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Page 1: Issue no 88

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Issue No : 88 31st March, 2014

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1

Issue No : 88 31st March, 2014

PalestinianPalestinianP CulturalCulturalC Organization MalaysiaMalaysiaM

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Issue No : 88 31st March, 2014

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FEATURED STORY

ARTICLE

Palestinian refugee issue is at stake

PCOM extends condolences on the tragic end of MH370

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Israeli plan to move Arabs out of 1948 territories

Israel demands extension of negotiations to free Palestinian prisoners

Palestinians in 1948 territories decideto go on general strikeQatar Emir: ‘Gaza siege is no

longer acceptable or justifiable’

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CONTENTS

News of Palestine

Articles & Analyses

Palestinian refugee issue is at stake 12

Israeli plan to move Arabs out of 1948 territories 4

Qatar Emir: ‘Gaza siege is no longer acceptable or justifiable’ 5

Israel demands extension of negotiations to free Palestinian prisoners 6

Palestinian Worker from Hebron Died While Being Chased by Israeli Police 6

Human rights group: Israeli soldiers to blame for killing Palestinian boy 7

Israel loses eight billion dollars and Arab parties join the boycott 8

Mosque and medical centre demolished in East Jerusalem 9

PCOM extends condolences on the tragic end of MH370 11

PCOM’s News

Group: 2133 Palestinian refugees killed in SyriaMalaysia & Palestinian Cause

Meshaal extends condolences to Najib on MH370 tragedy 9

Hamdan to Zahid: Your tragedy is ours 10

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News of Palestine

26/3/2014

Hebrew media revealed that Israeli Foreign Min-ister Avigdor Lieberman has received a few weeks ago a classified legal opinion authorizing the transfer of the Triangle and the Wadi Ara regions, in 1948 Palestine, along with their entire popula-tion to a Palestinian state in any future permanent peace agreement.The opinion argued that transferring populations would only be in line with international law if ex-ecuted with the consent of those being transferred, if it did not leave any of those transferred without any kind of citizenship and if it provides an appro-priate compensation mechanism similar to the one received by the settlers who evacuated settlements in the Gaza Strip.Lieberman said during a meeting with Foreign Ministry ambassadors in January “a comprehen-sive settlement with the Palestinians should in-clude settling Israeli Arabs”, and claimed that this land and population swap plan was not a “trans-fer” but aimed at shifting the border.Haaretz newspaper reported on Tuesday that sev-eral days after Lieberman’s speech, and when US Secretary of State John Kerry started working on a framework agreement for the negotiations, Li-eberman asked his ministry’s legal division to pre-pare a legal opinion on his plan.An 18-page legal briefing was prepared by Ehud Keinan, the foreign ministry’s legal adviser, in

Israeli plan to move Arabs out of 1948 territories

February. It is entitled Territorial Exchange: trans-fer of sovereignty over populated areas in the framework of a final arrangement with the Pales-tinians - legal aspects.Keinan claimed that “transferring populated areas from a sovereign state to another as part of a per-manent solution even without the population’s ex-plicit consent or a referendum is acceptable under international law as long as it offers residents clear citizenship after the transition.”“Lieberman’s plan, like the opinion issued by his ministry’s legal advisor, has a single overarching goal: turning Israel into a pure ethnic and religious state. Therefore, the goal of this plan cannot be described as anything other than ethnic cleansing – even if not by force of arms,” Ha’aretz said in an opinion published on Wednesday.In a related context, High Monitoring Committee for Arab Citizens in the 1948 occupied Palestine decided to go on general strike on the 38th anni-versary of the Land Day, which falls on March 30.Head of the Monitoring Committee Mohamed Zi-dan said in a press statement on Thursday that the committee has decided to commemorate the Land Day this year by a general strike and by organiz-ing several events in rejection of the occupation policy of house demolitions and the seizure of Arab lands.

Source: Agencies

Palestinians in 1948 territories decide to go on general strike

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Qatar Emir: ‘Gaza siege is nolonger acceptable or justifiable’

26/3/2014

The Emir of Qatar; Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani today called on all Arabs to end the Israeli block-ade imposed on the Gaza Strip to al-low Gaza’s residents to move freely and life normal lives.Speaking before the Arab Sum-mit in Kuwait, Sheikh Tamim said; “The Israeli siege imposed on the Gaza Strip is no longer acceptable or justifiable, neither politically nor morally. We have made efforts to alleviate the suffering of Gaza and overcome the fuel crises.”The Sheikh called on the Palestin-ian leadership to end its political division and form a transitional government according to the Cairo Agreement of 2011 and the Doha Declaration of 2012.The Emir said that Arab states have to fulfil their financial commit-ments to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people in the face of Israeli policies. He regretted that some Arab states did not fulfil their financial commitment to contribute one billion dollars to the Jerusalem Fund saying Qatar has already do-nated a quarter of the amount and is committed to paying another quar-ter in coordination with the Palestin-ian President Mahmoud Abbas.Sheikh Tamim called for a fair set-tlement for the Palestinian cause based on the decisions of “interna-tional and Arab legitimacy”.He pointed out that the Israeli poli-cies represent an obstacle to achiev-

ing peace by evading in-ternational resolutions and demanding new conditions during every round of ne-gotiations. “The settlement activity, the Judaisation of Jerusalem and the settlers’ attacks against Al-Aqsa Mosque hinders peace ef-forts and leave Arabs doubt-ful of the peace process.”He added: “Israel must re-alise that the only solution to end the conflict and achieve peace is by withdrawing from all occupied Arab territories and estab-lishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.In a related context, Commissioner General of the United Na-tions Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Filippo Grandi yes-terday called on Israel and Egypt to lift the siege that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip for more than half a decade.Grandi said the siege on the Gaza Strip is considered the longest in history; longer than that of Sarajevo, Berlin and Leningrad.The UNRWA official acknowledged Israeli and Egyptian secu-rity concerns but insisted that the plight of about 1.8 million resi-dents in the Strip also needs to be considered.He said that the Rafah Crossing has been closed for the seventh consecutive week and it is necessary to remind Egypt of its obli-gations towards patients and students who are in desperate need to travel.“I think the world should not forget about the security of the people of Gaza,” he said. “Their security is worth the same as everybody else’s security so we appeal to the humanitarian sense of all.”Grandi called the Israeli blockade on Gaza “illegal and [it] must be lifted”. He said that there are infrastructure projects run by the UNRWA worth $150 million. These projects are suspended until Israel lifts the siege, further harming the Palestinians.

Source: Agencies

UN official: Israeli blockade on Gaza ‘illegal and must be lifted’

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Israel demands extension of negotiations to free Palestinian prisoners

Palestinian Worker from Hebron Died While Being Chased by Israeli Police

26/3/2014

The Israeli government is now demanding an extension of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks for another year as a condition for releasing the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli sources revealed on Sunday.Israel fears that if the peace talks stall then the Palestinians will go to the United Nations to seek full sovereign recog-nition and to join UN bodies, especially the International Criminal Court in the Hague in order to sue the Israeli occupa-tion, a move that the Palestin-ians cannot do as long as the peace talks are still in process.Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted on Sun-day an Israeli politician who warned that, “if the Americans do not ensure extending the negotiations for another year, Israel will not release even one Palestinian prisoner.”

28/3/2014

The Palestinian worker Bad-er Shehda al-Hawareen died Thursday while being chased by Israeli police in the town of Mitzpe Ramon in southern Israel.Medical sources said that at Thursday midday, they were alerted to the presence of a man lying unconscious in the old industrial zone in the town of Mitzpe Ramon in southern Israel.

An Israeli offi-cial added that it would be “in-conceivable” for Israel to re-lease “terrorists and [then] two weeks later for the Palestinian President Mah-moud Abbas to break the rules and go to the United Nations.”According to an earlier pledge in summer 2013, Israel had agreed to release a fourth group of Palestinian prisoners, including those living in Israel, by the end of March if the Palestinians consented to the ne-gotiations over a period of nine months; however, those negotiations are scheduled to end in April and Israel is now seeking an extension.According to the newspaper, the Israeli official claims that Israel would agree to release the prisoners by April, but not those living in Israel. “US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged to the Palestinians to release prisoners living in Israel, but not Israel,” noted the official.The newspaper pointed out that the majority of Israeli ministers would not support releasing any Palestinian prisoners living in Israel.

Source: MEMO

After examining the worker, paramedics from the Magen David Adom announced that the man was dead.The al-Hawareen’s coworkers told the family that he died after he fled from the Israeli police who stormed the construction site where he worked, adding that the victim fled because he did not have a per-mit to work inside “Israel”. They added that al-Hawareen had fell to the ground while running away and died.A spokeswoman for the Israeli police in Negev said that initial inves-tigations reported that the man hit his head when he fell and died as a result.

Source: PPN

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27/3/2014

The Israeli army is to blame for the death of 14-year-old Palestinian boy Yousef Al-Shawamreh last week, Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem said yesterday.In a statement published on its website, the organisation said Al-Shawamreh and his two friends “were crossing the barrier in order to pick gundelia [Arabic: ‘Akub], a thistle-like edible plant annually har-vested at this time of year that serves as an important source of income for local residents.“The Al-Shawamrehs own farmland that is now separated from them by the barrier, and that land is where the three youths were heading to gather plants.”When the Israeli occupation forces killed Al-Shawamreh last week, they claimed the youngster and his two friends were trying to sabotage the separation wall.However, B’Tselem found that the youngsters crossed the wall from an already sabotaged area.The human rights organisation’s findings “are markedly different from the description given by the IDF Spokesperson: the youths made no attempt at vandalism; they were crossing through a long-existing breach and the soldiers did not carry out suspect arrest procedure, shooing at Al-Shawamreh with no advance warning,” the statement said.“By justifying the use of lethal fire in broad daylight at youths who posed no danger to any other per-sons, [the action of the Israeli soldiers] conveys a cynical lack of concern for the life of a Palestinian teenager.”

Source: MEMO

Human rights group: Israeli soldiers to blame for killing Palestinian boy

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29/3/2014

Mustafa Barghouti, the secre-tary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative movement, has estimated that Israel has in-curred losses of around eight bil-lion dollars due to the boycott campaign against illegal settle-ments, equivalent to 20 per cent of their GDP.Regarding the latest Palestinian efforts to escalate the settlement boycott, Barghouti revealed that an agreement has been made with 13 democratic Arab parties to form boycott committees in the Arab world.In a statement to Quds Net News Agency on Thursday he said: “the European Union did not is-sue a decision to boycott Israel, but what is taking place is the boycott of any relationship or agreements with settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusa-lem.”Furthermore: “This experience is being circulated worldwide

Israel loses eight billion dollars and Arab parties join the boycott

European PMs call to boycott Israeli settlements

and not only in European countries; many areas worldwide are also ready to boycott the settlements.”In a letter sent to EU Foreign Policy Chief, Catherine Ashton, 29 members of the European Parliament have called upon the Euro-pean External Action Service (EEAS) to take action to discourage European businesses from trading with illegal Israeli settlements.“There are several examples of the many ways in which European businesses contribute to the existence and expansion of the settle-ments,” said the letter. “Through their activities, they make direct and on-going contributions to Israeli violations of international law and to human rights abuses associated with the settlements.”WAFA reports that the letter shared insight on the UN Guiding Prin-ciples on Business and Human Rights, which were endorsed by the EU, which “make it clear that governments have an obligation to ensure that businesses domiciled in their territory do not contribute to human rights abuses in their overseas operations.”“In cases where businesses are operating in conflict areas, the Guid-ing Principles urge governments to provide “adequate assistance to business enterprises to assess and address the heightened risks of abuses.”The 29 members concluded their letter calling upon the European firms to recall their economic relations with the Israeli settlements. “We urge the EEAS to publish guidance discouraging European firms from maintaining economic relations with the settlements.”

Source: Agencies

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27/3/2014

Khaled Meshaal, Chairman of Hamas, telephoned Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak yesterday evening to extend deep condolences on the tragic end of flight (MH370) that was confirmed to be lost in the Indian ocean on Monday.Meshaal expressed in his call the Pales-tinian solidarity with the bereaved fami-lies and conveyed his movement’s con-dolences to the fellow Malaysian people who “always supported the Palestinians in their struggle for independence and freedom”. At the same time, Meshaal acknowledged the strenu-ous efforts paid by the Malaysian government in searching for the missing plane.For his part, Najib appreciated Meshaal’s noble stance and renewed his country’s backing to the Pal-estinian cause at all times, despite all circumstances.

Source: PCOM+Agencies

26/3/2014

The municipality of Jerusalem demolished a building that housed a mosque, a medical centre and apartments in the neighbourhood of A-Tur in East Jerusalem on Wednesday.Owner of the building Gha-dir Abu Ghaliya said it was demolished “without prior notice” by the authorities. He added that he and his family had tried for 18 years to obtain construction permits from the Jerusalem municipality.Abu Ghaliya said the mayor of Jerusalem “approved construction in the area, [but] the Israeli ministry of interior opposed construction.”After the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to delay the demolition, a hearing on the issue was scheduled for May, Abu Ghaliya told Ma’an News, a Palestinian news agency.Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It has demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian homes and structures since occupying the West Bank in 1967, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Source: AIC

Meshaal extends condolences to Najib on MH370 tragedy

Mosque and medical centre demolished in East Jerusalem

Malaysia & Palestinian Cause

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Hamdan to Zahid: Your tragedy is ours27/3/2014

Osamah Hamdan, head of Hamas international relations telephoned yesterday the Malay-sian Home Minister, Dato Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, to extend con-dolences on the unfor-tunate end of MH370 flight that was an-nounced to be lost in the southern Indian Ocean on Monday. In a 15 minute-call ar-ranged by Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia (PCOM), Hamdan expressed his deep sadness over the incident and extended his warm condolences to Malaysian people and the families of the vic-tims. Hamdan also ex-pressed his movement’s solidarity with the Ma-

laysian government that paid great efforts in SAR operations. “We stand with you at this tough time, your tragedy is also ours”, He added. Hamdan acknowledged the Malaysian continuous support to the Palestinian cause and said that “Malaysians have always shared the happiness and sad-ness with their Palestinian fellow brothers, and so we do”. For his part, Dato Seri Zahid appreciated Hamdan’s call and noble feelings and vowed to continue the support to the Palestinian cause.

Source: PCOM

In a phone call arranged by PCOM

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PCOM extends condolences on the tragic end of MH370

25/3/2014

The Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia (PCOM) expressed its deep sadness for the unfortunate tragic end of flight (MH370) that was confirmed to be lost in the indian ocean yesterday.In a press statement on Tuesday (25/3), PCOM extended its profound condolences and sympathies to the people of Malaysia and the Malaysian Government that “paid strenuous unrivalled efforts on rescue and search for the missing plane”. “While words fail to convey how sad we feel for this incident, we express our moral support and soli-darity with the bereaved families, who lost their loved ones, and we pray for them to be granted patience and steadfastness, as we pray for Malaysia to overcome this dark time with a strong will as it has always done.” the statement added.For his part, Muslim Imran, the Chairman of PCOM, said on his twitter page that “Palestinians every-where share their sympathies with the families of the plane’s victims, may their souls rest in peace”. “We offer our deepest condolences to them and to their respective governments” He added.Muslim also said that “we wish to acknowledge the unprecedented efforts that Malaysian government and other governments exhibited in searching for the missing plane”.

Source: PCOM

Group: 2133 Palestinian refugees killed in SyriaPCOM’s News

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Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

Articles & Analyses

Palestinian refugee issue is at stake

By: Nabil Al-Sahli

There have been many discussions in the media about plans and schemes to liquidate the Palestin-ian refugee issue and some information about the framework deal - initiated by US Secretary of State John Kerry - has also been leaked by American diplomats. The information shows the framework will include perceptions of a solution for final sta-tus issues, mainly the refugee issue, where some American proposals call for settling the refugees in the countries they are currently residing in and giv-ing them the nationality of that country, in addition to moving thousands of them to other countries in-cluding Australia and Canada.

Also noticeable was Israel’s attempt to stop using the word “refugee” when referring to Palestinians who were expelled from Palestine during the 1948 Catastrophe (Nakbah), and also from Palestinians who left the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jeru-salem during the June 1967 war, and in following years. Israel argued that these Palestinians have been born outside Palestine and they are therefore not refugees but rather nationals of the areas they were born.

Israeli media outlets pointed out attempts by Is-raeli foreign affairs officials in the United Nations to change the legal status that is used to define Pal-estinian refugees.

Attempts to remove decision making ability

Israeli representative to the UN Ron Prosor was quoted as saying; “Settlements are not and never have been the main obstacle to peace. The real ob-stacle to peace is the Palestinians’ demand of re-turn.”

Prosor considers transferring the definition of refu-gee to descendants or Palestinian refugees - who left their villages and cities after the establishment of Israel - is misleading, pointing out that in 1950, the number of refugees was 700,000 people, while today they are 5.1 million refugees, adding that it

depends on the mechanism of counting them.

Prosor criticised the policy of the UNRWA which allows Palestinian refugees to transfer this identity to their chil-dren saying what the international organisation is doing to be misleading.

A small conference was held in the Harvard Club in Manhattan, New York, a few weeks ago with participa-tion from a number of invididuals and experts, including Prosor who discussed the issue of Palestinian refugees and considers this topic is the main issue that is standing in the way of reaching a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

The Harvard conference focused on the importance of drafting legislations in the United States that aim at end-ing the “automatic transfer” of the refugee identity/status from Palestinian fathers to their children, a process that has been ongoing since 1948.

This coincided with Israeli requests for the US Adminis-tration adopts the idea of pressuring the Palestinian Au-thority in order to acknowledge the Jewish identity of the State of Israel, in order to set the stage for cancelling UN resolution 194 from the UN General Assembly’s agenda and thus, removing the right of return of Palestinian ref-ugees to their home land in Palestine.

Jewish refugees

On the other hand, the Israeli institute is trying to fabri-cate the idea of “Jewish refugees” to face the internation-

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al resolutions calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees notably resolution 194 issued in 1948 and other relevant interna-tional resolutions.

Recently, Israeli media revealed an official document containing the position of Tel Aviv, the view which is supposed to be repre-sented in the issue of “Jewish ref-ugees” during settlement negotia-tions with the Palestinians.

The document is the outcome of a political decision that comes from the Israeli prime minister. It imposes on the Israeli negotiator to make the so-called problem of displaced Jews who came from Arab countries a key issue during negotiations of the final status so-lution with Palestinians.

Without solving this issue, the Israeli decision is not to approve the announcing of ending the con-flict. Israeli news indicates that the document had been prepared by the Israeli National Security Council by order of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It mainly included recommenda-tions on how Israel deals with the so-called Jewish refugees’ issue, at the forefront of which is calling for compensation for Jews who migrated from Arab countries to Israel as a main point for negotia-tions and making that point insep-arable from negotiations about the Palestinian refugees’ issue.

This document goes beyond this where it defines Jewish refugees as Jews who left their homes in Arab countries and immigrated to Israel.

As for the number of these refu-gees, it has been calculated be-ginning from the date of partition decision at the UN issued in 1947 up until 1968.

According to this standard, the document counted 800,000 Jew-ish refugees in comparison with 600,000-700,000 Palestinian ref-ugees during the same period.

The document entitled “Sum-mary of staff work and the Is-raeli position proposal in the negotiations with Palestinians on the subject of Jewish refu-gees” recommended the use of the term “double refugee status” in the international terminology being used.

It says that there is an Israeli in-terest in establishing a connection between the “tragedy of Jewish refugees” and the “issue of Pal-estinian refugees” stressing the importance of discussing both issues as one block in the nego-tiations regarding refugees in the framework of the final status so-lution.

The document also recommended Tel Aviv not only ask for personal compensations for Jewish refu-gees of Arab origins, but also ask for compensation for the state of Israel which spent resources in order to accommodate them dur-ing the 50s and 60s.

The document estimated the value of property Palestinian refugees lost in that period to be nearly $450 million, which is es-timated at $3.9 billion now.

As for Jewish refugees, the esti-mate is that they lost $700 mil-lion during that period, which is currently estimated at $6 bil-lion.

According to Israeli media, the Israeli Foreign Ministry instruct-ed its representatives abroad to raise this issue during their po-litical activities and to encourage local Jewish communities to talk about it as well.

Israeli rhetoric

It is noticed that there is unanim-ity amongst the different Israeli groups regarding the future of the Palestinian refugee issues where the Israeli rhetoric stresses that the refugee issue is a core issue, but Israel is not responsible for it or its political, legal or humanitarian consequences, thus, the solution - according to the Israeli rhetoric - lies in settling these refugees in their current places of residency, in the countries that are hosting them, mainly Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, or to re-displace them to other countries such as Canada.

Numerous academic proposals and conceptualisations have been issued in this regard after the Ma-drid Peace Conference that was held towards the end of Novem-ber 1991, where an American academic study pointed out that the cost of settling refugees is estimated at $100 billion dollars, Jordan would get the majority of this amount.

What’s left to say is that the issue of Palestinian refugees - which is one of the most important issues of the final status as it deals with a large proportion of the Palestin-ian people and 78 per cent of the area of historic Palestine - is fac-ing serious risks, mainly with re-gards liquidating the legal basis represented in UN resolution 194 through discussing American and Israeli proposals that mainly re-volve around getting refugees to settle in some of the neighbouring Arab countries and sending the other part to other countries that have huge areas and small popula-tions, such as Australia and Cana-da in particular.

Translated by MEMO form Al-jazeera net, March 19, 2014

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Issue No : 88 31st March, 2014

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