Israeli/PA Oppression of Palestinians

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Millions of oppressed Palestinians are caught between an Israeli rock and Abbas-headed PA hard place.

According to the Addameer prisoner support group, Israeli security forces arrested, detained and abused 880 Palestinians in July alone, including 144 children and 18 women - a month punctuated by 15 days of Israeli-instigated Al-Aqsa mosque and compound violence.

Israel consistently and viciously denies Palestinians their fundamental rights, affirmed under international laws the Netanyahu regime ignores like its predecessors, including the 1955 Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, along with declarations and conventions guaranteeing their rights.

Commenting on the August arrests and detentions of five Palestinian journalists by PA security forces, Addameer said they're falsely accused of "leaking information and communicating with hostile parties."

They were targeted as part of a PA crackdown on free expression, notably for criticizing Abbas regime practices, discussed in a previous day article.

In response to the PA's war on press freedom, seven wrongfully detained Palestinian journalists began hunger-striking for justice, according to Omar Nazzal, a Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate member and former Israeli political prisoner.

The targeted journalists work for media outlets whose web sites the PA unjustifiably blocked, mostly affiliated with Hamas or Abbas rival Mohammed Dahlan.

By decree, Abbas banned social media and other online criticism of his regime. Palestinian and Arab digital advocacy group 7amleh co-founder/director Nadim Hashif called his action "terrible" (and) "draconian, the worst law in PA history."

All Palestinian journalists, bloggers and social media users are vulnerable.

Targeted journalists are challenging their unjustifiable treatment the only way they can - by hunger-striking for release and press freedom.

According to the Al-Shabaka NGO, PA security forces fail to protect Palestinians from their main source of oppression, Israeli militarized occupation.

Instead of supporting and empowering their right to resist, they've criminalized it, conspiring with Israel, equating legitimate resistance with "insurgency" and "instability."

Current conditions stemmed from the 1993 Oslo Accords, creating the PA, institutionalizing its repression against its own people. It serves the Israeli occupier, suppressing resistance, enforcing occupation harshness. 

Most Palestinians deplore Abbas, demand his resignation and replacement with no power to secure their rights - other than resisting with their bodies and spirit, part of a longterm liberating struggle so far achieving nothing.

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