Why Hamas should not heed calls to amend charter
By Ibrahim Al-Madhoun | Al Resalah | December 15, 2014
The Hamas Charter is considered by the movement’s supporters as a key and stand-alone historical document pertaining to Hamas’s political and social ideology. In the event that this document is altered or amended, it would cause a state of undue and untimely confusion and tension within the ranks of the Hamas supporters. It would also be seen as a concession to international and Israeli pressures, even if the changes made to the charter were not substantial or even if the new charter was more extreme in crucial issues such as the recognition of Israel or dealing with international proposals. As long as such amendments form part of international demand or foreign advice, then any response to these demands will be seen as a concession and a weakness in the eyes of both Hamas’s supporters and the movement’s political opposition. It will also send a message to international forces that soft pressure on the movement actually works.
In addition to this, no amendment to the charter would sufficiently please the international community beyond altering the core of the Hamas’s political thought. No changes to the charter would satisfy Western forces unless they explicitly recognise the two-state solution and clearly accept the legitimacy of the continued existence of the Israeli state on Palestinian territories, while shunning the Palestinian national struggle in all its forms. From a strategic regional and international perspective, unless making concessions to these specific points there is no point in changing the charter, as such change may ultimately crack the intellectual infrastructure of Hamas and cause severe repercussions affecting its survival.
Palestinians still remember Fatah’s ill-fated political acquiescence, particularly the amendment of the organisation’s charter under the supervision of Yasser Arafat in 1996 to appease Bill Clinton. Although Fatah changed the PLO Charter under US pressure, it did not reap the fruits of this change and it ultimately did not serve the Palestinian cause. Instead, it caused disappointment and decline; a fate which may well befall Hamas if it makes the same mistake.
Although it may be true that some of Hamas’s positions need to be clarified, the best way to do this would not be to change the existing charter but to issue a new document explaining the movement’s strategic vision over a specified period of time. However, this document must be clear and understandable, devoid of any extra words and without any dense literary jargon. It must be focused on the clear political matters at hand and keep pace with social and political developments in the Palestinian arena, allowing for changes over the next five to ten years.
All political entities have their literatures and philosophies that serve to carry and propagate their core values and that cannot be altered; they must remain as a foundation stone and intellectual inheritance for all new recruits. Such entities can later be developed through practice, conflict, and building relationships, but their core values always remain the same. No one truly believes that changes to Hamas’s charter would bring respect, acceptance and understanding from the international community. This community only understands the language of power and force through the ability to raise some voices and silence others. And Hamas must not allow itself to be covertly silenced in such a way.
Translated by MEMO, 15 December, 2014
Islamic Jihad slams PA-Israel security coordination as unity gov’t expires
Al-Akhbar | November 30, 2014
The national consensus government declared by Hamas and Fatah this summer has finished its interim term, Hamas spokesman said Sunday, as the Islamic Jihad movement urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop security coordination with Israel.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a press conference in Gaza City that the unity government’s six-month term had expired, and that dialogue should be resumed on a national level to discuss the future of the government.
“Any decision on whether the government should be disbanded or continued or be reshuffled must be made only through national dialogue and consensus,” Abu Zuhri said, adding that Hamas “isn’t interested in incitement, but rather seeks to maintain national unity.”
The Palestinian national unity government was formed following a reconciliation deal signed by Palestinian political rivals Hamas and Fatah in April.
The deal sought to end years of bitter and sometimes bloody rivalry between Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which dominates the West Bank-based PA.
Palestinian parties agreed in September that the unity government would assume immediate authority over Gaza, however the government has so far failed to make any real changes on the ground in Gaza.
Abu Zuhri went on to criticize the PA for making what he called “politically motivated arrests.”
So far in November, 80 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank for their political affiliation, he said, adding that 70 of them were still in PA custody.
“Hamas denounces the escalating violations and criminal acts by the PA security services against supporters of Hamas and the Palestinian resistance,” he added, calling on PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to stop the detention campaign.
Similarly, the Islamic Jihad movement urged Abbas on Sunday to release all political detainees and refrain from detaining any Palestinian over their political affiliation.
Besides the recent wave of detentions, the movement said the security coordination between the PA and Israel has become a “real danger” to the Palestinian national unity.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Yousef al-Hasayna said in a statement that the appreciation expressed by the Israeli authorities regarding the PA’s readiness to continue coordinating with the occupation forces on the security level “is a strike to the nationalistic values of the Palestinian security services” and “is in contrast with the values and beliefs of the Palestinian people.”
“Israel is using this coordination to oppress the Palestinians and make sure no uprising will erupt in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” al-Hasayna said.
“The only one benefiting from this coordination is the Israeli occupation.”
Gaza reconstruction
Ongoing differences between Hamas and the PA have kept tensions high in Gaza.
Earlier this month, a senior United Nations official warned that another conflict will engulf Gaza unless stability in the territory is achieved rapidly.
“I do not see the national consensus government effectively governing Gaza,” Robert Turner, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, said.
“If we do not have political stability, a national Palestinian government, and at least an easing of the blockade, yes there will be another war,” Turner told reporters.
For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea.
More than 2,160 Gazans, mostly civilians, were killed and 11,000 injured during seven weeks of unrelenting Israeli attacks in July and August.
The assault ended with an Egypt-brokered ceasefire agreement that calls for reopening Gaza’s border crossings with Israel, which, if implemented, would effectively end the latter’s years-long blockade of the embattled territory.
However, the Zionist entity had repeatedly blocked the entry of building material, prompting the UN in September to broker another deal. The reconstruction of Gaza has yet to begin.
The Palestinian Authority has estimated that the rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to the Gaza Strip in October that the devastation he had seen was “beyond description” and “far worse” than that caused in the previous Israel-Gaza conflict of winter 2008-2009.
According to the UN, as many as 80,000 Palestinians homes were damaged or destroyed during the days of hostilities, a higher figure than was previously thought, and over 106,000 of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents have been displaced to UN shelters and host families.
Israel routinely bars the entry of building materials into the embattled coastal enclave on grounds that Palestinian resistance faction Hamas could use them to build underground tunnels or fortifications.
For years, the Gaza Strip has depended on construction materials smuggled into the territory through a network of tunnels linking it to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
However, a crackdown on the tunnels by the Egyptian army after it overthrew then-President Mohammed Mursi has effectively neutralized hundreds of tunnels, severely affecting Gaza’s construction sector.
Economists in Gaza have estimated that as many as 400 trucks of equipment – from concrete to building materials and machinery – are needed every day for the next six months to meet the demand, but so far only around 75 trucks have made deliveries.
“I know there is frustration at the pace of reconstruction,” Turner said, adding that efforts were underway to fully implement a mechanism negotiated by the UN’s special coordinator in the Middle East, Robert Serry, to speed up the flow of goods.
Alaa Radwan, head of the Popular Committee for Monitoring the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, made a simple calculation: “Given the pace at which construction materials are currently entering Gaza, it will be at least 20 years” before the damage caused by this summer’s war is repaired.
While Hamas and people in Gaza have lamented the slow flow of goods, Turner was optimistic that the volume could be greatly increased if political stability could be brought to bear and if Egypt and Israel fully lifted their combined blockade.
“I do not believe the crossings are a problem,” Turnor said. “All the technical problems can be addressed. The question for me is that the political choke points be addressed.”
“If the political will exists… expanding the crossing to 800 trucks a day is just a matter of paying for the expansion.”
The crisis between Hamas and Fatah has been delaying the flow of reconstruction material into war-battered Gaza because the opening of border crossings, both under Israeli and Egyptian control, is conditional on PA personnel being stationed there.
According to the UN-brokered deal, all materials going into Gaza should be extremely monitored, including GPS tracking and video surveillance of their storage, to ensure nothing goes missing and ends up being used for “military purposes.”
On top of the slow pace of reconstruction and the bureaucracy, Fatah’s failure to pay employees of Gaza’s former Hamas government has further escalated tensions between the two rivals.
Moreover, the situation in Gaza was thrown into doubt early November after bombs targeted the houses of some 10 senior Fatah officials in Gaza.
Even though Hamas leaders rushed to denounce the attacks and called upon security services in Gaza to investigate into the attacks and bring those responsible for it to justice, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority security services accused Hamas of having knowledge of the blasts before they happened.
Hamas top member, Khalil al-Hayya, however, slammed the accusations as “groundless” and “baseless,” saying whoever was behind the blasts was trying to thwart reconciliation and ensure the Palestinian Authority did not re-extend its control over Gaza.
Hayya also warned against using the incident as an excuse to avoid reconciliation, calling on all sides to uphold their responsibilities towards the national good.
(Al-Akhbar, AFP, Ma’an)
Hamas official denies group’s involvement in Sinai attacks
MEMO | October 27, 2014
Mousa Abu-Marzouk, deputy of the Hamas political bureau, offered his condolences to the families who lost members in the terrorist attack in Abu Zeid, Sinai, on Friday.
Abu-Marzouk said: “We regret hearing about any drop of blood spilt in Egypt or anywhere in the Arab world as such news is very painful.”
In a telephone interview on Egyptian TV show Lazem Nafham, Abu-Marzouk stressed that linking Hamas to the attack in Sinai is an unwarranted claim that lacks any evidence. He said Hamas is a resistance movement that focuses its efforts toward the Israeli occupation and not its brothers in Egypt.
Abu-Marzouk went on to clarify that Hamas’ forces inside the Gaza Strip have increased their security measures to ensure that no activity takes place in Sinai and he asked the Egyptian government to avoid blaming the Palestinian people for actions and events that they have nothing to do with.
Emphasising that Palestinian have no reason to interfere in internal Egyptian affairs, he stressed that no party should accuse Hamas of anything without clear evidence and pointed out that the Palestinians have done nothing short of ensuring Egyptian national security.
“My statements regarding the kidnapping of Egyptian soldiers in Sinai are verified by a trustworthy source,” Abu-Marzouk said. He went on to emphasise that Gaza is the least extremist area in the entire Arab region.
Is Hamas really like ISIS, as Netanyahu claims?
By Ibrahim Al-Madhoun | MEMO | October 8, 2014
In his heart of hearts, Netanyahu is aware of the major and fundamental differences between the Palestinian Hamas movement and the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) that is not limited to a specific state or nationality. However, for some reason, he is trying to link the two. In doing so, he ignores what is even more dangerous than his erroneous comparison; the significant similarity between ISIS and Israel’s ideology, policies and practices.
Israel calls itself the “Jewish State”, just as Al-Baghdadi calls his group the Islamic State. From the time of its “independence” in 1948, Israel has never declared it borders; in fact, they expand and contract, just as the territory controlled by ISIS does (it rejects the ideas of borders and does not recognise nation states). Indeed, ISIS considers its borders to be wherever its forces have reached. Israel was established on the basis of colonial-settlement and mass immigration of Zionist Jews from all over the world; ISIS is also encouraging immigrants who believe in the ideology of the group, regardless of their ethnicity and nationality.
It is no wonder that the Palestinian resistance is surprised when it captures or kills Israeli soldiers only to find that they are French, British, Polish, German or Russian individuals brought in to fight on Palestinian land and join the ranks of the “Jewish State”. In addition, the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel throughout its occupation of Palestine far surpass those committed by ISIS; the Israelis kill women and children and commit massacres deliberately, with apparent impunity, and then boast about it.
I do not mean that this comparison should offend ISIS, nor am I very concerned with talking about an organisation being fought by the world. It is undoubtedly a serious phenomenon that requires further reflection and study. What I am really concerned about is revealing Netanyahu’s manipulation and his attempt to divert attention from the real nature of the conflict in Palestine. When he fights Hamas, he is fighting the rightful owners of the land, the Palestinians. He is also following terrorist logic and using unimaginably extreme methods thanks to the world overlooking the Zionist project’s excesses in the region.
The international community is applying blatant double standards in its reaction to Israel and ISIS. Alliances have been formed to fight ISIS but the world turns a blind eye to the Israeli occupation that commits war crimes witnessed by all who wish to see. Over the summer, and not for the first time, Israel bombed hospitals, schools and safe houses while they were still inhabited and Israel also used internationally-banned weapons.
Netanyahu’s repeated attempts to link Hamas to ISIS is just more proof of Israel’s defeat and failure in its latest attack on the movement. It is also a cry for help by Israel to the countries of the world after its army failed to progress more than a few metres into Gaza. This is a desperate attempt to discredit and ruin the reputation of the Palestinian resistance and link it to a terrorist organisation reviled across the world. Netanyahu still hasn’t realised that the world is no longer held hostage to Israeli propaganda, and that such links and comparisons do not harm Hamas or change the fact that occupation is terrorism in every sense of the word. There is only one state occupying someone else’s land in the Middle East, and it isn’t the “Islamic State”.
UN plan to ensure reconstruction materials not diverted to Hamas
Palestine Information Center – 22/09/2014
GAZA – The United Nations’ top Mideast envoy, Robert Serry, wants to station hundreds of international monitors in the Gaza Strip to supervise the reconstruction process in Gaza Strip, the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz learned from European diplomats and senior Israeli officials.
The newspaper pointed out that Robert Serry has agreed upon the proposal along with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamallah and Coordinator of the Israeli government in Palestinian territories Yoav Mordechai.
Serry is liaising with the PA and Israel to bring between 250 and 500 UN monitors into the Strip, the sources added.
50 UN monitors are currently in Ramallah and ready to head to Gaza Strip to participate in supervising rebuilding work in the Strip. The monitors’ mission is mainly to supervise big reconstruction projects and safeguard materials and to ensure that nothing would be diverted to Hamas Movement for tunnels digging.
Hamas has yet to comment on the proposal, the Hebrew newspaper said, adding that the Islamic movement realizes that Israel only allows construction materials’ access to the Strip in the presence of UN monitors.
The proposal is expected to be addressed during the Israeli-Palestinian indirect talks on Wednesday.
Abbas’ spurious charges
By Nicola Nasser | Al-Ahram | September 11, 2014
President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah movement, which he commands, have unleashed a media campaign against Hamas and the resistance. If pressure from the Palestinian public fails to stop the campaign, Abbas may achieve politically what Israel failed to achieve militarily: forcing the Palestinian presidency to choose “peace with Israel” over national reconciliation.
It appears that President Abbas has, indeed, prioritised “peace with Israel.” He has devised plans for resuming negotiations, and is still banking on American support for such talks. This is the only explanation for the current anti-Hamas media campaign.
Abbas sent his negotiators — Saeb Erekat, Majed Faraj and Maen Erekat — to Washington, where they met with US Secretary of State John Kerry a week ago last Wednesday. US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki described the more than two-hour meeting as “constructive”. Abbas then prepared to obtain an Arab mandate, which seems guaranteed in advance, for his plans from the 142nd session of the Arab foreign ministers conference, held in Cairo this week.
However, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power poured cold water over the Palestinian Authority (PA) president’s bid to obtain US backing for his plan, which he intends to put before the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly. The proposal would end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza within three years, during which period negotiations would resume within three months with the occupying power over its borders with the Palestinian state.
“We don’t think there are shortcuts or unilateral measures that can be taken at the United Nations or anyplace else that will bring about the outcome that the Palestinian people most seek,” Power said in a press conference last week. “To think that you can come to New York and secure what needs to be worked out on the ground is not realistic.”
This clearly translates into an unequivocal US “No.” The Palestinian president’s new plan has run up against the same American wall that Palestinian negotiators have faced since negotiations were adopted as a strategic approach. The Zionist route remains the only way these negotiators can access the White House and the UN Security Council.
There can be only one explanation for this plan. It is in fulfilment of a Palestinian promise not to resist the occupation and to offer the occupying power the opportunity to agree to yet another futile round of negotiations. Such negotiations will give Israel the time it needs to turn the Givaot colony into a major settler city on the 4,000 dunams of Palestinian land that it has just seized by declaring it “state land”.
The purpose of this appropriation is to separate the Hebron and South Bethlehem governorates in the West Bank. It is also a means to deflect international humanitarian pressure in reaction to Israeli war crimes in Gaza, to evade Israel’s obligations to the truce agreement with the resistance in Gaza, and to fuel internal Palestinian tensions until they reignite once more.
It was not Hamas or the resistance that described Abbas’s new plan as a “spurious process”. It was independent Palestinian figures who expressed their views in a statement read out by Mamdouh Al-Akr, general commissioner of the Independent Organisation of Human Rights, on 2 September in Ramallah. They called for an urgent meeting of the unified leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), in accordance with the Cairo agreement of 2011, so that it can serve as a frame of reference for the Palestinian will and take critical national decisions.
Activating the unified leadership framework of the PLO will put President Abbas’s call for a “single Palestinian central authority”, uniquely empowered to “determine matters of war and peace”, into its concrete national context. Only this context can confer legitimacy on a Palestinian leadership that does not derive its authority from resisting the occupation in all forms.
Moreover, the currently missing “electoral legitimacy” is no longer sufficient in and of itself to allow Palestinian decisions on war and peace to remain in the hands of a leadership that is the product of elections that were held with the approval of the occupation power and in the framework of agreements signed with it.
The Palestinian presidency has dropped the available option of resistance from the lexicon of its negotiating strategy, let alone the option of war, which is not available. The PA, in coordination with the occupation’s security apparatus, has become “the security proxy for the occupying power, rather than an instrument to end the occupation and establish the state,” as Palestinian analyst Hani Al-Masri wrote on 26 August.
As a result, the occupying power, alone, holds the keys to the decision of war, which it continues to repeat, and to the decision of peace, which it still refuses to take.
It appears that President Abbas is working against the tide of Palestinian public opinion, as voiced in a recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) in Ramallah. According to this poll, only 22 per cent of respondents supported a resumption of negotiations, while 53 per cent said they regarded resistance as “the more effective way” to realise the creation of a Palestinian state.
The results of the PCPSR poll contradict all the charges levelled by the president and Fatah against the resistance and Hamas. Of those polled, 79 per cent believe that the resistance emerged victorious from the recent war, while 86 per cent support the defensive use of rockets.
Respondents gave very low ratings to the performance of the Palestinian president, the PA, the national unity government and the PLO, while the approval rating for Hamas was 88 per cent.
What is the substance of this media campaign against Hamas? It ranges from blaming Hamas for prolonging the war and for the consequent loss of lives and material damage, to adopting the Israeli narrative regarding a Hamas-engineered “coup attempt” against the president in the West Bank and the existence of a “shadow government” in Gaza that prevents the national unity government from functioning.
Then there are the charges of keeping Fatah members under “house arrest”, of “opening fire on civilians”, and of “selling emergency relief on the black market.” On top of these come the accusation that Hamas has violated “the law that defines the colours and dimensions of the flag.”
President Abbas’s instructions to create a “committee to hold a dialogue” with Hamas to discuss the “fate of the national unity government,” as announced by Amin Maqboul, secretary of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, does little to encourage optimism. The national unity government, national reconciliation, the Cairo agreement of 2011, the unified leadership framework that it stipulated, and the reactivation of the PLO, all stand at a crossroads.
This is because of the confrontation stirred by the systematic smear campaign that President Abbas and the Fatah movement are waging against Hamas and the resistance. The campaign has created a media smokescreen behind which the occupation authority can conceal its foot-dragging in carrying out its obligations under the truce agreement, which will probably be echoed in Israeli procrastination on continuing with truce talks due to be held in Cairo.
It should also be stressed that to accuse the resistance and Hamas of prolonging the war is to exonerate the occupation power of responsibility. The Israeli media was quick to capitalise on this, further proof of the extensive coverage the campaign has received.
Indeed, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev virtually reiterated it verbatim when he said that the Egyptian initiative was on the table from 15 July and that while the Arab League and Israel had approved the initiative, Hamas rejected it, only to turn around and agree to it a month later. “If [Hamas] had agreed then to what it agrees to now” it would have been possible “to avoid all that bloodshed,” he said.
The investigatory commission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council will most likely cite the president’s charges to strengthen the claims of the occupying power, as these charges would be regarded as “testimony of a witness from the other side.”
Abbas says that while the “final toll” from the most recent war in Gaza was 2,140 dead, “if added to the number of dead in previous wars, and those who died during the period of the Shalit problem, the number would be 10,000 dead and wounded, in addition to the 35,000 homes that were totally or partially destroyed.”
When Abbas says that “it would have been possible” to avert the human and material losses of the recent conflict he is effectively blaming the resistance, not the occupation, for the last war on Gaza and the two wars since 2008 that preceded it.
The spectre of discord once again hovers over Palestinian unity, with Palestinian opinion divided over a programme of negotiations versus a programme of resistance. This is the breach through which Arab and non-Arab “axes” penetrate into the Palestinian interior, deepening rather than mending Palestinian rifts.
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories
Hamas: US is partner to Israeli crimes in Gaza
MEMO | September 2, 2014
Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar said on Monday that the United States is a partner to the Israeli occupation and its crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to the Palestinian Al-Quds television, he said: “We mean the US administration, not the American people, who took to the streets in large rallies against Israel’s crimes.”
He explained that lifting the Israeli siege of Gaza is not a demand, but a right. “We have the right to exist and lifting the siege is one of our rights,” he said, “it has to be lifted without a price.”
Regarding the Israeli soldiers who were abducted during Israel’s latest invasion of the Gaza Strip, he said their price is the release of the Palestinian prisoners. “This is our policy, which the enemy knows very well,” he said.
He continued: “There are two kinds of prisoners: MPs, former ministers, Hamas leaders and those prisoners freed in previous swaps; and the prisoners who are spending long terms in Israeli jails.”
The first kind should be released without a price, he asserted, while “the Israeli prisoners in our hands” are the price for the second kind of prisoners.
He also spoke about the seaport and airport that Hamas insisted on during the ceasefire talks in Cairo. “The airport was built during the time of late Yasser Arafat, but the occupation forces demolished it,” he said. “It is our right to rebuild it.”
“The seaport was supposed to be built in Gaza’s central port, but the occupation forces have stopped any positive measures from happening in the Strip, including the seaport,” he explained. “The Palestinian Authority was too weak to defend establishing the seaport. It is our right, which we seek to achieve. Whoever attacks us, we will attack them.”
Al-Zahar stressed that the Israeli occupation has to be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court (ICC). If the Palestinian Authority does not carry out this mission, individuals in Europe and Latin America and every free country should pursue Israeli criminals at the ICC.
He concluded by comparing negotiations and resistance as methods to gain Palestinians rights. “There are diplomatic negotiations, which supporters think will gain a Palestinian state,” he said. “However, they have now failed and its supporters warn that they are going to join international organisations if negotiations are not revived.”
Meanwhile, he said the resistance programme is more “successful” and it insists on not making any concessions on Palestinians’ rights.
History shows Israel will again fail to implement its agreement with Hamas
By David Morrison | Friends of Lebanon | August 27, 2014
26 August 2014: Palestinian and Israeli leaders have finally agreed an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire to end the seven-week-old Gaza war.
It is appropriate to recall that Israel’s last military offensive against Gaza in November 2012 also ended with an agreement concerning Gaza brokered by Egypt [1]. Under it, both sides were required to cease hostilities and Israel undertook to take steps towards ending its blockade of Gaza. The agreement seemed to have the backing of the US, since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood beside the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mohamad Amr, when he announced it on 21 November 2012.
What happened to the November 2012 agreement?
So, what happened to this agreement? Basically, Israel failed to fulfill its obligations under it, whereas Hamas fulfilled its obligations to the letter for more than eighteen months – and the international community turned a blind eye to Israel’s failure.
Specifically, in the agreement, Israel promised “to stop all hostilities on the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals” and the “opening the crossings and facilitating the movement of people and transfer of goods, and refraining from restricting residents free movement”. Israel didn’t fulfill either of these obligations – it continued to make regular incursions into Gaza (killing 20 Palestinians in Gaza in the following 15 months) and took no steps to lift its economic blockade.
The agreement required Hamas and other Palestinian groups to “stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel, including rocket attacks, and attacks along the border”. Hamas did so for more than eighteen months from 21 November 2012. Speaking to a Knesset committee on 30 June 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged this, accusing Hamas “of involvement, for the first time since a Gaza war in 2012, in rocket attacks on Israel”, according to a Reuters report [2].
Other Palestinian groups did fire rockets into Israel, despite being restrained by Hamas. But, according to Nathan Thrall of the International Crisis Group Middle East and North Africa Programme, in an article dated 1 August 2014 in the London Review of Books[3]:
“During the three months that followed the ceasefire [on 21 November 2012], Shin Bet recorded only a single attack: two mortar shells fired from Gaza in December 2012. …
“[Hamas] set up a new police force tasked with arresting Palestinians who tried to launch rockets. In 2013, fewer were fired from Gaza than in any year since 2003, soon after the first primitive projectiles were shot across the border.”
Israel’s response to quiet along the border
How did Israel respond to this comparative quiet along the border? In his London Review of Books article, Nathan Thrall writes:
“In the three months following the ceasefire, its forces made regular incursions into Gaza, strafed Palestinian farmers and those collecting scrap and rubble across the border, and fired at boats, preventing fishermen from accessing the majority of Gaza’s waters.
“The end of the closure never came. Crossings were repeatedly shut. So-called buffer zones – agricultural lands that Gazan farmers couldn’t enter without being fired on – were reinstated. Imports declined, exports were blocked, and fewer Gazans were given exit permits to Israel and the West Bank.
“Israel had committed [in the November 2012 agreement] to holding indirect negotiations with Hamas over the implementation of the ceasefire but repeatedly delayed them. … The talks never took place. The lesson for Hamas was clear. Even if an agreement was brokered by the US and Egypt, Israel could still fail to honour it.”
If Israel had fulfilled its obligations
Had Israel ceased military incursions into Gaza and taken steps to lift its economic blockade, as it was supposed to do under the agreement, it is virtually certain that Hamas would not have resumed rocket fire. Hamas did resume on 7 July 2014, after Israel made an armed incursion into Gaza and killed seven Hamas members. And if progress was being made towards lifting the blockade, Hamas would have been in a much stronger position to stop other Palestinian groups from firing rockets and mortars into Israel.
So, had Israel fulfilled its obligations under the agreement, it is very likely that rocket and mortar firing into Israel could have been halted altogether without Israeli military action against Gaza.
June 2008 agreement
This is not the first time that Israel has failed to fulfill its obligations under an agreement with Hamas. In June 2008, Egypt brokered an agreement which, like the November 2012 agreement, provided for a cessation of hostilities on both sides and steps by Israel towards ending its blockade [4].
Hamas fulfilled its obligations under this agreement to the letter and, as a result, southern Israel was almost entirely free from firing out of Gaza for four and a half months. But Israel did not ease its economic blockade, let alone lift it, and on the evening of 4 November 2008 (when the world was watching the election of Barack Obama) it made a military incursion into Gaza for the first time since the ceasefire began in June and killed seven members of Hamas. That was the end of that agreement.
A few weeks later Israel embarked on its first major offensive against Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, with the declared objective of suppressing rocket and mortar into Israel.
The lesson of history
The lesson from the above is that the international community will have to ensure that Israel fulfills its obligations in any future agreement with Hamas. Come to think of it, does another agreement need to be negotiated? In reality, all that is necessary is that Israel be persuaded to implement the November 2012 agreement.
References:
[1] http://www.upi.com/blog/2012/11/21/Read-the-Gaza-ceasefire-deal/7401353523034/
[2] uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/30/uk-palestinian-israel-idUKKBN0F51CZ20140630
[3] http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n16/nathan-thrall/hamass-chances
[4] news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7462554.stm
David Morrison is a Political Officer of Sadaka: The Ireland Palestine Alliance and co-author of A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran (April 2013). Morrison can be reached at david@sadaka.ie.
For a virtual tour of the destruction of Gaza, see visual journalist Lewis Whyld’s gallery here.
- See also “The Victims of Gaza: A List of Palestinians Killed in Israel’s Ongoing Assault” (26 August 2014)
- See also David Morrison’s “Gaza: Israeli and Palestinian fatalities” (24 July 2014) and “Gaza: Nobody needed to die” (26 July 2014)
Senior Hamas official: Israel agreed to open Gaza crossings
Ma’an – 26/08/2014
Israel has agreed to open Gaza crossings to allow the flow of humanitarian aid and construction material, senior Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouq said Tuesday.
Speaking to Ma’an, Abu Marzouq added that three more Gaza crossings will be operated in addition the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings, which are already operating.
Asked about the fishing zone, he said that Gaza fishermen would be allowed to reach as far as 6 nautical miles and the zone would be increased gradually until it is 12 nautical miles by the end of 2014.
Reconstruction of the war-torn Gaza Strip will be discussed during a conference in Egypt next month, added Abu Marzouq. The Palestinian national consensus government will be in charge of implementation.
The Hamas official added that the ceasefire agreement was sponsored and would be monitored by Egypt only.
Another round of negotiations will start a month from now to discuss unresolved issues, Abu Marzouq said.
Furthermore, Israeli, European and American restrictions and opposition to money transfers to Gaza for salaries for employees of the former Hamas-led government in Gaza have been cancelled. The national consensus government is supposedly working on proceedings to arrange payment of salaries.
Abu Marzouq pointed out that Israel agreed to stop targeted assassinations of resistance activists and said that a ceasefire agreement could have been reached earlier if Israel agreed to this demand sooner.
As for the Rafah crossing, Abu Marzouq said Egyptian and Palestinian officials would meet soon to discuss what is needed to open the crossing permanently.
The Gaza buffer zone has also been removed, he added.
Former Israeli AG: Our government staged the assassination of Al-Daif
MEMO | August 24, 2014
In the biggest blow to Israeli propaganda, which claimed that Hamas broke the ceasefire, former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben Yair has said that “it was Israel who staged the alleged Hamas breach of the ceasefire in order to create the conditions for assassinating Muhammad Al-Daif, Commander-in-Chief of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades.
The website of Makor Rishon newspaper said that Ben Yair, who also worked as a judge in the Israeli supreme court, tweeted on his twitter account the following: “There is no agreement and hostilities have been renewed, but who is the culprit? Hamas who wants an agreement with accomplishments or Israel who staged the breach of the ceasefire in order to justify the assassination of Muhammad Al-Daif?”
The significance of this testimony lies in the fact that Ben Yair, by virtue of his former position, had knowledge of the fine details of the secret Zionist intelligence work. He conducted investigations into the various aspects of the activities carried out by Israel’s Security Agency, the Shabak, which is responsible for intelligence about resistance leaders named for liquidation.
Ben Yair’s testimony is also significant because it comes in the wake of the adoption by Europe and the United States of America of the Israeli narrative as a result of which they held Hamas responsible for breaching the ceasefire.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli government’s judicial advisor is also in charge of prosecution in the country.
Ben Yair is considered to be a serious person who is highly respectable within Israel, thanks to his revolutionary decisions during the time when he was in office. It is worth noting that Ha’aretz military commentator Amir Oren alluded in an article he published last Wednesday that there were indications that Israel had an interest in the collapse of the ceasefire so as to justify liquidating Al-Daif after receiving intelligence about his whereabouts.
Oren ruled out the possibility that Hamas was the one who violated the ceasefire, noting that what Israel was in need of was a context that justifies the assassination of Al-Daif after receiving valuable intelligence about his whereabouts.
Source: Arabi21
Hamas clarifies press remarks by Mishaal on three settlers killed last June
Palestine Information Center – 24/08/2014
DOHA – The Hamas Movement said it had had no idea at first who kidnapped and killed three Jewish settlers in the West Bank last June, but it described what happened to them as a natural and legitimate act against the illegitimate Israeli occupation.
This came in an explanatory statement released by the Movement on Saturday evening to clarify inaccurate and incomplete media and press interpretations of remarks made on Friday by head of its political bureau Khaled Mishaal in an interview conducted by Yahoo News.
“We did not have prior knowledge of this act which was done by a group of Hamas members, but we do know that any distressed people living under occupation and oppression could do anything to defend themselves,” the Hamas Movement explained.
“The soldiers and settlers in the West Bank are considered ‘assailants’ and live illegally on usurped and occupied Palestinian land, so the Palestinians have the right to resist them,” the Movement reiterated some of what Mishaal said in the interview.
The Movement also included in its statement some of the remarks that were made by Mishaal during the interview in Arabic. The Palestinian Information Center translated these remarks as follows:
“This group of Hamas members are in Al-Khalil and the Israeli investigations have unveiled lately that they had carried out this operation against those armed settlers who practiced, as thousands of other settlers do, their violence in all Palestinian areas. However, we, as the leadership of Hamas, did not know about that. This was known later on.”
“This is part of the [Palestinian] reaction to the occupation and settlement, because as you know the West Bank is an occupied territory according to the international law and the American standards, and the right to self-defense is guaranteed for all.”
“I am talking about something that has been announced as a result of the recent Israeli investigations. We in the political leadership of Hamas are not sure about that, but if that was true, it would be in the context of self-defense against Israeli occupiers whether they are soldiers or settlers. They are not civilians living in other places; they are living in Jerusalem and the West Bank which are occupied territories in accordance with the international law and the American standards.”
In a related context, member of Hamas’s political bureau Saleh Al-Aruri said that what he had previously stated about the kidnapping of three settlers in the West Bank was not a declaration of responsibility for the operation.
Aruri stated in a press release on Saturday that he had made his remarks in this regard based on the results of the recent Israeli investigations.
“The leadership of the Movement had no idea at the time about the group or the operation, but later it turned out that they were a group of Hamas fighters, and about this context was my talk,” the Hamas official explained.
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Book Summary
The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food
Lies Are Unbekoming | January 20, 2026
Soybeans generate approximately $80 million annually in mandatory producer assessments alone, funding a marketing apparatus that has transformed an industrial commodity into one of America’s most trusted “health foods.” The campaign succeeded. Soy milk lines supermarket shelves beside dairy. Soy protein fortifies everything from infant formula to energy bars. Vegetarians rely on tofu and tempeh as dietary staples. Doctors recommend soy to menopausal women. School lunch programs serve soy-based meat substitutes to children. An estimated 60 percent of processed foods contain soy derivatives. The premise underlying this proliferation—that Asians have thrived on soy for millennia and that modern science validates its health benefits—has been repeated so often it functions as established fact.
Kaayla T. Daniel’s The Whole Soy Story dismantles this premise through systematic examination of the scientific literature. The book documents that traditional Asian soy consumption averaged roughly one tablespoon daily, consumed as fermented condiments after processing methods that neutralized inherent toxins—a pattern bearing no resemblance to American consumption of industrially processed soy protein isolate, soy flour, and soy oil. Daniel catalogs the antinutrients that survive modern processing (protease inhibitors, phytates, lectins, saponins), the toxic compounds created by industrial methods (nitrosamines, lysinoalanine, hexane residues), and the heavy metals concentrated in soy products (manganese, aluminum, fluoride, cadmium). She traces the mechanisms by which soy isoflavones—plant estrogens present at pharmacologically significant levels—disrupt thyroid function, impair fertility, and interact with hormone-sensitive cancers. The evidence emerges from peer-reviewed journals, FDA documents, and industry sources themselves.
The stakes extend beyond individual dietary choices. Infants fed soy formula receive isoflavone doses equivalent to several birth control pills daily, with blood concentrations 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than their natural estrogen levels. Soy protein isolate—the ingredient in formula, protein bars, and thousands of products—has never received GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status; its only pre-1960s use was as an industrial paper sealant. Two senior FDA scientists formally protested their own agency’s approval of soy health claims, citing evidence of thyroid damage and reproductive harm. The Honolulu Heart Program found that men consuming tofu twice weekly showed accelerated brain aging and increased dementia. These findings have not penetrated public awareness because the institutions responsible for consumer protection have been compromised by the industry they regulate. The Whole Soy Story presents the evidence that has been systematically excluded from mainstream health messaging, enabling readers to evaluate for themselves what the soy industry prefers they never learn. … continue
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