The times they are a changin’….to an earlier point in time…
AMMAN â?? The government on Monday said it renewed last week Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mishaalâ??s passport upon his request.
â??Mr Mishaal holds a Jordanian passport… he submitted a request to renew his passport and it was approved,â? Government Spokesperson Nasser Judeh told a weekly press briefing yesterday. â??The passport was renewed last week.â?Â
In 1999, the government detained and later expelled Mishaal and three other Hamas officials â?? all Jordanian citizens â?? to Qatar after the four refused to abandon their links with the Palestinian group.Mishaal survived an assassination attempt by Mossad agents in 1997, when they, disguised as Canadian tourists in Amman, injected poison into his ear. King Hussein forced then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hand over the antidote. The agents were arrested and exchanged for an official Israeli apology and the release of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and 19 other prisoners.
Syria-based Mishaal was named political chief of Hamas in 2004 following Israelâ??s assassination of Sheikh Yassin. Earlier this year, the government said it arrested 20 Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks in Jordan and seized weapons, including Iranian-made Katyusha rockets. [Jordan Times]
If a Palestinian leader like Mishaal, who’s supposedly is representing a Palestinian political organization and a majority of the Palestinians; is refusing to take or use his Palestinian citizenship and insisting on using a Jordanian passport. I wonder why others should give a real weight for the Palestinian citizenship and the Palestinian passport. this also applies to other political leaders who are still using a Jordanian passport on official travel. is this the way to go for making the world admit the legitimacy of the state of Palestine?
Habchawi, while most of the Palestinian officials use the Jordanian passport at the end of the day I wouldn’t accept the Palestinian passport or citizenship if I were them either. Citizenship and passports recognise an actual entity and Palestine is not one. It is not an official state, it is occupied and it’s borders are shifting daily to the whims of Israel’s wall building. To have citizenship is to say there is a state and therefore concede the need for any struggle.
also im not sure if it can actually be used to travel anyways.
Nas,
on the contrary even though the Palestinian state still occupied and unstable accepting the Palestinian passport is emphasizing the Palestinian state and it’s legitimacy and sending a clear message to Israel and the rest of the world that the Palestinian problem needs to be resolved in it’s entirety and that the Palestinians will not accept half solutions. Because having the citizenship means there exist a state and therefore there exist the right for the citizen to defend their state. Otherwise, we should give everybody a Jordanian, Syrian or Egyptian……. passport and wait for Israel in couple of decades to tell us that they are not Palestinians and therefore they are not of their concern.!!!
I think the passport is recognized almost every where except few countries like Syria. but if this is not the case other arrangement can be given to the Palestinian officials for travel purposes.
habachawi, well thats the thing, there is no state. when we say “there is a palestine” we mean there is a piece of land that a people are trying to establish as their rightful state but no statehood has been declared. you can’t have a passport without a state. in the sense that to have a citizenship and a passport it entails that you have soverignty and independence, which Palestinians don’t have.
but that’s just my opinion.
and heck, i dont even know if anyone can use it to travel with, at least without Israeli permission.
To correct you, It’s never called a “Palestinian Citizenship”.
It’s a passport to the Palestinian Authority. Noboy should accept it unless a Palestinian Country declared.
Now I am confused, If whatâ??s out there is not a Palestinian state (meaning that the Palestinian authority is not officially a state regardless of whether it’s occupied or not). I have to admit that you have a very valid point; because taking that passport will imply that the Palestinians are accepting all the terms of the current solution (Which you are saying they are not). However, this will direct us to more important question, if Hamas officials or other Palestinian officials for that matter, are not considering the Authority as a state. Why would they participate in the elections? Shouldnâ??t the same principles apply here?
And actually wouldnâ??t this be encouraging the idea of the alternative country for the Palestinians (alwatan albadeel)…..well, I donâ??t necessarily know every thing about this and this is only one opinion.
the PA is not a state it is merely an acknowledged representitive of the people and historically it wasnt even that over 20 years ago. but while there is no statehood there is governing to be done. the alternative to the palestinian parliament is to allow Israel to administer the country. they participate in the elections to gain political legitimacy and the ability to govern. governing of course is extremely limited in the occupied territories give the fact that they’re occupied. and while i agree it does encourage the idea of watan albadeel but palestinian politicians tend to have always used Jordan as a base camp. whenever there’s a big meeting of palestinian leadership, Amman is used as the venue for security reasons. the Jordanian passport also offers them a sense of diplomatic status, they can travel and have Jordan negotiate on their behalf if something should be happen to them as was evident in the past.
ultimately i suppose there’s an arguement to be made that it’s better than the alternative.
First of all,
to Nas, Regardless of what you think or anyone else that shares your thoughts and opinion , Palestine is and will always be a country. It’s just not engrained within our generation these days being that all we intake is the random knowledge of others, politically through the media and what not over main matters such as ” Isreal ” if you call it that. Palestine is and has been occupied for so long but in our eyes as Palestinians my friend, it is a country, And i totally agree with Habchawi and feel that just because the palestinian passport is not accepted by many countries, it does not mean that people should deny Palestine as well! There are so many other countries in poverty and crisis and corruption , why is Palestine the only country to be so neglected???
It is very sad to see everyday on the media what is happening out there, it’s also sad to say that it is far from now probably that there can be peace in the middle east but it’s still a country and it’s Palestine.