#Wasel Abu Yousef

[vyorei]

Live coverage of the 14th of January 2024 is now closed.

Here is a recap of today's major events.

It is 12am in Ireland now so I have to go to bed.

I'll be back to resume live updates tomorrow evening.

100 days in, and 1 in every 100 people in Gaza have been murdered. I will not sleep well tonight, but I hope those who allowed this to happen sleep worse. May their dreams be forever painful.

For continuous updates while I'm gone, click the link below:

[tworking711]

Israeli jets pound Gaza as rocket fire resumes and Palestinians hit streets to protest

Israeli warplanes continued to pound Gaza on Tuesday and rocket fire into Israel resumed after a brief lull, as Palestinian protesters hit the streets in cities across the West Bank and elsewhere. Thousands gathered in various towns in the West Bank, including Ramallah and Hebron, on Tuesday after a number of Palestinian groups, including Hamas militants in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, called for mass strikes."The first priority for the Palestinian political leadership now is to have Israel stop its crimes and massacres against our people in Gaza," Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee in Ramallah, told CNN on Tuesday. Israel imposed a partial closure on the West Bank on Tuesday, an Israeli security source told CNN, with only men older than 45 and Palestinian construction workers with work permits allowed to enter Israel. Palestinians protest against Israeli attacks in Hebron, West Bank on May 18.Israeli airstrikes continued through the night into Tuesday. The Israel Defense Forces said warplanes had struck nine rocket launch sites in Gaza on Tuesday in addition to targeting, several residences of Hamas commanders and an anti-tank squad in Gaza City.เครดิตฟรี50

[cleardeersong]

Israeli jets pound Gaza as rocket fire resumes and Palestinians hit streets to protest

Jerusalem (CNN)Israeli warplanes continued to pound Gaza on Tuesday and rocket fire into Israel resumed after a brief lull, as Palestinian protesters hit the streets in cities across the West Bank and elsewhere.Thousands gathered in various towns in the West Bank, including Ramallah and Hebron, on Tuesday after a number of Palestinian groups, including Hamas militants in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, called for mass strikes."The first priority for the Palestinian political leadership now is to have Israel stop its crimes and massacres against our people in Gaza," Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee in Ramallah, told CNN on Tuesday. บาคาร่าออนไลน์

[widelyvision]

Israeli jets pound Gaza as rockets resume and Palestinians hit streets in protest

Israeli jets pound Gaza as rockets resume and Palestinians hit streets in protest

Thousands gathered in various towns in the West Bank, including Ramallah and Hebron, on Tuesday after a number of Palestinian groups, including Hamas militants in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, called for mass strikes. “The first priority for the Palestinian political leadership now is to have Israel stop its crimes and massacres against our people in Gaza,” Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the…

[expatimes]

'Cautiously optimistic': Palestinian factions unite on elections

Gaza City - Fatah and Hamas reached a deal on Palestinian elections at the Palestinian Consulate in Istanbul last week, raising hopes the factions can unite after years of animosity as Israel continues to threaten annexation while it normalises relations with Arab nations.

The proposal for parliamentary, presidential and national council elections is set to be discussed among all Palestinian factions in a leadership meeting this week, after which a presidential decree to officially announce election dates is expected.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas will hold a meeting on Saturday and he is expected to set three dates for Palestinian legislatures, presidential, and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) national council elections.

“The atmosphere domestically is now very accommodating to hold elections. It enjoys national consensus, including from Islamic parties, ”Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the PLO's Executive Committee and leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, Al Jazeera.

“The consensus is to conduct elections on the basis of proportional representation and with a time frame of six months. “We start from parliamentary elections, then presidential, and national council elections.”

Senior Islamic Jihad leader Nafiz Azam said his movement sees the recent Hamas-Fatah meetings as a breakthrough.

“These are certainly positive steps that should be built upon,” he told Al Jazeera. "We should intensify our efforts to solve all the remaining issues of dispute between the two sides."

Senior Islamic Jihad leader Nafiz Azzam said his movement sees the recent Hamas-Fatah meetings as a breakthrough [Walid Mahmoud/Al Jazeera]

'Cautious optimism'

However, Azam explained the Islamic Jihad will only participate in the national council elections that are representative of the diaspora and not connected to peace accords with Israel.

The PA and its legislative council are both products of the Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO, and the Islamic Jihad does not recognize the Oslo agreement.

“Palestinians can only be optimistic towards elections as a pathway to ending the destructive phase to our cause that fragmentation and division produced,” Basim Naim, a senior Hamas leader and former minister of health, told Al Jazeera.

“However, this optimism is very cautious given the amount of obstacles we face on the path to holding elections.”

Naim added: "Palestinians had a bitter experience with 14 years of continuous efforts and meetings in many capitals of the world, where several agreements were reached but haven't been successfully implemented."

All interviewees pointed out, however, what is different this time is the unprecedented level of danger the Palestinian cause now faces, especially after the latest normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.

Bassim Naim, a senior Hamas leader, said the optimism is a cautious one, given the number of obstacles in holding elections [Walid Mahmoud/Al Jazeera]

'No option'

According to the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, 2.2 million Palestinians have the right to vote.

“My optimism regarding the possibility of holding elections this time stems from the fact that Hamas and Fatah have no option this time but elections,” Majida al-Masri, senior leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Al Jazeera.

"It's a compulsory passage to stand up to the negative developments we're facing regionally, internationally and on the ground."

Azam said the threat from Arab nations making agreements with Israel "necessitates a unified Palestinian action."

“It's clear that Arab states have let the Palestinians down, that the current US administration is the most biased towards Israel, and that Israel won't give the Palestinian authority anything. This has pushed Palestinian leaders to reconsider their internal affairs. ”

Abu Yousef explained the tripartite assault on the Palestinian national project - represented in the Trump administration's so-called Middle East plan, Israel's accelerated and escalated de facto annexation, and the Israeli-Arab normalization - has united Palestinians on the ground in the face of those challenges.

However, he added, what is needed next is “genuine institutional and geographic unity between all Palestinian territories that revives the central role of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people”. This, Abu Yousef argued, can be achieved through elections.

Elections as a pathway to unity

“Elections are the least thing Palestinians should do and the most important and most urgent thing they should do to renew the leadership's legitimacy and reorganise our internal affairs to engage all Palestinian factions in leading the struggle,” Munib al-Masri, a former PA minister and prominent businessman, told Al Jazeera.

"Elections are the decisive factor on what would happen next, in terms of Palestinian vision and strategy, and in terms of allowing youth to play an important role in shaping their own future."

Majida said the elections could be a pathway to ending intra-Palestinian division and giving legitimacy to the Palestinian political leadership “in the face of the Israeli colonial project, the Trump deal and the normalisation”.

Naim said the elections revive the energy of the Palestinian people in the struggle for their rights.

However, he cautioned “some degree of unity and consensus on the general vision should precede those elections” to prevent further division.

International obstacles

While Palestinian leaders are cautiously optimistic about elections' potential, there is caution towards the likely obstacles that may derail the latest progress.

All interviewees saw Israel as the main impediment to successfully conducting fair-and-free votes.

“Last year, we agreed on carrying out elections, but Israel sabotaged these plans by preventing us from holding elections in East Jerusalem,” Abu Yousef explained.

Naim concurred saying: "All Palestinians agree that elections cannot be held without Jerusalem."

“Israel represents the main obstacle to elections, not just in East Jerusalem, but in all occupied territories. It can, for instance, prevent us from reaching Palestinian constituents in areas it considers under its sovereignty in the West Bank, ”Majida pointed out.

“Israel is always an obstruction to any measure that would end Palestinian division. It was even a main contributing factor to the division in the first place. ”

Naim warned Israel could cite security pretexts to block voting or arrest unfavrable candidates as they have done before.

“Israel won't be happy about any elections that reflect a positive image of Palestinians as strong believers in democracy and a peaceful transfer of power, as a people who pursue building a better future and take their fate in their own hands,” he said .

'Binding for all'

The second main challenge is to ensure a positive atmosphere around elections domestically and guarantee respect for the results.

“Division over the last 13 years has left entrenched impacts on society, the national fabric, institutions and values. This is certainly not easy to remove at once, ”Majida said.

"But supervision committees can help ensure that these issues won't become obstacles in the face of elections, for instance, by ensuring an end to all negative media campaigns against the other Palestinian camp."

Abu Yousef added: “This time we agreed that elections results would be binding for all parties and should be respected fully in order to avoid creating a crisis.”

However, both Naim and Azam argued political consensus is needed before the elections to ensure the aftermath does not replicate the 2006 vote, in which Hamas's win of the legislative council led to tensions with Fatah and the eventual intra-Palestinian division.

Majida said she sees an opportunity this time in elections because: “The proportional representation law that was agreed upon among all parties creates a pathway to a national consensus government because this law won't allow replicating previous experiences of allowing any party alone to take over the majority of the council.

'Pressure Israel'

To surmount all obstacles, the Palestinians will look to the international community to protect and support the elections.

“The international community should pressure Israel to ensure the success of elections and provide a protective umbrella for us that guarantees a healthy and undisrupted conduct of elections,” Majida added.

But Naim noted the international community could become an obstacle if it imposed conditions to recognize the results of elections.

“The international community contributed to Palestinian division to a dangerous extent. Had Europe and the US recognized the results of the 2006 elections and engaged with the government it produced, we wouldn't have seen the ensuing results, ”he said.

"The international community must officially declare that they support fair and free Palestinian elections, whether politically, technically or financially, and that they are prepared to respect the results of the elections and engage with the Palestinian leadership that elections would produce."

#world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=11232&feed_id=8212

[brajeshupadhyay]

Bahrain becomes latest Arab nation to recognise Israel in US-brokered deal

Washington: Bahrain on Friday agreed to normalize relations with Israel, becoming the latest Arab nation to do so as part of a broader diplomatic push by President Donald Trump and his administration to further ease the Jewish state's relative isolation in West Asia and find common ground with nations that share US wariness of Iran.

Trump announced the agreement on the 19th anniversary of the 11 September, 2001, terrorist attacks following a phone call he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The three leaders also issued a brief joint statement marking the second such Arab normalization agreement with Israel in the past two months.

The announcement came less than a week before Trump hosts a White House ceremony to mark the establishment of full relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, something that Trump and his Middle East team brokered in August. Bahrain’s foreign minister will attend that event and sign a separate agreement with Netanyahu.

“There’s no more powerful response to the hatred that spawned 9/11 than this agreement,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Friday's agreement is another diplomatic win for Trump less than two months before the presidential election and an opportunity to shore up support among pro-Israel evangelical Christians. In addition to the UAE deal, Trump just last week announced agreements in principle for Kosovo to recognize Israel and for Serbia to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But, it is a setback for Palestinian leaders, who have urged Arab nations to withhold recognition until they have secured an independent state. The Palestinians have seen a steady erosion in once-unified Arab support — one of the few cards they still held as leverage against Israel — since Trump began pursuing an unabashedly pro-Israel agenda.

“This is another stab in the back of the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian people and their rights,” said Wasel Abu Yousef, a senior Palestinian official. “It is a betrayal of Jerusalem and the Palestinians ... We see absolutely no justification for this free normalization with Israel.”

In their joint statement, Trump, Netanyahu and King Hamad called the agreement "a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East.”

“Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region," they said.

Like the UAE agreement, the Bahrain-Israel deal will normalize diplomatic, commercial, security and other relations between the two countries. Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia, had already dropped a prohibition on Israeli flights using its airspace. Saudi acquiescence to the agreements has been considered key to the deals.

Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner noted that the agreement is the second Israel has reached with an Arab country in 30 days after having made peace with only two Arab nations — Egypt and Jordan — in 72 years of its independence.

“This is very fast,” Kushner told The Associated Press. “The region is responding very favorably to the UAE deal and hopefully it’s a sign that even more will come.”

Netanyahu thanked Trump. “It took us 26 years between the second peace agreement with an Arab country and the third, but only 29 days between the third and the fourth, and there will be more,” he said, referring to the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and the more recent agreements.

Bahrain's foreign ministry welcomed the deal and said that Hamad had praised US efforts to establish security and stability in the Middle East, according to the official news agency. Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, a prominent Bahraini adviser to the king and the former longtime foreign minister, wrote on Twitter that the agreement boosts the region’s security and prosperity.

“It sends a positive and encouraging message to the people of Israel that a just and comprehensive peace with the Palestinian people is the best path and is in the true interest of their future and the future of the people in the region,” he wrote.

In a nod to the Palestinians, the joint statement said the parties will continue efforts “to achieve a just, comprehensive, and enduring resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to enable the Palestinian people to realize their full potential.”

The agreement makes Bahrain the fourth Arab country, after Egypt, Jordan and the UAE, to have full diplomatic ties with Israel. Other Arab nations believed to be on the cusp of fully recognizing Israel include Oman and Sudan. The region's power player, Saudi Arabia may also be close to a deal.

Like the UAE, Bahrain has never fought a war against Israel and doesn’t share a border with it. But Bahrain, like most of the Arab world, had long rejected diplomatic ties with Israel in the absence of a Palestinian peace deal. And, although the Israeli-UAE deal required Israel to halt contentious plans to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians, the Bahrain agreement includes no such concessions.

While the UAE’s population remains small and the federation has no tradition of standing up to the country’s autocracy, Bahrain represents a far-different country.

Just off the coast of Saudi Arabia, the island of Bahrain is among the world’s smallest countries, only about 760 square kilometers (290 square miles). Bahrain’s location in the Persian Gulf long has made it a trading stop and a naval defensive position. The island is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet and a recently built British naval base.

Bahrain is acutely aware of threats posed by Iran, an anxiety that comes from Bahrain’s majority Shiite population, despite being ruled since 1783 by the Sunni Al Khalifa family. Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had pushed to take over the island after the British left, though Bahrainis in 1970 overwhelmingly supported becoming an independent nation and the U.N. Security Council unanimously backed that.

Since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Bahrain’s rulers have blamed Iran for arming militants on the island. Iran denies the accusations. Bahrain’s Shiite majority has accused the government of treating them like second-class citizens. The Shiites joined pro-democracy activists in demanding more political freedoms in 2011, as Arab Spring protests swept across the wider Middle East. Saudi and Emirati troops ultimately helped violently put down the demonstrations.

In recent years, Bahrain has cracked down on all dissent, imprisoned activists and hampered independent reporting on the island. While the Obama administration halted the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain over human rights concerns, the Trump administration dropped that.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2ZtAkl6

[islamicvoice-blog]

US revokes residency of Palestinian envoy

New post https://is.gd/3pUgQw

Washington has revoked the residency permit of Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) General Delegation to the U.S.

The U.S. also cancelled the residency permit of Zomlot’s family members and closed his bank accounts, Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, told Anadolu Agency.

The move came after the U.S. administration announced the closure of the PLO’s Washington office, which also serves as a Palestinian embassy.

Majdalani said Washington’s decisions did not fit with “diplomatic manners.”

Wasel Abu Yousef, a PLO executive committee member, said that Zomlot has been in Ramallah for four months when he was recalled by the Palestinian authorities.

Yousef also condemned the decision by the U.S.

Recently, the U.S. cancelled all funding to UNRWA, the UN’s cash-strapped Palestinian refugee agency.

The decision also comes as the U.S. administration prepares to unveil a controversial Middle East peace plan, details of which have yet to be made public.

Palestinian officials, however, have rejected any U.S. role in the peace process since U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last year.

[vyorei]

West Bank/Gaza solidarity

[cleardeersong]

Israeli jets pound Gaza as rocket fire resumes and Palestinians hit streets to protest

Jerusalem (CNN)Israeli warplanes continued to pound Gaza on Tuesday and rocket fire into Israel resumed after a brief lull, as Palestinian protesters hit the streets in cities across the West Bank and elsewhere.Thousands gathered in various towns in the West Bank, including Ramallah and Hebron, on Tuesday after a number of Palestinian groups, including Hamas militants in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, called for mass strikes."The first priority for the Palestinian political leadership now is to have Israel stop its crimes and massacres against our people in Gaza," Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee in Ramallah, told CNN on Tuesday.  บาคาร่าออนไลน์

[tomperanteau]

EXCLUSIVE – PLO Official: Meeting With Kushner Will Be A ‘Waste of Time’ TEL AVIV -- Meetings between the Palestinian Authority and American government delegates led by President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner are "a waste of time," Dr. Wasel Abu Yousef, director of the Palestinian Liberation Front and member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) Executive Committee, told Breitbart Jerusalem.

[aroundworld24-blog]

Russia to host internal Palestinian reconciliation talks

Russia to host internal Palestinian reconciliation talks

Russia is to host a meeting for the major Palestinian factions on 15 January, local news agency TASS reported yesterday. The Russian news agency said that senior PLO official Wasel Abu Yousef told the Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post about this planned meeting. Quds Press also reported a senior Palestinian official discussing the meeting. The news organisation did not name the official but…

[brajeshupadhyay]

Washington: Bahrain on Friday agreed to normalize relations with Israel, becoming the latest Arab nation to do so as part of a broader diplomatic push by President Donald Trump and his administration to further ease the Jewish state's relative isolation in West Asia and find common ground with nations that share US wariness of Iran. Trump announced the agreement on the 19th anniversary of the 11 September, 2001, terrorist attacks following a phone call he had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The three leaders also issued a brief joint statement marking the second such Arab normalization agreement with Israel in the past two months. The announcement came less than a week before Trump hosts a White House ceremony to mark the establishment of full relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, something that Trump and his Middle East team brokered in August. Bahrain’s foreign minister will attend that event and sign a separate agreement with Netanyahu. “There’s no more powerful response to the hatred that spawned 9/11 than this agreement,” Trump told reporters at the White House. Friday's agreement is another diplomatic win for Trump less than two months before the presidential election and an opportunity to shore up support among pro-Israel evangelical Christians. In addition to the UAE deal, Trump just last week announced agreements in principle for Kosovo to recognize Israel and for Serbia to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But, it is a setback for Palestinian leaders, who have urged Arab nations to withhold recognition until they have secured an independent state. The Palestinians have seen a steady erosion in once-unified Arab support — one of the few cards they still held as leverage against Israel — since Trump began pursuing an unabashedly pro-Israel agenda. “This is another stab in the back of the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian people and their rights,” said Wasel Abu Yousef, a senior Palestinian official. “It is a betrayal of Jerusalem and the Palestinians ... We see absolutely no justification for this free normalization with Israel.” In their joint statement, Trump, Netanyahu and King Hamad called the agreement "a historic breakthrough to further peace in the Middle East.” “Opening direct dialogue and ties between these two dynamic societies and advanced economies will continue the positive transformation of the Middle East and increase stability, security, and prosperity in the region," they said. Like the UAE agreement, the Bahrain-Israel deal will normalize diplomatic, commercial, security and other relations between the two countries. Bahrain, along with Saudi Arabia, had already dropped a prohibition on Israeli flights using its airspace. Saudi acquiescence to the agreements has been considered key to the deals. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner noted that the agreement is the second Israel has reached with an Arab country in 30 days after having made peace with only two Arab nations — Egypt and Jordan — in 72 years of its independence. “This is very fast,” Kushner told The Associated Press. “The region is responding very favorably to the UAE deal and hopefully it’s a sign that even more will come.” Netanyahu thanked Trump. “It took us 26 years between the second peace agreement with an Arab country and the third, but only 29 days between the third and the fourth, and there will be more,” he said, referring to the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and the more recent agreements. Bahrain's foreign ministry welcomed the deal and said that Hamad had praised US efforts to establish security and stability in the Middle East, according to the official news agency. Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, a prominent Bahraini adviser to the king and the former longtime foreign minister, wrote on Twitter that the agreement boosts the region’s security and prosperity. “It sends a positive and encouraging message to the people of Israel that a just and comprehensive peace with the Palestinian people is the best path and is in the true interest of their future and the future of the people in the region,” he wrote. In a nod to the Palestinians, the joint statement said the parties will continue efforts “to achieve a just, comprehensive, and enduring resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to enable the Palestinian people to realize their full potential.” The agreement makes Bahrain the fourth Arab country, after Egypt, Jordan and the UAE, to have full diplomatic ties with Israel. Other Arab nations believed to be on the cusp of fully recognizing Israel include Oman and Sudan. The region's power player, Saudi Arabia may also be close to a deal. Like the UAE, Bahrain has never fought a war against Israel and doesn’t share a border with it. But Bahrain, like most of the Arab world, had long rejected diplomatic ties with Israel in the absence of a Palestinian peace deal. And, although the Israeli-UAE deal required Israel to halt contentious plans to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians, the Bahrain agreement includes no such concessions. While the UAE’s population remains small and the federation has no tradition of standing up to the country’s autocracy, Bahrain represents a far-different country. Just off the coast of Saudi Arabia, the island of Bahrain is among the world’s smallest countries, only about 760 square kilometers (290 square miles). Bahrain’s location in the Persian Gulf long has made it a trading stop and a naval defensive position. The island is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet and a recently built British naval base. Bahrain is acutely aware of threats posed by Iran, an anxiety that comes from Bahrain’s majority Shiite population, despite being ruled since 1783 by the Sunni Al Khalifa family. Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had pushed to take over the island after the British left, though Bahrainis in 1970 overwhelmingly supported becoming an independent nation and the U.N. Security Council unanimously backed that. Since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Bahrain’s rulers have blamed Iran for arming militants on the island. Iran denies the accusations. Bahrain’s Shiite majority has accused the government of treating them like second-class citizens. The Shiites joined pro-democracy activists in demanding more political freedoms in 2011, as Arab Spring protests swept across the wider Middle East. Saudi and Emirati troops ultimately helped violently put down the demonstrations. In recent years, Bahrain has cracked down on all dissent, imprisoned activists and hampered independent reporting on the island. While the Obama administration halted the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain over human rights concerns, the Trump administration dropped that.

http://sansaartimes.blogspot.com/2020/09/bahrain-becomes-latest-arab-nation-to.html

[aroundworld24-blog]

Russia to host internal Palestinian reconciliation talks

Russia to host internal Palestinian reconciliation talks

Russia is to host a meeting for the major Palestinian factions on 15 January, local news agency TASS reported yesterday. The Russian news agency said that senior PLO official Wasel Abu Yousef told the Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post about this planned meeting. Quds Press also reported a senior Palestinian official discussing the meeting. The news organisation did not name the official but…