Mar
23
2007
PostGlobal Live Online Debate: U.S. And Hamas
On Friday, March 23 at 2:00 PM ET, Daoud Kuttab and David Makovsky debated whether the U.S. should speak with Hamas ministers in the new Palestinian National Unity Government, as part of mediating the Israel-Palestine conflict.
PostGlobal is a discussion forum on global issues with David Ignatius and Fareed Zakaria. The two veteran journalists created PostGlobal in 2006 as an experiment in global, collaborative journalism. The forum features discussions among dozens of the world’s best-known editors and writers at http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/.
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Mar
09
2007
Olmert-Abbas again; not much hope  Daoud Kuttab
There are few expectations that the upcoming Palestinian-Israeli summit will produce any breakthrough. It is now an accepted assumption that without a strong proactive role of the US, little change will happen in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Americans have shown higher level of interest in the conflict, but the efforts of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice still lack the full presidential power that is probably the only way that any serious change will happen in this part of the world. Continue Reading »
Mar
08
2007
To the Editor:
As a columnist, Thomas L. Friedman is free to state an opinion. I agree with him that reform is necessary in the Arab world; there are many reform heroes. But reprinting a poem by an Arab poet that generalizes an entire nation is the way that stereotypes are made and perpetuated. If you replace the word “Arab” with “Jew,” or replace the words “an Arab country” with “a black neighborhood,” this poem would not be fit to print.
Daoud Kuttab
March 4, 2007
The writer is director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah, West Bank.
Feb
23
2007
by Daoud Kuttab
It is pleasant yet sad to see the Israelis and the Americans squirming. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has flip-flopped from opposing the Mecca agreement to stating that his government neither supports nor opposes the accord, to his latest attempts to bypass US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by going to her boss to insist on the boycott of the yet to be established national unity government.
The Mecca agreement represents a clear shift in the Islamic Hamas movement from the Iranian-Syria axis to the Saudi side. In response, the head of the US diplomacy is complaining that this agreement complicates things.
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Feb
06
2007
Palestinians Say Clashes Hurt Their Cause
JERUSALEM, Feb. 4 — (NY Times) The fierce internal clashes between Palestinian factions have shocked many Palestinians and Arab governments, who fear that the continuing bloodshed is damaging the Palestinian image before the world, Palestinians say.
“This fighting affects everyone’s morale,†said Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian analyst who teaches at Al Quds University here. “We always felt we had this one big asset, our social unity as Palestinians, but to see it shredding, with lives being shed without much concern, is horrible. We’ve lost a lot of sensitivity to these deaths, to those killed by the Israelis and ourselves.â€
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Dec
22
2006
By Daoud Kuttab
The biggest losers in the current political stalemate in Palestine have been the civil servants. Their total number is a bit over 150,000. The actual civil servants are 73,000 and those on the security payroll from the various apparatuses are said to be 85,000. Add to this number those who are retired and the families of the prisoners and martyrs, and you get possibly up to 175,000 Palestinians who have not been paid since February 2006, when the present Haniyeh government was elected.
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Dec
21
2006
 By Daoud Kuttab
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I am sitting in a bus shelter on a dark highway. Cars are going by but no one is stopping. The clock on the computer reads 6:19 it is pitch black outside, the only light is coming from my lap top whose battery is signaling that it full. I have thirty minutes to kill until my ride arrives. Where am, what am I doing, why I am here?
Today is Thursday the 20th of December, I arrived at tel aviv airport this morning from Copenhagen at a little after midnight. By 2:30 am I was home in Jerusalem knocking on the door for what seemed like 20 minute because my brother Jonathan had latched the door from inside. Continue Reading »
Dec
11
2006
By Daoud Kuttab- The Jerusalem Post
A strange phenomenon has been taking place over the past few years. Israel has been carrying out a systematic plan to try and separate Gaza from the West Bank. Little attention has been given to this effort separating people – and a country – using administrative measures.
This phenomenon began in the late 1980s with the launch of the Palestinian intifada, was accelerated in the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, and has been accelerated even more since the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, causing a critical human and economic crisis.
Dec
05
2006
by Daoud Kuttab
Three conditions must obtain for ceasefire agreements to work. They need to be mutual, supervised by a neutral party and supported by continuous political negotiations. Only the first condition seems to have been met this time around, and for the fire to cease we need to work on the remaining two conditions. Although nothing has been signed by the conflicting parties, the condition of mutuality seems to have been fulfilled by an Israeli willingness to be involved in what amounts to an understanding rather than an agreement. As such, this ceasefire seems closer to the understandings reached in Lebanon or with the Syrians that have worked even though they were not put on paper by the parties to the conflict. It therefore bodes well that we seem to have overcome the initial hurdle that has been delaying movement on this front.
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Nov
11
2006
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCE
By DALE GAVLAK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
AMMAN, Jordan — The breathless caller was desperate, with nowhere else to turn:”Help me to get a Bedouin and his camels and sheep out of my street,”he pleaded.”The herd nearly attacked two neighborhood boys.” Continue Reading »