This press release from Gaza Municipality of July 2019 explains how the Mayor was appointed:
If you are using Microsoft Edge as a browser, it will automatically translate the text from Arabic into English. We will shortly be adding a 30-second video to this posting, showing an election in progress.
The UK Lawyers for Israel letter to the Head of Legal Services states that to make any agreement with Gaza City Municipality would be illegal. We wanted to clarify some matters to show they are wrong.
We already have plenty of material on the www.twingaza.com website to explain that Gaza City is actually run by the 11 members of the municipal council, who are selected by other community leaders, but not elected, due to the separation which occurred between Gaza and West Bank after 2007 – where, after Hamas had been democratically elected, Fatah broke away to rule the West Bank. [more on the frustration of holding fresh elections at www.twingaza.com/this-siege-is-illegal/#All-major-political ]
The problem of not being able to hold elections to the Palestinian Authority are compounded by the fact that they are, more or less permanently, on a war footing (in the UK we suspended elections during war time). Whilst Hamas are in overall control of the whole Gaza Strip, the various municipalities and refugee camps [there are many, as you’ll see if you look up the Strip in Google maps] basically run their own affairs- in the same way as we do in Scotland.
But they have a very different means of appointing their local Councillors from ourselves. In the UK we only adopted a Party mechanism in Local Authority elections since around 1920; prior to then, folk were elected on their individual merits. In the same way in Gaza, the Party system is not used; individuals, rather than parties control the municipality.
We have been in contact with the Gaza Mayor’s office and their International Officer, seeking documentation on their appointment procedures. They have explained that the Mayor and Councillors are selected at an Egtmaa’ or Ejtimaa’ which is really an enormous meeting (similar to the Jirga – Wikipedia used in Afghanistan). The candidates for the Council are present and at the meeting, by popular vote, the 11 Councillors and the Mayor are selected. Those present at the meeting are local notables- they will be public figures; for example, scholars, university professors, business people, lawyers and doctors- they are people who have risen to the top of their profession through hard work- intellectual and educated people.
So, this is not a paper-based democratic vote-based process like we have in the UK.
The Ejtimaa’ meeting is filmed by the Council media dept, and the video of this is held in the Council archives as proof of how the selection of the Councillors took place.
Therefore, as we have explained to the Edinburgh city fathers, the community leaders who control the appointments are the Gaza strip’s decision makers, public figures, local council leaders, advocates, organizations representatives, etc. It is they who decide who is to control and manage the city in which they live. More information on the Gaza Councillors can be found at www.twingaza.com/why-twin/#about-gaza-council
Cllr Padraig McShane, ex-Moyle Council, has been through this before
Cllr McShane is currently with Causeway Coast & Glens Council, who absorbed Moyle a couple of years ago, which meant the twinning with Gaza, set up in 2012 by Cllr McShane, ceased.
Cllr McShane had faced a similar legal threat back in 2012. A similar communication was sent to Moyle District Council. It resulted in the Council choosing to hear from the Home Office, Foreign Office and the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland). None could find fault with the Twinning. Cllr McShane has told the Council Legal Dept and Council leaders: “This UKLFI threat is entirely a red herring. A twinning agreement is between two sets of people.”