Issue no 129

Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Read in This Issue

P7 64 Palestinians injured by Israeli forces in one week

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FEATURED STORY Dozens of Israelis storm Aqsa complex

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Thousands Trapped Inside Palestinian Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Syria

P 12 Palestine formally joins International Criminal Court

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Articles & analyses P 15 Blatter to meet Palestine football chief over bid to bar Israel

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The persistence of the Palestinian Authority

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CONTENTS

Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

FEATURED STORY Thousands Trapped Inside Palestinian Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Syria

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News of Palestine Blatter to meet Palestine football chief over bid to bar Israel Hamas leader: Israeli elections ‘diminish hopes for peace’ 64 Palestinians injured by Israeli forces in one week Palestinian fighter dies during training Palestinian legislator arrested in West Bank Dozens of Israelis storm Aqsa complex Israel to close Gaza crossings Palestine formally joins International Criminal Court 100 Palestinian refugees killed in Syria in March Israeli forces uproot 120 olive trees near Salfit

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Articles & Analyses The persistence of the Palestinian Authority

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Featured Story

Thousands Trapped Inside Palestinian Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Syria

Islamic State has taken control of 90 percent of a Palestinian refugee camp on the Damascus outskirts where 18,000 civilians have suffered years of bombing, army siege and militia control, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

The hardline group’s offensive in Yarmouk gives it a major presence in the capital. Islamic State, the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, is now only a few kilometers from President Bashar al-Assad’s seat of power.

The United Nations has said it is extremely concerned about the safety and protection of Syrians and Palestinians in the camp.

Civilians trapped there have long suffered a government siege that has led to starvation and disease.

“The situation in Yarmouk is an affront to the humanity of all of us, a source of universal shame,” U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman Chris Gunness said.

“Yarmouk is a test, a challenge for the international community.

We must not fail. The credibility of the international system itself is at stake,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict from Britain, said Syrian air force jet bombed the camp on Saturday.

The Islamic State on Wednesday launched an attack on other 4

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groups of fighters in Yarmouk, in particular Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, an anti-Assad militia of Syrians and Palestinians from the camp.

Islamic State supporters posted photos on social media of the severed heads of two men they said had been beheaded after fighting for Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis.

The Observatory said Islamic State and al Qaeda’s official Syria wing, the Nusra Front, made gains overnight, pushing into the northeast of the district, close to central Damascus. They now control 90 percent of the camp, it said.

Tayseer Abu Baker, head of the Palestinian Liberation Front in Syria, part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters over the phone that Islamic State had killed 21 people including fighters and civilians since Friday.

“Some families are trying to exit the camp but with Islamic State snipers on rooftops of high buildings that is very difficult,” he said. He added Islamic State had kidnapped at least 74 people from the camp and that civilians were trying to flee.

Reuters cannot independently verify reports in Syria due to security and reporting restrictions.

Islamic State rules swathes of eastern Syria and Iraq and is the target of a U.S.-led campaign of air strikes.

Yarmouk was home to half a million Palestinians before the Syrian conflict began in 2011. The was has killed 220,000 people and displaced millions.

4 April 2015, Reuters

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

News of Palestine

Blatter to meet Palestine football chief over bid to bar Israel

The FIFA president is to meet the Palestinian football chief to discuss the latter’s request that Israel be barred from international competition, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said Saturday.

submitted to a vote at the next congress in May”.

The PFA also protested at the creation of “five clubs in settlements on land occupied since 1967, clubs participating in Israeli national championships in violation of international law”.

The PFA last called for Israel’s suspension in November after Israeli forces raided its headquarters in the West Bank A PFA statement said that FIFA’s city of Ramallah.

Sepp Blatter would meet Jibril Rajoub ahead of the world gov- It has also cried foul over Israeli travel restrictions on Paleserning body’s next congress in tinian players.

Cairo in late May, but did not give To be passed the Palestinian resolution must win the supa date for the talks. port of at least 156 other delegates at the 209-member conFIFA declined to comment when gress. contacted by AFP on Saturday.

The Palestinians were upgraded from observer entity to a The Palestinians want Israel sus- United Nations “observer state” in 2012, and although not pended because of their “racist yet universally recognised as a state, their national football behaviour against Arabs”, with team gained FIFA recognition in 1998. the statement claiming that Blat- A FIFA delegation visited the Gaza Strip in January and ter had recently contacted Rajoub pledged $1 million (840,000 euros) to help rebuild stadiums and assured him that “serious dis- there, many of which were damaged during the conflict becussions were under way for the tween Israel and Hamas last July and August.

Palestinian draft resolution to be

Source: AFP 04 Apr 2015

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Hamas leader: Israeli elections ‘diminish hopes for peace’ Head of Hamas Political Bureau Khaled Meshal has said that the results of the latest Israeli elections, which brought Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new government ‘will further diminish hopes for peace.’

Speaking to the BBC, Meshal stated that the victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and its rightwing allies meant there would be “more extremism”.

When asked whether his movement agrees on the twostate solution with Israel, he said ‘Israel with its extremist leadership has killed the peace process, the two-state solution and every opportunity of a political solution for the Palestinian cause.’

He insisted that his movement was not looking for any escalation, but would defend itself.

‘If there is occupation, aggression, war and killing.’

Meshal replied on a question whether his movement’s activities were overshadowed with the activities of the extremist Jihadists, saying ‘Hamas is a model of an active resistance for a just cause –battling occupied with a moderate and open minded ideology.’

Condemning other so called jihadi groups such as Al Nusra and ISIS, he explained that ‘others are acting violently in

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the name of Jihad, this is not Islam.’

Regarding the people who do not believe that Hamas is a moderate organisation, Meshal laughed and said that ‘the principles do not change. The people who laugh at Hamas should laugh at [Nelson] Mandela, the Vietnamese and what [Charles] de Gaulle did when he fought the Nazi occupation in WWII.’ ‘They should laugh at George Washington who led the American Revolution. The people of the world have been liberating from occupiers. Palestinian people are doing the same and Hamas is doing the same.’

He mentioned that Netanyahu during his election campaign had pledged to ensure a Palestinian state would not be established.

In addition, prior to his victory in the elections, Netanyahu said ‘whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical Islamic terrorist attacks against Israel.’

Asked if that meant a state would not be established if he remained prime minister, he said: ‘Indeed.’

During a visit to the illegal Israeli settlement of Har Homa in the occupied East Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed to preserve Jerusalem’s unity ‘in all its parts’ and said he would ‘continue to build and fortify’ the city to prevent any future Source: MEMO, 02 April 2015 division.

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

64 Palestinians injured by Israeli forces in one week

03 April 2015

Israeli occupation forces injured 64 Palestinians in just one week, UN figures have revealed.

Most of the injuries during the period 24-30 March took place in the context of protests across the West Bank to mark ‘Land Day’.

In a “serious incident” next to Shua’fat checkpoint in Occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli forces “shot and injured with rubber bullets a 9-year-old girl while on her way back from school.”

Meanwhile, 20-year-old Ali Mahmoud Safi died of injuries sustained the previous week, when Israeli forces shot him with live ammunition during clashes at Al Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah.

The number of Palestinians injured in the West Bank during the reporting period (59) is more than double

the weekly average in 2015 to date (26).

Five Palestinians were also injured in the Gaza Strip during protests in the Israeli-imposed ‘no go’ zone near the border fence.

6,028Palestinians in the West Bank were injured by the IDF in the West Bank in 2014.

Source: MEMO , 03 April 2015

Palestinian fighter dies during training A member of the Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian faction Hamas, was killed in the Gaza Strip during a training exercise, the group said Thursday.

“Martyr Ashraf Hassan, 21, was killed in the eastern Zeitoun district of Gaza while training,” the Brigades said in a statement.

No further details were provided by the Brigades about the death.

World Bulletin , 02 April 2015

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Palestinian legislator arrested in West Bank

Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Committee (PLC), has been arrested during a raid on her home by the Israeli army.

“They came this morning at around 1am. There were about 50 or 60 soldiers, both male and female,” Ghassan Jarrar, Khalida’s husband, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

“They smashed the front gate of our home, and then broke into the house. They searched every room, took a lot of documents, stole our computers, and [Khalida’s] mobile. Then they decided to arrest her.”

The PLC is the body of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in charge of drafting and enacting laws, though it has been suspended since 2007, after a national Palestinian election that saw Hamas dominate the parliament, and the ensuing Hamas-Fatah split.

A representative of the media relations department of the PLC told Al Jazeera that Khalida Jarrar’s arrest was “a direct attack” on the freedom of Palestinian lawmakers and democracy generally. “This is an unlawful abduction, and is representative

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015 of the harsh reality of the Israeli occupation,” the representative noted.

The Israeli army told Al Jazeera that Khalida Jarrar “has actively supported and encouraged terrorist activities over recent months... [her] detention is based on substantive concerns for the security and safety of the region.”

Previous arrests This is not the first time the Israeli army has arrested representatives from the PLC. In 2006, shortly after the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by fighters from the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel arrested dozens of Palestinian officials serving in the PA. Many of those arrested were ministers and PLC members from Hamas, whose military wing constitutes the largest armed group in Gaza.

Khalida Jarrar is a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian group designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and Israel, and has long advocated for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

She heads the Prisoner’s Commission on the PLC, and also formerly served as the executive director of Addameer, a prisoner support and human rights group based in Ramallah.

An official from Addameer told Al Jazeera that “details about her arrest were unclear,” and that Khalida Jarrar is currently being held in an undisclosed location.

A press release from the prisoners’ rights group said that her arrest “constitutes an attack against Palestinian political leaders and Palestinian civil society as a whole,” and calls for her immediate release.

Travel ban Her husband said that when he asked the commanding officer about the reason for the arrest, the soldier refused to give an answer. Ghassan Jarrar said he was not sure as to the motivations behind the arrest, but that he overheard the commanding officer telling his wife that she “refused to leave” after the army issued the order for her to vacate her residence.

He went on to say that it could possibly be a retaliatory measure in response to Palestine joining the International Criminal Court.

The Palestinian MP has been under a travel ban since 1998, only leaving the occupied West Bank once for medical treatment in Jordan. In August 2014, she was ordered by the Israeli army to leave Ramallah for Jericho, a city in the southeastern West Bank for six months.

Activists and civil society initiated an international solidarity campaign, and the order was lessened to one month. Khalida Jarrar never left her residence in Ramallah.

The travel ban has also worsened her health. Ghassan Jarrar told Al Jazeera that she takes anticoagulants to keep her blood from clotting, as well as high blood pressure medication “every day”. He added that the soldiers allowed his wife to take medicine with her.

Source: Al Jazeera

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Dozens of Israelis storm Aqsa complex

Dozens of Jewish settlers on Sunday forced their way into Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, an intrusion that coincided with the Jewish Passover celebrations.

“About 70 settlers overran Al-Aqsa Mosque compound Sunday morning through the Dung Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City, stirring the ire of many Muslim worshippers in the complex,” Director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Omar al-Kaswani told.

Kaswani also dismissed allegations by Israeli media outlets that worshippers attacked settlers inside the compound.

Earlier Sunday, Israeli police said that it allowed settlers into Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in groups of ten, according to Israel’s Channel 10.

In recent months, groups of extremist Jewish settlers – often accompanied by Israeli security forces – have repeatedly forced their way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.

The frequent violations anger Palestinian Muslims and occasionally lead to violent confrontations.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world’s third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the “Temple Mount,” claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Meanwhile, the Religious Endowment Office in the West Bank’s southern Al-Khalil city told that Israeli authorities have informed them that the Ibrahimi Mosque will be fully closed for Muslim worshippers on Sunday and Monday due to Jewish holidays.

Revered by both Muslims and Jews, Al-Khalil’s Al-Ibrahimi Mosque complex is believed to mark the burial sites of the prophets Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Source: World Bulletin 10

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Israel to close Gaza crossings

Israel will close two of its border crossings with the Gaza Strip for seven non-consecutive days in April and May for the upcoming Jewish holiday season, a Palestinian official said Thursday.

“Israel will shut the Kerem Shalom and Erez border crossings on April 4, 10, 22 and 23, and on May 23 and 24,” Palestinian Authority border chief Nazmi Mehanna told.

The move comes as the self-proclaimed Jewish state gears up to celebrate the Jewish Passover, Yom Ha’atzmaut and Lag BaOmer holidays.

Closure of the Kerem Shalom crossing will impact commercial activity in Gaza, adversely impacting Gaza’s already-deteriorating economic and humanitarian situations.

Blockaded by Israel – by air, land and sea – since 2007, the Gaza Strip has seven border crossings linking it to the outside world.

Six of these crossings are controlled by Israel, while a seventh – the Rafah crossing – is controlled by Egypt, which continues to keep it tightly sealed for the most part.

Source: World Bulletin, 02 April 2015

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Palestine formally joins International Criminal Court Palestine has formally attained membership of the International Criminal Court, a move that could open the door to possible war crime indictments against Israeli officials despite uncertainty over its wider ramifications.

The accession on Wednesday is another landmark in the Palestinian diplomatic and legal international campaign, which gained steam in 2014.

The Palestinians moved to join The Hague-based court on January 2, in a process that was finalised on Wednesday, setting the scene for potential legal action.

“Palestine has and will continue to use all legitimate tools within its means in order to defend itself against Israeli colonisation and other violations of international law,” said senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat.

Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from The Hague, said despite their membership, the Palestinians may still have to wait for the ICC to begin investigating Israelis accused of war crimes.

“This is such a heavily politicised case, that the court will have to think hard before taking action against the Israelis.

It may be years before we something.”

Diana Chehade, a former ICC official, told Al Jazeera, preliminary examinations could be completed by the end of this year, but the court would not investigate cases already being looked in to by other judicial institutions.

“Based on the principle of complimentarity, the ICC would not investigate if an Israeli judicial institution is investigating a war crime to ICC standards,” Chehade said.

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‘ICC train left’ The ICC has long been brandished as one of the Palestinians’ doomsday measures, along with threatening to end vital West Bank security coordination with Israel.

The notion of ICC investigations is outrageous to Israel, and Netanyahu has accused the Palestinian unity government - including Hamas which the Jewish state considers “terrorist” - of “manipulating” the court.

Israel retaliated swiftly and cut off millions of dollars in monthly tax payments it collects on behalf of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.

The notion of forming a Palestinian state by negotiations was buried during this month’s election campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who pledged one would not be established on his watch, were he to retain his post as prime minister.

Netanyahu meanwhile released the held funds, which constitute two-thirds of the PA’s income, excluding foreign aid.

Some Israeli media reported that in exchange for unfreezing the money the Palestinians agreed to refrain from filing complaints to the ICC on April 1.

“It’s a huge lie. Taxes have nothing to do with our ICC approach. The ICC train already departed,” said Xavier Abu Eid, a spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organisation.

‘Absurd’ measures April 1, however, will be primarily ceremonial, with Palestinian foreign minister Riad Malki receiving a copy of the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty.

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015 While some Palestinian officials announced the date as the day they would file complaints against Israelis, in reality it is more likely they will wait, as state members are only able to draw the court’s attention to specific cases.

In addition, they will be holding on to see the outcomes of a preliminary probe launched by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on January 16.

100 Palestinian refugees killed in Syria in March

At the same time that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas sought ICC accession, he also sent the court documents authorising the prosecutor to investigate alleged crimes that took place in Palestinian territories since June 13, 2014.

The unrest in June escalated to the summer war between Israel and Gaza fighters, which left dead 2,200 Palestinians and 73 on the Israeli side.

So far, no ICC investigation of Israeli officials has been launched and no time framework has been set for one.

But the Palestinians are confident they will happen sooner rather than later, considering “all the attention to Palestine” at the ICC. The Palestinians reject the argument the Israeli officials cannot be tried at the ICC, because Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Statute, maintaining the court can also investigate crimes committed on the territory of member states.

“It’s absurd for the ICC to ignore international law and agreements, under which the Palestinians don’t have a state and can only get one through direct negotiations with Israel,” Netanyahu said in January following the announcement of the preliminary probe.

Among the forms of Israeli retaliation is legal assistance for victims of Palestinian attacks.

In February, a US jury found the PA and PLO responsible for six attacks which killed dozens and ordered them to pay the victims’ families more than $650 million in damages.

Source: AFP, 1 Apr 2015

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100 Palestinian refugees are reported to have been killed in Syria during the month of March, including 83 people who died as a result of torture in the Syrian regime’s prisons, according to rights groups and activists.

The Action Group for Palestinians of Syria said in a statement that in addition to the victims of torture, five Palestinian refugees died as a result of the blockade and lack of medical care and five more died as a result of wounds they sustained.

Two refugees were shot by a sniper and two more were killed after being kidnapped.

One Palestinian refugee is reported to have been assassinated and another victim died from an unknown causes.

According to the group, 88,000 Palestinian refugees fled Syria to neighbouring countries and nearly 28,000 Palestinian refugees arrived in Europe during the last four years fleeing the horrors of the conflict in Syria.

Source: MEMO

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Israeli forces uproot 120 olive trees near Salfit

Israeli authorities on Thursday destroyed around 120 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers in the northern West Bank, bringing the total number of olive trees destroyed across the region in the last month to nearly 2,000.

surrounded on all sides by Jewish-only settlements. it is located in an area in the “seam zone,” cut off from all other Palestinian villages in the region.

Farmers living in the village of Wadi Qana near Salfit told Ma’an that Israeli military vehicles accompanied by vehicles belonging to the nature and environmental protection agency of the Israeli civil administration raided the area Thursday morning.

Israeli authorities often rezone Palestinian agricultural areas near Jewish settlements as security zones or state land, thus providing a justification for the destruction of olive trees planted in the area.

The officers uprooted and confiscated the olive trees during the raid.

According to the local farmers, the trees belonged to Hassan Mustafa Mansour, Ahmad Khalil Mansour, and Qassem Nasser Mansour.

Israeli forces had delivered orders to the farmers to evacuate their lands more than three weeks ago, the farmers said.

Wadi Qana is located inside an Israeli settlement bloc and is thus

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The attack follows the uprooting of 1,200 trees in al-Shuyukh near Hebron on March 29, 300 trees in Majdal Bani Fadil near Nablus on March 18, 300 trees in Salem near Nablus on March 9, as well as a number of other smaller incidents.

Attacks on olive trees are a key way that Palestinians are forced out of their homes and their lands confiscated for settlement construction, as the loss of a year’s crop can signal destitution for many.

If attacks are frequent enough that Palestinians can no longer access their trees regularly, meanwhile, settlers can argue that Palestinians have abandoned the properties and thus take possession of them as well.

Since 1967, approximately 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the occupied West Bank, according to a joint report by the Palestinian Authority and the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

The olive industry supports the livelihoods of roughly 80,000 families in the occupied West Bank.

Source: Ma’an, 03 Apr 2015

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015

Articles & Analyses

The persistence of the Palestinian Authority Asa Winstanley For years now, analysts and observers of Palestine have predicted a third intifada, or uprising against occupation. The first intifada which, lasted from 1987 until 1993, caught everyone off guard, and few predicted it. This included the PLO itself.

While political cadres of the various PLO factions were active on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in leading the intifada, including through the Unified National Leadership, the higher echelons of the exiled PLO leadership soon attempted to direct the spontaneous popular uprising from their bases in Tunisia.

timately squandered by Arafat.

This was done even against the wishes of many in the PLO, including the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (led by the late George Habash) and independent intellectuals like Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish.

Due to the high level of popular Palestinian support for the PLO at the time, this would have not been a problem, were it not for the way that historical PLO Said for his part not only left leader Yasser Arafat ultimately the PLO in protest, but almost directed the intifada. immediately saw 1993’s Oslo The hard-fought gains that the accords for what they were: Palestinian people won through “an instrument of Palestinian popular resistance, demonstra- surrender, a Palestinian Vertions, boycotts, stone throwing sailles,” as he wrote a month afand (towards the end of the al- ter that infamous ceremony on most entirely unarmed uprising) the Whitehouse Lawn and the some limited guerilla actions orchestrated shaking of hands against Israeli soldiers, were ul- between Arafat and Israeli war

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criminal Yitzak Rabin. As early as 9 June 1994 Said described the Palestinian Authority as “an Israeli protectorate resembling... a Middle East version of a South African Bantustan” – an analogy which is now made quite often, but would have been far more controversial in those days.

As with the first intifada, so with the second: few people really saw it coming. Although, like the first intifada, the “al-Aqsa intifada” of 2000-2005 began as an unarmed popular uprising of demonstrations, protests and stone throwing, extraordinary Israeli brutality against the demonstrations meant that it soon escalated, and armed Pal|

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Issue No : 129 7th APRIL 2015 estinian factions began to strike back.

should read the chapter “Neoliberal Palestine” in my colleague at The Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah’s latest book,The Battle for Justice in Palestine (which won MEMO’s 2014 Palestine Book Award).

The Hebrew press reported that Israeli soldiers fired one million bullets at the demonstrations within the first two weeks of the intifada. With such brutality on display, it is no wonder Palestinians began to lose faith in unarmed resistance.

As the first two intifadas were largely unpredicted, it has since become a fairly regular occurrence for pundits to predict a “third intifada”. Usually alongside this prediction comes another: that its first target will be the Palestinian Authority. This makes a certain logical sense, as the PA is – as Edward Said said it would be – little more than a Palestinian subcontractor for the Israeli occupation regime.

And yet, years later, the Palestinian Authority endures. Despite occasional murmurous of discontent and even demonstrations against the PA (such as 2012’s brief surge of protest against the neoliberal policies of unelected former Prime Minister Salim Fayyad), the West Bank seems largely under the control of the PA – and hence of Israel.

What accounts for this?

There are many factors, most of which are beyond the scope of this column. But I would like to highlight a central one here: those wanting to know more 16

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All this, combined with a new neoliberal spirit of consumerism and culture of debt, means that people are less likely to resist

After the end of the second intifada, and especially after 2007, Israel and its allies sought to impose pacification on the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank under the guise of “economic peace”. That latter year was when a US-Israel-Fatah coup against the elected Palestinian Authority government, led by Hamas, succeeded in the West Bank, but failed in the Gaza Strip where Hamas (Palestine’s Islamic liberation movement) expelled the US-trained forces of Muhammad Dahlan from Gaza (dubbed the “Palestinian Contras” by Abunimah).

In that chapter, he outlines how the brutal neoliberal economic policies of Fayyad, backed by the anti-democratic thuggery of Mahmoud Abbas’s US-trained PA forces kept the people under the regime’s thumb.

All this, combined with a new neoliberal spirit of consumerism and culture of debt, means that people are less likely to resist. Any “third intifada” seems a long way off. But the very nature of spontaneous uprising against oppression means few will really see it coming.

Source: MEMO

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