For sake of democracy include diaspora in Palestinian vote
By Helena Cobban
Christian Science Monitor
22 November 2004

BEIRUT, LEBANON-- Elections are on the agenda for the Palestinians:
Their interim post-Arafat leadership says it plans to hold them Jan. 9. That's good news, but as of now there are no plans to include in this important vote the millions of Palestinians living in exile outside their homeland. Shouldn't that be changed?

It's true, the presidential election plan already faces many obstacles. One is the draconian system of movement controls that Israel has maintained on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza since 2002, purportedly as a security measure to prevent further Palestinian suicide bombings. Any free and fair election requires that such controls be lifted. Otherwise, how can candidates and supporters circulate to discuss their platforms and ideas?

But excluding from the vote those Palestinians living outside the homeland is a deeper and potentially more serious problem. The current plan is to hold the election under rules defined in the Oslo peace process in 1993. Back then, excluding diaspora Palestinians from the rolls might have been forgivable, because the election envisaged there (which was duly held in 1996) was for head of the Palestinian National Authority - a body that everyone agreed was only temporary.

But the Oslo process has been defunct for a long time. Even President Bush has said that his goal now is not just an "interim" body, but the creation of a full-fledged Palestinian state. That is an admirable goal - and one that is long overdue. (Under the Oslo Accords, implementation of the "final status" between Israel and Palestine was due to start in 1999. We are already five years late!) But negotiations for this outcome - which should certainly not be temporary - need to enroll the energies of Palestinians living outside the homeland, as well as those within it. The best way to achieve that would be to include them in the vote to the Palestinian body that conducts this fateful negotiation.

In nearly all other transition-related elections in the world in recent years - in South Africa, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq - provision has been made to include in the vote those made refugees by the preceding years of strife and conflict. Palestine's
refugees, inside and outside the occupied territories, deserve no different. Enfranchisement would give the refugees a solid sense of political inclusion, and involve them constructively in the search for a workable solution. Excluding them - as happened throughout the Oslo process - would probably once again be a recipe for failure.

But is there still time to include diaspora Palestinians in the Jan. 9 election? Yes, there is one easy way that a sizable portion of them - including those who are now the most vulnerable and needy - could participate. The UN relief agency - UNRWA - maintains
up-to-date lists of all the "registered Palestinian refugees" in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, and has networks of schools and clinics in those three countries.

UNRWA's name lists, identity cards, and physical facilities could be used to help run the election. Arranging that need not take more than four or five weeks. Indeed, persuading Israel to allow the freedoms needed for a fair election inside the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem) might take longer than making the arrangements for these diaspora Palestinians to vote.

How many people would this add to the rolls? UNRWA'S latest figures count 2.6 million "registered refugees" (of all ages) in the three countries where it offers services. Around 3.3 million Palestinians live in Gaza and the West Bank. It's noteworthy that the 370,000 refugees living in Lebanon and the 417,000 in Syria are completely stateless, which leaves them painfully vulnerable and means they've never had a chance to vote. Those in Jordan have been given citizenship and voting rights there, and at some point should be given the choice between keeping those rights in Jordan or becoming
citizens of an eventual independent Palestine.

It's noteworthy, too, that there are possibly 2 million to 4 million Palestinians living in exile who are not on UNRWA's tightly limited rolls. Given the dispersal of these people around the globe, there is no quick and easy way to include them in the vote. But at the
least, including the people registered with UNRWA means that refugee interests and energies would be significantly represented in the new leadership.

The upcoming Palestinian elections face other challenges, too. The two main Islamic groups in Palestinian society - Hamas and Islamic Jihad - have said they won't participate if the vote is conducted on the basis of the Oslo process, which they always opposed. Will they boycott? If they do, will the new leadership have the popular
mandate that it needs?

The Palestinians are a talented people. But, sadly, their internal structures and leadership are in significant disarray. Partly, that's a legacy of Yasser Arafat's "big man" style of governance.
Partly, it's a result of three years of relentless Israeli attacks on all Palestinian institutions, including security services. Yet both peoples - Palestinians and Israelis - need and yearn for peace.
Radical rethinking is necessary. Including, rather than excluding, the Palestinian exiles from the process makes sense. It would be good for democracy and good for peace.

* Helena Cobban is coauthor of 'When the Rain Returns: Toward Justice and Reconciliation in Palestine and Israel,' published by the American Friends Service Committee.
 

Both sides want Khader silenced
Populist politician says PA set him up for Israeli charges Maverick's arrest and trial getting scant attention
 

MITCH POTTER
MIDDLE EAST BUREAU

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank—The eyes of the world were elsewhere one year ago when a company of 50 Israeli soldiers came calling for firebrand Palestinian politician Hussam Khader.

Even among Palestinians, the news that day came from the Gaza Strip, where American college student Rachel Corrie had just become the first foreign activist to die in 29 months of intifada, falling beneath an Israeli armoured bulldozer while trying to block troops from demolishing a refugee family's home. Little wonder then that Khader's arrest the night of March 16, 2003, made barely a journalistic blip. Just another Palestinian leader pulled from his bed; another detainee to join more than 6,000 Palestinian prisoners already doing time in jails throughout Israel.  cont

While Barghouti makes headlines, Husam Khader is hardly mentioned

By Danny Rubinstein

Wed., March 24, 2004 Nisan 2, 5764

Israeli jails hold two members of the Palestinian Legislative Council: Marwan Barghouti from Ramallah and Husam Khader from Nablus. The PLC is the parliament of the Palestinian Authority and its members were elected in general elections that took place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza in early 1996. In other words, they are elected parliamentarians. Barghouti was arrested during Operation Defensive Shield two years ago and Khader in a raid on his house in Nablus a year ago. Both are on trial in Israel on security charges.

But the public attitude toward the two is very different, and evident, among other ways, in the media coverage oftheirsituation, whether in the Israeli, Palestinian or international press. While Barghouti's trial was given broad coverage, and there are popular committees that support him in the PA, Khader's name has hardly been mentioned.

Barghouti may be considered a key activist in the Fatah movement and there are even those who say he will yet inherit Yasser Arafat's seat as leader of the PA, but Khader is also an activist with a key role in Palestinian political life. Apparently, the difference in the media coverage of them is at least partly the result of Khader's controversial activities in Nablus.

Last Monday, at the military installation at the Salam checkpoint on the road from the Megiddo Junction to Jenin, the military tribunal held a session in Khader's trial. There were no reporters, except for one from Al Jzeera and one from Haaretz, nor any public personalities, except for Balad MK Jamal Zahalka, who showed up toward the end of the hearing. Getting into the court means getting into the military base, which requires coordination with the military authorities and their approval. Khader's family had such approval and came from Nablus. His mother, his three little children - dressed in their best clothes - his sister, and some uncles and aunts were all there.

Most of the others in the courtroom were soldiers, police, Border Police, and wardens from the Prisons Service, and most were there because of their jobs, like the guards who bring the defendants in and out of the courtroom. But there was the impression that quite a few soldiers were attending because they were bored, and had dropped in just for the show, to see what happens in a military court.

The result, in any case, was there was a lot of coming and going of soldiers and police. They opened and closed the two squeaking doors of the courtroom every minute or two. The constant noise made it difficult to hear the court president, meaning the judge who ran the trial, or to hear what was being said by the prosecutor, defense attorney, the witnesses and the translators. In past years, security officials entering and leaving a courtroom were required to stand at attention and salute the judges, but that custom has apparently been canceled. The ruckus made the whole proceeding very undignified. A young female soldier, helped by a couple of male soldiers, was posted to make sure the relatives of the accused were not able to make any contact with him, neither conversation or too much waving. She demanded them all, all the time, to remain absolutely quiet. One of Khader's uncles lost his temper during the recess and shouted at the soldiers: "What are we? Animals? Why don't you let him greet his little children?"

Talk of a frame-up

The essence of the charges against Khader is that as a key Fatah activist he established the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Nablus, appointed their commanders and provided them money, some of which went toward purchasing weapons that members of the group used to attack Israelis. Khader admits to some of the charges, but denies any connection to terror attacks.

Last Monday's hearing included testimony from the chief prosecution witness, Amir Suwellma, an Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade activist from Nablus. Khader's attorney, Riad al-Anis, of Umm al-Fahm, says that all the charges against his client are based on the testimony of this lone witness. Suwellma was brought into court shackled at his ankles. He is also on trial. In response to questions from Khader's attorney, he told an interesting story about a meeting, that took place in Nablus toward the end of 2002. Attending, he said, were front rank Palestinian leaders: Mayor Ghassan Shaka, who meanwhile has resigned, but remains a member of the PLO Executive Committee; Hani el Hassan, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, who was interior minister (and responsible for security) in a Yasser Arafat cabinet; Tewfik Tiraqi, head of General Security in the West Bank and one of Arafat's closest confidantes; and several other key activists from public institutions in Nablus. The witness said that everyone in the meeting spoke against Khader and said ways had to be found to stop him.

The defense attorney asked if it was true that he told his interrogators that Tirawi proposed instructing a young man who was on his way to conduct a suicide bombing, to say that Husam Khader sent him. In other words, to frame Khader. "Not that way, but there was talk about putting Khader's phone number in the bomber's pocket," said the witness.

That bit of testimony revealed the top of the iceberg of the bitter rivalries between various groups in Nablus, rivalries that have been going on for years. Khader, who comes from a family of refugees from Ras al Ayin (Rosh Haayin) and Jaffa, has long been considered leader of the Balata refugee camp, the largest camp in the West Bank, as well as Iskar and Ein Beit Alma, the refugee camps that surround Nablus. For years he has led campaigns against the local aristocracy, the effendi in Nablus, which many of the refugees regard as corrupt and degenerate, concerned only with their own welfare and saboteurs of the national struggle. Khader was never satisfied with attacks on the Nablus leadership, and at almost every opportunity criticized the national leadership of his own movement, Fatah, and even of its leader, Arafat.

Of all the opposition spokesmen in the Palestinian Authority, Khader can definitely be called the most daring in his challenges to the leadership. His rhetoric in the past led to violent clashes in the city of Nablus and the Balata camp. There were leaflet wars with vicious language and, on at least one occasion, shots were fired at his home. He was elected to the PLC by the votes of the residents of the camps and on the basis of his firm position against any concession on the right of return.

From prison, he has sent messages expressing reservations about the Geneva Accord (produced by Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo), since it can be understood to mean that the refugees should give up their demand to return to their homes.

There was more evidence of the local struggles in Nablus a few weeks ago, when unknown gunmen fired at Mayor Ghassan Shaka. The gunmen missed their target but killed his brother. That was followed by the mayor's resignation. He said that one of the reasons for resigning was that there was no serious investigation into the shooting.

Attorney Al-Anius, therefore, is trying to use the rivalries of Nablus in his defense of Khader, to prove that there was a conspiracy against his client, a conspiracy peopled by his rivals in the Palestinian leadership.

He also tried to prove that the main witness, Suwellma, changed his version of events in exchange for better treatment by the Shin Bet interrogators, who told him explicitly, he said, "Don't tell us about others. We only want Khader."

The Palestinian press reports, though relatively little, on the physical and emotional nightmare that Khader has been through during lengthy interrogations, and it reports on the difficult conditions in which he is being held.

He is now held in Be'er Sheva prison, and his trial will certainly take several more months. If he is released, it is very likely he will once again take up a leading opposition role in Palestinian politics.

© Copyright  2004 Haaretz.