Just how much more courage and fortitude can the Palestinian people display in their battle against zionis occupation and oppression? Muslims were amazed, and the rest of the world shocked, when the Palestinians last month revealed a new strategy to counter Israeli attacks on them
It is sometimes tempting to read the news coming out of Palestine and regard it simply as more of the same. Nonetheless, there are significant developments over time, which need to be considered. The latest of these is a renewed effort by the US and international bodies to promote Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah party as the Palestinians’ true leaders and real representatives.
Months of negotiations between Hamas leaders and Fatah leaders on forming a coalition government, which they hope will break the political deadlock in the country and facilitate the lifting of the West's economic boycott, appeared to reach a significant breakthrough on September 11. It was announced that agreement had finally been reached after a series of meetings in Ghazzah between PA (Palestinian Authority) president Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah, and Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader appointed prime minister after Hamas's stunning victory in January's parliamentary elections.
One feature of current events in the Middle East is that the three Islamic movements that perhaps deserve the greatest respect and recognition from the global Ummah are standing together against the onslaught from the West.
A month of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Ghazzah and the West Bank, killing over 40 Palestinians, mostly civilians, culminated with Israeli troops moving into southern Ghazzah on June 28, as Crescent was going to press.
One feature of the massive political pressure on Hamas, the leading Islamic movement and the most popular political force in Palestine, since it was elected to power earlier this year, has been the increasingly open enmity of both secular Palestinian forces, particularly the Fatah movement led by Palestinian “president” Mahmud Abbas, and of Arab rulers.
Three months after Hamas won a decisive victory in the elections for the Palestinian legislative council, and a month after the new Hamas administration was sworn in, it remains under immense political pressure from Israel and Israel’s Western allies to abandon the program on which it was elected and accept instead the West’s plans for the future of Palestine.
After weeks of intense consultation, discussion and negotiation with other parties, Hamas leaders have nominated Ismail Haniyeh (pic), a powerful 43-year-old Hamas leader in the Ghazzah Strip, as prime minister. The decision resulted from internal deliberations over whether to choose a non-Hamas figure, who might be more acceptable to the West, to lead the next cabinet.
Officially, the world has been taken by surprise by Hamas’s overwhelming victory in Palestine’s parliamentary elections on January 25. Yes, there had been fears that Hamas would seriously dent Fatah’s long-established dominance of Palestinian politics, and might have to be accommodated in the Fatah-dominated political institutions, perhaps even to the extent of being given a ministry or two, but that was only to be expected, given the problems that Fatah has had in recent months.
As this article is written, it is still far from clear as to whether the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, scheduled for January 25, will take place. At the time, the situation is that special polling centres had opened their doors on January 21 for members of the Palestinian security forces to cast their votes in three days of early voting.
As Crescent International goes to press, it remains uncertain whether the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) that are due to take place on January 25 will actually go ahead. Israel made a clear attempt to sabotage them on December 21, when it announced that Palestinians in Jerusalem would not be permitted to vote if Hamas were allowed to take part in the polls.
In October, Crescent International (South Africa) issued a booklet called The Struggle for Al-Quds to mark Yaum al-Quds 1426AH. Here we publish an adaptation of the second part of this booklet, focusing on the evolution of the Palestinian liberation movement. The first part, focusing on the problem of Israel and the threat to al-Quds, was published in the last issue of Crescent International.
Any illusion that Mahmoud Abbas may have had about being the elected leader of the Palestinian people in their struggle for the establishment of an independent, sovereign state in at least a part of their historical homeland must surely have been shattered on June 21.
One feature of Palestinian politics for the last 15 years or so, since the first intifada, has been the increasing political importance of Hamas, the main Islamic movement in Palestine, despite the entrenched political positions of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the main representative of the Palestinian people on the international stage, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the main civil authority in Palestine since 1992.
It is not without good reason that the world focused so intensely on the illness and death of Yasser Arafat, and on his multinational, multistage funeral...
One little-noted feature of Israel’s much-vaunted plan to "disengage" from Ghazzah is the role envisaged for Egypt after the withdrawal of Israeli troops, should it ever take place...
The two-week Israeli onslaught on Ghazzah that began at the end of February was evidently designed to bring Hamas to its knees, after months of an ever-tightening economic blockade and political pressure that Israel and its allies hoped would persuade the people of Ghazzah to turn against the Islamic movement that they elected to power in 2006.
Hamas leader Shaikh Ahmad Yassin said on September 24 that Hamas, Palestine’s leading Islamic movement and the most popular political group among Palestinians, would not accept any suggestion that it should disarm or declare a truce.
Hamas leader Khaled Misha’al said on November 9 that Palestine’s main Islamic movement would not give up military operations against the Israeli occupiers of Palestine.
Shaikh Ahmad Yaseen, founder of the Islamic Resistance movement (Hamas) and recognised as leader of Palestine's Islamic movement, addressed this message to the Ummah on the occasion of Eid al-Adha.
