AN emergency meeting between Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) members, teachers, and the Palestinian teachers’ union ended on Sunday without reaching a solution to end the teachers’ strike.
The meeting ended in teachers rejecting the terms laid out by the PLC. ‘One of the reasons no solution was reached, is the rejection from the general administration of the teachers’ union to form a temporary committee separate from the union’s central committee in order to lead the talks with the government,’ a source who attended the meeting said.
Teachers have criticised the teachers’ union, which is a PLO body, as not representing their interests before the government, leading to the resignation of the head of the union late last month and calls from teachers for an independent union separate from the PLO.
On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education announced that it intended to request that the Finance Ministry pay a quarter of overdue allowances to teachers across the occupied West Bank – but only to teachers who were not on strike.
The announcement came as most Palestinian public school teachers in the West Bank carried on their strike for the third consecutive week, demanding that the PA implement an agreement regarding their working conditions dating back to 2013.
Palestinian teachers, who have been on strike since mid-February, are seeking higher salaries as pledged to them by the PA in the 2013 agreement that was never implemented. The PA has threatened to take legal action against the teachers if they do not return to work immediately, with Hamdallah saying last week that they have a ‘responsibility’ to their students.
A number of teachers have now been detained by PA security forces, who have also sought to prevent the teachers from convening at demonstrations by installing checkpoints across the West Bank and threatening public transportation drivers carrying teachers to protests.
The strike marks one of the largest demonstrations against the PA in recent years, with 20,000 teachers marching in Ramallah last month, and it has exposed a divide in Palestinian society, with several small attacks taking place in recent days.
Earlier this week, a Hebron teacher was attacked with pepper spray over her support for the protest, and on Thursday, gunshots were fired on the homes of two more teachers – one supporting the strike, the other opposing it.
• US Vice President Joe Biden has ruled out a military solution to end Syria’s conflict in remarks published on Monday, calling for a political transition despite the difficulty. ‘That should be clear to everyone,’ Biden told Abu Dhabi newspaper The National at the start of a visit to the United Arab Emirates ahead of travelling to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. ‘So as hard as it is, we have to keep trying to reach a political settlement,’ he said.
Saudi Arabia, which backs the Syrian opposition, and its ally the UAE, have said they are willing to send ground troops to Syria under US command to battle the jihadist Islamic State group. Biden’s comments come as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its opponents are to this week resume UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva as a fragile ceasefire holds in Syria.
The talks are aimed at ending the five-year Syria war that has killed more than 270,000 people, displaced millions and devastated the country. The fate of Assad, who is refusing to step down, has been one of the main sticking points in the talks.
‘A political solution between the parties is the only way to end the violence and give the Syrian people the chance they deserve to rebuild their country. To create a credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian system, a new constitution and free and fair elections,’ Biden said.
Biden said the truce that went into effect in Syria on February 27 ‘seems to be holding’ but was ‘not perfect’. He noted however that ‘levels of violence have dropped significantly across the country’ and said this opened the way for the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid.
Biden also praised US relations with the UAE and its partners in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. He acknowledged the ‘challenges’ posed by the historic nuclear deal struck last year between Iran and world powers and the concerns it raised in GCC countries who are wary of Tehran.
‘That’s why we worked so hard to achieve a nuclear agreement with Iran, because as dangerous as Iran’s actions are, they would be exponentially greater if Iran possessed a nuclear weapon.’ He said steps were being taken to bolster the security of the GCC monarchies to be able to ‘deal with Iran diplomatically from a position of strength’.
Biden was to hold talks later on Monday with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and on Tuesday with Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.
• Israeli forces on Monday stormed an orphanage and a livestock farm in Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron city, in the southern West Bank, said a local activist. Mohammad Awad, spokesperson for the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar, said forces stormed Beit Ummar Orphan Care Society (or the Society of the Care for Orphans) in the town neighbourhood of al-Bayyada.
The raiding soldiers, added Awad, locked the security guard into a room before they carried out a thorough search for hours. Soldiers also destroyed a number of wooden doors, ransacked and flipped the orphanage’s records on the floor. They also broke into the chairman’s office, sabotaged orphans’ records and confiscated the storage devices from three of the office’s computers.
The Israeli incursion in the town provoked clashes between Palestinian villagers and the Israeli army. The latter fired tear gas canisters, causing several villagers to suffer from excessive tear gas inhalation. Soldiers also stormed a livestock farm belonging to Naim Abu Maria in the Beit Ummar. They briefly detained the farm owner and his sons before they thoroughly searched the farm.
In the meantime in Jenin district, forces broke into and ransacked a car showroom and coffee shop at Arraba junction, southwest of the city. The owners of the car showroom and coffee shop were identified as Jihad Musa and Ayman Ghalib. During the offensive in Arraba, soldiers fired tear gas canisters at local youths during subsequent clashes. No injuries were reported.
• Tunisia’s trade union federation, a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said on Sunday that Bahrain denied entry to two of its members in a row over Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah.
The two Tunisians, Noureddine Taboubi and Abdelkrim Jrad, planned to take part in a congress of Bahraini trade unions but were denied entry on Saturday, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) said.
Sami Tahri, the UGTT spokesman, told Mosaique FM radio that the two were banned ‘because of the UGTT’s rejection of Hezbollah’s classification as a terrorist organisation’.
The ban was ‘undemocratic’ and ‘contrary to international law’ he said, adding that ‘there are always countries which are against any free and independent positions’.
Last Thursday, the UGTT and another member of Tunisia’s Nobel Prize winning quartet condemned a decision by Arab states in the Gulf to blacklist Hezbollah as a ‘terrorist’ organisation.
The move by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), led by Saudi Arabia, formed part of ‘an offensive by foreign and other regional forces to divide the Arab world and destroy its forces’, the UGTT said.
The head of the Tunisian Order of Lawyers, also a member of the Nobel quartet, called on all ‘forces in Tunisia and in the Arab world to exert pressure on governments to reconsider their decision’.
