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Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org for Thursday, July 01, 2010.
Hamas legislators are being forced out of Jerusalem and Netahyahu invites Abbas to talks these stories and more coming up, stay tuned.
The Israeli military and undercover forces have kidnapped Palestinian legislator Mahmoud Abu Teir claiming that he is no longer allowed to stay in Jerusalem.
Abu Tier would be the first of four legislators to face the deportation that Israelis have threatened. The Israeli’s right to deport these life-long residents of East Jerusalem has found faux legitimacy in the Israeli Supreme Court, allowing the kidnappings and deportations to occur.
The four legislators, Mahmoud Abu Teir, Ahmad Attoun, Mohammad Totah and Khaled Abu Arafa, have been targeted by Israel for their political connections to Hamas. They have had their Jerusalem Identification Cards revoked by occupation forces.
The ID cards are given to residents of East Jerusalem by the state of Israel as a way to impose control on the eastern half of the city which many Palestinians view as a future capital in a two-state solution.
The legislators and their supporters have appealed to the Red Cross and presented a letter to the American Consulate addressed to President Barack Obama. They are currently protesting in front of the Red Cross office in Jerusalem and it is reported that they will escalate it to a hunger-strike if the rulings against them aren’t overturned.
Dr. Jamal Zahalka, an Arab Knesset member has been quoted as saying that, ‘Israel wants the Palestinians and their elected officials out of Jerusalem; this issue requires us all to act and to unite all of our efforts locally and internationally.”
Elsewhere, Netanyahu has said that he would like to initiate direct talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He will discuss this next week with U.S. President Obama when they meet. Netanyahu added that direct negotiations were the only political way to end the conflict.
Netanyahu’s radical-right political coalition, however, rejects any talks on Jerusalem and insists on the construction and expansion of Jewish settlements.
Some local political analysts said that this invitation is another Israeli maneuver aimed at showing the United States and the international community that relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are normal and that international pressure to advance Middle East talks is unnecessary.
In the West Bank village of Bil’in a local nonviolent protest organizer, Yasser Maher Yassin, outfoxed the Israeli military who invaded in an attempt to kidnap him. He has suffered from repeated harassment and kidnappings by Israeli forces.
This follows suit with previous behavior of the military as they have attempted to end the nonviolent resistance against the annexation wall and illegal settlements.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has released a report documenting how over 100 residents of Hebron have been abducted by occupation forces.
It also goes on to catalog the repeated abuses of the Israeli military, including beatings, as well as the abduction of women, children, and individuals in constant need of medical care.
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem, you have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, for constant update, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Brian Ennis.
