PA - just employees

Posted on November 18th, 2007 by Marian Houk

If this is true — and there is no reason to think it is not (for one reason, it happened before) — this is a scandal. Not because, as the journalist who wrote the account in Haaretz might think, because the Arab states appear to be just out to get Israel. No — it is because the Observer of Palestine (Riad Mansour) is shamelessly betraying other Palestinians. He probably — certainly — acted on orders, from either acting foreign minister Riyadh al-Maliki, or even from President Mahmoud Abbas himself (who, last week, called immoderately for Hamas to be overthrown, after all).

[n.b. Neither Mansour nor Maliki are from Fatah, as Abbas is.]

Haaretz is reporting that “The Arab lobby at the United Nations, backed by Russia, foiled a Palestinian Authority initiative to include a condemnation of Hamas’ seizure of the Gaza Strip in a UN resolution against Israel. PA observer Riad Mansour sought to include a clause ‘expressing concern about the takeover by illegal militias of Palestinian Authority institutions in June 2007′ and calling for the reversal of this situation, but moderated the wording under Arab pressure. Russia had made it clear to the Arab delegates that it supported their opposition to a UN resolution including any condemnation of Hamas.

The clause was supposed to be included in a draft resolution against Israel, slated to be voted on this week at a Decolonization Committee meeting … Reliable diplomatic sources said Mansour was subjected to a barrage of insults, led by the representatives of Egypt, Syria and Libya. The Arab delegates claimed Mansour’s initiative would be interpreted as an official UN condemnation of Hamas, and would gain Israel international legitimacy for cutting electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza. Mansour agreed to softer language expressing ‘concern about an illegal takeover’.” The Haaretz story on Mansour’s attempt to get condemnation of Hamas into a UN General Assembly resolution is here.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) — which does excellent work in the occupied Palestinian territory — is reporting (according to the Associated Press, as published in Haaretz) that “Only 18 percent of some 30,000 West Bank farmers who used to work the lands cut off by Israel’s separation fence now have Israeli permits to reach their fields, the United Nations said in a report on the lives of some 230,000 Palestinians in 67 communities close to the fence. The report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs looked at 15 communities with about 10,000 residents trapped between the fence and Israel, and at 52 communities with 220,000 residents on the Palestinian side of the divider. Those in the hemmed-in villages require permanent residency permits, while those on the east side of the fence need Israeli-issued visitors permits to reach lands or visit family in the enclosed communities. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the report is one-sided and that Israel is working to reduce the fence’s impact on the Palestinians”…

The UN report, citing local community leaders, said that of some 30,000 Palestinians who used to work their fields on the Israeli side of the fence, only 18 percent currently have permits to reach their fields. Some 3,000 people stopped applying because they’d been repeatedly rejected in the past. Sixty-seven gates are built into the 200 kilometer stretch of fence studied, the report said. Of those, 19 are open daily to those with permits, but are closed at night, while another 19 are open during special harvest seasons, or weekly, the report said. Of the 15 villages hemmed in by the fence, nine reported that pregnant women had to leave their homes weeks before birth to ensure they could access proper health care, and just over half the villages said they had no access to basic health care, meaning they had to pass through gates in Israel’s fence for treatment. The UN report said all the hemmed-in villages reported single people had problems meeting spouses because of that isolation - a burden in conservative Palestinian society, which expects men and women to marry quite young, and looks disapprovingly upon those who delay marriage”… The AP account of the OCHA report is published in Haaretz here.

I have heard the last complaint explained in great detail recently by the deputy Governor of Bethlehem.

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