Palestinian calls for removing Abbas from office

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[ 05/10/2009 - 04:39 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Head of the national reconciliation campaign Eyad Al-Sarraj on Sunday called for conducting an investigation with Mahmoud Abbas and removing him from office because of his decision to delay taking action on the UN report about Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

“What happened in Geneva, regardless of the justifications, was a big unforgivable crime against the Palestinian people,” Sarraj stressed.

He also described Abbas as a traitor and unfit to be in his post as the chief of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

In a related context, 35 Palestinian organizations in Europe also called for removing Abbas from office and interrogating him before an independent Arab legal committee.

In a joint statement, they said that Abbas’s position towards the report gave Israel a cover-up for its war crimes and represented a precedent not less dangerous than the atrocities committed in Gaza nine months ago.

The organizations which signed this statement include the Palestinian assembly in Italy, the cultural society in Poland, the association of Palestinian rights in Ireland, the Palestinian forum of rights and solidarity in Netherlands, the Palestinian forum in Denmark and the Palestinian assembly in Berlin.

For his part, first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC) Dr. Ahmed Bahar stated Sunday that the Palestinian cause is facing a critical juncture because of the settlement project led by Abbas who dragged it into dark horizons, stressing the future is definitely in favor of the resistance project.

Dr. Bahar added that what happened to the report is a conspiracy against the Palestinian people and their national cause and a crime committed by the PA in Ramallah to cover up for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

Mizan center: Delaying action on the UN report is a serious precedent

[ 05/10/2009 - 11:38 AM ]

JABALIYA, (PIC)-- Issam Younis, the director of Al-Mizan center for human rights, said that the Palestinian Authority’s request to defer action on the UN report about Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip is a serious precedence entailing investigation and holding everyone involved accountable.

Younis belied the PA allegations that it wanted to create consensus on the report, saying there was international consensus on the report which was endorsed by 33 countries out of 46.

He pointed out that since 1967 until today, there has never been any consensus on any decision related to the Palestinian cause especially concerning the occupied Palestinian lands because the UN decisions are not taken unanimously, but by a majority vote.

Al-Mizan director’s speech came during a symposium organized on Saturday by the information office of Hamas in northern Gaza on the humanitarian and political dimensions of the PA’s withdrawal of its support for Goldstone’s report.

In a related context, Abbas’s envoy to the UN Ibrahim Khreisheh affirmed in his remarks to Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Sunday that he was in touch with Abbas before taking any decision against Goldstone’s report.

“We were talking with more than one party and group, and I was in direct contact with the leadership in Ramallah, then all of us decided to delay taking action on the report,” Khreisheh told the channel.

For their part, members of the executive committee of the Palestinian liberation organization (PLO) Abdelrahman Malluh and Ghassan Al-Shak’ah strongly criticized the PA for deciding to form a committee to investigate the delay of Goldstone’s report.

They said that this decision was taken after the damage which was inflicted on the Palestinian situation and Abbas himself because of his request to postpone the vote on the report.

The members noted that following a meeting of some members of the executive committee of the PLO on Saturday, they decided to make a recommendation to the committee to reject the formation of investigation committee as well as the PA position taken against Goldstone’s report.

In the same context, informed sources said on condition of anonymity that Mahmoud Abbas and his aides Yasser Abdelrabbo, Sa’eb Erekat and Salam Fayyad were the parties who decided to delay action on Goldstone’s report.

The sources confirmed that both the US and Israel pressured Abbas and Salam Fayyad using sometimes the language of persuasion and at other times the language of intimidation in order to make him act against the report.

The sources explained that the US threatened Abbas to stop its efforts for the resumption of peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis and to freeze its financial support for him and his government.

Israel, for its part, promised Abbas to give a license to the cellphone company, which was denied approval for a long time, in exchange for withdrawing his support for the report, according to the sources.

The son of Abbas is one of the partners in this company in addition to other Palestinian and Israeli businessmen.