Issue no 110

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Issue No : 110 24th November , 2014

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

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Netanyahu to push forward Jewish State Law

Hamas: Israel›s demolition of Palestinian homes is a ‹racist policy›

Resistance factions: Jerusalem attack “natural retort” to Israeli terrorism

36,000 stranded while waiting for Rafah crossing to open

Hamas: Israel practices ethnic cleansing against Jerusalemites

Jewish settlers hang Palestinian bus driver in Jerusalem

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FEATURED STORY

Articles & Analyses

Read in This Issue

Resilient resistance is a by-product of occupation and oppression

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Israel blows up Shaludi›s home in Jerusalem

5 Israelis killed, 13 injured in attack in Occupied Jerusalem

UNRWA: Egypt›s buffer zone will turn Gaza into a big jail

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Hamdan: Hamas’s foreign policy consis-tent with ABC’s of Palestinian cause

P13Israel Insider

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CONTENTS

News of Palestine :

Jewish settlers hang Palestinian bus driver in Jerusalem 4

Israel blows up Shaludi›s home in Jerusalem 5

Israel settlers continue to desecrate al-Aqsa Mosque 6

14,000 housing units in WB, Jerusalem approved in 2014 7

5 Israelis killed, 13 injured in attack in Occupied Jerusalem 8

Israel eases gun control for Jews, imposes blockades and curfews in Arab 9

neighbourhoods

Sheikh Sabri: Israel’s grave actions at the Aqsa Mosque is the main cause 10

of tension

UNRWA: Egypt›s buffer zone will turn Gaza into a big jail 11

Spanish vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood reaps overwhelming majority 12

Israel Insider

Netanyahu to push forward Jewish State Law 13

Articles & Analyses

Resilient resistance is a by-product of occupation and oppression 14

Interviews

Hamas’s foreign policy consistent with ABC’s of Palestinian cause 16

Palestinian Cultural

Organization Malaysia

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News of Palestine

A Palestinian bus driver was hanged to death by Jewish set-tlers late Sunday night in the in-dustrial zone Givat Shaul in west Jerusalem.

The bus driver was identified as 32-year-old Yousuf Khamis al-Rammouni, a resident of Attour neighborhood in east Jerusalem.

Rammouni, who works as a bus driver for the Israeli bus company “Egged,” was found physically subdued and strangled with his own tie at the Har Hotzvim bus depot, hanging from one of the bus’s interior bars, according to different news reports.

His body was transferred to Ha-dassah hospital for an autopsy. Pictures of his dead body show clearly bruises on his body and signs of strangulation on his neck.

Soon after the Israeli police has-tened to claim that the victim committed suicide, eyewitnesses said they saw a number of set-tlers fleeing the scene.

Other Palestinians working for Is-raeli bus companies in Jerusalem said that Jewish settlers recently threatened to kill Rammouni and other drivers.

Jewish settlers hang Palestinian bus driver in Jerusalem

Hamas: Israel practices ethnic cleansing against Jerusalemites

Extremist settlers have intensified their terrorist attacks lately against Palestinians as the Israeli police usually cover up their crimes.

The incident caused an immediate Palestinian uproar in different areas of east Jerusalem, especially in Attour neighborhood.

Commenting on the horrific incident, Hamas Movement said the recent crimes carried out against Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem came as part of the Israeli ethnic cleansing policy.

Spokesman for the Movement Fawzi Barhoum said that al-Rammouni’s murder came as part of the Israeli forces and settlers’ systematic and deliberate killing of Palestinian citizens.

Israeli escalated attacks against Palestinians was due to the dual tar-geting of resistance members in West Bank by Palestinian-Israeli secu-rity coordination and the absence of an Arab and Islamic firm position against the Israeli violations and crimes in occupied Jerusalem, Bar-houm added.

17/11/2014 Source: Agencies

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The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stormed and demolished at dawn Wednesday the home of Abdul Rah-man Shaludi, the man suspected of running over a group of settlers at a train station.

On 23 October, Abdul Rahman Shaludi rammed his vehicle into a group of set-tlers at a light rail station in occupied Jerusalem. Two settlers were killed while five others were injured during the incident.

The IOF soldiers violently stormed the four-story home and forced Shaludi family members out before blowing it up, a PIC reporter said.

Israeli radio claimed that demolishing Shaludi’s home came as part of the so-called Israeli “fight against terrorism”.

Earlier Tuesday, Israeli premier Benja-min Netanyahu ordered the demolition of the homes of two Palestinians who launched the latest attack on a Jew-ish synagogue carried out in response to Israel’s mounting terrorism against Palestinian civilians and Muslims’ holy shrines in Occupied Jerusalem.

Israeli critics have slammed Netanya-hu’s orders to tighten grip around Pal-estinians’ necks in Occupied Jerusa-lem and the West Bank, warning that it would be counter-productive.

In a related context, local residents managed on Friday to prevent the ex-ecution of an Israeli demolition order against the house of Ibrahim Akkari, the man who rammed his car into a group of settlers near a light rail station in oc-

Israel blows up Shaludi›s home in Jerusalem

Hamas: Israel›s demolition of Palestinian homes is a ‹racist policy›

cupied Jerusalem.

Jerusalemite sources confirmed that hundreds of youths in Sh-uafat refugee camp closed all roads leading to Akkari’s home with burning tires in light of the heavy presence of Israeli forces who encircled the house in an attempt to storm it.

Ibrahim Akkari was killed by Israeli security men after running over a group of settlers near a light rail station in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. An Israeli settler died during the incident while 13 others were injured.

For its part, the Islamic resistance movement Hamas has de-scribed Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes as a “racist policy”, Anadolu news agency reported on Thursday.

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesperson for the movement, told An-adolu that Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem is a racist policy that targets all Palestinians.

Barhoum warned of the repercussions of such demolitions, in addition to what he called “Israel’s [other] follies”, stressing that these forms of collective punishment will only act to fuel a great battle in Jerusalem, using all forms of resistance.


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Israel settlers continue to desecrateal-Aqsa Mosque

Groups of Jewish settlers desecrated Thursday morning al-Aqsa Mosque under heavy police protec-tion.

Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli forces tightened this morning military restrictions at the gates to al-Aqsa Mosque and confiscated the Palestinian worshipers’ identity cards before their entry.

Ongoing unrest, triggered by Jewish encroachment at the Islamic sacred site where al-Aqsa Mosque stands, prompted Nur a-Din Hashiya, from the Askar refugee camp in Nablus, to stab an Israeli soldier on November 10.

Nur a-Din Hashiya was taken at dawn Wednesday to the attack scene for a show-up identification.

During the field show-up, the detainee admitted that he carried out the knife attack for the sake of Allah and in response to the serious Israeli violations in al-Aqsa Mosque.

“I came willingly for Allah’s sake and in revenge for al-Aqsa Mosque”.

An Israeli soldier, identified as Almog Shilony, was killed in the attack near the Haganah train station in south Tel Aviv after he had sustained numerous stab wounds.

For his part, Hashiya suffered bruises and slight injuries after being beaten and attacked by passersby.

20/11/2014 Source: PIC

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The Israeli government has approved since the beginning of the year more than 14,000 new housing units in oc-cupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, a Palestinian official source revealed.

Advisor at Palestine Liberation Orga-nization Negotiations Support Unit, Ashraf al-Khatib, said in an interview with Anadolu news agency that the Israeli authorities have published ten-ders and approved plans to establish more than 14,000 new housing units, half of them will be carried out in East Jerusalem.

Since the beginning of 2014, tenders to build 5241 housing units were pub-lished, while 9282 other housing units were approved in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, he clarified.

Such steps reflect Israeli premier Be-nyamin Netanyahu’s unwillingness to stick to the political settlement pro-cess, the PLO official added, charg-

14,000 housing units in WB, Jerusalem approved in 2014

ing that the Israeli government is working to impose a status quo on the ground that prevents the two-state solution.

PLO Negotiations Support Unit revealed in a report issued Friday that nearly half of the declared settlement plans are expected to be carried out in east Jerusalem including 1500 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, 738 units in Ramot settle-ment, 437 units in Givat Ze’ev settlement, and 304 units in Kfar Adumim settlement.

The report also pointed out that 708 housing units were ap-proved or to be approved in the Gilo settlement, and 512 units in Har Homa settlement, in addition to 2335 housing units in Givat Hamatos settlement.

Local and international institutions’ reports about Israeli settle-ment construction and expansion are mainly based on infor-mation leaked by the Israeli leftist organization Peace Now.

The Israeli committee for planning and building has approved Thursday the construction of 78 new housing units northern and southern occupied Jerusalem.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has voiced dissatisfac-tion at Israel’s continued building of settlements in occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank, saying that the expansion of settlements hurt Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.


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Five Israelis were killed and 13 others injured in an attack on a synagogue in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday morning.

Israeli media reported that two Palestinians used guns and knives to attack the Israeli settlers in a synagogue in Har Nof neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem. The Israeli army radio said that both attackers were gunned down.

A number of Palestinian resistance factions said the attack was an anticipated reaction to Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian people and Muslims’ sanctuaries.

The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, said the attack is “a normal reaction” to Is-rael’s mounting terrorism against Palestinians and Islamic sanctuaries in the Occupied Palestinian territories.

“The attack in Jerusalem is a response to the murder of the martyr Yusuf Ramouni [hanged to death in a bus] and to the series of crimes and assaults perpetrated by the Israeli occupation at Al-Aqsa,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said Tuesday.

Spokesman for the Islamic Jihad Movement, Daoud Shihab, echoed the comments in a separate statement, dubbing the attack a real uprising and an expected retort to Israel’s mounting vandalism against Muslims.


5 Israelis killed, 13 injured in attack in Occupied Jerusalem

Resistance factions: Jerusalem attack “natural retort” to Israeli terrorism

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In a racist move, Israeli public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, has approved to ease the rules for private bearing of arms for Jewish citi-zens, under a pretext of defense against ‘terror at-tacks’, according to Haaretz. Meanwhile, curfews and blockades have been imposed in a number of Arab neighbourhoods in the Jerusalem area.

PNN reports that Aharonovich promised Israe-lis that he would prepare the official documents which would ease their permits to bear arms “in the wake of terror attacks”. The licensing will also let security guards in Israeli-occupied lands keep their arms with them past work hours.

The official also promised an extension for Israeli agricultural communities, and Israeli citizens li-censed to carry a firearm. In addition, all military officers will be allowed to posses arms, under the approval of their leaders.

Israeli occupation forces, early Thursday morn-ing, also placed concrete blocks at the entrances and exits of the Arab villages of Sur Baher, Ras

Israel eases gun control for Jews, imposes blockades and curfews in Arab neighbourhoods

Al-Amud, Jabal Al-Mukabber, Um Tur, and East Jerusalem, leaving out one exit that leads to the road near Jabal Abu Ghneim, near Bethlehem.

Palestinians of Jerusalem told the PNN that Israeli forces blocked all the entrances and exits with concrete blocks, imposing curfew on Arab citizens, breaking all international and humanitarian laws.

The main roads to the Palestinian neighbour-hoods in the Jerusalem district were reported to have been completely blockaded, except for one on which Palestinians are closely searched, cars stopped, ID’s inspected and security tightened.

Witnesses assure that these actions are consis-tent with Israeli apartheid policies and collective punishments against Palestinians in the city, in addition to the escalating tension over the past months.

Citizens have demanded human rights organiza-tions and international associations to intervene in exposing Israel’s racist crimes against Palestin-ians in Jerusalem.

20/11/2014 Source: IMEMC + PNN

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Sheikh Sabri: Israel’s grave actions at the Aqsa Mosque is the main cause of tension

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, a preacher of the Aqsa Mosque, said that the Israeli occupation’s serious and unjust practices at the Aqsa Mosque are the main reason behind the growing tension in occupied Jerusalem.

In his Khutba (sermon) on Friday at the Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Sabri criticized those who call for calm in Jerusalem while Israel persists in its aggressive practices against Muslim worshipers at the Mosque and its support of its desecration by Jewish settlers.

“Have they even been able to stop the occupation’s growing aggressive practices against Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque?” The preacher asked, addressing those who demand the Palestinians to calm the tense situation in the holy city.

“Can such calm be realized by determining the ages of Muslims allowed to pray at their Aqsa Mosque? Can the clam be achieved by letting the Jews defile the Mosque’s courtyards? Or can such a thing happen if electronic entrances are installed there or if our women are prevented from entering the Mosque and assaulted,” he questioned further.

He stressed that the brave Palestinian men and women of the holy city would not give up defending Je-rusalem and the Aqsa Mosque.

“They would never be affected by the defeatist positions of some of their fellow citizens who forsake them in times of adversity or be intimidated by the occupation’s iron fist and the unjust six decisions that have been issued against the Jerusalemites by the Zionist mini cabinet,” the preacher added.

He also highlighted that the Aqsa Mosque is a place of worship for Muslims alone and they have the right to stay inside it for their religious activities and prayers without any time, age or entry restrictions.


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Director of the UNRWA operations Robert Turner said the buffer zone, which Egypt is creating on the border of Gaza, would lead the Palestinian population to feel like being in a big prison, describing the blockade as “un-just and deadly”.

Turner added that Egypt’s buffer zone would have a psychological impact on the population in Gaza, although it would not affect the humanitarian ser-vices provided by the UNRWA.

Turner made his remarks in a news conference on the sidelines of the meeting of the UNRWA advisory com-mission that was held on Monday in Jordan’s Dead Sea area.

For his part, UNRWA commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl highlighted during the commission’s meeting the tragic living conditions of the popula-tion in Gaza.

Krahenbuhl criticized the reconstruc-tion efforts as “much too slow and largely ineffective”, and called on the Palestinian government to speed up these efforts and Israel to allow the needed building materials into Gaza.

“We will reach the winter with no prog-ress in rebuilding the homes of the many still displaced, including those still in UNRWA schools. The people of Gaza deserve much better and much more than that,” he stated.

“This should not be a time for wait-and-see attitudes on anybody’s side. The actors who agreed to the temporary mechanism should be held account-able for its implementation. Time is

running out, tempers are rising in Gaza and people are desper-ate,” head of the agency emphasized.

In a related context, there are 30,000 humanitarian cases that are in dire need of travel, while 6,000 Palestinians are stranded in Egypt awaiting the opening of the Rafah crossing which has been closed for over four weeks, the Ministry of Interior and National Security in Gaza said.

Speaking during a press conference yesterday, the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, Eyad Al-Bozum, said that those who are considered humanitarian cases either suffer from serious illnesses, have residency permits, are students, or have foreign passports.

He added that the continued closure of the crossing has created a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as it is the residents’ only lifeline and window to the outside world. Al-Bozum explained that many humanitarian aid convoys and solidarity delegations have been unable to enter Gaza, especially after the most re-cent war which lasted 51 days.


UNRWA: Egypt›s buffer zone will turn Gaza into a big jail

36,000 stranded while waiting for Rafah crossing to open

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Spanish lawmakers Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to recognize Palestinian statehood following out-right calls by the socialists.

Spain’s Congress of Deputies passed the symbolic, non-binding motion following appeals to that end put forward by the largest opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, urging the Madrid government to recognize Palestine as a state.

The non-binding motion passed with 319 votes in favor, two opposed and a single abstention.

The Spanish vote comes after a similar, although vaster, initiative from Sweden, which fully recog-nized Palestine last month.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo said the government will consider recognizing Palestinian statehood as a projected way-out of the “peace crisis” in the region.

The move comes to join the UK and Sweden in holding votes to recognize Palestinian statehood.

The French parliament is also expected to vote on a non-binding bid to recognize Palestine as a state.

European leaders have recently shown signs of mounting impatience with Israel over its continued illegal settlement-building in the Occupied Palestinian territories.

The Palestinian Authority estimates that 134 countries have now recognized Palestine as a state.

Anti-Israel criticism has turned sharper in the wake of the 51-day Israeli offensive on Gaza, murdering some 2,100 Palestinians and leaving at least 11,000 others injured.


Spanish vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood reaps overwhelming majority

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said that he is pushing forward a bill which makes Israel a state only for Jews, local media reported.

Speaking during a meeting with his Likud party members, Netanyahu said it was time for the country’s courts “to recognise the aspect of our being the nation state of the Jewish people”. He said he would propose the law during the next meeting for his government on Sunday.

The bill, which was originally proposed by the Knesset member Ze’ev Elkin gives preference to Is-rael’s Jewish character over its democracy, the Times of Israel said.

The paper said that Netanyahu made the pledge to propose the bill as a form of protest against Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni who was tasked with reviewing the various forms of the bill and drafting a version the government could get behind, but she has not progressed yet.

Media observers said that proposing this bill at this time is very dangerous because of the ongoing tensions in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

“This is the nation state for Jews,” Netanyahu said, “and it is a basic and important issue for the future of Jews in Israel.”

18/11/2014 Source: MEMO

Netanyahu to push forwardJewish State Law

Israel Insider

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Resilient resistance is a by-product of occupation and oppression

By: Noura Mansour For the entire 66 years of its oc-cupation of Palestine, Israel has burned and demolished count-less mosques, churches, li-braries, schools and homes. Throughout, there has been a constant targeting of the civil-ian Palestinian population and infrastructure: children, women and the elderly have suffered displacement, disfigurement and death at the hands of the Israeli military and officials. Not a single Israeli government has ever been held to account.

In Israel’s most recent offensive on Gaza, almost 80 per cent of the casualties were civilians; dozens of mosques, schools and other civilian infrastructure were targeted and destroyed, as were 10,000 homes. Not satis-fied with destruction on such a scale, Israel refuses to allow the Palestinians in Gaza to heal, by preventing access to any form of construction materials to rebuild their lives. This is a unique situa-tion in modern history.

In the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, illegal settlements have witnessed a 123 per cent in-crease in construction in the past year alone. Settler violence has also been increasing constantly, beginning with the burning of Pal-estinian olive trees and property, to senseless provocation at sen-sitive religious sites such as Al-Aqsa Mosque. Recently, we’ve witnessed an increase in direct and brutal attacks on Palestin-ians: 5 year-old Iman Shawkat

Articles & Analyses

was rammed by a car and killed; 16 year-old Mohammad Abu Khedeir was burned alive; and 32 year-old bus driver Yousef Al-Ramouni was assaulted and hanged in the very bus he drove (although this, said the Israelis, was “suicide”). Palestinians, no matter where they live, are pun-ished collectively, while as a com-munity, settlers are emboldened and rewarded for their violence.

The situation has been escalat-ing steadily since the political prisoners’ hunger strike in April. It doesn’t matter whether the cur-rent escalation is government-provoked or a natural unfolding of events, the result is an endless cycle of action and retaliation.

Popular resistance takes a new shape

In the first and second intifadas, Palestinians protested in the streets, exercising their demo-cratic right and their moral duty to resist oppression and occupa-tion, rights guaranteed by inter-

national law.

Since Oslo, the occupation has grown stronger, and more re-strictions have been imposed on the occupied territories, in both Gaza and the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip there’s an illegal and inhumane siege, while in the West Bank there are almost 700 checkpoints and other obstacles, not including the apartheid wall, of which 85 per cent is built on Palestinian land; there are ever more settlements and almost no geographical continuity between Palestinian towns, cities or neigh-bourhoods in Jerusalem and its hinterland. It’s arguable which is worse: being held captive in an open-air prison or being told you are free but not allowed to move, speak or act.

On the political level, there has been a remarkable yet unsur-prising stagnation in the political process on the one hand, and on the other, a successful suppres-sion of any popular resistance in

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the West Bank and Jerusalem. Guerrilla organisations no longer exist in their traditional form or structure. Most leaders of these groups have either been assas-sinated or imprisoned, thus creat-ing a situation in the West Bank where the people want to resist, but there are no organisations to shape their resistance. Con-trast this with Gaza where the or-ganised resistance groups have matured and now produce their own weapons and cooperate with each other when attacked.

While Israel has managed to de-stroy all organised resistance in the West Bank (with, it must be said, the cooperation of the PA security services), it has failed to suppress the popular will to re-sist. Israel has pushed the Pales-tinians into a corner by stripping them of their right to peaceful protests, their right to assemble and organise, and their right to self-determination. With hands tied behind their backs, Palestin-ians have resorted to a new kind of resistance, one which is both instinctive and primitive.

In the absence of a political body that represents the people’s will effectively; with no organisa-tions providing protection; and no possibility for appeal or protest against illegal Israeli practices, the Palestinians have resorted to self-defence measures and resis-tance with whatever is available, from stones and kitchen knives, to axes and cars.

These forms of resistance are not calculated or planned. They are usually conducted by indi-viduals and based on instinctive reactions of rage and frustration, with little or no planning or prepa-ration. The men and women who carry out these acts of retaliation answer to no organisation and have no clear game-plan: the tar-

get is usually random and unde-fined; there is no evaluation of the impact and no exit strategy. They almost always end up being killed in the process.

Survival is an instinct shared by all human beings. No matter how hard Israel oppresses, restricts or punishes Palestinians (or any other group of people), they will always develop new techniques and methods to resist and de-fend their existence. Resistance will keep evolving and changing until people finally achieve their freedom. Throughout history, resistance has always been a by-product of oppression, colo-nisation and occupation; they go hand in hand.

What can be done?In order to provide a sustainable and long-term solution, we must deal directly with the root cause, rather than just trying to make the symptoms disappear. That cause is Zionism, a colonial ideology that has been operating an illegal and inhumane occupation in Pal-estine for almost seven decades. In the process, Zionists have violated countless international laws and rules of war, exhibiting an utter disregard for the values which the international commu-nity sought to uphold and protect through their creation; values we disregard when we refuse to im-pose those same laws.

The international community must play a bigger and more ef-fective role in making sure that such atrocities cease to occur now and prevent the occurrence of similar events in the future. It must act as it did in the past, when the Apartheid regime in South Af-rica was brought to an end, for example. Oppression is oppres-sion, regardless of who does it.

Acting differently now only gives justification to and empowers the oppressors.

Achieving the same success in Palestine isn’t going to happen through a recognition of the cur-rent “State of Palestine”, which will only perpetuate the illegal and unjust status quo. Success will be achieved by placing pressure on Israel to change its policies and practices. Israel and its decision makers must be held responsible and accountable for the frequent violations of international laws, using the legal processes avail-able to the international commu-nity.

Occupation is an abnormal situ-ation; normalising relations with abnormality only makes it stron-ger and further empowers it, which makes every normalis-ing party complicit and indirectly responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international community must cease treating Israel as a normal state, and make it hard for it to continue committing such atroci-ties by boycotting, divesting and imposing sanctions, as was done successfully in the case of South Africa.

Until then, we should expect the situation to escalate further. The number of illegal settlements will keep increasing; there will be more creative forms of collective punishment and targeting of civil-ians, with a greater use of illegal and inhumane weapons; there will be more imprisonment and torture of children; more racist Israeli laws and practices; more abuse from the police and military; and, consequently, more acts of retaliation from the Palestinians. The cycle must be broken, and it is against the oppressor that the world must turn in order to take the vital steps noted above.

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Interviews

Hamas’s foreign policy consistent with ABC’s of Palestinian cause

20/11/2014Senior Hamas leader Osama Hamdan reiterated, in an ex-clusive interview with the PIC, Hamas’s adoption of a foreign policy of openness and partner-ship with all pro-Palestine gov-ernments and leaderships.Hamdan said Hamas’s foreign re-lations have been devised in line with the foundations and project-ed destinations of the Palestinian cause.“We are keen on holding con-structive bonds with each and every Arab and Islamic state,” he confirmed.He denied any potential legitima-cy to current rumors that Hamas might have lost its regional and international back-ups.He reiterated Hamas’s adopted policy of non-interference re-garding the internal affairs of any state.“Non-interference is an old Hamas strategy. But the Move-ment strongly believes in any na-tion’s right to live in dignity and prosperity and to make its peo-ple’s dreams come true,” he said.The very essence of resistance is rooted in a deep-seated belief to fight colonization and restore people’s freedom, he said. “It is unacceptable to ask for the free-dom of our people and deny other peoples’ right to the same privi-lege.”He stressed Hamas’s unques-tionable rebuff of any foreign in-tervention in Palestinian internal affairs no matter the reason and

circumstances.As for Hamas’s position regarding war-torn Syria, Hamdan said: “Hamas has tried every possible means to assuage the current crisis and restore stability. . . What has been going on in Syria is just tragic and heartbreaking.”In Hamdan’s view the Israeli occupation and the U.S. are the biggest profiteers from the current crisis in Syria.Regarding the group’s relationship with Iran, Hamdan confirmed that the only denominator in such historical bonds is Iran’s unyielding pro-Palestine support.Addressing the Qatari-Palestinian ties, he said: “Our relationship with Qatar is more than 20-years-old. . . Our bonds with Iran have never made part of Hamas’s search for an alternative partner.”“Our relationship with Turkey has also never been a stand-by. It is as old as a decade and a half’s time. We had significant stopovers with Turkey’s president and PM at the turn of the 21st century. Such a relationship has only been in the service of the Palestinian cause,” he said.“The Palestinian cause is not and has never been a burden on any-body’s shoulders,” he added. “But undoubtedly, any Arab and Islamic support is an empowering force to the cause and the people alike.”In Hamdan’s words, the significant shift in Europe’s position regard-ing the Palestinian cause does not live up to the expectations and aspirations of the Palestinian people. “But this is something that can be built upon” for a real and effective transition in Europe’s stances to that end, he concluded.

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