood in Tel Aviv.
In a separate incident, the PA security militias still prevent many Palestinian families from visiting their sons in their jails, according to different local sources on Saturday.
Prisoner Saleh Al-Qawasmi has been in solitary confinement for more than one month and a half in Al-Khalil city and his family is still banned by the PA security apparatuses from seeing him.
Another prisoner called Ala’a Al-Jabari is also prevented from seeing his family, especially after he was transferred to hospital in serious health condition as a result of his exposure to severe torture in PA jails in Al-Khalil.
A number of detainees who were released recently from Al-Khalil jails said on condition of anonymity that many prisoners suffer from frequent nervous breakdowns because of the excruciating torture inflicted on them by interrogators.
RAMALLAH, (PIC)– An Israeli female soldier admitted in a TV show entitled “soldiers behind the scenes” that she helped once her comrades to kill a Palestinian child in cold blood, but she did not disclose when and where the crime took place.
“I was monitoring through the camera at the command center the movements of Palestinian children throwing stones at the army and directing soldiers to move towards the kids, and under my guidance through the walkie-talkie, they killed a Palestinian kid,” the soldier said.
She added that she, afterwards, received congratulations from the soldiers on the killing of the child and claimed she was shocked by this news and felt her directions were the direct cause of the death of this innocent child.
She also confessed that the slain child did not constitute any threat to the heavily-armed soldiers.
Another female soldier also told the channel that she arbitrarily detained and tortured dozens of Palestinian citizens during her shift at the Shave Shomron checkpoint located between Nablus and Jenin.
She blatantly said she detained 80 Palestinians, only for pleasure, and forced them to stay under scorching sunlight while she was yelling at them without any reason and watching them suffer from boiling heat.
Meanwhile, the Haaretz newspaper reported Monday morning that the Israeli government and the military commandership are mulling over revoking the ban imposed on the entry of settlers into the West Bank cities under the control of the Palestinian authority (PA).
The newspaper added that this came as a result of the significant improvement in the security situation in the PA-controlled territories and the cooperation between Mahmoud Abbas’s security apparatuses and Israel.
The Israeli settlers were banned entry into the West Bank cities after the outbreak of the second intifada (uprising) especially when several incidents of kidnapping and killing were reported against them.
For his part, Dr. Abdulsattar Qassem, a professor of political science at Al-Najah university in Nablus, condemned the security cooperation between Abbas’s authority and Israel as a big crime against the Palestinian people.
Dr. Qassem told the Palestinian information center (PIC) commenting on Israel’s intention to allow settlers to enter West Bank cities that this matter is not political as some may believe, but it is a security-related issue resulting from the success of Abbas’s security apparatuses in guarding the safety of Israeli settlers and their high-level cooperation with Israel.
“What is happening is a big crime against the Palestinian people; the party who leads the negotiation team signed long time ago on everything and it is ready to defend the Zionists’ security by all means,” the professor underscored.
[ 22/05/2011 - 10:01 PM ] 
On Obama’s speech he said that anyone who counts on Obama is walking towards a mirage as the Palestinian state that Obama and Netanyahu want to see is a Palestinian state that looks after the security of Israeli and as such it is not a state.
Uprooted Palestinian
