שימי וחיגה

לקוראיי הנאמנים, או במילים אחרות, לשירה:

יהונתן אמר היום שימי (שמש) וחיגה (ירח). איזו שמחה בבית ברמן-רוזין.

תודי שזה אחד הפוסטים היותר חשובים שכתבתי…

Palestinian Sources: Asian Worker Behind Murder of Israeli Family

A Palestinian news agency quotes residents from the West Bank village of Awarta as saying that the person responsible for the murder of the Israeli family from Itamar last Friday was a disgruntled Asian worker, who worked for the Israeli family.

According to the agency’s sources, the IDF knows about this, but is refusing to act because of political constraints.

See source here: http://www.qudsnet.com/arabic/news.php?maa=View&id=182363.

Note that thus far, no organization has claimed responsibility for the gruesome murder.

Could it be that the murderer was indeed a foreign worker??

Palestinian Names His New-Born After Erdogan

Salah Abu Shamala, a Palestinian from Khan Yunis, has named his new-born baby after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan.

“No Arab or Muslim leader has matched Erdogan’s brave words concerning the Palestinian problem. This Turkish Islamist leader is the only protector of the Palestinian people, as he is the only one who demanded to end the siege on Gaza,” said Abu Shamala in an interview with Hamas’s daily newspaper, Filastin.

Erdogan has won the Palestinian people’s sympathy in the last few days, following his harsh words concerning the Israeli operation against the so-called “Peace Flotilla”. The Turkish premier also announced he would personally lead a second flotilla toward Gaza.

In an attempt to win some popularity points as well, the Iranian regime has declared it would send – by the end of this week – two ships to the Gaza Strip, bearing humanitarian aid. The ships, said Iran’s Spiritual Leader Khamanai, would be escorted by military ships.

Reports also indicate that a boat from Lebanon is about to head toward Gaza, carrying Palestinian refugees. Another boat, carrying Jews from Germany, is also expected to make the journey.

Israel must decide NOW how to deal with these ships, and more importantly, how to address the world’s public opinion. Israel has already lost one media battle. Now it has a chance to  plan ahead and recompense.

A Few Thoughts Regarding the Israeli Operation at Sea

One thing is certain: no matter what, Israel has already lost its battle… in the media front.

The Israeli operation at sea, which was designed to prevent hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters on board six ships from arriving at the shores of the Gaza Strip, escalated to a bloodbath with over 10 protesters killed and others, including a few Israeli soldiers, wounded.

Israel claims that the soldiers were assaulted with knives and clubs by the hands of the protesters on board one of the ships, and were forces to react with gunfire.

The blame-game will now begin as usual, but the big question remains: why, when the whole world witnessed live footage of the events at sea, and when strong denunciations came from all sides – including European countries – didn’t Israel explain its point of view in the media?

Why did it take nine (!) hours for the Israeli minister of defense to hold the first press conference?

Clearly, this so called “Peace Flotilla” was a provocation, aiming at supporting the terror regime governing Gaza. Israel has even suggested time and again, that if the ships would arrive at Israel’s Ashdod Port, it would send the humanitarian aid to Gaza after the routine security check.

But the Israeli assault on the ships was met with confusion, even among many Israeli citizens. Was it really necessary to send dozens of armed soldiers to stop the ships? Couldn’t the soldiers order the ships to turn away without boarding them? Did the IDF have prior knowledge that the ships were carrying arms, money, or anything else that could help Hamas?

Whatever the answers are, the public did not get them from Israel, even after the press conference of the defense minister and the army’s chief of staff at 13:00, nine hours after the assault began.

Israel may have been right to forcefully stop the ships, but the world public opinion has already made up its mind, because the critical first hours went by without a formal Israeli response!

My concern now is, that this incident might ignite furious responses from many parties, including Israeli Arabs, Palestinian in both Gaza and the West Bank, Turkey (which already called its ambassador in Israel back to Ankara), and even the Iran-backed Hizbullah.

It’s summer time in the Middle East, and once again the possibility of war in multiple fronts cannot be ignored.

Terror Scare Back in Tel Aviv?

Helicopters are hovering above my head as I am writing this post. Israeli news websites are reporting that massive police forces launched a manhunt for a man and a woman, who were seen shouting in Arabic on a bus in Tel Aviv.

According to the reports, the man began shouting “Kill the Jews”, while the woman was attempting to stop scarred passengers from exiting the bus.

The Israeli Air Force bombed yesterday smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip. Reports indicated that 22 Palestinians were hit during the assault.

Are we looking at yet another escalation?

Hooray, Aravane Rezai, Hooray !

Ms. Rezai, a French tennis player, whose parents emigrated from Iran, has won tonight the Madrid Masters tennis tournament!

I have to admit that ever since I interviewed Ms. Rezai in 2008, I watched closely her developing career, for she is not only a great player, but also a remarkable, idealist young woman.

The article I wrote three years ago had less to do with tennis, and more to do with something that Ms. Rezai is keen to change: the international code of women’s tennis outfit.

Have a look at my article, but bear in mind that I haven’t changed anything in it, so some details have probably changed since.

Muslim Female Tennis Players – a Rare Species

When tennis player Sania Mirza leaves her home in Hyderabad, India, she is rarely seen without her bodyguard.

Mirza is a member of the Indian Muslim community and at the age of 18 was the subject of a fatwa (Islamic religious decree), calling on her to change her tennis outfit which “leaves no room for imagination.”

Now 20, Mirza is one of a handful of professional Muslim female tennis players. That is why her story, whilst gaining much publicity, is mostly treated by the media as a personal matter, and not as part of a larger phenomenon.

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Official Rule Book determines that “for tournament matches all players will be expected to dress and present themselves in a professional manner.” According to its rules, a player “shall wear appropriate and clean attire and shall not wear sweatshirts, sweat pants, t-shirts, jeans, or cut-offs during matches.”

Nothing in the rules specifically refers to the length of the garments. The word skirt is not mentioned. Yet, somehow it became accepted that a skirt had to be worn, the length of which was too short for the average Muslim woman to wear.

The WTA rules also determine that it is up to the referee to approve or disapprove an outfit. “A player may be asked to change if the referee deems it necessary,” the Rule Books reads.

“Every year the skirt gets shorter and shorter. Why not longer?” asks Aravane Rezai, who is ranked in the WTA’s top-50.

Her parents were born in Iran and immigrated to France before she was born. Nevertheless, she considers herself a practicing Muslim and is bewildered by the WTA rules.

“I think if this rule would change and if everybody could choose what to wear, then many girls in Muslim countries would be able to play tennis,” Rezai says.

When Rezai is training, she wears long pants and long-sleeved shirts. She regards this attire as “respectful.” Several times during her short career Rezai asked to play in official tournaments with Bermuda pants, which cover the legs down to the knees.

“If Raphael Nadal can, why can’t I?” she asked. But the referees refused.

Rezai believes this rule stops many potential talents in the Muslim World from developing.

“I saw many juniors, who stopped playing tennis at the age of 14 because of the family and their religious tradition,” says the technical director of Tennis Emirates, ‘Salah Bramly.

Bramly, a former tennis player from Tunisia, arrived in Dubai in 2001 and joined the United Arab Emirates’ tennis association. One of the first things he initiated was the UAE national championship for children under the age of 14. His vision was to promote tennis in the oil-rich UAE, where football and horseback riding take the lead. To his amazement, out of 200 participants, 60 percent were girls.

Bramly understood the potential, but knew what obstacles lay ahead.

“Many people are very conservative. They do not like their girls to play sport, especially when they become young ladies,” Bramly explains.

The WTA ranking includes very few players from the Muslim world, most of whom are very low on the list. There is no UAE player in the rankings.

But this might change in the coming years, regardless of whether the WTA dress code changes or not.

Dubai, one of the richest places in the world, is moving back and forth between the Muslim traditions on the one hand, and its growing proximity to the West on the other. This situation has led some parents to encourage their daughters to continue their tennis careers, even if it means settling for shorter clothes.

Fatima Janahi, 12, is a talented tennis player, who has no intention of putting an end to her already seven-year-long career. A year ago she approached her father, ‘Abbas, and told him how she felt. His answer was simple: “It’s up to you. The door is open.”

Unlike many other parents in the Muslim world, ‘Abbas sees no problem with the skirt issue.

“If Fatima would like to wear a skirt then I’ll let her. The dress Sharapova wears is different from what we’re used to. Fatima can wear it if she wants; it’s very nice,” says ‘Abbas.

When asked what her dream is, Fatima answers with no hesitation: “I want to be a professional tennis player. If I really want to reach the top 10, then I think I can,” she says.

Headscarf on the tennis court

Aravane Rezai at the French Open. (Stephanie Morel)

Despite the obvious obstacles, Rezai believes Iranian tennis players could, and would do well in international tournaments, if only they could participate. Rezai took part twice in the Muslim World ‘Olympic Games’ in Tehran. Women wearing traditional dress and headscarves participated in all kinds of sports, including tennis.

Rezai is relentlessly trying to push Muslim girls to participate in tennis and in other sports.

“I want to show that women can take part in the same activities as men,” she says.

“I want people to understand that I can play tennis even if I wear a chador (a dress which covers the entire body).”

But Rezai knows that no matter how hard she tries to promote tennis in Iran, if the WTA rules don’t change then all her efforts will be in vain.

Erhan Oral, the technical director of the Turkish Tennis Federation, agrees.

“We had a case two or three years ago during an international tournament in Ankara, when a tennis player from Iran wanted to play with a scarf and long clothes. The international supervisor did not allow this because it was against the international rules of tennis. Everyone thought that because Turkey was a Muslim country, she would get away with it, but she didn’t,” Oral says.

Turkey’s population is almost 100% Muslim. Nevertheless, its secular tradition, which goes back to the 1920s, does not place any obstacles in the way of its female tennis players. Turkey has five WTA-ranked women tennis players.

The Media Line asked the WTA to comment on the dress code issue, and the response leaves some room for optimism.

“While we are not aware of any player requests to wear non-traditional tennis attire due to religious reasons, if such a request were made, it would be reviewed by the Tour on a case-by-case basis,” says the WTA Tour vice president for communications, Andrew Walker.

Walker adds: “My best guess is that as long as the request did not interfere with play or result in an unfair distraction to the other player, it would be granted. As a matter of principle, we would do everything in our power to respect the different religious beliefs and customs of our players, while at the same time ensuring an even playing field on the court.”

Asked specifically about Rezai’s request to play with Bermuda pants, Walker says he was not familiar with the request. He adds, however, that he could not believe that a referee would “deny a bona-fide request based on personal religious reasons that doesn’t interfere with the play or the opposing player.”

The bottom line, according to Walker, is that the WTA is doing all it can to ensure a “balanced playing field, respect for players and their beliefs, and at the same time professional and proper match attire.”

Sounds promising? Maybe. Still, the rules are not about to change soon, and so the referee in each match still makes the final decision as to whether or not an outfit is “proper.”

And then there is another problem.

Even if the WTA would indeed change the dress code and allow players to wear what they want, Rezai is afraid that this would also cause problems for Muslim players, this time for those who are actually comfortable playing in skirts.

“What if other players, like Sania Mirza will not want to play in pants? Then people would ask her why she does not wear pants and it may create more problems for her,” Rezai says.

Rezai knows she has a long way to go before she achieves her goals: being number one in the world and opening the door to the tennis world for more Muslim women. But she is not discouraged.

“I feel I am not alone. So many Muslim girls in Iran want to play in different sports, not only tennis. But they cannot do this outside Iran. It is difficult to change the rules of a country like Iran, but surely the WTA can change its own rules.”

Iranian Spy Cell in the Gulf – Not a New Phenomenon

The security forces in Kuwait have arrested a spy cell working for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, feeding information on Kuwaiti and US targets, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas reported today.  At least seven men were arrested and the security agencies are still hunting for six to seven other men. The cell took pictures of Kuwaiti military and other vital targets in addition to US military sites, Al-Qabas said. Apperantly, the cell members confessed that they were assigned to recruit new members to the Revolutionary Guards.

The Revolutionary Guards’ covert activity in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf in particular, is by no means a new phenomenon. The following is an article I wrote in October 2008 while I was working for The Media Line news agency. It is still highly relevant today.

Iran’s Al-Quds Octopus Spreads Its Arms

As the West anxiously scrutinizes every development in Iran’s nuclear program, it seems the land of the ayatollahs has another frightening weapon in its arsenal that some experts believe may be equally dangerous – the Al-Quds Force (QF).

Operating out of the Iranian parliament’s – and even the president’s – reach, the clandestine QF answers directly only to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamanai. Very few people know how much is spent on the QF’s annual budget, which is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. Iranian legislators are not allowed to examine the QF’s expenses, nor are they expected to vote on its appropriations.

While President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad is doing his best to gain the support of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), to which the QF is subordinate, the president has no formal control over QF activities abroad.

What is the Al-Quds Force?

The QF is one of IRGC’s five arms, alongside IRGC’s Navy, Ground Force, Air Force and the Basij (a 12-million volunteer force), which are all operating separately from the Iranian Army.

It is the external operations force of the IRGC, operating most extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, but also – it is reported – in other Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Syria, Qatar and more. It is also said to have been operating outside the Middle East, in Argentina and Austria, for example.

The QF was not established immediately after the revolution that brought the Islamists to power in 1979. The duties of the IRGC during the first few years included mainly the pursuit of counterrevolutionary movements inside Iran and the preservation of public order.

But already in those early stages, the Islamist leadership was not hiding its aspiration to spread the Islamic revolution to other countries.

“In the first days of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, we thought of the IRGC as a force whose aim was to defend the country inside Iran. We did not think then about [activities] outside Iran,” Dr. Muhsin Sazegara, one of the founders of the IRGC, told The Media Line.

“Later, unfortunately, it went in other directions, to become something completely different,” he said.

The exact time the QF was established is known to very few people and even Sazegara himself cannot provide a definite date. According to him, it was formed sometime in the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war, as a small unit. Gradually it developed into a division within the IRGC, until it finally became one of the IRGC’s five arms.

After co-founding the IRGC, Sazegara served for 10 years in several top positions within the new Islamist regime, including political deputy in the prime minister’s office and vice minister of planning and budget.

In 1989 Sazegara became disillusioned with the Islamist revolutionary government and since then has advocated for reform. Today he resides in Washington DC.

The Octopus

“The Quds Force had the lead for its [Iran's] transnational terrorist activities, in conjunction with Lebanese Hizbullah and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS),” Lt.-Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the U.S. Army’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), told a Senate committee on January last year.

The QF conducts its activities primarily within the territories of Iran’s close neighbors – Iraq and Afghanistan – where the United States Army is currently operating. Its activities predominantly focus on training and supplying weapons to local groups, which are fighting the U.S. Army and the local U.S.-backed regimes.

“The training includes reconnaissance to pinpoint targets, small arms training, small unit tactics, terrorist cell operations and communications skills,” a U.S. military spokesman told The Media Line.

Additionally, QF operatives inside Iraq teach local terror movements assassination techniques, as well as the usage of improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades.

The U.S. Treasury Department has long been focusing its attention on the QF, which according to its analysts has also provided a wide variety of weapons and financial support to the Taliban to further the group’s anti-coalition activity in Afghanistan.

On October 25, 2007, the Treasury Department named the QF a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

According to Sazegara, despite the fact that the Iranian regime officially denied any involvement in Afghanistan, “commanders of NATO and some top Afghani officials have complained several times about Iranian equipment, which was distributed or transferred into Afghanistan for the insurgents.”

Hizbullah – Party of God

In 1982, the IRGC established Lebanon’s Hizbullah (Arabic for the Party of God). At that time, it is estimated, the QF was not established yet, but soon after its creation it became the official body responsible for Hizbullah activities in Lebanon and abroad.

According to the U.S. government and various Middle Eastern intelligence agencies, the QF has long been providing Lebanon’s Hizbullah with all types of support, including training, guidance and arms.

In addition to running training facilities in Lebanon, the QF has trained more than 3,000 Hizbullah operatives at its own facilities in Iran, wrote Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in an article last February.

One of these operatives was Hussein ‘Ali Suleiman, who was recruited to Hizbullah when he was 15 years old.

In 2006, during the war between Israel and Hizbullah, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) captured Suleiman.

During his interrogation Suleiman stated that after his recruitment he underwent a 45-day military course at a Hizbullah base located in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. There he learnt how to use weapons, explosives and communication devices. Four months after Suleiman graduated the course he took another course, where he learnt how to fire anti-tank missiles, a skill much needed during the 2006 war.

After proving himself in various combat assignments along the border with Israel, Suleiman was chosen along with 40 to 50 other operatives to head to Iran, where he conducted two exercises in 2003.

On their way to Iran, Suleiman’s group was taken by bus to Damascus Airport, from where it continued by plane to Iran. Needless to say that, unlike regular tourists, Suleiman’s colleagues did not have to use passports or go through customs.

Hamas

Like Hizbullah the Palestinian terror movement Hamas is also a major beneficiary of Iran’s generosity. Iran is not only sending money (a few million dollars each year), it also trains Hamas in its facilities in Tehran and elsewhere in the country.

Last September, a Hamas commander in Gaza gave a unique interview to the Sunday Times, where he confirmed that since Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, his organization had sent 150 operatives to Iran for training in IRGC’s camps, while 150 more were currently undergoing courses.

The courses run for between 45 days to six months, at the end of which the brightest “students” undergo a trainers’ course.

An unconfirmed report in Kuwait’s daily A-Siyasa last September illustrated the control Iran has over Hamas. The paper reported a meeting that took place among Hamas’ Political Bureau chief Khalid Mash’al, Iran’s ambassador in Damascus and the head of the QF force in Lebanon.

Mash’al, the paper’s sources claimed, agreed to Iran’s demand that Hamas would no longer consider Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud ‘Abbas’ position legitimate after January 2009.

Sleeper Cells in the Gulf

In the past few months, an increasing flow of reports has pointed to the alleged existence of a network of Iranian spies spread across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, waiting for a signal from the Iranian leadership to destabilize local regimes.

Earlier this year, the Emirati-based daily Gulf News interviewed an exiled Iranian diplomat, who had served as Iran’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. In his interview, ‘Adil Al-Asadi claimed that Iranian “sleeper cells were in place, ready to become operational.”

Concerns in Kuwait regarding the possibility that a large espionage network has been deploying in the country have recently peaked.

One Kuwaiti member of parliament even stated in September that 25,000 QF members were living in Kuwait, disguised as workers.

“They are ready to follow any instructions they receive [from Iran],” MP Nasir A-Duweila warned.

A few months ago, Bahrain – another GCC member – convicted a five-member cell for terrorist activities. The defendants were charged with a variety of offenses, including receiving explosives and weapons training, engaging in terrorism overseas, and terrorism financing.

The Bahraini investigators revealed that several of the cell members traveled from Bahrain to Afghanistan via Iran.

“Bahraini authorities did not know whether the Iranian government actively facilitated the cell members’ travel to Afghanistan, but given the regime’s track record, Iran’s possible involvement with the cell is worth exploring further,” wrote Levitt and Jacobson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“I remember that once I had a debate with one of the members of IRGC’s Strategic Studies Office,” Sazegara said. “He emphasized that we planned to have Hizbullah cells in every Islamic country, to mobilize radical Muslims for improving and enhancing the Islamic revolution,” added Sazegara.

Sazegara further explained that as the QF was being used to promote Iranian-style Islamic revolutions abroad, it was destined to become involved in terror activities.

Terror Activities Around the Globe

Though less extensive, QF’s activities around the world have made considerable waves. In 1996, a truck bomb attack on the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia claimed the lives of 19 American service members. A federal judge ruled that the government of Iran bore responsibility for the attack.

The QF was also blamed for supporting Bosnian Muslims against Serbian forces in former Yugoslavia.

But perhaps the most well-known act the QF was directly involved in outside the Middle East was the attack on the Jewish community building in Buenos Aires in July 1994, when a Hizbullah operative drove a car bomb into the building, killing 85 people.

In 2006, Argentina’s General Prosecutor Alberto Nisman concluded in a report that the decision to attack the building was taken by the Iranian administration. Nisman also revealed that Ahmad Vahidi, the former head of the QF, was involved in the attack.

The Nuclear Threat and the QF

The nightmare of all intelligence agencies around the world is a terror group in possession of a nuclear bomb. The rising power of the Taliban in Pakistan, a country that has nuclear bombs in its possession, is causing much tension in neighboring India, as well as in the U.S. and other countries.

The increasing political influence and economic strength the IRGC holds inside Iran, is causing similar stress.

The QF’s strategy of forming Hizbullah cells across the Middle East, combined with Iran’s progressing nuclear program, is alarming.

“I think the nuclear issue and the external activities of the QF can be considered to be in the same shop, because if Iran goes for nuclear weapons then they can be used also in terrorist activities. In some sense, one can consider these two threats as posing equally strong danger to the whole region,” Sazegara concluded.

Hamas TV Wins Reward in Al-Jazeera Film Festival

By: Yaniv Berman

A short film produced by Hamas’s satellite TV station, “Al-Aqsa”, won a reward in the Sixth Al-Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival , according to Hamas’s online magazine, Al-Risala.

The film, titled “Between Truth and Fire”, participated in the Freedoms and Human Rights category. Produced in Gaza by Ibrahim Muslim and Muhammad Hamu, the film revealed the “Zionist Occupation’s crimes against the Palestinians.”

The US Treasury designated Al-Aqsa TV on 18 March 2010. In its announcement, the Treasury said:

Al-Aqsa TV is a television station financed and controlled by Hamas. Al-Aqsa is a primary Hamas media outlet and airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood.

Treasury will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself.

Hamas leadership raised the initial capital for the station shortly after the January 2006 Palestinian elections. At that time, donors contributed half a million dollars for the channel, which was to be headed by members of Hamas, and shortly thereafter, Hamas leaders negotiated broadcasting arrangements with a satellite television provider. As of late 2009, the Hamas headquarters in Damascus, Syria, allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars for Al-Aqsa TV’s budget, and senior Hamas officials continued to control the station’s operations.

Fathi Hammad, the former director of Al-Aqsa TV, currently serves as the Hamas interior minister in Gaza, is a former senior member of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, and as of 2007, was a member of the Hamas Shura Council. Hammad has supervised the construction of smuggling tunnels for Hamas and has encouraged the building and use of homemade weapons for use against Israel. In May 2009, Dr. Mahmud Abu Daf replaced Hammad as the head of Al-Aqsa TV. Abu-Daf is a senior Hamas figure who served as a member of the Hamas Shura Council and Political Bureau.

The festival’s website has not mentioned Al-Aqsa’s win. Middle East Focus sent an email to Mr. Abbas Arnaout, the festival’s director, asking to verify the report in Hamas’s magazine. Thus far we have received no answer.

In another matter, Israel has allowed the three-year-old daughter of Fathi Hammad, Hamas’s Interior Minister, to pass through Israel on her way for medical treatment in Jordan.

Israeli security officials approved the transfer following a request made by Jordan’s King Abdullah, as the girl was in serious danger, according to a report in the Israeli news website, YNET.

Hamad’s daughter and her mother left the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing. The girl received initial medical care in Israel’s Barzilai Medical Center and was then flown to a hospital in Amman on a Jordanian helicopter.

Hamad is involved in the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel regarding the prisoners exchange deal.

There was no mention of this report in Hamas’s two leading news websites, Palestine Info and Al-Risala.

Ramallah Mayor Launches a Campaign to Name Streets after Terrorists

By: Yaniv Berman

In the past few weeks Ramallah Mayor, Janet Mikhail, has sparked a conflict that surpassed the boundaries of her city. In fact, her campaign to name streets and central traffic circles after “Palestinian and Arab warriors” was met with much anger not only in Jerusalem, but also within the Obama Administration.

Mikhail’s last two attempts were met with fierce Israeli and American pressures, which managed to abort, or at least postpone naming a street and a traffic circle after two infamous Palestinian terrorists:

1)      Dalal al-Mughrabi, a female Palestinian, who took part in a terrorist attack in 1978, in which dozens of Israeli citizens were murdered. Al-Mugrabi was a member of a Fatah cell.

2)      Yihya Ayash, who was among Hamas’s top military leaders, introduced the method of suicide bombers and was responsible for the killing of over 100 Israelis.

The mayor’s last try, however, was successful.  On April 20, 2010 Mikhail hosted a ceremony, celebrating the naming of a street after one of Fatah’s most popular military leaders, Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad). Al-Wazir was assassinated by Israel in 1988, a few months after the beginning of the first Intifada. He was Arafat’s deputy, who led Fatah’s terrorist infrastructure. The ceremony was attended by the General-Secretary of the Palestinian Authority’s Chairman’s Office, Al-Tayib Abd al-Rahim and other Palestinian Authority leaders who are affiliated with Fatah.

No doubt, naming a street after Al-Wazir, a Fatah leader whose name is synonymous with the armed struggle against Israel, and planning to honor a Hamas bomb-manufacturer in a similar way, is a powerful message to the Israeli government and the world at large: when politics fail, violence and unilateral measures take its place.

It is not by accident therefore, that at the same time the Palestinian premier, Salam Fayad, is making statements that regardless of Israel’s will, an independent Palestinian state will be established in 2011.

Restricted by a mostly right-winged coalition government, Israeli premier, Binyamin Netanyahu, is incapable of presenting a serious political solution (nor does he want to, I suspect). Therefore, one can expect to soon see streets in Nablus and Jenin named after Fathi Shiqaqi or Abd al-Aziz Rantisi.

Hamas Prisoners – A Vibrant Society within Walls

By: Yaniv Berman.

Over 2,500 Hamas-affiliated prisoners are serving time in Israeli jails these days. Some were sentenced to a number of consecutive life sentences, while others will remain behind bars for only a few weeks. Irrespective of the length of sentence, though, they all have to adhere to strict guidelines, written not by the Israeli Prisons Service, but rather by their fellow inmates.

At the beginning of 2010, the Media Committee of Hamas’s Upper Leadership Council of Prisoners (ULCP) launched a unique website, titled “Born Free”. The website gives its readers an inside look into a vibrant, highly hierarchical society, which managed over the years to establish a system of rights and duties, supervised by an elaborate net of judicial, executive and legislative authorities.

One of the writers of “Born Free”, Khaled Safadi, quotes a paragraph from Amin Sadeq’s book, titled “The Islamic Call – Legitimate Religious Duty and Human Need”. In it, Amin defines a society as “a group of people, connected to each other by permanent and institutionalized relations. A society, any society, stands upon two basic pillars: first the people, and second the relations which derive from these people’s community life. Passengers of a ship, a train, or an airplane are not considered a society even if there are thousands of them, while a village is considered a society even if only a few hundred people live in it.”

According to Safadi, the “Prison Society” was born out of all the Palestinian political prisoners, who were imprisoned by Israel since 1967. “With time, the prisoners organized within themselves and lived a community life, subordinate to rules and regulations.”

When the Islamic current in the Palestinian territories began to strengthen in the 1970′s and 1980′s, particularly with the start of the first Intifada and the establishment of Hamas in 1987, the Prison Society was roughly divided between the Islamic Prison Society (led by Hamas) and the National Prison Society (led by Fatah). According to Safadi, there is much cooperation between the two societies and in the last few years this cooperation – despite all the disagreements – resembles the work of a national unity government.

Democracy Behind Bars

“The democratic practice within the organization [Hamas] in prison was complete and institutionalized…  and the election process matched the most modernized and advanced democracies in the world,” said one of Hamas’s top leaders, Isma’il Abu Shanab, who had firsthand knowledge of  the inside of Israeli jails.

On July 15, 2009 the Media Committee of the ULCP published a public statement, according to which Hamas had completed a five-month-long process of democratic elections inside the Israeli prisons. Over 2,500 Hamas prisoners, scattered in 12 jails across Israel, participated in the elections, at the end of which the 15-strong ULCP was elected.

The elections were conducted in 4 phases:

First phase: preliminary elections were held, in which 370 prisoners were elected as members of the General Congress.

Second phase: the General Congress (المؤتمر العام) elected 73 of its members to sit in the General Shura Council (مجلس الشورى العام), which operates as the prisoners’ legislative authority.

Third phase: The General Shura Council elected the 15-strong Upper Leadership Council of Prisoners (ULCP), which operates as the prisoners’ executive authority.

Fourth phase: The ULCP elected its president and his deputy.

The 15 members of the ULCP are spread across 12 jails and some even sit in solitary confinement. ULCP President, Yihya Sanwar, was sentenced in 1988 to four consecutive life sentences + 60 years. Sanwar founded Hamas’s military wing, “Majd”, which later evolved into the better-known “Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades”.

The rest of ULCP are well-known “political” and military Hamas leaders, including Saleh Aruri (one of the founders of the military wing in the West Bank); Jamal Abu al-Hija (head of the military wing in Jenin); Ahlam Tamimi (a female prisoner, who was involved in a suicide attack in Jerusalem); Abbas al-Sayed (was responsible for two suicide attacks in Netanya); Muhammad Natsha and Hasan Yusuf (both of whom were elected in 2006, prior to their arrest, as members of the Palestinian parliament on behalf of Hamas’s party, Change and Reform).

Each ULCP and General Shura Council serve a 2-year term, during which they are responsible for establishing and supervising committees that handle various fields, including political, media, legal, social and security affairs.

The 2009 elections process was supervised by an Election Committee, headed by no other than Dr. Aziz Dweik, a Hamas MP who was elected as speaker of the Palestinian parliament in early 2006. Dweik was arrested a few months later and was only recently released.

The Judicial System

Just like the outside world, the Judicial System within this prisoners’ society is divided into three instances.

The first instance is called the Local Judicial Committee (LJC) (اللجنة القضائية المحلية). Although the website does not state this clearly, judging by its name an LJC is to be found in each prison. An LJC is established by an Executive Office (المكتب التنفيذي), which acts as an extension of the Upper Leadership Council of Prisoners (ULCP) in each prison. The Executive Office is responsible for presenting cases to the LJC. The LJC presents its recommendation to the Executive Office, which is then responsible to decide upon a punishment and executing it. The two sides in each “case” have the right to appeal to the higher instance, the Local Appeals Committee (لجنة الاستئناف المحلية).

The Local Appeals Committee is formed by the Local Shura Council, which acts as an extension of the General Shura Council. Each side has the right to appeal the Committee’s decision within three days.

The highest instance is the Supreme Judicial Committee (SJC) (اللجنة القضائية العليا), which is headed by one of the Upper Leadership Council of Prisoners (ULCP) members. Three to nine “judges” sit in the SJC, depending on the nature of the “case” presented to it. The verdict of a reduced panel (3-5 judges) can be appealed in front of an extended panel (7-9 judges). The extended panel’s decision, however, is final and cannot be appealed further.

All instances have the right to either accept or refuse to accept a “case”.

The “cases” are varied and reflect the major concerns in prison life. They are divided into three categories:

A. Minor offences. These include for example avoidance from participating in general duties such as cleaning and preparing food; shouting at others; making noise at times of rest or when others are studying; and gossiping. The offender will most of the times receive a warning.

B.  Mean offenses. These include the delivery of classified information; violence; disobeying common policies; and damaging public or private property such as electric appliances. The offender can be barred from participating in the movement’s committees; transferred to another cell; receive up to 40 lashes; or receive a monetary fine.

C.  Major offenses: These include insulting God, Islam or the Prophet Muhammad; insulting the movement (Hamas) or its leaders; moral deviance; security breaches; and more.  The offender can expect boycott and even banishment from the movement’s ranks.

The Holy Warrior’s Guidebook

When a Hamas-affiliated prisoner arrives in jail, he is expected to obey a set of regulations, which are to be found in the elaborate Holy Warrior’s Guidebook. The prisoner is expected to be aware of the internal rules and regulations of the Prisoners’ Society, which include not only his relations with other inmates, but also his conduct towards himself.

The guidebook even provides an exemplary schedule:

Daily Schedule:

• Four Rak’as (short prayers) before the Dawn Prayer
• Morning citation of traditional idioms.
• Recitation of at least one Quranic chapter.
• Reading a book for three hours.
• Memorizing Quranic verses.
• Watching two news broadcasts.
• Performing the ritual of ablution.
• Evening citation of traditional idioms.
• Performing sleeping duties: ablution, two Rak’as, night citations, praying and wishing good for oneself, the family and the brothers.

Weekly Schedule:

• Fasting one or two days.
• Engaging in sporting activities three days a week.
• Staying up all night once or twice a week.

Friday Duties:

• Taking a shower.
• Reading the Kahf chapter from the Quran.
• Conducting many prayers in honor of the Prophet.

General Projects:

• Memorizing the Quran, or parts of it.
• Attending a reading of the Quran.
• Attending a handwriting improvement course.
• Attending Arabic studies.
• Learning Hebrew, at least ordinary prison conversations.

The Importance of the Prisoners in the Palestinian Society

The Palestinian people (leadership and society alike) regard the prisoners, no matter which organization they are affiliated with, as one of the most acute problems it faces. Both Hamas and Fatah promise that they will not rest until the prisoners are released. It seems the prisoners are among the very few issues the two organizations agree on.

On April 17, 2010, the Palestinians celebrated the annual Prisoner Day. For the first time since the 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza, Hamas and Fatah signed a joint document that specified a series of solidarity activities with the prisoners.

“No solution and no peace in our region are attainable without solving the prisoners’ issue,” said Fatah’s chairman, who also presides as chairman of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmud Abbas.

On his part, Hamas leader, Isma’il Haniya, called for resistance “using all measures… “to force the [Israeli] occupation to free the prisoners.

The prisoners have a powerful stand within the Palestinian society. Their voice is heard outside the prison and many political decisions cannot be taken without their approval. On May 10, 2006 a group of five prisoners, representatives of Hamas, Fatah and three smaller organizations, drafted the “Prisoners’ Document”, which called for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders and creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The document was also referred to as the National Reconciliation Document and was meant to unite the Palestinian factions’ forces. The Hamas coup in Gaza a year later has brought an end to this effort, but the document serves as a reminder of the prisoners’ political power.

The website Born Free is therefore an important media outlet, which should be monitored by anyone who is interested not only in the inner-workings of the prison society, but also in its influence on the outside world.