Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement was quick Sunday to ease fears regarding a decision to postpone a meeting between Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal that had been planned for Tuesday in Cairo.

Fatah officials said the decision had to do with Abbas’ busy schedule and did not necessarily mean the reconciliation process between the two rival factions is faltering.

Fatah and Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement early in May after four years of bitter and sometimes violent rivalry. The agreement called for establishing a unity government with the goal of holding general elections within a year and to rebuild the Gaza Strip, devastated after five years of the Israeli blockade and military assaults.

Forming the unity government has become a stumbling block in the reconciliation effort. Fatah wants current Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to run the new government because it believes the Western-backed Fayyad will be able to prevent an international blockade against the new government because of Hamas involvement. Hamas, however, does not trust Fayyad. 

When the two sides failed to agree on a prime minister during their meeting last week, they called on Abbas and Meshaal to sit together to resolve the issue.

Azzam Ahmad, who heads Fatah's delegation to the reconciliation talks and who announced the postponement after meeting Abbas in Ramallah, insisted that it was Abbas’ busy schedule that had led to the delay.

Abbas is going to be in Turkey on Wednesday and then in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday to address the European Parliament. Ahmad said it was better to give the two leaders time to discuss the complex issue without any interruptions. For this reason, it was believed better to postpone the meeting rather than risk having to end it before an agreement is reached.

Hamas did not seem too thrilled with the postponement. Hamas' leader in Gaza, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said Sunday that "we were ready for this meeting and we wanted it to tackle all issues in order to have a government of conciliation."

Damascus-based Hamas official, Izzat Rishk, a hard-liner, said Fatah postponed the meeting because it could not get Hamas to agree to Fayyad as prime minister.

Abbas has a lot to risk if the new government is run by a prime minister who is not acceptable to the United States and Europe. Israel is already threatening to again stop transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority. It collects over $100 million in customs duties and taxes on Palestinian-imported goods coming through it ports. These funds account for two-thirds of the monthly salaries of Palestinian public employees, and 150,000 employees will go unpaid if Israel halts remittance.

In a news conference Sunday with the president of the Dominican Republic in Ramallah, Abbas reiterated that the new government would follow his policies, which is based on reaching a solution to the Middle East conflict based on peaceful negotiations with Israel and that will continue the policies of Fayyad’s West Bank-based government.

Hamas does not seem to object, but it does not want Fayyad to be the key person in the new government.

— Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Unable to agree on who will run the new Palestinian national unity government, the secular Fatah movement and the Islamist Hamas, two bitter rivals for years, decided Tuesday to call their top leaders to the rescue.

After a meeting in Cairo to discuss government formation, the two main Palestinian political factions decided that it was time to have the Fatah leader, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and the Hamas leader, Khaled Mishal, to join the next “final and decisive” meeting planned for next Tuesday in Cairo.

Azzam al-Ahmad, who heads the Fatah delegation to the talks with Hamas, told a news conference in Cairo that the two sides have decided to ask their leaders to join the next session of talks in order to resolve the issue of government, which the two sides were not able to reach an agreement on.

The Palestinian race to September is going at full force, in spite of international initiatives to persuade  them to change their minds.

The latest such initiative came from France.

On a visit to Ramallah on Thursday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe revealed his government’s plan to invite Palestinians and Israelis to an international peace conference late this month or in early July in Paris.

The purpose is to restart the moribund Palestinian-Israeli negotiations before September, when the Palestinians want the United Nations Security Council to vote in favor of a resolution admitting the State of Palestine as a full member of the U.N.,  with recognized borders within the June 1967 armistice line.

“We are convinced that if nothing happens between now and September, the situation will be difficult for everyone,” Juppe said at a news conference after meeting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Juppe stopped short of saying his country would support the Palestinian effort if Israel turns down the French initiative, which is expected to happen, emphasizing that “if nothing happens until September … all options will be open.”

Though Juppe’s plan is based mainly on President Obama’s Mideast initiative, which calls for resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations based on the 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, it  goes a couple of steps further, which make the Israeli rejection likely.

While Obama talked about security for Israel, Juppe talked about security for the two states, and while Obama said the issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees would be negotiated at a later stage without giving a timeline, the French minister said these issues should be resolved within one year.

The French expansion on the Obama plan seems to have struck a positive note with the Palestinian Authority, but apparently not strongly enough to agree to attend the proposed Paris peace conference, let alone resume negotiations with Israel before it stops all settlement activities and agrees that the talks will eventually lead to a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Fayyad, speaking at the press conference with Juppe, said that the French initiative could succeed “if it had the right parameters that clearly state the 1967 borders and that reject the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, which will be the capital of the Palestinian state.”

Juppe said the French plan has the backing of the European Union and the United States. All that is left is to have the backing of Israel and the Palestinians.

--Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas expressed disappointment with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday and said the Israeli leader's comments had dealt a blow to efforts to resume peace talks.

An emergency meeting of the Palestinian Authority was held Wednesday in response to Netanyahu’s speech and recent speeches by President Obama on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in which the president endorsed the idea of using 1967 borders between Israel and the Palestinian territories, with mutually agreed land swaps, as a basis to revive peace talks.

Though Netanyahu rejected the idea, Palestinians on Wednesday called upon the U.N. Security Council to accept and implement Obama's proposal.

Abbas said at the meeting he hadn’t given up on revival of talks with Israel but would not hesitate to go to the U.N. in September -- Palestinians’ deadline for progress -- to ask the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, in spite of strong U.S. opposition to that move.

Abbas added that going to the U.N. was not “intended to isolate Israel or to de-legitimize it.”

-- Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

Nobody seems to know what was going through the heads of Amjad Awad, 19, and a distant cousin, Hakim Awad, 18, when they broke into the Jewish settlement of Itamar near their village in the northern West Bank in March and killed a family of five people, including three children.

A relative of Hakim's expressed disbelief, saying the two were just kids. The two, who confessed to the killings to the Israeli army shortly after their arrest in mid-April, have not been allowed any visits by family members.

"They said they have done it and they are not going to plead innocent or claim they made their confession under duress,” their attorney, Faris Abu Hasan, said. “I do not know what kind of state of mind they were in when they confessed.”

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday sent out an urgent appeal for help saying he may not be able to pay for salaries for about 130,000 public employees or anything else if Israel does not release about $100 million in funds collected over the last month on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel said Sunday that it has decided not to pay the funds after the Fatah faction, which controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, took steps to reconcile difference with Hamas, the Islamist movement which has ruled Gaza Strip since June 2007 and which does not formally recognize Israel.

At a news conference in Ramallah, Fayyad said that unless Israel paid the money it owes, he, in his capacity as finance minister, would not be able to pay the April salaries.

The funds Israel is withholding are tax revenues it collects on the Palestinian Authority's behalf, including value added taxes and customs on goods imported into the West Bank and Gaza Strip that enter through Israeli ports. Israel collects the fees and at the end of the month its finance officials meet with Palestinian counterparts to discuss transfer of this money. Soon after the meeting, Israel transfers the money to the Palestinian Authority treasury, which immediately pays salaries.

This time, the Palestinian Authority has not yet paid April salaries and may not be able to do that any time soon because Israel has decided to withhold the monthly payment.

“Israel has no right to withhold this money,” Fayyad said. “This is Palestinian money and it is not a grant or charity from Israel.”

Fayyad appealed for help from the donor countries to get him out of his predicament, first, by financial support, and, second, by pressuring Israel to release the funds. It is unclear whether Israel will be swayed.

— Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Photo: Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad addresses a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday. Credit: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images.

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When Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met the donor coordination group for the Palestinian territory, the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), on April 13 in Brussels, he presented them with his new National Development Plan (NDP) 2011-2013, titled Establishing the State, Building our Future.

In the foreword of the report, Fayyad wrote: “We stand today on the verge of national readiness for the birth of the State of Palestine. … The journey has been long and arduous, but the end is now in sight –- we are now in the homestretch to freedom.”

Fayyad’s first two-year program, Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State, was introduced in August 2009. It envisioned building the institutions for a viable state by August 2011 so that when the Palestinians go to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2011 to demand international recognition of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, they will be able to convince the international community of their readiness.

As Christians get ready to celebrate Easter, Palestinian Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are envious of fellow Christians from all over the world who are able to visit Jerusalem’s holy Christian sites and worship freely while they cannot.

Since Israel cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories in the early 1990s, Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been required to get Israeli army permission before they can enter Jerusalem.

The situation worsened since the turn of the century and restrictions got tighter after a 20-foot concrete wall was built all around East Jerusalem barring both Muslim and Christian Palestinians from reaching their holy sites in Jerusalem and its Old City.

“For Christians, Holy Week in Jerusalem has a special spiritual connection,” said a statement issued by the Christian community in the West Bank. “The Old City, its gates and roads, the Mount of Olives, Via Dolorosa and the Holy Sepulchre Church, where pilgrims from all over the world journey to, are equally important to the Palestinian Christians of Gaza and the West Bank, who want to join their Jerusalemite Christian brethren in the liturgical events leading to the resurrection, the holiest celebration in Christianity.”

 

Israeli-born filmmaker and actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, 52, was shot dead in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Monday.

It was not clear who was responsible, but some Palestinians believe the perpetrators may be among  those opposed to the liberal cultural activity Mer-Khamis had brought to Jenin and his role in building the Freedom Theater in 2006.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the killing, describing it as “hideous crime” and promising to bring to justice those responsible.

Khamis was born in Nazareth, northern Israel, to a Palestinian father, Saliba Khamis, one of the leaders of the Israeli Communist Party, and a Jewish mother, Arna Mer, a peace activist who had worked with children in the Jenin refugee camp after the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the early 1990s.

Juliano Mer-Khamis lived with his mother in the Jenin refugee camp for several periods.

Apart from starting the Freedom Theater in Jenin, Mer-Khamis also directed the film "Arna’s Children" (2004), which tells the story of his mother and the struggle of Palestinians in Jenin in the face of Israel's occupation. He also acted in Julian Schnabel's new movie, "Miral," which was recently presented at the United Nations amid protests from Israel.

His last directed work is the locally produced Arabic play, "The Chairs," which had its debut at Ramallah’s Kasaba theater on Sunday.

George Ibrahim, director of Kasaba theater and who performed in "The Chairs," said he was shocked when he heard the news of Mer-Khamis’ death. He accused people who were against seeing Palestinian cultural activities in the city of being behind the killing, but without naming them. He was clearly referring to fundamentalists who saw in the Freedom Theater a liberalization of a traditional and conservative Muslim society.

The Freedom Theater itself had come under attack twice in the past and a Jenin-based music school was set fire to at one point, giving some credence to Ibrahim’s charges.

“We will not allow, under any circumstances, the return to chaos and lawlessness,” said Prime Minister Fayyad in his statement.

Armed gunmen had at one point controlled the Palestinian streets until Fayyad, who took office in mid-2007, had in a short time put an end to this phenomena and brought stability and rule of law to the Palestinian territories.

— Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Photo: People, carrying images of Juliano Mer-Khamis, hold a protest in Ramallah, West Bank, over his killing. Credit: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

Five weeks after Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad dissolved his Cabinet, saying he needed to better prepare for upcoming elections and eventual statehood, he has yet to form a new government.

Fayyad tendered his government resignation to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Feb. 14. According to Palestinian law, Fayyad had three weeks to form a government. The three weeks passed and Fayyad had not formed one. So he asked for two more weeks and he got them. So far everything is legal.

Monday was the last day for the two-week extension, and Fayyad had not yet presented his government. Palestinian law says that in such a case the president should ask someone else to form the government. But the president, who is on an official trip to Russia, did not. So Fayyad continued to do his work as prime minister, receiving foreign delegations and running his government business.

Palestinian officials said the reason a new government was not presented was that Abbas is waiting on Hamas, the Islamist movement that ousted his forces from the Gaza Strip in June 2007, to respond to his call to join the new government and end their division.

Abbas last week said he was ready to go to Gaza for the first time in three years to discuss reconciliation and is willing to postpone formation of the new government if Hamas is receptive.

So, for the moment, the Palestinian Authority’s new government remains in limbo as everyone waits to see whether Hamas accepts Abbas’ initiative.

-- Maher Abukhater, Ramallah, West Bank

The Palestinian Authority asked for international protection Monday citing a sharp rise in Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

The call came after three Israelis from the Havat Maon settlement allegedly stabbed and seriously injured 33-year-old Mahmud Ibrahim Awad of Khirbat Tuba, a tiny village south of the West Bank city of Hebron, as he was walking home Monday morning. Awad was stabbed in the head, chest and arm.

In another incident, Israeli settlers allegedly opened fire at Palestinians during a funeral in the village of Beit Ommar, north of Hebron, injuring two people. One of them, a 59-year-old, was reported in critical condition. The second suffered injuries in the leg.

The Israeli army, which maintains a presence nearby because the village is on a road often used by settlers, intervened, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the Palestinians, who threw rocks at the settlers after the shooting.

Ghassan Khatib, director of the Palestinian Authority media center, issued a statement holding the Israeli government responsible for what he called "serious and systematic escalation" in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East War.

Khatib called for "urgent international protection to prevent further crimes against the civilians."

Palestinians say attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank have escalated since the bloody slaying of an Israeli family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar last week. 

No one has been arrested yet in connection with the Itamar killings, but Israeli officials and news media blamed Palestinian militants, resulting, Palestinians say, in revenge attacks by settlers. The Israeli government has placed a gag order on the investigation, after rumors that Thai and Filipino guest workers had been rounded up for questioning in the attack.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who strongly denounced the Itamar slayings, also denounced the assumption that a Palestinian was responsible, accusing Israel of convicting Palestinians before the truth behind the crime was known.

"There is an insistence on blaming the Palestinian people before the investigation had revealed the truth about who the killer was," Abbas said, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. "I do not know why this persistence and why they insist on this position even though the facts are not yet known."

Abbas said "there are daily crimes committed by Israeli settlers" against Palestinian civilians, yet no one seems to be talking about them. "Our villages are being attacked on a daily basis, and so our mosques and our homes and our olive trees are cut down," he said. "Israel and the international community should take note of that."

In its weekly Protection of Civilians report, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory recorded 32 incidents in which by settlers caused damage to Palestinian property, including one incident that left eight Palestinians injured.

It said that in the immediate aftermath of the Itamar killings, Israeli settlers rioted in the West Bank village of Awarta, the closest to the settlement, setting fire to tires and assaulting an 18-year-old Palestinian. Additionally, incidents of settler stone-throwing and vandalism were reported in the Ramallah, Nablus, Kalkiliya and Hebron areas of the West Bank, resulting in 13 Palestinian injuries and damage to many vehicles, homes and other private and commercial structures, OCHA said.

OCHA noted that in the days before the killings in Itamar there had already been a sharp increase in the number of settler attacks against Palestinians, beginning March 3 when Israeli settlers held a “day of rage” to protest the Israeli army demolition of a number of unauthorized structures in the Havat Gilad settlement outpost. Settlers rioted and blocked major roads and intersections across the West Bank in what they described as payback in the "price tag" policy targeting Palestinian civilians and property to protest the Israeli army's removal of their illegal outposts.

OCHA said that during the first two weeks of March there were 10 incidents involving Israeli settlers that resulted in 15 injuries to Palestinians, and 34 additional incidents resulting in damage to Palestinian property.

— Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank

Photo: Israeli soldiers and Palestinian medics treat Mahmud Ibrahim Awad, 33, after he was allegedly attacked by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Yatta, near the Jewish settlement of Mahon, in the occupied West Bank. Credit: Abed al Hashlamoun / Reuters

A Palestinian who went missing last month in Ukraine after boarding a train in Kharko headed to Kiev, was kidnapped by agents of Mossad, the Israeli spy agency and brought to Israel against his will, according to a report published Monday by the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The report says one of its lawyers was able to visit Derar abu Sisi, 42, in his Israeli prison cell, and learn the truth behind the Gaza resident's sudden disappearance.

Abu Sisi, who is director of operations at the Gaza power generation plant, told the human rights group that he was travelling to Kiev on Feb. 19 to meet with his brother, who was coming from the Netherlands. Three persons, two in military uniforms, entered his cabin on the train and asked for his passport. Abu Sisi refused, but they threatened him and forcefully took his passport. They then handcuffed and hooded him and took him off the train as it stopped in Poltava.

He was then taken by car to Kiev where he was held in an apartment. Six people, who introduced themselves as Mossad agents, immediately began to question him. He was later put on a plane, which landed at an unknown place after about four to five hours. Approximately 30 minutes later, they took off again and the flight lasted for approximately one hour and upon landing Abu Sisi found himself in Israel.

Abu Sisi, who is married to a Ukrainian woman and has six children, was denied contact with a lawyer for 25 days during which he was heavily interrogated.

Israel justified the abduction by claiming that Abu Sisi is a member of the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, and that he has good relations with top Hamas leaders, suggesting he may have information useful for Israeli intelligence.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights accused the Ukrainian government of colluding with Israel in the kidnapping. It said that Abu Sisi was not legally arrested by Ukrainian authorities and he was not brought before any court.

It expressed concern over his health and the psychological impact of the kidnapping on him and his family, calling for his immediate release.

— Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank