By Daoud Kuttab

He is probably not very well known outside the territories of the state of Palestine, but if you ask almost any Palestinian, they would most likely know who Bassam Zakarneh is.

Technically, he is a member of the Revolutionary Council in Fatah. But ask any Fatah activist and they will say that he is much more powerful than most members of the central committee — the highest body in this liberation movement.

Zakarneh’s strength, of course, is not directly from Fatah, although he is also well-liked by Fatah, especially at the grassroots level.

The head of the public workers union in Palestine wields amazing powers to stop the workings of any and all public institutions run by the Palestinian government. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Less than a week before the important visit that the US president will make to Israel, Palestine and Jordan, there are some mysteries as to the Palestinian leg of his visit. While the most repeated itinerary lists Ramallah as a city where the US president will be spending a few hours, some sources are giving a different story. More than one Palestinian news site has claimed that President Barack Obama will visit Bethlehem rather than the temporary Palestinian capital of Ramallah.

One of the reasons given for why the American president might want to skip Ramallah is the fact that if he visits the secured and natural offices of the Palestinian president he will have a political difficulty. Pundits (mostly western) are claiming that if Obama passes by the grave of Yasser Arafat which is centrally located within the Muqata’a presidential compound that the American leader will have a difficult choice. Not laying a wreath will be seen as an insult to Palestinians while doing so would be seen in negative terms by some Israelis. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Electing the leader of the world’s Catholic faithful is always an unpredictable affair. The choice of Argentina’s cardinal, now Pope Francis, has lived up to the mystery.

What concerns people the most is the political direction that the leader of the world’s more than 1 billion Catholics will take on issues such as women’s rights, relations with other faiths and foreign policy.

Palestinians and peoples of the Middle East have been searching hard in the new pontiff’s history to try and figure out where he will stand on the issues that are of concern to them.

Two issues were prominently talked about in this regard. The Jesuit background of the new pope was quickly picked up as a sign that the new leader of the Catholic Church will pay attention to socio-economic issues and not just theological ones.

In the Middle East, Jesuits are known to have established schools of higher education and other projects supporting the poor. His coming from a non-European country (apparently the first time in a millennium) also ensures, many believe, a more internationalization of the Vatican. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

One thing is clear before, during and after the visit of President Barack Obama to the region: When it comes to the issue of Jewish settlements in Palestine, it is all a game.

A few weeks before the visit of the US president, Israelis were rushing to build as many housing units as possible because they were worried that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will agree to some kind of freeze. Israeli media was full of statements alluding to the ‘demand’ that Netanyahu has made not to be embarrassed during the Obama visit. The articles spoke about what happened a few years earlier when Vice President Joe Biden was welcomed with an announcement about new Jewish settlements in Jerusalem.

The media was also welcomed to film the dismantling of six outposts in the Ramallah area. Why the Ramallah area? Is it because the President is planning to visit the Palestinian town? For readers unfamiliar with these “outposts”, it is important to note that these outposts are housing units built on Palestinian lands not only in violation of international law — as all settlements are — but in violation of Israeli law. It is unclear how many outposts exist, but some reports note that there are as many as 100. Some of those have been destroyed, some have been legalized, and others were destroyed, but rebuilt again a few meters away from where the old ones existed. Continue Reading »