*Islamic Jihad: the assassination of any Palestinian leader will open the doors to hell for the occupier (Quds Net)
*Meretz: We are acting like bullies who don’t care about anyone; the [new military academy in East Jerusalem] is a foreign object in the region (Al Quds)
*Iraq back on Israel’s list of strategic threats (Al Quds)
*Western Christian denominations celebrate Easter; eastern denominations celebrate Palm Sunday (Al Quds)
*64th anniversary of Deir Yassin massacre (Al Quds)
*Syrian regime puts new conditions; demands guarantees before withdrawing troops tomorrow (Al Ayyam)
*Gunter declared persona non grata in Israel (Al Ayyam)
*British court rejects decision to expel Sheikh Raed Salah (Al Ayyam)
*Cairo: 23 men aspire for presidential office in Egypt (Al Ayyam)
*Haaretz: Israeli army trains troops for major invasion of Lebanon should a round of fighting begin with Hizballah (Al Ayyam)
*Settlers break into agricultural land south of Jenin (Al Ayyam)
*The President and leadership appreciate courageous position of Islamic preacher Ail Jafari in visiting Jerusalem (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*Netanyahu calls on the US once again to release Pollard (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*Zakarneh: salaries to be paid next Sunday at the latest (Al Hayat Al Jadida)
*Abu Safiyeh: life sentence to be handed to anyone who brings in settlement garbage to the Palestinian territories (Al Hayat Al Jadida)

Al-Quds:  Ramallah: The President during his meeting with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti
Al-Ayyam: 1) Ramallah: President Abbas and his guest, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti with presidential guard at headquarters; 2) German writer Gunter Grass; 3) Cairo: Omar Suleiman on his way to present his candidacy to the presidential elections committee
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: The President during his meeting with the Italian Prime Minister in Ramallah

The West Bank:”Yitzhar” settlers have seized vast agricultural lands south of Iraq Burin village.
Palestinians worldwide mark today the 64th anniversary for “Deir Yasin” massacre that was executed by Zionist gangs in 1948 and in which 150 Palestinians including children, women and men were slaughtered.  

**PLO`s Abed Rabbo: no specific date to deliver the president`s letter to Netanyahu**
Yasser Abed Rabbo: Secretary of the PLO Executive Committee.
Q: What were the highlights of your meeting with Yossi Beilin?
The meeting addressed the current situation in light of the policy that Netanyahu-led government has been endorsing and which is aimed, as we all have agreed, at undermining the two-state solution and focusing on the continuation of large-scale settlement actions in Jerusalem and in the remaining of Palestinian territories. As a result of this policy, we have been dragged to a major political impasse and to a stalemate in the entire political process. Beilin himself said: we made Oslo (accords) 18 years ago but did not expect the interim period to last all these years without reaching a solution that should have been reached according to the agreement within five-year as a deadline.
The Israeli side is aware of the enormous danger that lies in the cancelation of the two-state solution and subsequent imposition of other alternatives. They (the Israelis) say they do not want to sacrifice preserving the state of Israel with a Jewish majority within the coming years. This is one of the motives behind their adherence to the two-state solution.
We share with them common grounds that could be a guideline for a joint political move in the next stage in order to counter the grave paralyzed political front.
Q: I would like to display before you the reactions of some factions on this meeting. Part of them said it represents a revival of the Geneva Initiative and others described it as lowering down the Palestinian ceil of demands. How would you comment on these reactions?
Yossi Beilin has called on challenging Netanyahu’s policy even by disbanding the PNA and cancelling all commitments related to the Oslo agreements. Considering this political meeting as lowering down the ceil of the Palestinian demands or the political expectations pertinent to the Palestinians cause is an indicator to the extent to which those people actually  give short shrift to this cause.
I usually do not like to react to such clichés that have been repeatedly articulated since many years by people who cannot propose any serious political alternative.
Q: Israeli media outlets recently reported that a Palestinian delegation chaired by premier Fayyad and with the membership of Mr. Erekat and yourself will meet with Netanyahu on April 17 to hand him the president`s letter. Can you confirm these reports?
No political decision has been taken on this regard so far. All these reports are speculations by the Israeli media.
We have agreed on sending a message from President Abu Mazen to the Israeli PM in which we totally blame him for the outcomes of the Israeli policy, particularly with respect to settlement expansions. A Palestinian delegation will deliver this message but we will decide on the date latter on.
Q: Are you saying that no decision has been taken yet on either the date of handing the letter or the delegation that will deliver it?  
This is almost true.

**Fatah`s al-Ahmad: situation not yet ripen for cabinet reshuffles; the issue will be determined at least after ten days when the president returns from abroad**
Azzam al-Ahmad: Member of Fatah Central Committee.
Q: Have consultations on government reshuffles started?
This (government reshuffle) is not a new matter. The government submitted its resignation long time ago. Nevertheless, and after the signing of the reconciliation pact, the Palestinian Central Council decided to delay the formation of a new government until finalizing the reconciliation as the signing process was accompanied with high sense of optimism.
Despite of the obstructions (in the implementation of the reconciliation pact) and the vacancies in several ministries, president Abbas decided to delay this issue after the signing of Doha Declaration.
I believe that the current situation is not yet ripen to conduct the government reshuffle. The president will depart today the homeland to at least ten-day trip abroad. Therefore, I maintain that things will be frozen until his return.
Q: “al-Quds” newspaper reports today that while president Abbas seeks a slight cabinet shuffle, Prime Minister Fayyad wants a major reshuffle. Is this true?
This is untrue. There is not dispute on this regard. The president mulled adding three ministers few months ago; according to the law the appointment of eight new ministerial portfolios is considered as government reshuffle. Yet, since the government had resigned, any modification would be considered as reshuffle regardless of the number of new ministerial appointments. Meanwhile, consultations are underway to determine the number of ministerial portfolios that will be reshuffled.
Q: How would you respond to those who say that the upcoming cabinet reshuffle is meant to circumvent the implementation of the reconciliation agreement?
I can clearly say that everything that has been said about an agreement to delay the election is baseless. The entire (reconciliation) process has been frozen due to the internal conflict inside Hamas movement.
Obviously, Hamas has postponed everything until solving all its internal conflicts.  It is preparing for the election which is according to my sources has already started several days ago and will last until the end of this month. Next month, they will hold a meeting to elect a new politburo with a new chairman. During this period, the meetings (between Fatah and Hamas) will be suspended although mutual contacts have never stopped.
Q: Are you officially denying reports about an agreement between Fatah and Hamas on delaying the presidential and legislative elections until next year?
There is not such an agreement. In the last official meeting that was held in Cairo between me and Mr. Abu Marzouq, I clearly said that the president is not ready to discuss the issue the formation of a government before the implementation of the agreement, more specifically before the Central Election Commission could start working. Mr. Abu Marzouq tried to convince president Abbas when he visited him in Cairo last week to mull the issue but president Abbas told him clearly that discussing any issue would be pointless before the Election Commission starts working in the Gaza strip.
This meeting which I have just pointed at was held with the presence of a high ranking Egyptian official. We agreed then that Mr. Abu Marzouq provides us with the response of Hamas. No response has been delivered so far but we have understood that the lack of response means that Hamas will not change its attitude. They are unwilling to implement the reconciliation pact at this stage and they are unwilling to get prepared to holding the election. They are trying to justify their attitudes in one way or another while disregarding what they signed on.
Regretfully, few voices, which came out from some factions in the Gaza strip, particularly from the PFLP, have harmed the agreement and assisted Hamas leaders in Gaza to mix the cards.  

**Minister of labor Majdalani: PA servant`s salaries would be paid in the end of this week or the beginning of next week**
Ahmad Majdalani: Minister of Labor.
Q: What are the latest developments concerning the government`s efforts to ensure payment of salaries?
I believe that everyone is aware of the genuine financial crisis that has emerged since last year. The fiscal difficulties that the PA has been encountering are mostly of political nature as the level of financial commitment of some donors to the PA budget has dropped. The deficit emerged last year and it has increased this year.
Therefore, we may meet the obligation of paying the salaries by the end of this month or the beginning of the next month. We are waiting now to a money transfer from Algeria which has already reached the Arab League fund.
Q: Are you saying that March salaries would be paid only by the end of this month or the beginning of next month?
I said the end of this week not the end of this month; the end of this week or the beginning of next week.  

Don’t pour out your wrath, rise against tyranny
By: Uri Avnery* (http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article608252.ece)

This piece was written on Friday night, the eve of Passover. At that moment, all over the world, millions of Jews had gathered around the family table, observing the Seder, reading aloud from the same book: The Haggadah, which tells the story of the Exodus from Egypt.
The impact of this book on Jewish life is immense. Every Jew takes part in this ceremony from earliest childhood and plays an active part in the ritual. Wherever a Jewish man or woman goes in later life, they will take with them a memory of the warmth and togetherness of the family, the magical atmosphere — and the overt and subliminal message conveyed by the text.  
Whoever invented the Seder (“order”) ritual, many centuries ago, was a genius. All human senses are involved: Seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting. It includes eating a ritualized meal, drinking, touching various symbolic objects, playing a game with the children (searching for a hidden piece of Matzo). It ends with singing several religious songs together. The accumulated effect is magical.
More than any other Jewish text, the Haggadah forms the Jewish conscious — or, rather, unconscious — mind today, as in the past, influencing our collective behavior and Israeli national policy.
There are many different ways to view this book.
Literature: As a literary work, the Haggadah is rather inferior. The text is devoid of beauty, full of repetitions, platitudes and banalities.
This may cause wonderment. The Hebrew Bible — the Bible in Hebrew — is a work of unique beauty. In many places, its beauty is intoxicating. The peaks of Western culture — Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy — are not its equal. Even the later Jewish religious texts — Mishnah, Talmud and so forth — while not so uplifting, contain passages of literary merit. The Haggadah has none. It is a text devised purely for indoctrination.
History: It’s not. Though it claims to tell history, the Haggadah has nothing to do with real history.
The Egyptians were obsessive chroniclers. Many tens of thousands of tablets have already been deciphered. It would have been impossible for an event like the exodus to pass without being reported at length.
The same goes for the Conquest. Because of acute security concerns, after being invaded once from there, the Egyptians employed a host of spies, — travelers, merchants and others — to follow closely the events in neighboring Canaan, in every single one of its towns and at all times. An invasion of Canaan, even a minor one, would have been reported. Except for the periodic incursions of Bedouin tribes, nothing was recorded.
Moreover, the Egyptian towns mentioned in the Bible did not exist at the time the event is supposed to have happened. They did exist, however, when the Bible was written.
There is no need to point out that after a hundred years of frantic archaeological searching by devout Christians and Zionist zealots, not a shred of concrete evidence for the conquest of Canaan has been found.
But is this really important? Not a bit of it!
The Passover story does not derive its immense power from any claim to be history. It is a myth that grips the human imagination, a myth that is the basis of a great religion, a myth that directs the behavior of people to this very day. Without the Exodus story, there would probably be no State of Israel today – and certainly not in Palestine.
The glory: One can read the Exodus story as a shining example of all that is good and inspiring in the annals of humanity.
Here is the story of a small and powerless people that rises up against a brutal tyranny, throws off its chains and gains a new homeland, creating a revolutionary new moral code on the way.
Seen in this way, the Exodus is a victory of the human spirit, an inspiration for all downtrodden peoples. And indeed, it has served this purpose many times in the past. The Pilgrim Fathers, the founders of the American nation, were inspired by it, and so were many rebels throughout history.
Of course, these texts were written by people living in times long past, when the ethics of individuals and nations were different, as were the rules of war. But the Haggadah is recited — today as before — uncritically, without any reflection on these horrible aspects. Especially in religious schools in Israel today , the commandment to commit genocide against the non-Jewish population of Palestine is taken by many teachers and pupils quite literally.  
Indoctrination: This is the real point of these reflections.
There are two sentences in the Haggadah that always had – and still have – a profound impact on the present.
One is the central idea on which almost all Jews base their historical outlook: “In every generation they rise against us to destroy us”.
This does not apply to a specific time or to a specific place. It is regarded as an eternal truth that applies to all places, all times.  “They” is the entire outside world, all non-Jews everywhere. Children hear this on Seder evening on their father’s knee, long before they are able to read and write, and from then on they hear or recite it every year for decades. It expresses the total conscious or unconscious conviction of almost all Jews, whether in Los Angeles, California, or in Lod, Israel. It certainly directs the policy of the State of Israel.
The second sentence, which complements the first, is a cry to God: “Pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not know you…for they have devoured Jacob and desolated his home…Pour out your wrath on them! May your blazing anger overtake them! Pursue them from under the heavens of the Lord!…”  
The word “nations” in this text has a double meaning. The Hebrew word is “goyim”, an ancient Hebrew term for “peoples”. Even the ancient Children of Israel were called a “Holy Goy”.
But over the centuries, the word has taken on another meaning, and is understood to refer to all non-Jews, in a very derogatory way.
To understand this text properly, one has to remember that it was written as a cry from the heart of a defenseless, persecuted people who had no means to take revenge on their torturers. To raise their spirits on the joyful Seder evening, they had to put their trust in God, crying out to Him that he should take revenge in their stead.
The lesson: In the Diaspora, this craving for revenge was both understandable and ineffective. But the founding of the State of Israel has changed the situation completely. In Israel, Jews are far from being defenseless. We don’t have to rely on God to take revenge for the evils done unto us, past or present, real or imagined. We can pour out our wrath ourselves, on our neighbors, the Palestinians and other Arabs, on our minorities, on our victims.
That is the real danger of the Haggadah, as I see it. It was written by and for helpless Jews living in perpetual danger. It raised their spirits once a year, when they felt safe for a moment, protected by their God, surrounded by their families.
Taken out of this context and applied to a new, completely different situation, it can set us on an evil course. Telling ourselves that everybody is out to destroy us, yesterday and most certainly tomorrow, we consider the grandiloquent bombast of an Iranian bigmouth as a living proof of the validity of the old maxim. They are out to kill us, so we must —according to another ancient Jewish injunction — kill them first.
So, on this Seder evening, let our feelings be guided by the noble, inspiring part of the Haggadah, the part about the slaves who rose up against tyranny and took their fate in their own hands – and not the part about pouring out our wrath.

*[email protected]

Fettering the press in Ramallah
Frustrated with the dead end in the supposed peace process with Israel, Palestinian Authority leaders are getting increasingly edgy about criticism, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1092/re11.htm)

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been trying to muzzle press freedom and freedom of expression under the rubric of "upholding the rule of law".
Several Palestinian journalists have been interrogated and imprisoned of late in connection with articles they wrote or opinions they voiced about leading PA figures, including President Mahmoud Abbas.
One of the highlighted cases is that of Youssef Shayeb who has been put in jail since mid-March following an article he penned mid-January exposing alleged financial and administrative corruption plaguing the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) diplomatic mission in Paris.
In the article, which was published in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad, Shayeb alleged that members of the Palestinian mission in Paris were involved in financial mismanagement, illegal security operations and espionage for the benefit of unnamed foreign intelligence organisations. Shayeb quoted detailed testimony from anonymous sources that he refused to disclose.
Initially, the Ramallah Magistrates Court decided to remand Shayeb for 48 hours pending further interrogation. This led him to declare a hunger strike in protest at "this flagrant treatment".
The Palestinian press law, which is yet to be complete and take a final form, prevents the executive authority -- via the security agencies -- from questioning or interrogating or harassing journalists over matters pertaining to their professional work. However, the PA security apparatus has more or less failed to uphold the rule of law in this regard, often justifying its encroachment and abuse by citing security considerations.
According to Shayeb's wife, Badeia, the interrogation of her husband centred on the identity of his sources, although the Palestinian press law, in its fourth clause, grants journalists the right to keep their sources anonymous.
"The attorney-general has no right to demand that a given journalist disclose his or her sources unless there is a court order to this effect."
The attorney general's office, however, argued that the interrogation of Shayeb and his subsequent detention was legal, "because no one, including journalists, has the right to defame, libel and smear the reputation of people without indicting evidence."
The office said it was duty bound to address formal complaints by those whose names were mentioned in the investigative article, including PA Foreign Minister Riyadh Maliki, the Palestinian ambassador to France, and his deputy.
Ahmed Al-Mughni, the attorney-general, told reporters in Ramallah this week that Shayeb was charged with defamation and libel as well as perjury in violation of the law.
The continued arrest of Shayeb generated protests by Palestinian journalists who called on Abbas to free the man. However, sources at Abbas's office pointed out that the president couldn't and wouldn't interfere with the work of the judiciary.
On Sunday, 2 April, the Magistrates Court decided to release Shayeb on bail, set at $7000. However, Shayeb is still in jail, apparently due to the intervention of "powerful people" within the PA regime.
Another less publicised case involving PA encroachment on freedom of expression has been that of journalist Ismat Abdel-Khaleq who has been in jail for over a week over "insulting and ridiculing" PA Chairman Abbas on her Facebook page.
The female journalist was transferred to hospital on Monday, 3 April, following deterioration in her health. She has been remanded for 15 days for further investigation.
According to Nehad Abu Gohsh, a Journalists' Union spokesman, Abdel-Khaleq has been interrogated by the Preventive Security Services. Abdel-Khaleq reportedly argued that the controversial content on her Facebook page was not hers, but comments added by others.
The attorney-general charged the journalist with verbally abusing high-ranking government officials, a charge many journalists are worried will muzzle press freedom and seriously undermine the ability of the press to carry out its function as a watchdog over the government.
The increasingly draconian PA approach to press freedom and other civil liberties is raising many eyebrows in the occupied West Bank. One PA official intimated to Al-Ahram Weekly that the Ramallah regime is feeling increasingly insecure due to the political dead end facing the peace process with Israel.
A visibly frustrated Abbas has been saying he will send a "decisive letter" to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, warning -- even threatening -- that the Palestinians would soon abandon the two-state solution strategy if Israel continued to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
In an article published this week, Fatah's leading figure in the occupied territories, Ahmed Qurei argued that it was pointless and irresponsible to continue pursuing a peace process that is void of any real content.
He called the peace process, among other things, a mirage, a great deception and a big lie, pointing to ongoing Israeli efforts to de-Arabise and de-Islamicise the demographic and cultural identity of occupied East Jerusalem.
The PLO hopes to establish a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. However, intensive and ubiquitous expansion of Jewish colonies throughout the West Bank, especially in Jerusalem, has rendered this Palestinian hope unrealistic.

Our failure is behind Netanyahu`s success
By: Mustafa Ibrahim* (http://www.amin.org/articles.php?t=opinion&id=17657)

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has succeeded since he forged a government three years ago to place the Iranian file on top of the global agenda and to turn it into an international battle and not only an Israeli, and to intimidate the world and the US with Iran. He has managed to marginalize the Palestinian file on the US, the European and even the Arab levels.

Three years have passed since Netanyahu with his “Likud” party is in office without one internal or external affair that could threaten his durability of the government coalition. Since many years, the current government might be the first Israeli government that would complete its full legal term by the end of next year.

Although the political stalemate between the PA and Israel has also been persisting for three years, this issue is not of the Israelis` concerns. They mostly care about security calm in their cities and the economic conditions which are both available to them and thus their satisfaction with their prime minister`s performance is the highest.

Israel has been working for the imposition of a unilateral solution that is based on a disfigured autonomy and the creation of de facto as settlement actions and Judaization measures are continuous in Jerusalem and its suburbs, and while West Bank is being desecrated through endless violations by the Israeli forces including daily military raids, arrests, and the dismembering of the cities and villages. These grave violations show the extent to which the PA and its apparatuses have failed to protect their population.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian situation remains tragic. While the division is continuous and the conflict between “Fatah” and “Hamas” is daily inflamed, the Palestinians are preoccupied with their internal affairs and concerns including electricity, taxes and services. The Palestinian cause has consequently been shorthanded to the borders of the PA-controlled territories in the West Bank and the Gaza strip, as if the PLO has become the sole legitimate representative of Palestinians in the oPt.

President Mahmoud Abbas and his team are in state of total loss, flounce, chaos, and frustration and they suffer from indeterminacy of vision and a retreat in the national enterprise. They have not taken a position on taking serious and real steps to resist the occupation, change the tragic Palestinian reality and to get rid of the occupation. Even those steps which the PA spoke about in terms of activating the popular resistance have been characterized with flounce, hesitation, fear and the absence of reinforcing the people`s steadfastness.

As for the political and diplomatic steps that the PA claims advancing at the UN and its agencies, they have been stalled without a serious and follow up. The PA leadership has no deep conviction about continuing with the appeal to the UN and to sticking to the international resolutions and internationalizing the cause, even though a pro-Palestinian majority is available at the UN General Assembly and despite of the advisory decision on the Segregation Wall in 2004 and other resolutions related to the Palestinian cause. The PA has to choose between either negotiations or the popular resistance and the turning to the UN.

Yet, ending the division, finalizing the reconciliation and restoring the status of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people should come before anything. “Hamas” and “Fatah” should admit failing to unify the Palestinians and to place the Palestinian cause at its natural track.

The Palestinians have failed to bear their responsibility of frustrating the Israeli enterprises which have circumvented the Palestinian rights and the international resolutions related to the Palestinian cause, including those on the refugees` return, the withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territories, the question of Jerusalem, the prisoners and water, and they have failed to build a national resisting strategy that could reinforce their unity and steadfastness.

The Palestinians should be well aware of that Netanyahu`s success in removing the Palestinian file from the agenda of the international community is attributed to the failure of their leadership in wake of the continuous division and the monopoly of each of the two sides over the leadership of the Palestinian people. A true solution from their side could be achievable through their unity and returning to the national constants instead of taking unilateral decisions and deepening the division.

* A Palestinian researcher and writer based in the Gaza strip. [email protected]