<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Interview with Palestinian MP Khalid&nbsp;Tafish]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>28.12.10 &#8211; 09:57</p>
<p>Khalid Tafish is Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Deputy for  Bethlehem. In 1986, he graduated with a BA in Islamic studies. Before  becoming PLC member, he was imam for Omar ibn Al-Khattab mosque in  Bethlehem for 18 years. He is now 45 years old, is married and has seven  children. He was arrested by the Israeli forces seven times over the  years 1988 to 2010. He was elected  as a member of the PLC in the 2006  elections while in prison. This interview was made by Alessandra Bajec.</p>
<p><strong>1. Could you explain the circumstances in which you were  arrested between 1988 and this year and what charges were made against  you?</strong></p>
<div class="mosimage" style="float:right;border-width:2px;"><img title="Image" src="https://i1.wp.com/english.pnn.ps/images/stories/2008/Tafish.JPG" border="0" alt="Image" hspace="6" width="314" height="177" /></p>
<div class="mosimage_caption" style="text-align:center;">MP Tafish at his office</div>
</div>
<p>The  first time I was detained was in February 1988 for just one month, and  the second time in 1990 for six months. The third time, I was expelled  to south Lebanon for one year, between 1992-93, with 420 Palestinians  from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Then, the fourth time I was detained in  July 1995 for four months, the fifth time I was sentenced to serve four  years and half from 2002 up through to 2006, and during this time in  prison I was elected as PLC member.</p>
<p>The sixth time, I was arrested by  the Israeli Occupation Forces was on 12th November 2007 when I was  sentenced to six-month administrative detention. Later, the sentence was  reduced to four months, and I was finally released on 17th March 2008.  The last time, I was also put in administrative detention and that was  for one year, between 2009 and earlier this year. As for the charges…all  the times, it was administrative detention and he was considered to be  ‘very dangerous in the  Bethlehem territory’ then from 2002 to 2006 I  was sentenced for just being ‘leader of Hamas organization’.</p>
<p><strong>2. What changed since your last release last 17th March, after your time spent in detention? </strong></p>
<p>In  my opinion, since we are under the Occupation, it’s something obvious  to have prisoners. Because nobody can accept the Occupation and we can  resist that, for us it’s ok to be sent to jail. The Israeli occupation  tries to break the well-being of Palestinian people but you know, this  policy has failed…Israel’s goal is to put pressure on Hamas to release  Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, currently held captive in the Gaza Strip,  but that lost attention after the failure of the prisoner swap between  Israelis and Palestinians. Israel had captured more than 40 PLC members  from the West Bank, most of them between 2006 and this year, along with  10 ministers in exchange for Shalit, but until now he’s still in Gaza,  he has not been released, so this policy has failed.</p>
<p><strong>3. In  a pre-election poll of December 2005, you were one of the two  candidates from Hamas, within the Bethlehem district, with good chances  of winning in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Next you were elected  while in prison. How do you comment your victory and what do you think  made the success of Hamas possible at the January 2006 elections?</strong></p>
<p>First,  I’ll talk about myself. People trust us, Muslims and Christians, and  that has been proved through my way of addressing to people, while I  used to give sermons in the most famous mosque of Bethlehem, and also  because I have many people, of any religion, attending all my events.  The electoral victory of Hamas was possible because Hamas has proved the  truth of its resistance to the Occupation, because it stands against  Oslo deals.</p>
<p>The idea of peace that Palestinian officials now go  on about has done nothing to the Palestinian people, that was also  proved during the meeting between Arafat and Barak in 2000 which failed,  of course. We have obtained nothing from our land up to now. Then,  until the 2nd Intifada, it also proved to be the wrong way of handling  peace negotiations. After that, Israel took control over Palestinian  cities and towns in the West Bank as well as in the Gaza Strip. In  addition, Hamas was experiencing major problems with the Palestinian  Authority, from 1994 to 2000, as several leaders of Hamas were being  detained in PA prisons. And, because Hamas leaders endured those  practices, the result was the outcome of 2006 elections…</p>
<p><strong>4. Do  you see the possibility to form a national unity government in  Palestine and what message would you address to Fatah to that effect? </strong></p>
<p>Recently,  there have been reconciliation meetings between Fatah and Hamas…The two  factions agreed on many issues discussed, unfortunately there is just  one point that people of Fatah objected to: the ‘security issue’…The  reason division consists in the fact that Fatah is saying the security  system in the West Bank is good and the problem now is just security in  the Gaza Strip, which is not acceptable for Hamas. We say that all the  security services in the West Bank and Gaza have to be re-structured for  all the Palestinians, not just for Fatah or Hamas. The people, the  lands are free but the policy applying to the security system has to be  independent from this or that party…There is nothing impossible in  having a unity government, so if we have good talks about the security  issue maybe we will form a united government between Fatah and Hamas in  the West Bank.</p>
<p>Our message to the brothers in Fatah is: we are  all under Israeli occupation…because of that, we have to overcome the  problems dividing us and move on from the problems that made us fight  against each other in the past, and we have to reach a united national  government to face the Occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  Everyone has seen that Israel has been refusing peace to every extreme  point, and it has not supported recognizing a Palestinian government or  state.</p>
<p><strong>5. What could be the role played by an alternative  political movement, if there was one with any authority and influence  today, in ‘reconciling’ the relationships between Fatah and Hamas and  resume national dialogue?</strong></p>
<p>In the whole world, elections  are run because there is democracy&#8230;the party or the candidates who got  votes from the people form governments and rule in any state worldwide,  not in Palestine of course. Because of that, in my opinion, an  alternative or third party cannot succeed without Fatah and Hamas…We  have Salam Fayyad in the West Bank, we consider him a ‘third way’, the  alternative now, he has only 2 members out of 132 members in the PLC  whereas Hamas holds 80 in the Council obtaining 60% of the votes…So,  based on democracy, no party should let the other party take its votes  whilst it got a large number of votes through elections…If we hold  elections and a third party wins, we respect the election outcome…but  before we talk about elections, we have to make our life democratic.</p>
<p>But  until now, more than 1.000 people from our brothers are in the PA jails  in the West Bank. And we are talking about elections, which elections?  Under divisions between Hamas and Fatah it will be, in my opinion, very  difficult to have elections…Democracy is not just about voting. First of  all, you have people who have the right to security and will not be  punished for their votes. We, in the West Bank, don’t have that  security.</p>
<p><strong>6. Ismail Haniyeh recently reinstated that  Hamas supports a sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.  How do you visualize, at present, a state entity sitting in the West  Bank and Gaza and in which political terms? </strong></p>
<p>When we  think of a Palestinian state, we mean a state that has real borders, has  sovereignty on air, water, land, and where people live in peace inside  their state…Over the world, there’s no people living under occupation  except for the Palestinians, the Occupation has to disappear from our  land. The form of this state that you’re asking about, the Palestinian  people have to decide it by elections. And what was declared by Mr  Haniyeh is not new, nor approving the borders of 1967 is saying  something new because Sheikh Ahmed Yassin already asserted that in 1996,  and also Hamas approved that recently.</p>
<p><strong>7. What would you  do differently from Prime Minister Haniyeh with regard to the current  peace negotiations, and what is the strategy of Hamas?<br />
</strong><br />
[…]  We , as a movement, are not against negotiations but not any  negotiations…If we can liberate our land through these negotiations,  establish our independent state, and take the Occupation out, that’s the  way we want. But we’ve been talking about negotiations for 18 years and  we have had as a result a big zero, so what is the result of these  ‘peace talks’? So the negotiations have to have a set goal and time  frame… Oslo deal said we would have a Palestinian independent state  after just 5 years, since the Oslo agreement was in 1993, we should have  had an independent Palestinian state in 1998, 12 years ago…so we got  nothing from the negotiations. Mahmoud Abbas is negotiating with Israel,  and my brother Hanihey declared on 1st December that Hamas movement  will accept any referendum for Palestinian people to decide any  resulting outcome.</p>
<p><strong>8. How do you perceive the option of unilateral declaration of a Palestinian independent state from Hamas’ viewpoint?</strong></p>
<p>We  are not against a Palestinian independent state, in 2006 we had an  agreement with all other parties regarding the creation of a Palestinian  state on the borders of 1967. We people of Hamas consider that a  minimum condition…we will never accept less than an independent state on  the 67 borders. Also, if Israel said: we give you borders an  independent state on 67 borders but without Jerusalem, that’s not  acceptable…also, we are against land swaps. And we think it is not  necessary that all Palestinian parties recognize the state of Israel,  the PLO expressed its recognition. In Israel, there are parties that  don’t recognize the Palestinians, for example Lieberman has still not  recognized any rights for the Palestinians and he’s in the government.  So we will not recognize Israel or some parties in Israel have to  recognise our independent state. The recognition of Israel by the PLO  has brought zero result so Hamas will not give another recognition.  First, we need to see our independent state established on our  Palestinian land, afterwards we can have discussions about mutual  recognitions between Israel and Palestinians.<br />
<strong>9. From  Hamas’ position, do you regard the use of weapons as an acceptable part  of the struggle against the Israeli occupation in the current context?</strong></p>
<p>We  know that Hamas now has a ‘government’ in the Gaza Strip, and you can  see that the borders between Israel and Gaza are now quite safe. And we  can observe that since after the 2008-09 war on Gaza and up until now,  we haven’t heard anything between Hamas and Israel…so I think using  weapons in our current situation is not useful because now we have a  quiet environment in the border area. Using weapons for resistance is  acceptable but not always and at any time, because resistance is not  just about making use of weapons. For Hamas the use of weapons is in  order to counter-attack Israel’s aggression against the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p><strong>10. Do you perceive the rise of the extremist group of Jihadi Salafis as an emerging threat to Hamas ruling in Gaza?</strong></p>
<p>There  are no Islamic extremist Salafis in the Gaza Strip, as you think, but  the problem now is the Jihadi Salafis are more a threat in the West Bank  than in Gaza. Because of the what the PA is doing to these Islamic  people there, perhaps their group will emerge in the West Bank in the  future…the Jihadi Salafis may be present in Gaza as individuals, some  people with certain views but not as a group or a strong organization in  the Strip.</p>
<p><strong>11. In general, do you foresee an increasing ultra-conservative movement of Islamic militants in Gaza? </strong></p>
<p>We previously said there is no Jihadi Salafi militant organization, and that was also officially confirmed<br />
d  by Ismail Haniyeh…we just have two militant groups in the Gaza Strip:  Hamas and Islamic Jihad. If we’re referring to weapons, they were  already possessed in Gaza while Israel was occupying the coastal strip.  Also, we have smuggling of weapons into Gaza due to its vicinity to the  Sinai and Egypt. In my opinion, the use of weapons is something stable  in the Strip and it  will not affect anything. Individuals have now  weapons to defend themselves from any attack, not just from Israel of  course, and that’s well known given the last actions between Fatah and  Hamas taking place in Gaza. When we especially talk about Israeli  militants, we know they are equipped with the strongest military  technology in the Middle East.</p>
<p><strong>12. Would a growing  presence of small armed groups or individuals impact on the peace  process and the formation of a Palestinian state?</strong></p>
<p>I think  there is still no real peace process in place between Palestinians and  Israel, it’s like a game, there are just some negotiations between some  Palestinians and Israel. The way in which the formation of a Palestinian  state is affected, that depends on the nature of the independent state  itself, what kind of state the US and Israel may acknowledge to the  Palestinians…The use of weapons in the Gaza Strip is not heavy, it’s  very much individual, so the establishment of an independent Palestinian  state won’t be affected by that […]</p>
<p><strong>13. Earlier this  month, Hamas authorities closed the Sharek Youth Forum, an NGO working  for children and youth. How do you comment on the closure of the youth  centre as well as on similar instances of repression of important  development/human rights activities in the Gaza Strip?</strong></p>
<p>The  ‘government’ in Gaza has the right to open or close any institutes that  it believes may/may not serve its goals in the territory&#8230;we don’t  know the exact reason(s) why that centre was closed. Hamas is not  against any NGOs or organizations that help our people in the Gaza  Strip. Any independent institution working to protect human rights  anywhere in the territories without discrimination, we people of Hamas  are with by all means. In Gaza,  the authorities closed one NGO. Why?  They have their reasons which they discussed with the centre’s  officials…On the contrary, here in the West Bank we have now more than  1.200institutes, claimed to belong to Hamas, which have been closed by  the PA, and nobody said it was wrong […]</p>
<p><strong>14. What’s your opinion on the coexistence of liberal and very conservative values in the daily life of people of Gaza? </strong></p>
<p>There’s  no incompatibility, Hamas accepts that. In fact, you can see now  operating in Gaza institutes for Fatah and PFLP. We believe there have  to be more. For example, in early December there was a very big festival  for the Popular Front in Gaza, and before then there was one for  Islamic Jihad. On the contrary, in the West Bank they allow to have  festivals for Fatah only. So we are not against any institutes [or  movements] either conservative or liberal, so long as they are driven to  help all people.</p>
<p><strong>15. On the anniversary of the founding  of Hamas, it was reported that leader Mahmoud al-Zahar set fire to an  Israeli flag encouraging to form a united front in an armed struggle to  liberate all historic Palestine. His statement contrasted with that made  the week before by Prime Minister Haniyeh who said Hamas would respect  the results of a referendum on the creation of a Palestinian state in  the West Bank and Gaza only.  Now, if there is not a united view amongst  members of Hamas to that regard, what are the current discussions  within the movement? </strong></p>
<p>There is no contradiction between  the two statements because historic Palestine is the whole land of  Palestine for every Palestinian, but now the provision for Hamas is to  have a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders…In my opinion, Zahar’s  statement is to warn Israeli politicians to say: if you are not going to  accept a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967, the Palestinian  people will liberate all their and not stop at the borders. So we  believe the solution of an independent state on the 67 borders is for  the benefit of the Israelis themselves considering that, as you said,  Israel took from us 78% of the historic Palestinian land…For us as  Hamas, we will not fight for the whole land now but we can make a truce  with Israel for 10-15 years or a longer period and liberate all  Palestinian lands after that, but we don’t know when that will be…But  now we are saying that we are with the solution of an independent state  on the 67 borders, and all other Palestinian movements and organizations  are with it. So why can’t the international community force Israel to  accept this solution?&#8230;We all Palestinians believe that historic  Palestine is our land, but some of us like Fatah say that it’s enough to  take our lands within the 67 borders and can give the remaining to  Israelis…We can’t say that the remainder of the land is for Israel, this  is the difference between us and the PLO and other movements in  Palestine.</p>
<p><strong>16. There’s a higher percentage of female  students in the Palestinian universities in Gaza, employment of women  has improved, areas of work for women in Gaza include now the fields of  education, health, as well as media, resistance and politics. What do  you think are the major challenges currently faced by women in the Gaza  Strip in their participation to political and social life?</strong></p>
<p>We,  as an Islamic movement, have nothing against women in taking part to  any public space. From a religious point of view, we don’t object to the  work of women in any part of life, politically or socially, and we have  a very respectful position for them in our life, as Muslims. I think  today, the big challenge for women is still the Occupation, either in  Gaza or the West Bank.</p>
<p>The second challenge relates to customs  and traditions as Palestinians/Arabs…If for example, a woman gets  elected in the municipalities and legislative councils, she can succeed  only by ‘quota’, that is by law and not by standard election. At the  last elections, they assigned a 20% quota to women from any party  because, without the quota, women can’t get elected in our society  unfortunately. The principle of the quota is not democratic because  women may obtain more than 20%, and it’s a problem that comes from  tradition, not from religion. So I think this is a challenge for the  women because we have to get rid of the quota, women have to be elected  according to their work and achievements…In addition, women have to  carry many responsibilities like education, they have to look after  their children, including responsibilities in the house, and men can’t  look after their children in our tradition. Looking after children and  new generations is something very important. We have a saying that women  are half of the society, I say that women are all of the society  because they look after half of it and they are the remainder too. The  woman in her house is certainly a queen. Other than that, we have a  comprehensive stream acknowledging women’s</p>
<p>position and giving  them work. And we also implement the same comprehensive stream in our  movement and try to implement that in the society too so that the woman  can play a role in this society exactly like a man. Also, we have a very  compact and strong family here which you cannot find in the West. I am  not saying there are no challenges but these are very small so we almost  cannot consider them.</p>
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<p><a href="http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=9321&amp;Itemid=">PNN &#8211; Palestine News Network &#8211; Interview with Palestinian MP Khalid Tafish</a>.</p>
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