Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian terrorist organizations have formed a common front to make war on the state of Israel, while orchestrating a sophisticated public relations campaign throughout the world and especially in Israel to convey the specious notion that Hamas and Fateh have formed a “national unity government” that “implicitly” recognizes Israel.

The joint Hamas-Fatah effort is based on what has been dubbed “the prisoners’ document” which was developed by Arab Palestinians in several different factions who are serving life sentences for multiple murders.

Marwan Barghouti, the secretary of the Fatah party – the one most associated with facilitating the prisoners’ document, is serving imprisonment for life for the murder of 13 people.

While news agencies around the world have hailed the prisoners’ document as if it “implicitly” recognizes the State of Israel, the document actually makes no mention of Israel, except as an enemy.

The prisoners’ document is available in English from official Palestinian Authority sources at: http://www.jmcc.org/documents/prisoners.htm.

The document’s principal clause states that, “the Palestinian people have the right to establish a Palestinian state on the lands that were occupied in 1967 – a state whose capital is Jerusalem – while ensuring the right of return to refugees and the release of all prisoners. Hamas and Islamic Jihad must join the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), which is the legal and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have the right to fight by all means, focusing the battle for the lands that were occupied since 1967, along with political activity and continued negotiations. The PLO and the president of the Palestinian Authority will be in charge of the negotiations. Any agreement that is reached will be submitted for ratification either to the Palestinian National Council or by means of a referendum.

An aide in Prime Minister Olmert’s office said that if a Palestinian national unity government was formed on the basis of the prisoners’ document it would be a catastrophic development, as no breakthrough in the current impasse with the Palestinians would then be possible. The prisoners’ document does not meet the threshold conditions that were set by the international community, said Olmert’s aide.

©The Bulletin 2006

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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