Abbas is no champion of Palestinian democracy
One man, one vote, one time: In 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected to a four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority. He has not bothered to run for re-election since.The Future of the International Criminal Court and Impacts for Israel: A Roundtable Discussion
He is also the chairman of Fatah, a political movement with past ties to terrorism that is the dominant faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO was founded in 1964 -- three years before Israelis were in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. Abbas is chairman of the PLO, too.
What all this means is that despite Abbas' declining popularity -- two-thirds of Palestinians would like him to resign, according to a recent poll -- no one has been able to successfully challenge his power.
And last week, at the Seventh Fatah Congress, held at the Muqataa, his fortified headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas further solidified his position. With members of rival factions barred from attending, and no other candidates on the ballot, Abbas was handily re-elected as Fatah's leader.
"Everybody voted yes," Fatah spokesman Mahmoud Abu al-Hija assured reporters who had not been permitted to witness the event.
Mon 19 December 2016IsraellyCool: Exclusive: From Jew-Hating Gazan to Lover of Israel
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has come under considerable scrutiny in the past few months. Three African countries (Burundi, South Africa, and Gambia) have begun the process of exiting the court, claiming the ICC has an anti-African bias and that the laws of the court conflict with their understanding of sovereign immunity. Kenya and Uganda have also threatened to leave citing procedural and other irregularities. In addition to the issues relating to Africa, the ICC began a “Preliminary Examination into the Situation in Palestine” under highly controversial circumstances. Other critics have highlighted the small number of successful prosecutions and slow pace of the work. The expert panel will discuss these issues and what they mean for Israel.
Panelists include, Gerald Steinberg, Bar Ilan University and NGO Monitor; Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor, NGO Monitor; Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, Northwestern University; Adv. Pnina Sharvit Baruch, Senior Research Fellow, head of the Program on Law and National Security, and former head of the IDF International Law Department.
Bar Ilan University, Beck Hall 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
At a café in Beit Jala, where Gideon (fictitious name due to security concerns) met with me for an exclusive Israellycool interview, the 22-year-old described what was supposed to be happy time in his childhood –a field trip to “liberated Gaza.”
“We were in this big bus, and we entered this street, and when we went in the ‘settlement’ street, it was smooth and nice,” he recalled of this 10 shekel trip to the ruins of Gush Katif. The guide proudly pointed out where “martyrs” killed Israeli soldiers, bravely causing the Jews to retreat. Once inside, he and his schoolmates were more than eager to mock Jewish settlers and to loot whatever was left.
“I remember I saw the kippah on the street with the Star of David – so the children put it on and made fun of it and spit on it,” he said. “When we got to this place on the second level [of the regional community center], there was this basketball court, and we were shocked that it was nice. We didn’t have anything like this in Gaza.”
He visited the hothouses that were this farming community’s specialty.
“I remember how brilliant they were in how they made it. And I thought: ‘Why don’t we have these plants in Gaza? Trees like they have?’ It was organized. Homes were nice.”
He had watched the 2005 pullout on television, ironically cheering the IDF as they tore thousands Jews from their homes and farms.
“I saw the image of the Jews screaming and soldiers hitting them,” he said. “I was very excited about that because they were going out. And then I started hearing the sound of blowing stuff up. I asked my family about it, and they said now that they’re kicking them out, they’re blowing up their houses so they don’t leave anything for us.”
Gideon grew up in a middle class Christian home in Gaza City not far from the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, where the sounds of those expulsions came. He attended UNRWA schools (even though he did not consider himself a “refugee”) where he was taught that Israel is to blame for Palestinian hardship. But his family’s finances deteriorated once Hamas took over.
As he matured into adolescence, he realized how Hamas leadership – and not the settlers – are the true Palestinian oppressors.