[News] Palestine - More illegal acts

[Anti-Imperialist News]

<http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/727-op-ed-more-illegal-acts>Op 
Ed: More illegal acts

Published on Thursday, 26 January 2012 11:58
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/727-op-ed-more-illegal-acts 
<http://english.pnn.ps/images/images/Israeli-prison2-600x451.jpg>

by Daoud Kuttab

Twenty-seven Palestinian parliamentarians who won in democratically 
organised elections are held behind Israeli bars without charge or 
trial. Their sin is that they dared believe in an electoral process 
that was hailed by democratic countries as the proper channel of 
political expression.

Palestinian cartoonists are describing Israeli jails as the 
headquarters of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

On January 25, 2006, elections were held in the West Bank and Gaza 
for the Palestinian Legislative Council. The elections were 
supervised by the Independent Commission for Elections (a rarity in 
the Arab world). International observers, including former US 
president Jimmy Carter, were present and declared the elections free 
and fair. Israel also gave its blessings, albeit indirectly, by 
allowing the elections to take place, the candidates to move around 
and the ballot boxes to cross various checkpoints.

While the results of the elections were not pleasing to Israel and 
the West, no direct action was taken against those elected, which in 
any normal situation would have immunity.

The Islamic-leaning Reform and Change bloc won majority seats and 
declared publicly the day after the announcement of the results that 
it has nothing to do with the Islamic Hamas movement or its military 
wing. The statement was published in Al Quds daily, but has not been 
followed up since.

The idea was to separate from Hamas just like Sinn Fein was trying to 
separate from the Irish Republican Army. The attempt did not work, 
however, because Israel and the US treated the newly elected 
legislatures as one and the same with Hamas. That was political. But 
why make it personal by arresting these people?

At first it was in reaction to the detention of an Israeli soldier by 
the popular resistance brigades. Israeli rightwing activists and 
hardcore settlers started calling on the government to retaliate by 
arresting Hamas leaders.

As has become the routine, ideas that seem radical and extreme when 
uttered by such individuals all of a sudden appear to be rational 
when enacted by the Israeli army.

Tens of Palestinian parliamentarians, including the speaker of the 
legislature, were arrested without any reason and held without charge 
or trial. Israel seems, again, to want to use parliamentarians as a 
bargaining chip.

Unable to scuttle and derail the reconciliation process between Hamas 
and Fateh, the Israelis seem to be intent on preventing the 
Palestinian Legislative Council from being held. Last week they 
arrested the former speaker of the Palestinian legislature, Dr Hassan 
Dweik. Even though the 63-year-old professor was never an official 
member of Hamas, an Israeli military court approved the six-month 
detention without the Israeli authorities presenting evidence or 
cause for his incarcerations.

Two Palestinian parliamentarians from Jerusalem, who the Israelis are 
trying to strip of their residency, were abducted from the premises 
of International Committee of the Red Cross by Israeli intelligence 
officers dressed in civilian clothing and posing as Palestinians.

Some Palestinian cynics are saying that the Israeli actions against 
the parliamentarians are intended to improve the image of Hamas, as a 
counter to the Palestinian leader who is refusing to cooperate on 
negotiations until settlement activities are suspended.

Ironically, European and American officials have been pressing the 
Israeli leadership to help improve the standing of Mahmoud Abbas who 
received a political beating as a result of Israel releasing many 
prisoners in an exchange agreement with Hamas.

International law and human rights conventions are very clear about 
individual responsibility. Collective punishment and guilt by 
association are illegal as per the international humanitarian law. 
Besides being politically damaging and in violation of the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights, the arrest of elected representatives 
for no specific reason and holding them without charge or trial goes 
against all democratic principles.

At a time of international support for the Arab Spring and its core 
message of democratic freedoms, the Israeli actions are one more 
example of why its decades-long occupation is not only violating 
Palestinian rights but also eroding the values of what the world 
still believes is the "Middle East's only democracy".




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