By Daoud Kuttab

The incident was tragic by any standard, but the response appears even more tragic.

When Shadi Abu Jaber, a 17-year-old Jordanian, along with another passenger died in a car accident in Amman, social media users started talking about the young man whose life was cut short. 

Among other things, friends recalled various things about young Abu Jaber, including that his mother sang in a local church (his uncle is an evangelical pastor) and that he was a guitar player in a local band.

Words of condolences filled the Facebook page of a local TV station’s website that broke the story. People used the normal words in such occasions, such as “Allah yerhamo” (May God have mercy on him).

The outpouring of warm words and condolences apparently did not please some people who seem to have a problem with such normal human reaction.

How can people express such words of sympathy in the case of a young man who “played the guitar”? 

And anyway, said others, Muslims are not allowed to call for mercy on non-Muslims. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

In October 2012, a previously unknown English professor was nominated by the Fatah movement for mayor of Bethlehem. Vera Baboun, a mother of five, beat a male opponent supported by the Islamic Hamas movement and has become a well-known icon in Bethlehem and the world. Since her election, Baboun has met Pope Francis, US President Barack Obama and other world leaders, and has attended the annual Christmas Eve mass (held three times on Dec. 24) every year since.

The decision of Fatah to nominate a respected woman rather than the usual party activists was taken as a result of the 2006 parliamentary defeat and the desire to win. But the Fatah movement is more divided now than ever and Palestinian satisfaction with President Mahmoud Abbas is at a low 34%, according to a June 7 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

Nearly 2 million Palestinians are eligible to vote in 141 municipalities (local councils) and 275 village councils in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for the Central Elections Commission told Al-Monitor by email.

The Palestinian Basic Law calls for municipal elections once every four years, but since the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, only two municipal elections have taken place. Gaza and the West Bank held unified municipal elections in 2004, and that was the last time the Gaza Strip has held municipal elections because of the split between Gaza and the West Bank. In 2012, municipal elections took place in the West Bank only. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The stagnant Palestinian political waters will soon experience some movement. The French efforts to hold an international conference will kick into high gear this fall, starting with the UN General Assembly.

On the ground in Palestine, the October 8 local polls are expected to see nearly 2 million Palestinians participate in the election of the members of some 416 municipal and local village councils.

What is new this time around is that the Islamist Hamas movement has agreed to participate and its security forces in control of the besieged strip will allow Gazans to participate in the elections.

The last time the people of Gaza participated in any form of elections was in 2006 when the pro-Hamas change and reform list swept the majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, a result that led to the appointment of Ismail Haniyeh as prime minister. 

In 2012, Hamas refused to allow Gazans to participate in local elections, leaving the poll to be taken only in the West Bank. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Susan Jaber says her life changed four years ago when she began volunteering with the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. “When they gave me a camera and I began using it, the level of harassment and attacks by settlers and soldiers went down a lot,” Jaber told Al-Monitor.

Like other Palestinian volunteers working with B’Tselem, Jaber has heard about the new Israeli law restricting the work of all Israeli nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), but she is not surprised by it. “It is normal that the occupiers do that, because they can see that B’Tselem is doing a good job documenting and exposing Israeli crimes,” she said. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

One of the lessons professional journalists have learned over the years is that objectivity and balance can sometimes be wrongly used. If, as a journalist, you are witnessing rain, you are not obliged to report that one side says it is raining and the other side says it is not. You have an obligation to your audience to tell it simply that it is raining.
Such false balance is often seen in conflict-resolution cases where the side attempting to mediate a case where one side is clearly guilty and failing to act to resolve the conflict, presents a “balanced” solution to a skewed situation, accusing each side of committing some kind of mistake. This false balance naturally produces an angry response from the side that is actively trying to produce a solution.
In its attempt at striking balance in the asymmetrical Palestinian-Israeli situation, the Quartet made up of the US, UN, EU and Russia Israel’s nearly 50 years of military occupation and illegal colonial settlements with Palestinians’ “incitement to violence”.
The often-repeated accusations that Palestinian school textbooks and media are instruments of incitement to violence have long been scientifically debunked even though they were regularly repeated by Israeli officials and Israeli apologists.
The claim that Palestinians teach their children hate has been rejected by tens of and European, as well as Israeli and Palestinian, academic studies since the turn of the millennium.  Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Despite the Israelis’ initial claims that their efforts have partially succeeded in shelving a pro-Palestinian vote at UNESCO, the story that is emerging now is quite different. Palestinian and Arab officials say the delay in the vote that had been planned for July 20 in Istanbul was postponed due to the failed coup attempt in Turkey.

Omar Awadallah, the director of UN activities at the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Al-Monitor that UNESCO had postponed voting on all resolutions, not just the one on extending the declaration that Jerusalem’s Old City meets UNESCO’s criteria for being endangered. “Due to the security uncertainty connected to the failed coup in Turkey, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee decided to postpone all decisions until it meets again in Paris in October,” said Awadallah.

Kuwait’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, Meshal Hayat, echoed this position in a press release issued by the Arab Group at UNESCO, saying the suspension was due to the “current tensions in Turkey.” In the July 17 press release appropriately titled “Israel’s false allegation,” the Arab Group paints a picture that contradicts the Israeli story, quoting the Palestinian ambassador to UNESCO. It read, “Ambassador Mounir Anastas explained that what happened at the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Istanbul today is exactly the opposite of the Israeli claims, clarifying that the consultations that have been conducted in Istanbul within the World Heritage Committee showed that there was a consensus among all the committee members, including the EU members, to adopt the decision by consensus and without a vote. This is despite [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s outrageous campaign against the decision, and the Israeli strong opposition and diplomatic efforts to thwart it.” Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The story was totally false, but that didn’t stop the Israeli media machine from milking it all the way.

The postponement of a UNESCO resolution slamming Israel for the dangers it is causing to Jerusalem’s heritage was termed as a “partial victory” for Israel.

The Israeli prime minister and the Israeli hasbara (propaganda) machine have been livid since April, when UNESCO approved a resolution that confirms the usage of the name Haram Al Sharif/Al Aqsa Mosque to refer to Islam’s third holiest shrine.

Israel is angry over the international organisation’s refusal to call the mosque area the “Temple Mount”, a reference to what most Jews believe is the former location of the Jewish Temple that historians say was destroyed in 70 AD.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee was meeting between July 10 and 20 to discuss a number of issues, including a Palestinian/Jordanian request to keep Jerusalem as one of 55 world sites that are in danger. Jordan had in 1982 added the Old City of Jerusalem to the list and the issue had to be voted on again. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

AMMAN – The Internet has proved to be a powerful tool for overcoming media restrictions and censorship worldwide. But new restrictions on Web-based news media, such as those in Jordan, threaten to reverse the progress that the Internet has enabled.

For example, the tendency of Arab countries’ media to discuss issues concerning other countries more freely than those affecting their own has long impeded citizens’ ability to keep abreast of domestic affairs. Amin.org – the Arab world’s first censorship-free Web site, which I established in 1996 – addressed the problem by giving people access to information and commentary from foreign publications about domestic issues and events.

Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The request for a travel permit seemed terribly innocent. An international filmmaker was debuting a film about Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and wanted the Palestinian activist to be present at the premier in West Jerusalem. But the Israeli authorities denied Shifa al-Qudsi‘s request.

Stephen Apkon and Andrew Young’s “Disturbing the Peace,” about a brave group of Israelis and Palestinians, was screened July 14 at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. The film features four Israelis and four Palestinians, including Qudsi, who are part ofCombatants for Peace, a nonviolent organization originally made up exclusively of members who had participated in the conflict as armed combatants on one side or the other. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

“We haven’t had water for nearly 40 days,” a caller to the Voice of Palestine radio station told the presenter of the show July 8. The caller lives in the picturesque village of Artas, southwest of Bethlehem, which is known for its fertile land and imposing monastery. Residents of the village are the latest victims of this summer’s extreme water shortage that has hit many parts of Palestine, but especially the Bethlehem governorate.

Calling himself a social activist, Salah said that the protest that began July 9 was completely spontaneous. “We don’t belong to any political party; we are Palestinians who simply want the water problem to be solved,” he said. The videos that Salah posted on his Facebook page show young people in the center of the town chanting “Bidna may” (“We want water”).

Salah said that the governor of Bethlehem agreed to meet with the protesters and promised them that water would reach the village by July 11. At exactly 6 p.m. that evening, once it became clear that al-Khader was still without running water, the youth were out protesting once more. Continue Reading »