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Post by english on May 23, 2006 14:03:59 GMT 10
just come across this article on the BBC website... news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5001858.stmthe interesting part of the article is the around the fifth paragraph, talking about the inter-palestinian struggle. It would be a useful example to show how terroist groups are ill-equipped to govern countries as well as showing how making countries pull out unilaterally and unexpectedly leads to chaos - i see parrallels with Iraq, Chechneya and similiar situations
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Post by Old Man Sashi on Jun 6, 2006 15:58:55 GMT 10
quote: "Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has confirmed he will call a referendum on his plan for statehood that implicitly recognises Israel's right to exist." Its a bold move, considering the talks with Hamas failed. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5049346.stm
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Post by rudro2000 on Jul 22, 2006 17:36:48 GMT 10
I am a little confused here. Can anyone give me a run down of the Palestinian Political structure or provide me with a related link? On one hand you have the Palestinian Authority which is run by Fatah and has Abbas as its President, on the other hand you have the Legislative Council which now is run by Hamas and its PM. So who controls what and what is the hirarchy and where can one over-ride the other or do they share power equally?
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Post by rudro2000 on Jul 22, 2006 17:58:55 GMT 10
Are the Legislative Council and the Palestinian Authority, one and the same thing?
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Post by smartarse on Jul 23, 2006 14:57:31 GMT 10
The PA is the term for the Palestian "government". The PA has unicameral parliament - which is the legislative branch of the government. Hamas has the greatest number of seats in the LC.
The executive branch of the PA is the President - Abbas.
Neither is clearly more powerful than the other. Both the President and the LC control security forces/militias. The President has a discretionary budget (not much at the moment) but most spending is done by the LC.
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Post by rudro2000 on Jul 23, 2006 19:34:41 GMT 10
So the presidential elections are separate from the elections to the legislative? Any idea how bills are passed in such a parliament? Also, who would you say has more control over the government(in political terms) the PM or the President? Who gets to negotiate with Israel? Or does Abbas gets to do that and whatever deal he makes with the Israelis he has to then get it ratified by his legislative council(Hamas) before it can be implemented? You talked about the security forces/militias. Does Palestine have a formal security force? I doubt that. i think they simply rely on their militia (hamas or Fatah) to carry out defensive or offensive activities against the IDF.But these militias are loyal to their respective political groups. I don't think Abbas has control over the Hamas militia or Haniya has control over the Fatah militia. So effectively each has its own personal loyal militia, right?
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Post by smartarse on Jul 23, 2006 23:50:26 GMT 10
Ah Rudro, you ask all the right questions!
I've been editing my thesis all day and my brain has turned to mush so i apologise if this is unclear.
First: who has control? Good question. No one exactly knows. In the past Arafat was the President and he was Chairman of the PLO, which controlled the LC, so basically he was in charge (plus he suspended the LC for long periods of time for various reasons.
So the Palestinian political institutions have never really had a chance to work themselves out. There was a brief period of Fatah dominance after Arafat died, but then Hamas was elected and all hell broke loose and so its very unclear as to who has more power - although at the moment i would say Hamas does on the ground. But since most of the LC is in Israeli jails at the moment, the question of how they pass bills is a moot point.
Second: security forces There are about 11 or 12 seperate security forces/militia operating in the occupied territories. There is a police force - which used to look a lot like an army, minus the heavy weapons and armour. there is a Presidental guard, and there are lots of 'private security' - which is basically where militia members and supports are employed to security government facilities.
if that number seems high, it is. But remember that because Gaza and the West Bank are not connected, everything exists in dupliate - so there are 2 police forces, but they are very autonomous and their leaders are basically regional warlords. Then there are the actual militias, like Tanzim (the Fatah youth wing), Fatah (many factions), Hamas (many factions), etc.
Question 3: who would negotiate. Well i don't know technically who should but either way its irrelevant since Isreal wont negotiate with Hamas unless it recognises Isreal - which it wont do. So i guess that means Abbas will have to do it (if it happens at all) and then get Hamas to approve it (if enough of their legislators are let out of prison long enough to do anything).
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Post by smartarse on Aug 21, 2006 13:18:15 GMT 10
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Post by smartarse on Jan 24, 2007 12:13:29 GMT 10
I just read a very interesting article in this week's economist, and throwing copyright to the wind, i'm going to reproduce it below because i think people really should read it.
Why can't they just make peace? Israel and Syria A back-channel peace plan between Israel and Syria may be more hype than substance but optimists say it could be a harbinger of negotiations to come
IF ONLY Israel could make peace with Syria, the optimists muse: it could be the key to peace in the whole Middle East. No longer sensing enemies on every side, Syria could relax, stop backing insurgents and radicals in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, and join the West in isolating Iran. So the news that broke this week in an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, of a secret back channel that ran for two years and even produced an outline of a possible peace deal, caused quite a stir. Could peace talks still be round the corner?
The sticking point has always been the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the war of 1967. Talks dragged on through the 1990s but finally collapsed at Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in 2000. Israel's then prime minister, Ehud Barak, wanted to keep a ten-metre-wide strip of the Golan bordering the Sea of Galilee, to guarantee Israel's control of the source of 40% of its fresh water. Syria's president, Hafez Assad, demanded the right to swim in the lake as he had done in the days when Syrians controlled the eastern shore.
Assad died soon afterwards. Under his son and successor, Bashar, Syria has made repeated overtures. The latest came earlier this month at a conference to mark the 15th anniversary of the Madrid summit that preceded the secret Oslo talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Riad Daoudi, the Syrians' top legal adviser, reiterated that Syria was now ready for talks without preconditions and, according to one participant's rough notes, said that "negotiations mean that we will come to the table with all that we are and all that we have, including our relationships"--ie, that Syria's ties to Iran, Lebanon's Hizbullah and the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas would all be up for discussion.
Both the current and former Israeli prime ministers, Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon, have constantly rebuffed Syria's advances. But the Israeli establishment is sharply divided. While the pro-talks camp argues that the potential benefits are worth the risk, the sceptics, a majority, say that Bashar Assad is either too immature or weak to pull off a peace deal or is only pretending to want one in a (vain) attempt to curry favour with the Americans.
Moreover, the debate has grown fiercer since the summer. Israel's war with Hizbullah so destabilised Lebanon that there is talk of another war soon. The spiral into chaos among the Palestinians has made peace with them seem more remote than ever; a visit this week to the region by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, produced a widely supported but as yet vague commitment to revive the comatose "road map" peace plan. Against this backdrop, talks with Syria look like the only alternative to more fighting.
Hence the hubbub over the back channel. According to Haaretz, after Israel rejected a Syrian attempt to create a more formal channel in 2004, Alon Liel, a former ambassador and (briefly) director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry, took matters into his own hands and held eight meetings with Ibrahim Suleiman, a Syrian living in Washington, DC, with close ties to Mr Assad. A Swiss diplomat mediated. Even Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, was reportedly kept informed.
Their plan is certainly creative: all of the Golan reverts to Syrian sovereignty, but becomes a demilitarised national park that Israelis can enter without visas; Israel's water is safeguarded; and the two countries impose zones of reduced military presence on either side. It does not address several big issues, such as the Syrian refugees from the Golan or the Israelis now living there, but it is progress.
Who gave a nod?
One question is: did the talks have quiet official approval? The Israeli and--despite reports that senior Syrian officials were indirectly involved--the Syrian leaderships have issued strong denials. Mr Liel has stressed that he was not representing the Israeli government, but says he kept it constantly informed, though it is unclear precisely who was in the know. Mr Olmert, who has firmly ruled out peace talks on the ground that America is against them, may have a more immediate reason for denying knowledge of the talks: he would risk being eaten alive by hardliners in his increasingly fragile coalition if he were seen to entertain the idea.
However, neither Mr Liel nor Mr Suleiman is known as a heavyweight in the back-channel world. Another question is why the story was leaked now. Mr Liel says he thinks it time to "pressure" the Israeli government into considering talks with Syria. The only result so far has been to show, more clearly than ever, that while the general shape of a peace deal is quite easy to draw, the hard part is the political will to try it out.
Edit: Oh and this reminds me, if you want some further analysis of the importance of Israeli-Syrian relations, then read this relatively brief piece: The Syrian Solution. Volker Perthes. Foreign Affairs (Nov-Dec 2006): p33.
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Post by smartarse on May 10, 2007 20:25:13 GMT 10
I know that debates about the middle east are very intimidating for newer debaters, they are fantastically interesting and complex debates. If you're prepping for Australs and interested in learning some of the basic history, as well as some of the recent developments (such as the Saudi Peace Plan - which has strong support in Europe) then this is a good article. www.csmonitor.com/2007/0510/p09s02-coop.html
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Post by smartarse on May 13, 2007 13:01:10 GMT 10
here is another article in favour of the Saudi Peace Plan (aka the Arab Peace Initiative) penned by the PM of Lebenon no less! www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/11/opinion/edsiniora.phpIts always interesting to see how articles about middle east peace come in waves. for the last year no one was really writing about it, now the Saudi's year old plan is suddenly back on the table and being discussed by world leaders... the middle east is an endlessly fascinating region
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Post by smartarse on May 23, 2007 22:00:08 GMT 10
Another interesting article about the prospects (or lack thereof) of peace in the middle east www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/22/opinion/edgreenway.phpthis really is part of one of those waves where the news shifts from being all about the violence, to being equal parts reporting on the violence and the possibilities for peace. It might be very significant to those on the ground, but its interesting as an observer
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Post by smartarse on Jun 3, 2007 18:42:05 GMT 10
wow, i haven't heard mention of this for a while. i guess things in Palestian are even worse than they look. Thats not to say that this is a bad model, but its a big departure from the usual negotiating position for the Palestinians www.csmonitor.com/2007/0531/p07s01-wome.html
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Post by rudro2000 on Sept 22, 2007 22:38:52 GMT 10
Hi guys! Three questions: 1) what is the present situation of the palestinian Unity govt. post violence between Hamas and Fatah this summer? 2) How much freedom do local palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have in terms of moving back and forth in between the two separated territories? 3) What is palestinian statehood? Or rather how can we say that the two Palestinian territories, at the moment, do not constitute a state?
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Post by rudro2000 on Sept 23, 2007 16:09:37 GMT 10
well any answers to my last post? C'mon guys I hope this ain't about the match last night. Just because Australia isn't in the finals doesn't mean we can't be friends...
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