By Daoud Kuttab

A courageous Palestinian hunger strike is nearing its 50th day, yet it has barely made a dent on the local, regional or international scene. Palestinian administrative detainees — those being held without charge or trial — are with their stomachs fighting an unjust practice carried out by a country that claims to be a democracy, but no one is paying attention. Israel currently holds 189 Palestinians under administrative detention, and 100 to 125 of them have been on a hunger strike since April 24.

To bring attention to the plight of these prisoners, Palestinians in the West Bank held a partial general strike on June 8. In Gaza, hundreds of citizens held a candlelight vigil. Demonstrations in solidarity with the prisoners have also taken place in a number of countries, but they have attracted little notice. Social media efforts to bring attention to the hunger strike chose the hashtag #Water_and_Salt in Arabic, with the hope that it would generate international support, like the 2012 strike led by Adnan Khader, which succeeded in pressuring the Israelis into forgoing renewal of his administrative detention order.

Various other efforts have been made to humanize the hunger strike — including publishing profiles of the doctors, parliamentarians, teenagers and school teachers taking part — but, again, with little success. The strike has been eclipsed by major news from the region, including the visit of Pope Francis to the Holy Land, the Egyptian elections and inauguration of a new president and the ongoing violence in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Meanwhile, Ukraine captured most of the international headlines. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

In the end, it was quite easy. The new Palestinian unity government won international recognition and validation despite Israel’s attempts to put a spoke in the wheel. Its failure to derail the unity government exposed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who suddenly has had his bluff called off. Even the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby issued a weak statement calling on Congress simply to “ensure that US law is followed.”

The Israeli leader, who lived in the United States for some time and regularly boasts to friends that he knows the country as well as any Israeli, appears to have overreached. Instead of isolating the new Palestinian government headed by Rami Hamdallah, he has himself been isolated.

To justify the demand that the world community not recognize the newly established Palestinian government, Netanyahu had to jump a few political hoops. Unable to attack the cabinet for its membership, Netanyahu launched a direct attack against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for creating a cabinet that is backed by Hamas. This was followed by a barrage of information about how bad Hamas is, and that it is declared a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe.

Netanyahu’s claim was either based on wrong information, or simply yet another case of overreach and hope that loud words in Israel will find traction in Washington. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

During the short election campaign for president of Egypt, candidate Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was asked about his vision for future relations between Egypt and Palestine. Sisi was very clear in his support for Palestinian rights, and he expressed the anger of the Egyptian people with the Islamic movement Hamas. Sisi, who has met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas both as defense minister and as presidential candidate, is known to be cold toward the Palestinian president.

In all his meetings, the Egyptian strongman has called on his Palestinian counterpart to speed up the reconciliation process. While such a call is understood to mean the PLO-Hamas reconciliation, it is possible that Sisi is referring to reconciliation within Fatah and especially between former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan and Abbas. Sisi’s overwhelming victory in last week’s presidential elections has once again raised the question of what the relationship would be like between the Egyptian and Palestinian presidents.

Abbas, who has in the past months escalated the verbal war against Dahlan, accusing him of assassinating Palestinians and embezzlement, has also cut off some of Dahlan’s supporters. In a move that is being called “illegal” according to Fatah bylaws, Abbas fired five of Dahlan’s most senior supporters within Fatah on May 31. The move is seen as an attempt to clear the space of any of Dahlan’s supporters before the seventh Fatah congress due to take place in Ramallah on Aug. 4.

However, some pundits are arguing that it might also have been taken in the short period between Sisi’s electoral victory and his swearing in as president due to take place on June 7. On the other hand, a Dahlan aid, Samir Mashrawi published on his personal Facebook page pictures he says were taken with Sisi on May 21, a week before the field marshal’s election victory. Except for a local Gaza website, Mashrawi’s visit did not make much media traction, but it did show the depth of the relationship between Dahlan and Sisi. Continue Reading »

Following appeared in the Jordan Times Newspaper

The kidnapping of three Israeli religious settlers in an area under the total administrative and security control of the Israeli army has partially brought back attention to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but for the wrong reasons.

While it is natural that the phone calls by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu focused on ways to help find the missing settlers, both Israeli and US officials must understand the context of the case and their own responsibilities for the way things ended up.

It is a basic strategic recipe. If you take away hope for a political solution, you have to expect a spike in violence. Add to this formula a hunger strike by over 100 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial, that has lasted almost two months without a single attempt to negotiate or hear the prisoners’ demands and you have trouble.

If the above is not enough consider downtown Hebron, Palestine’s second most populated city, where settlers run amok and a major commercial street (Shuhada) is blocked since 1994 (after 29 worshiping Palestinians were gunned down) for no reason.

Furthermore, there is documented daily harassment of Palestinians by settlers, which goes without punishment by the ruling Israeli power.  Continue Reading »

Daoud Kuttab

Following appeared in the Jordan Times Newspaper

By Daoud Kuttab

By Daoud Kuttab

Politicians the world overweigh their decision and statements on numerous levels: What will be their effect on the position, will they work and how will they affect the politicians’ long-term career? Israeli leaders, especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, do not appear to care about the consequences of their position, nor if it will work. Netanyahu’s only preoccupation appears to be pandering to his right-wing constituency in the hope that this will carry him to an unprecedented fourth term. Take his position on Iran, for example. He went against the world, confronted Israel’s strongest ally and failed miserably. Analysts would say that Netanyahu’s overreach was calculated. He exaggerated the Israeli fears of Iran even though his intelligence sources informed him that Iran was moderating its position after the victory of Hassan Rouhani. Israel’s exaggerated position re the new Ramallah government also fails to follow normal political calculations. Netanyahu knew very well that the new government did not have any Hamas members, that it would not be supported by a vote by Hamas legislature and that it will abide by the three conditions set by the international Quartet (under Israeli pressure) in 2007. Any basic survey of the expected reaction of the world community, including of the Obama administration, would have easily revealed that Washington and Brussels support the new Palestinian government. Sure enough, in both cases, Netanyahu’s outreach has failed to move the world community, including the US. The Obama administration has continued its peaceful negotiations with Iran undeterred and appears to be making progress in restraining any possible nuclear ambition in Tehran. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The last thing anyone following the Palestinian reconciliation talks expected was to have the PLO and Hamas negotiators disagree on who should be the foreign minister in the six-month interim period preceding elections. Most expected trouble with agreement on the Interior Ministry (solved by having Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah double up as interior minister) or the Finance Ministry (solved by keeping on current Finance Minister Shukri Bishara).

Foreign ministers are always in precarious positions: They are part of a cabinet, and therefore subservient to the prime minister, yet the president, who runs the country’s foreign policy portfolio, usually wants the foreign minister to report to him directly.

Riyad al-Malki has been a loyal foreign minister to Abbas since 2007, both under former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and current Prime Minister Hamdallah. But Hamas and some members of the Fatah movement are opposed to Malki staying in his position. Malki — a former activist with the left-wing, secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and an outspoken advocate of nonviolence — doesn’t align with the profile of an Islamic resistance movement. Fatah activists who have seen Malki and Abbas circumvent many of their members when making crucial diplomatic postings quietly share Hamas’ desire for anyone but Malki. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

It is normal for popes to be loved and followed by Catholics. But the visit of Pope Francis to Jordan and Palestine has shown a Christian leader who is extremely popular in two countries where the Christian populations are quite small. Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Landbegan in Jordan where a mass was attended by 30,000 believers, including many coming from nearby Lebanon, followed by a visit in the company of King Abdullah to the baptismal site of Bethany beyond the Jordan.

The official welcome by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Pope Francis paled in importance to what would happen next as the pope traveled through the streets of Bethlehem and drove by the Aida refugee camp, which is adjacent to the 10-meter (33-foot) wall that Israel has erected, encircling Rachel’s Tomb deep inside Palestinian areas. For days before the visit, Palestinian youth and Israeli soldiers have been in constant battle. Two days prior to the visit, Israeli troops entered the Palestinian area and whitewashed the entire wall to prevent the pope from seeing the graffiti that has been filling it up. The night before the arrival of the pope, however, youth spray-painted new slogans, this time in English with the hope that as he drove by, the pope would learn about the aspirations of Palestinians to live in freedom. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

At all levels, the visit of Pope Francis to Jordan and Palestine was a huge success.

For about 26 hours, everything was implemented as planned. And the few unplanned moments worked out quite well, leaving indelible memories and images.

The Pope’s visit was billed as pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the slogan chosen by the Vatican was unity, in reference to the historic meeting planned with the head of the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.

Fifty years after a similar trip was made by Pope Paul VI, the trip was aimed at rekindling the spirit of unity among Christians of different denominations, as well as an interfaith effort.

Pope Francis was accompanied by Muslim and Jewish religious leaders (one each) from his days in Argentina; the spirit of unity was evident in various meetings, speeches and homilies.

But the highlight of the entire trip was not planned, rehearsed or even expected.

The Pope had decided not to cross any checkpoints to enter the UN-declared non-member state of Palestine and so the idea of an image of the Pope interacting with the occupation or seeing the wall was thought to have been bypassed by the decision to visit Palestine, flying a Jordanian military helicopter straight to Palestine.

As he was driving around Bethlehem in his open car, the Pontiff passed by the entrance of the Aida refugee camp and noticed the separation wall. It is hard for anyone not to take notice of the 10-metre-high wall (which the media insist on calling a separation barrier) and it is even harder for the Jesuit Pope who has empathy for the weak and oppressed not to stop. Continue Reading »