"Deportation" deadline for Hamas' Mohammed Abu Tir

The imprecision of the language is infuriating.

Israeli police reportedly notified the duly elected Hamas representative to the moribund Palestine Legislative Council (PLC), Mohammed Abu Tir (Teir) that he faces a “deportation” deadline of Friday [tomorrow] from his home in East Jerusalem.r

Abu Tir lives in Sur Bahr, a neighborhood in south-eastern Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where the West Bank is just across the street — but behind barbed wire, watched by Israeli Border Police in a tall concrete tower, where Jerusalem residents must pass through a guarded checkpoint to go back and forth.

So, “Deportation” from East Jerusalem — to where?

To Gaza? To the West Bank? To the Galilee (Israel)? To Europe?

“Maybe they will shoot him to the moon”, said another political activist (affiliated to Fatah, but not a deadly enemy of Hamas), who said he did not know what the decision meant, or where Abu Tir might be sent.

Abu Tir was released from prison on 20 May after serving four years in jail — essentially, for being a member of Hamas elected to the PLC. Israel jailed nearly 40 Hamas-affiliated members of the PLC after the surprise Hamas victory in January 2006 (that was the first “national” election in which Hamas had ever participated — as demanded, as a political party, the Change and Reform Party — and they won).

Abu Tir was arrested in the spring of 2006 for making a political speech during a meeting he convened with workers at the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives.

The detention (by Israel) of these elected Palestinian legislators made it impossible for the PLC to function until now, because it could not constitute a quorum for decision-making with so many of its members in jail.

Only recently have enough Hamas members been released from jail to constitute a quorum, but the Fatah position on the political stalemate (especially since the Hamas military rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Forces three years ago, in mid-June 2007) has ruled out any immediate reconvening of the PLC.

Abu Tir is one of four Hamas-affiliated politicians ordered deported — all are permanent residents of East Jerusalem. Abu Tir’s deadline to leave Jerusalem has already past, while the other three must leave by early July [in one week]. The Israeli Supreme Court declined, on Sunday, to prevent the “deportation”

The Associated Press reported that “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday denounced Israel’s plan to expel four politicians from Jerusalem because they belong to the Islamic militant group Hamas. Abbas warned that expelling the politicians to the West Bank would set a dangerous precedent and would create new obstacles for peace … [H]uman rights activists say revoking the residency of the four Hamas politicians would mark the first time Israel had against Arab residents of the city because of their political affiliation. Jerusalem police confiscated the Israeli identity cards of the four Hamas legislators – Mohammed Abu Tir, Mohammed Totach, Khaled Abu Arafa, and Ahmed Atoun – in early June and gave them until July to leave the country … Detectives from the Jerusalem District Police Central Unit took their identity cards after The High Court of Justice ruled that they would not prevent the men’s expulsion from Jerusalem”. This AP report was published in Haaretz here.

Palestinian Television showed footage during its 9pm news program tonight showing the four Hamas-affiliated politicians at a tourist on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Old City of East Jerusalem, with the golden cupola of the Dome of the Rock glistening in strong sunlight. Right next to the four Hamas-affiliated politicians facing “deportation” stood a surprised group of Israeli Army soldiers in olive green uniforms on a field excursion… The two groups managed to coexist without any confrontation (the Hamas-affiliated politicians pretended to ignore the soldiers, who gaped in astonishment but did not initiate any interaction)…

UPDATE: On Friday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received in his office in the Muqata’a in Ramallah the four men facing deportation, and told them that he is following up on the matter “with sincerity and sensitivity considering its significance”, according to a report on Ma’an News, here.

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