News Highlights:
- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appoints new caretaker government after the 30-day mandate of the first one expired, despite many experts questioning the legality of such a move.
- Mahmoud Abbas makes a deal with Israel, that Israel will stop pursuing 178 “wanted” Fateh activists if they sign a pledge to stop resistance actions against Israel and disarm.
- Salam Fayyad, the appointed Palestinian PM, calls on the Palestinian Legislative Council to meet and pass a vote of confidence in his “emergency government”.
- Human rights groups call for investigation into the deaths of two Palestinians while in the custody of Hamas militias.
- Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish criticizes both Fateh and Hamas in a recent lecture in Haifa.
Feature:
Voice of Palestine continued with its series of secular Palestinian voices to discuss what’s next for the Palestinian movement. This week, there was a live interview with Rezek Faraj from Montreal, a Palestinian Canadian author and activist. Rezek had just released a statement outlining his thoughts on the current situation and joined us to talk about why he thought Oslo had failed and how the Palestinians must act quickly to regain their independent decision-making. The interview concluded with Rezek invoking the words of the late Edward Said, when he stated that the international solidarity with the Palestinians is based on their cause being a just cause and a moral quest for equality and human rights.
Focus on Zionism:
Focus was postponed due to the length of the interview.
Here is an audio file of this show: