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2013, autumn, Gaza, Hamas, protests, run-up

Tamarod Gaza’s main demands, as presented in different declarations, including a letter to the secretary-general of the Arab League, include requiring Hamas to immediately allow the formation of an elections committee, “without any delay or obstacle,” to pursue speedy general elections under international Arab and Islamic supervision. The expiration of Tamarod’s ultimatum of sorts has been set at sundown of November 8.

The Call for Rebellion against Hamas in Gaza – The Washington Institute for Near East Policy – 10/8/2013.

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Being “caught between a rock and a hard place” might start looking pretty good to anyone who has long been caught between a rock and a rock.

Since 1948, Arabs abandoned in the field by Arab armies have with their generations been sequestered, more or less, in the refugee camps of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.

The same have been subject, differentially, to the diminishment of their human rights — notably, Mahmud Abbas received Jordanian citizenship around February 9, 2011, but even that story has been complicated by the middle east’s screwy loyalty x mafia flavored politics — from the preceding link: “The officials received citizenship at the same time they urged Jordan to stop giving Palestinian Jordanians citizenship, so they could consolidate their Palestinian identity, the Arab language newspaper said”; a little more than a year later, one reads (as if living in a very bad Orwell novel), “Jordan’s King Abdullah II is planning to revoke the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials, The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday. It is unknown if PA President Mahmoud Abbas will also be stripped of his citizenship” — source: Jordan Continues to Strip Palestinians of Citizenship – Jewish Policy Center – 4/12/2012).

Others, who may have considered themselves lucky to have remained defiant of the State of Israel within its territories, admittedly contested, on the West Bank and Gaza (from which Jews were purged wholesale in 2005 in a faked out Arafat land-for-peace arrangement) have instead had to weather the abuses of Fatah-related cronyism and corruption and, in 2006, with soldiers of the same Fatah thrown from the rooftops of buildings in Gaza, the bizarre and deeply narcissistic Islamist control of Hamas.

To this day, the same have nurtured a surreal alternative narrative of the events of 1948, cultivated an absurd and ugly and wholly counterproductive anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist hate, treated childhood and adolescent educations as preparation for a war of conquest, and have complained incessantly and with great preoccupation of an “occupation” that has provided them with basic utilities, trade market exchange and throughput, educational services at the university level, and emergency medical services, trade partnerships, and jobs.

Around The Preoccupation has grown an immense online and print disinformation industry, including a “Pallywood” sector for the film propaganda buffs.

In association with the middle east conflict, who is really oppressing whom?

That question has been in the air a long time.

Lately, perhaps, with the Hamas’s six-year record of abuses in Gaza, it is finding some answers that may actually hold up to reason, not that it will hold up to Hamasfia’s intimidation backed by its history of paramilitary and military barbarism and brutality.

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Expectations low for Gaza Tamarod protest – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 11/6/2013.

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As events in Syria force the mini-Jihad and majestic cabal in the region to turn up their cards, i.e., make their true values, language habits, and behavior irrevocably visible, one may expect the roles of archaic pan-Arab nationalism and barbaric Sunni and Shiite extremism to show their bones beneath the pools of blood in which they have been bathing for decades.

As part of that process, the refugees of Israel’s 1948 successful struggle for survival may soon get an honest reappraisal of their legitimate identity and needs and that in terms accessible to the greater collection of humanity that inclines to regard itself as less special but altogether more dignified.

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Human Rights Watch Report Critical of Hamas Justice System in Gaza – NYTimes.com – 10/3/2012; Gaza: Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, Unfair Trials | Human Rights Watch – 10/3/2012:

The 43-page report, “Abusive System: Criminal Justice in Gaza,” documents extensive violations by Hamas security services, including warrantless arrests, failure to inform families promptly of detainees’ whereabouts, and subjecting detainees to torture. It also documents violations of detainees’ rights by prosecutors and courts. Military courts frequently try civilians, in violation of international law. Prosecutors often deny detainees access to a lawyer, and courts have failed to uphold detainees’ due process rights in cases of warrantless arrest and abusive interrogations, Human Rights Watch found.

Report Link: Abusive System | Human Rights Watch (October 3, 2012).

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The UN, which has run the camps for all those years, is tired of the job. Balata’s alleys are caked in filth, a cash-for-work programme has all but collapsed, almost half the working-age adults have no jobs, and the UN’s once-prized classrooms are as overcrowded as the rooms where families live. Children sometimes leave school unable to write their names.

Palestinian refugee camps: A new type of settlement | The Economist – 10/12/2013.

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Even before this refugee crisis, Palestinians in Lebanon were not legally allowed to work in most professions. They continue to live in cramped spaces in 12 refugee camps or rented apartments. Half of the Palestinians from Syria are concentrated in two areas, Tyre and Saida, which includes the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Ein el Hilweh, established in 1948. They’re living with 13 individuals per residence, on average.

How Palestinian Refugees from Syria are Forced to Compete in Lebanon and Jordan – The Daily Beast – 11/6/2013.

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. . . As an ex-Gaza refugee without a national ID number, Abu Sulayman has long lived without access to healthcare, full education, representation or any jobs aside from blue-collar labor. Now he also lives without teeth.

Abu Sulayman is one of 16 Gaza Camp refugees who were detained for two weeks in October following a weekend-long clash between the Palestinian camp, neighboring village al-Haddad and Jordan’s public security forces.

Palestinian refugees accuse Jordan police of abuse – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 11/7/2013.

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The PA was less than totally honest when it tried to justify the raid; it was, it claimed, to round-up corrupt individuals and outlaws. While some of the camp’s residents may well be so described, it is wrong to say that all of them are, and to treat them as if they are. The collective nature of the raid was actually intended to terrorise all of the residents. It is odd that such a show of force has never been attempt against the illegal Jewish settlers across the occupied West Bank.

Israel and the PA raid Jenin refugee camp – 11/8/2013: “Now we learn that the heroic camp was raided by the PA forces in late October last year”.

Israel’s a busy place, of course, and Jenin seems to play a special role in the development of related crime-and-suppression statistics.

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Hamas puts ‘resistance’ on Gaza schools curriculum – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page – 11/5/2011:

“All of Palestine from the (Mediterranean) sea to the river (Jordan) belongs to us, to us Muslims,” it states, in accordance with the beliefs of the militant Islamic group, which refuses to recognize Israel.

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American Woman Confirms What We Knew About Life In Gaza | Israellycool – 11/5/2013.

Hamas Orders: Shoot Protesters ‘In the Head’ – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 10/27/2013.

Hamas Intimidates Tamarod Activists Ahead of Protest – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 9/20/2013.

Cornered Hamas looks back at Iran, Hezbollah | Reuters – 8/20/2013.

Amnesty International | Hamas must halt post-Eid executions planned in Gaza – 8/8/2013.

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