Now that the drunkenness of the winners and losers is finished, it’s time to get to work. Hamas has to form the new government of the Palestinian National Authority. Fatah has to begin a self-criticism and reconstruct its internal organisation. In the meantime, the other secular forces and those of the left must undertake a profound analysis of Palestinian society, beginning with the victory of Hamas.

The Hamas victory in this election is not only a victory of democracy, but it is also a victory of the determination of the Palestinian people to continue the resistance against Israeli occupation. The Palestinians have rewarded the political and social steadfastness of Hamas. And they have put in a state of crisis the plans of the neo-cons of the USA Administration for the new Greater Middle East, already put in serious difficulty in Iraq.

The Palestinians, after having hoped in vain, for thirteen years, to be able to realise their dreams of independence and freedom, in a sovereign State in their land, still hoped in a State able to assure them work, dignity and peace. This has not come about. On the contrary, the Occupation Army has never stopped, not even when a truce was achieved. The Israeli armed forces and the Security Services have continued, and continue even now, to use deliberate assassination, to engage in the destruction of homes and land, to raise walls and put the Palestinians in ghettos, in a polity that has gone even further than the Apartheid regime in South Africa. And as if all of this was not enough, the settlements and number of Israeli settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have increased, in total violation of all the accords that have been signed since Oslo. That has weakened and taken legitimacy from the PA.

If we add to this situation the destiny of nine thousand political prisoners in Israeli prisons, the bad governing, the growing poverty and widespread corruption, then we can possibly understand the true meaning of the electoral results of last 25 January. Al Fatah was defeated, not only for its internal divisions, but also for its politics that foresee a negotiated peace and the total abandonment (as theorised by Abu Mazen and the signers of the Geneva Document) of armed resistance. The lack of positive results of this policy depends also upon Israel, which has never conceded a thing to the Palestinians (if one excludes the obligated withdrawal from Gaza, which came about also thanks to the resistance). But even the Quartet (USA, Russia, UN and EU) has its responsibilities, because rather than having put pressure on the Israeli government to lead it towards the respect of the agreements, it accepted the Israeli position and in particular on a concept that is spread directly and systematically by the Israeli authorities: “the lack of a Palestinian partner with whom to deal, the PA must do more to uproot ‘terrorism’ and to disarm the armed groups.” All of this is ignoring the true cause and the central question of Israeli occupation.

The countries of the Quartet (with the exclusion of the US) have deliberately limited their role to merely economic aid, important for the survival of the PA, but now it is being used as a weapon of blackmail and pressure against the Palestinians and the future legitimate government of Hamas.

Now that Hamas has the absolute majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, it must have the assignment of forming the new government, the question is: based on what program? The Palestinian political system is a presidential system, based on a fundamental Statute, which determines the powers of the President, of the Head of Government and of the Legislative Council. The current situation is very delicate and contradictory: a president elected with his program, but who does not have the majority in a PLC elected with the Hamas program. The government has internal management, police, ministers, while the president controls the security forces, foreign policy and the dealings with Israel and must find an agreement with the government under his management. In awaiting the assignment, Hamas is refusing blackmail and pressure, in as that they are unacceptable interference in internal Palestinian affairs. It is also sending different signals of availability to the American, Israeli and EU governments: offering a truce of 10 – 15 years if Israel withdraws from the Palestinian Territories occupied in 1967, asking Israel to definitively make clear its confines. On the matter of the destruction of Israel Hamas responds: “But is it even possible to destroy with the minimal weapons we have a State that has F16 bombers and 200 nuclear heads?” And, still it addresses the EU, guaranteeing that the economic aid will not be used for armed actions, but only for the needs of the people who work in the structures of the PA. Lastly, Hamas has expressed its willingness to join the PLO, to respect its accords that have been stipulated and its desire for a political partnership, forming a government of National Unity, in particular with al Fatah. But the latter has not yet given an official response, as it is waiting to know the program of the government and the decisions of the summit of the organisation itself, that is currently examining and evaluating the election results and the internal situation.

The formation of the new government needs time, and it is a certainty that it will be a strong government whether it is formed by Hamas alone or with others. The Israeli government and those of the West must respect the democratic will of the Palestinian people that has emerged from the polls and they must deal with it.

Al Fatah must continue the preparation of its General Congress, which must examine a long period of experimentation and struggle:
a) In primis, there is the urgency to distinguish Al Fatah from the PLO, and this from the PA, in consideration that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people – it is the referent of the PA that represents only the Palestinians within the Occupied Territories.
b) There is a problem of reactivating the structures of the PLO, in a way so as to permit all of the Palestinians in the diaspora to elect their representatives, together with those already elected in the PLC, in the National Council.
c) It is necessary to examine all the signed accords from Oslo onwards and to find an alternative, in that these accords have not succeeded in realising the aspirations of the Palestinian people.
d) There is then the question of the role of Al Fatah within the PLO and its political program. Should it be a program that is founded solely upon negotiations or should this be accompanied by popular resistance, even armed resistance, as an army that has the right to self-determination against a foreign military occupation?
e) Reaffirm the inalienable rights of the Palestinian population to their land, as is foreseen in the UN resolutions.
f) Reaffirm that the Palestinian liberation struggle has nothing to do with terrorism, and is an essential part of world resistance against capitalism and imperialism.
g) Lastly, it is necessary to reinforce internal democracy by electing the decisional organs of Al Fatah: the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council.

It is especially important to return to the dispositions of a great teacher: the masses, and activate all of the structures to regain their trust and their esteem.

Today the Palestinian question is going through a delicate phase of great changes and needs more than ever to be supported, by all the forces of the left, progressives and secular people, as a struggle for national liberation, for a secular and democratic State now. Needing our support are the Palestinian political prisoners in the Israeli prisons, like Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat, in the jail of Jericho under “custody” of British and American soldiers, like many other lesser-known prisoners of Hamas. To affirm this solidarity with Palestine, we invite everyone to participate in the National Demonstration on 18 February in Rome.

*Palestinian opinionist. Committee “With Palestine in our hearts” (Con la Palestina nel cuore) Rome, Italy.

Translated from Italian by Mary Rizzo, member of Tlaxcala, the network for linguistic diversity (transtlaxcala@yahoo.com). This translation is Copyleft.

According to the document, Hamas "is completely hostile to the Russian regime in that it identifies with the Chechen separatists, regarding them as part of the global jihad, and supports them in their terrorist activities."

A government official said that the document was being circulated so that people "understand the real nature of Hamas - that Hamas has supported terrorism in other part of the world, and has supported a radical jihad agenda, not only against Israel, but also around the globe, specifically in Russia."

"We think that it would be a good thing if Russian citizens became aware of that," he said.

To support the claim of a Hamas-Chechen link, the document states that posters, CDs and movies supporting the Chechen terrorists have been found in Hamas offices. According to the document, Hamas has "even allowed the Chechen terrorists to use its Internet site, www.Palestine-info.net, to provide its suicide bombing attacks with religious Islamic sanction."

According to the pamphlet, "Hamas customarily distributes its anti-Russian incitement CDs (full of hate propaganda and incitement to acts of terrorism) in educational institutions in the PA-administered territories as part of the battle for the hearts and minds of the younger Palestinian generation."

The document said that the CDs, entitled "The Russian Hell," were distributed in 2003 and 2004 to the American University in Jenin, the Hebron University and the Hebron Orphan Asylum.

According to the document, Hamas has expressed admiration for Chechen terrorists in its posters and videos, while the Russian army "is blasted and its actions are referred to as 'terrorist activities against the Islamic population in Chechnya.'"

One poster pictured in the document shows a picture of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin next to those of Ibn al-Khattab, a Chechen leader killed in 2002, Osama bin Laden and Shamil Basayev, a Chechen warlord who claimed responsibility for the Beslan school massacre in September 2004.

Underneath the pictures are the words "Chechnya, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Kashmir, Palestine and Lebanon," as well as a quote attributed to a companion of Muhammad who said Islam would "continue to exist in those regions of the world where Muslims are a minority living in a hostile environment."

Russian officials traditionally bristle at attempts to compare Hamas with the Chechen terrorists, saying that while the international community recognizes Chechnya as an integral part of Russia, the world has never recognized the West Bank as part of Israel.

Also on Monday, an executive decision was issued to place radio and TV broadcasts under the authority of the president's office, the Palestinian Maan News Agency said.

Hamas won 74 of parliament's 132 seats in landmark elections in January, ousting Abbas's long-ruling Fatah and touching off Western threats to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in needed aid unless the group abandoned violence and recognised Israel's right to exist.

A Hamas prime minister could complicate any Middle East peace effort, because Israel and the United States have said they will not talk to members of the group, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

Abbas, whose Fatah faction was voted out of government, has good relations with Washington and would be expected to take the lead in future negotiations.

Prime minister

Earlier on Monday, a spokesman for Hamas said the group had chosen the future prime minister but declined to disclose the appointee's name.

Several sources close to the Hamas deliberations for a new prime minister said Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas's parliamentary group, was a top contender.

Haniyeh is a pragmatist who survived an Israeli air strike in 2003 that targeted Hamas's leadership. But his militant background could be a further provocation to the United States.

Hamas has masterminded more than 60 bombings against Israelis since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000, but has largely adhered to a truce declared last March.

First came a deputy Garda commissioner from Dublin. Then came a pompous prosecutor from Germany. Then there arrived last month a humble lawyer from Belgium. All tasked by the United Nations, no less, to find out the truth. Were the Syrians involved? This was the question.

Four top Lebanese security officers, all "close" (as they say) to Syria, were arrested. The Syrian minister of interior, former army secret police boss Ghazi Kenaan, shot himself in his own office in Damascus. Oh deus ex machina. I knew Ghazi too, an old sparring partner of the 1980s who used to make tasteless jokes about the kidnapping of Terry Waite. Topped, my lords and ladies.

"He knew what it was like to be executed," one of his less pleasant friends was to say later. No doubt.

I didn't even know it was Sheikh Rafiq until I saw the pictures in the paper the next day. I thought the corpse on the Corniche was that of a zaatar seller, one of the big men who sold the rock-hard bread on the seafront, and I should have noticed, of course, the little curl of hair over the collar, the sign that this cremating man was the former prime minister of Lebanon who had called me to help me back in 2001.

Only when I saw the caption - "the martyr Rafiq Hariri" -- did I realise. I had watched him burn, like a spectator at a match. I had been 400 metres from his immolation. Everyone in front of me had been killed or wounded. Saved again.

And so the Lebanese watched the mighty course of justice roll inexorably forward. The UN would find out the truth. One of the Garda officers told me of his deep concern for the Lebanese. "They come up to us - they actually come up to us - and tell us to find out the truth," he said. Of course they did.

The unsolved murders of Lebanon - of Kemal Jumblatt, of Renee Mouawad, of the Grand Mufti, Hassan Khaled, and of Rashid Karami and the rest (let us not speak of Elie Hobeika, who led the Phalange militia into Sabra and Chatila in 1982) - hang like a black curtain over Lebanese history.

Four men were imprisoned - including the general who used to tap my telephone in Lebanon. I even posted the number in The Independent - Beirut 370615 - in case he had got it wrong. Phew. Down at my favourite restaurants, I could now wax forth with friends without looking over my shoulder.

Or could I?

For the other morning, a little bird flew through my bedroom window. My mum, Peggy, always talked about her 'little bird', the tiny sparrow which arrived with bits and pieces of information which she didn't want to hear. And as a correspondent, it is, I suppose, my doleful duty to tell readers what I don't want to hear. So this is what my little bird is telling me.

The Americans, deep in distress in their occupation of Iraq, have hatched a deal with the Syrians. In response to a request that the Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada Sadr keep his distance from the Iraqi Sunni insurgents and play by the ball in the elections, Syria has promised to use its "influence".

In response to an American appeal, Syria has arrested up to 8,000 Iraqi insurgents inside its borders. In response to a plea by Washington, it is cutting back on the assistance that the Iraqi rebels receive from inside Syria.

Aware that the highest levels of the Syrian security apparatus may be impeached by the UN enquiry into Hariri's death, the Syrians are being "responsible". The new and far more humble Belgian investigator gives no press conferences - had you noticed this? - and makes no statements. Silence, gentlemen, please.

Sure, Condi Rice goes on telling us that the truth will out. Wasn't Hariri behind UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which told the Syrians to get out of Lebanon? Wasn't that why he was murdered? I don't think he was behind 1559, though that might have been enough for the Syrian Baathist secret police to assassinate him.

But all the big talk about justice and freedom and the "Cedar Revolution" - an invention of the US State Department which The New York Times obediently adopted - appears to be drifting away. George W Bush, who shook hands with Rafiq's son Saad in the White House only this week, is sliding away from the truth. Getting American boys out of Iraq is more important, I suspect, than finding out who killed Rafiq Hariri.

I still feel deeply sorry for the man I saw burning in front of me a year ago. And I think he is going to be betrayed.

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

The incident is likely to raise tensions still further in the Palestinian territories, where protests have erupted over the publication in European newspapers of cartoons depicting Muhammad.

Many Muslims consider any image of Muhammad as blasphemous.

Two Palestinians were wounded in the violence, medics said.

"During the night, a group of settlers came to a mosque in the village of Nabi Ilyas and spray-painted the graffiti," the military source said. "Soldiers are removing the graffiti."

Residents said the slogan, written in red letters in Hebrew, denigrated Muhammad and said that a Star of David was also daubed on the mosque.

Israeli defacing

The defacing was also reported by Israel Radio and Israeli news websites.

Othman Zimmari, 67, said: "I open the mosque every day for dawn prayers. Today, when I went to open it, I saw a person wearing a skullcap spray-painting at the wall.

"When he saw me, he ran towards a white car with yellow [Israeli] licence plates. I could not tell if there were other people in the car. I rushed inside the mosque and locked the door because I was afraid."

A spokesman for Israeli police in the West Bank said they had opened an investigation.

Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were imposed at the start of the intifada and were gradually expanded. But the sweeping prohibition regarding entry into the area by Palestinians was imposed after security responsibility in Jericho was given back to the Palestinians on March 16, 2005.

At the time, Palestinian sources say, Palestinian travelers coming across the Allenby Bridge (the West Bank's only direct link overseas) were banned from passing through the Jordan Valley even if they were heading to the northern West Bank and the villages adjacent to the valley's checkpoints. Instead, the travelers are required to go through Jericho, and from there, the road is long and filled with checkpoints and delays.

Since then, residents of Jericho and the remainder of the West Bank have been banned from passing through the Ouja checkpoint, north of Jericho, in the direction of the Jordan Valley.

The prohibition also applies to thousands of residents of towns and villages in the northern West Bank, like Tubas and Tamun, most of whose lands are in the Jordan Valley, and some with residents who have been living there for many years. The residents of the Jordan Valley villages are tied to the northern West Bank villages through family connections, joint land ownership, work, school, and medical and social services.

Also affected by the ban are people who for years have earned a living by doing seasonal agricultural work for Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, as well as an unknown number (several thousand apparently) of Bedouin and sheep-herders who live in the area permanently in tents and makeshift structures, but are registered as residents of towns and villages a few
kilometers to the east.

Since the start of the intifada, Palestinians have been restricted from using Road 90, the Jordan Valley Road, with use of the road restricted to residents of the Jordan Valley, and only north of Jericho.

This picture of such a large Palestinian area being absolutely cut off from the rest of the West Bank has emerged from tours and talks Haaretz has conducted in the area over a period of a number of weeks, from testimonies gathered by the B'Tselem human rights organization and
reports from officials from the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs.

Four permanent checkpoints ensure that passage is denied to Palestinians whose identity documents do not list them as residents of the Jordan Valley. Entry is permitted only to a few thousand holders of special permits from the Civil Administration, as well as some 5,000
Palestinians who work in the settlements.

Around 1,500 of those who hold the Civil Administration permits (valid for three months and not always extended) are residents of the area around Tubas who own land and work in the Jordan Valley. Several hundred are teachers and health workers; the remainder are primarily traders and drivers.

Special, one-way entry permits are granted for "humanitarian cases"  weddings, other family affairs, funerals and so on and have to be coordinated in advance with the Civil Administration and the military.

To enforce the ban, the Israel Defense Forces conducts frequent nighttime raids in the Jordan Valley villages. Palestinians who are not registered as residents of the area are driven beyond the Tayasir checkpoint and dropped off. The soldiers also confiscate the identity documents of Palestinians who have the "incorrect" address.

An IDF source who confirmed the abovementioned restrictions on Palestinian movement in the Jordan Valley said that the only way to protect an area as large as the Jordan Valley was to impose limitations on movement, checkpoints to control and to direct the traffic to provide protection for the Jewish communities and Road 90, a strategic thoroughfare.

The surprising victory of the Islamic Party Hamas in Palestinian elections was due in part to the corruption of the ruling Fatah Party.

But many Palestinans rejected Fatah because, despite its moderation, it failed to gain recognition of Palestinian rights from Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon, whose hard-line policies undercut Fatah's credibility with Palestinians and gave Hamas a boost.

When Sharon suffered a severe stroke in early January, many U.S. and Israeli politicians and journalists claimed Sharon was the best chance for Israeli-Palestinian peace. He had removed troops and 8,500 Jewish settlers from Israeli-occupied Gaza, as well as hundreds more settlers from four small settlements in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank.

Columnist Jim Hoagland wrote Jan. 11 in the Star that Sharon's "daring" seemed to promise "significant unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank." Columnist Paul Greenberg, writing in Jan. 13 in the Star, saw Sharon as having "gambled on peace." Both writers blamed Palestinians for the impasse.

Reality differs. Since the Oslo Accords of 1993, Palestinian leaders have been willing to accept a West Bank-Gaza Palestinian State on 22 percent of Palestine/Israel — the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Sharon refused to negotiate a final settlement with either Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas. Instead, he continued Israel's seizure of Palestinian land and water resources for the expansion of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank. During 2004, the number of settlers in the West Bank grew by 14,000 — more than the number taken out of Gaza. There are now 400,000 settlers in the West Bank, which includes Arab East Jerusalem.

The existence of settlers, the settlements, and the confiscation of resources are all illegal under international law, namely the Fourth Geneva Convention and U.N. resolutions. The United States, however, has refused to pressure Israel to remove the settlements. Financial, military and diplomatic support from the United States has enabled Israel to grossly violate the human rights of Palestinian Muslims and Christians.

B'tselem, Israel's leading human- rights group, reported that during the 1990s Israel violated 29 of the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its treatment of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Among violations (some war crimes): torture, collective punishment, destruction of thousands of homes and tens of thousands of fruit trees, killing of civilians, and confiscation of land and water resources (www.btselem.org).
In 2005 alone, Amnesty International deplored Israel's unwillingness to stop settler violence against Palestinians; Human Rights Watch accused Israel of failing to protect Palestinian civilians from unlawful attacks by Israeli soldiers; and the European Union criticized Israel's violations of the rights of 200,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem (www.aiusa.org; www.hrw.org).

Human Rights Watch condemned the separation wall that Israel is building, since 80 percent of it is in the West Bank rather than on the Israel-West Bank border where the wall would have equally protected Israel from terrorism, been cheaper to build, and legal.

The International Court of Justice has declared the West Bank portions of the wall illegal. The wall limits or denies hundreds of thousands of Palestinians access to jobs, agricultural lands, hospitals, schools, families and friends — even water.

Palestinians trapped on the Israeli side of the wall must obtain special permits from Israel to reside in their own homes.

Washington's support for Israel's occupation and gradual takeover of Palestinian lands prevents the creation of a viable Palestinian state and a just and lasting peace, strengthens hawks and weakens doves on both sides, and means more needless Israeli and Palestinian deaths.
Edmund R. Hanauer is an human-rights activist and director of Search for Justice and Equality in Palestine/Israel, a Boston-based human rights group. Reach him at SEARCH25@aol.com.

Many Israelis were irked when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in publishing the nomination, said that "Paradise Now" came from "Palestine."

While the tag remains on the academy's Web site, the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he expected the film to be described as coming from the "Palestinian Authority" during the awards ceremony.

"Both the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and several concerned Jewish groups pointed out that no one, not even the Palestinians themselves, have declared the formal creation of 'Palestine' yet, and thus the label would be inaccurate," the diplomat said.

The academy could not immediately be reached for comment.

"Paradise Now" was a broad co-production involving an Israeli Arab director and actors, Palestinian crew and locations, a Jewish Israeli producer and private European funding.

Major Israeli cinema chains have shunned the film, with distributors citing concerns of low audience turnout, given its generally sympathetic portrayal of suicide bombers.

Palestinians have mostly responded well to "Paradise Now," although some voiced misgivings at its depiction of one bomber who undertakes his deadly mission because of social pressure, as well as to avenge the travails of Israeli occupation.

The controversy around "Paradise Now" compounds an already fraught Academy Awards for Israel, thanks to several nominations garnered by Steven Spielberg's "Munich." A thriller about the reprisals Israel launched after 11 of its athletes died in a Palestinian raid on the 1972 Olympic Games, Munich has been accused by pro-Israel groups of skewing history and criticizing Israel's security policies.

Spielberg called the film his "prayer for peace."