Following appeared in Jordan Times and Huffington Post.

By Daoud Kuttab

Shortly after the vote in the British parliament to oppose a strike on Syria, an American newspaper reported the decision of the House of Commons in an unusual way. In a spoof to the independence cry, the Daily News ran a front-page headline repeating twice the phrase: “The British are not coming.”

While it has become clear that the British are not coming to America’s aid in the military theatre, the global political movement is witnessing the arrival of an old/new player.

Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, appear to have made a grand entry into the international political scene. The handling of the Syrian file, the G-20 conference and the Russian-US relations all added up to a shrewd and brilliant performance. Russia has shown it respects its allies, uses all its assets and privileges and knows how to translate its powers into accomplishments.

The Russian Federation, which was left from the old Soviet Union, appeared to be a weak player in the international political landscape and a weak partner compared to giants such as the US, Germany, France or China. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Twenty years ago, then-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn to publicly declare mutual recognition and to sign the interim memorandum of understanding that had been agreed to in secret talks in Oslo. The Oslo Accordsand the various agreements that stemmed from them have become the main reference point between Palestinians and Israelis. But instead of being a precursor to permanent peace, these accords are seen by many Palestinians as the main source of the continuation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. There are 15 problems with the accords, as seen from the Palestinian side:

1. Temporary nature. The accords were produced in such a way as to promote a gradual change in the situation. The authors of the agreement wanted to give the leaders time to convince their publics and to build trust. The agreement was expected to last no more than five years. Now, 20 years later, the Palestinian nightmare that the interim agreement would become permanent has been realized. No clause existed in the agreement to deal with this problem.
2. Lack of framework. Not only has this temporary agreement become permanent, but its temporary nature allowed its framers to avoid some basic issues that should have set the parameters. Issues such as borders, settlements, refugees, security and Jerusalem were to be solved within this five-year period without a clear reference point by which future negotiators would be bound. The absence of a framework also left vague the status of the areas occupied in 1967, so Palestinians couldn’t and still can’t demand that Israel treat these areas as occupied territories, although the entire world sees them as such. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A quick roundup of statements by Palestinian leaders to the press and details of discussions with Western officials reveal an increase in the level of frustration in the peace talks with Israel. Regardless, it is clear that the Palestinians have no interest in scuttling the nine-month time frame of the negotiations, possibly due to the staggered dates for releasing long-term Palestinian prisoners.

Of interest, none of the statements credited to Palestinian leaders include President Mahmoud Abbas or the chief negotiators, Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh. Palestinian and Israeli leaders have made a commitment to US Secretary of State John Kerry to keep the talks secret, with only the United States being authorized to make statements regarding the peace process.

The volley of statements began with a scathing comment by Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, who warned in August that the talks could end in “disaster.”

The New York Times ran a Sept. 9 story that quoted unnamed Palestinian sources complaining about the absence of an agreed upon reference point for the talks. The report was written largely by veteran journalist Mohammad Daraghmeh, who has strong and reliable connections among the Palestinian leadership. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A strange phenomenon exists in Palestine these days. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is constantly attacked and criticized, continues to do very well in local and international polls, and his policies are generally well-regarded among ordinary Palestinians. What makes the Palestinian president such a Teflon leader, where accusations against him never stick and his popularity remains relatively high?

A simple search of social media will reveal a lot of negative adjectives associated with the Palestinian leader. He is called a traitor, Israeli puppet, sell-out, corrupt, unpatriotic, fraud and an unelected autocrat, among many other terms. Some of these accusations are at times publicly stated, as in the recent demonstrations staged in Ramallah against the peace talks. In speaking to his own Fatah leadership, Abbas even commented on the vile language that is being used in some of these public protests.

But for all this negative language leveled against the Palestinian leader, very little of it seems to stick. Public opinion polls consistently give Abbas high-performance ratings, and whenever he is polled against potential competitors, he and his Fatah movement have done very well. The latest pollconducted in August shows Abbas continuing to outpoll Hamas’ Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

In the early years of the Palestinian Authority (PA), one of its biggest goals was to establish sovereignty over Palestinian land. This included what is below the ground as well as the skies above. While the fight over land has been the biggest challenge, Palestinians have been successful in capturing the skies by launching tens of local radio and TV stations, which reserved available frequencies and prevented the Israelis from occupying them as well. This week, six new online radio stations were launched by the Bethlehem-based Palestine News Network.

The first annex of the Oslo Accords references the “possibility of licensing” radio and TV stations in the context of Palestinian elections. Initial licenses for Palestine TV and Voice of Palestine radio were in fact agreed upon, but a joint technical committee that was supposed to look into requests for private radio and TV licenses has rarely met and has not agreed on any private licenses.

This led the PA to encourage private organizations and individuals to apply for and get “special temporary permits” from the Ministry of Information. Tens of radio and TV stations hit the airwaves. The farsightedness of Palestinian leaders, among them Yasser Abed Rabbo, to provide for the proliferation of these stations proved to be prescient, especially in 2002, when the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed the studios and towers of the PA’s state-run radio and TV. Private stations complied with emergency requests for use of their frequencies to continue the work of the official Palestinian media until their towers could be repaired. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Information leaked to Al-Monitor from the hush-hush Palestinian-Israeli peace talks reveal that negotiators are stuck on where they should begin. Palestinians want the talks to begin where they left off the last time substantive talks took place, during Ehud Olmert’s premiership. At those talks, Palestinian and Israeli leaders apparentlymade headway on some of the most difficult issues, including borders and Jerusalem. The Benjamin Netanyahu government, however, appears to reject such an idea and wants instead to start from scratch. In the eyes of the Israelis, since all issues are open for discussion, the current government is not bound by any previous commitments or understandings.

Israel’s attempts to negate all previous understandings place the entire peace talks in jeopardy and bring back to the fore the Palestinians’ insistence that the talks be based on an agreed framework. The Palestinians want the talks to be based on the framework presented by US President Barack Obama in his 2012 speech to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. Obama’s framework is that the negotiations be based on a two-state solution along the June 1967 borders with some land swaps. The Israelis rejected this request, so the talks began without a framework, which has resulted in the negotiations being stuck at ground zero. Continue Reading »