Following appeared in today’s Jordan Times

By Daoud Kuttab

The never-ending search for an appropriate democratic model in Jordan continues without any result.

Popular protests sped up the debate while the current retraction of protests appears to have delayed this process.

Nothing appears to have stunted participatory democracy more than the current status of Jordanian municipalities.

The topic of decentralisation has been talked about for some time, but has been almost forgotten.

A conference on participatory democracy organised by the French Cultural Centre in cooperation with Al Rai Studies Centre opened in Amman on Wednesday.

The audience consisted of mayors of major Jordanian cities; strangely, governmental officials were absent despite the fact that they were invited, as the badges were showing.

Had officials from the interior or municipal affairs ministries come, they would have received an earful of harsh complaints about the unhealthy status of Jordan’s municipalities.

One after the other, mayors complained that they are unable to carry out their jobs independently and serve the population that elected them because of the ever-present “big brother”, in the form of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Allies don’t usually criticize each other in public. But this is exactly what happened between Israel and the United States.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly attacked each other regarding the two issues that the United States has said are its top foreign policy priorities in the region: Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Kerry spoke about US and world frustration with Israel during a rare joint interview with Israeli and Palestinian reporters. Kerry attacked Israel’s lack of seriousness in the negotiations, warning Israelis about complacency during this temporary quiet on the Palestinian front. He defended Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a nonviolent leader and told Israelis that if they don’t deal with him, they will end up with a violent leader and a possible third intifada. But Kerry’s harshest criticism was over settlements, which, echoing President Barack Obama, he called “illegitimate.” Kerry questioned the wisdom of building settlements on lands that will become a Palestinian state and rejected the idea of new settlements in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, saying that the prisoner release is to keep Palestinians from going to the United Nations.

The verbal attack was labeled a “scolding” by international media and appears to have stunned Israelis. Instead of reacting to it, however, Netanyahu responded angrily to rumors of a possible deal with Iran. Netanyahu repeatedly called what he perceived as being offered to Iran as the worst deal for the world and best one for Iran. Continue Reading »