Palestinians ask U.S. to prevent Israeli intervention in elections

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/651653.html

Last update - 01:32 30/11/2005


Palestinians ask U.S. to prevent Israeli intervention in elections

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Eerekat urged the United States on Tuesday to send thousands of election monitors and to increase pressure on Israel not to "sabotage" Palestinian elections in January.

Speaking after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Erekat said he appealed to her personally to help ensure that the parliamentary elections set for January 25 take place without Israeli interference.
snip
A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington took issue with Erekat's view that Israel might want to disrupt the elections.
snip

In addition, Rice told Erekat the Palestinians had to deal with the role of the powerful militant group Hamas in the election, stressing groups could not have one foot in terrorism and the other in politics.

snip

By Akiva Eldar

Two weeks ago, under the not-so-gentle pressure of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Ariel Sharon was forced to pledge that Israel would not disrupt the elections for the legislative council of the Palestinian Authority, scheduled for late January 2006, due to the participation of Hamas, which is defined as a terror organization. This means the Hamas candidates, like their counterparts in other parties, will also be vying for the votes of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem.

Despite this, three youths from East Jerusalem are now standing trial in Jerusalem District Court. Their crime: political activity prior to the elections for the legislative council. The criminal charges: membership and activity in a terrorist organization - the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). If the small fry from the Popular Front are being thrown into jail, what will be done to big fish of Hamas?

The PFLP activists, Ghassem Abidat from the neighborhood of Jabal Mukkaber, Ahmed Muslimani from Beit Hanina and Nasser Abu Hadir from Shuafat, were arrested about six months ago. They are accused of attending a gathering the organization held at the YMCA club in East Jerusalem in honor of high-school students who completed their matriculation examinations; contributing NIS 800 to the event and distributing meat to families of jailed or deceased members of the organization in the Azariah neighborhood of Jerusalem.

However, the most serious crime committed by the three is involvement in political gatherings and speeches held at party meetings in East Jerusalem and environs, prior to the Palestinian Authority elections. "By virtue of these acts, the defendants were members of a terrorist organization, and were active in the organization through their attendance of its discussions and speeches, and their having acted in its framework," charges the prosecution.

The attorneys for the defendants, Leah Tsemel and Rami Othman, do not deny the facts. They remind the court that the portrait of Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, the candidate of the Popular Front, stares out at them from the public notice board across the street from the courthouse on Saladin Street, alongside the photos of other candidates. The lawyers would like to know what would happen if Hamas were permitted to run in the elections: Would the Israeli government dispatch the police to peek behind the curtains of the ballot booths of East Jerusalem residents, and instruct the State Prosecutor to bring to trial anyone caught with a ballot for the PFLP, not to mention a Hamas ballot?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/651704.html

One of the reasons I posted this was the contradiction it presents to the way cars are being burned, gunmen are taking ballot boxes, etc., in the primaries. The internal violence going on with the Palestinians, well, they're disrupting their own elections all by their lonesome.

Should Britain intervene in our country because of the stuff going on in our elections?