By Daoud Kuttab

It is not clear whether it was by design or by accident that there is a one-month period between the scheduled date of the fourth Palestinian prisoner release by Israel and the end of the nine-month Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Regardless, Palestinians recognized that the month of April provided them with a unique opportunity to be unshackled from the commitments they made not to join UN agencies before the end of the peace talk timetable.

After the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signaled its approval in a unanimous vote, PLO Chairman and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed documents to join UN agencies in a public ceremony at the Muqata in Ramallah. When completed, the process will prepare the groundwork for a possible Palestinian international lawsuit against the ongoing Israeli occupation and colonization of the lands of the state of Palestine. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The delay of the release of the fourth tranche of Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s bait that it will do so only if the Palestinians agree to extend the talks has failed to get a bite from Palestinian negotiators.

The fact that the Palestinians agreed to make a deal for their release, again, was an act of benevolence and a show of good faith to get the talks started. The idea that the last batch of prisoners be divided between those who have Israeli citizenship or residency and those whose residency is directly connected to the Palestinian government is also unacceptable to Palestinian leaders.

To break the logjam, Israel and the United States are trying new ideas, such as adding more prisoners to be released to the remaining 26 prisoners in return for an agreement by the Palestinian leadership to extend the talks a further six months. Again, the Palestinians are stubbornly opposing any change or compromise on an agreement already made. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Modern technological development has brought with it the term multitasking, a term that replaced the popular “Can you chew and walk at the same time.”

Palestinian negotiators are now facing the tough challenge of applying to join various UN agencies while, at the same time, agreeing, to continue peace talks until the end of April.

The action was publicly demonstrated by President Mahmoud Abbas who signed, on Tuesday, a document allowing the state of Palestine to join 15 different internationaltreaties.

Until recently, it was believed that Palestinians had to choose between joining international agencies or participating in the negotiations.

US Secretary of State John Kerry had extracted a commitment from Palestinians to refrain from such actions in return for Israel’s release of 104 Palestinian prisonerswho have spent more than 20 years in Israeli jails.

The release of those prisoners, held since before the start of the Oslo peace process, was agreed to during the Sharm El Sheikh agreement signed in September 1999.

Instead of releasing all the prisoners at one time, the Israelis decided on four stages, the last of which was due to take place at the end of March. However, Israel chose not to release of the final batch, insisting that they be released only if Palestinians agree to extend the talks that are due to conclude at the end of April.

Various efforts to make symbolic offers, such as releasing prisoners who have one month left to their term, to convince Palestinian negotiators have failed to change their mind, as they insisted on Israel to deliver as per the agreement. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

AMMAN, Jordan — Hugh Robertson, Britain’s minister of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, has opposed calls to arm the Syrian rebels, instead insisting that all sides need to return to the negotiating table.

Robertson noted that Britain has additional motivation for peace because of the presence of some 400 British jihadists that are fighting in Syria. “This increases the importance of a political settlement in Syria. Without it, there will be instability, which will increase extremism and bring about an increase of jihadists.”

On the Palestinian peace process, Robertson noted that his government does not recognize Israel as a Jewish state and does not back demands for Palestinians to do so.

Robertson admitted that the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip amounts to collective punishment, but laid the blame for the humanitarian situation on Hamas, which he called a “terrorist” organization. “The single best thing to alleviate the situation in Gaza is to have progress in the peace talks,” he said.

Talking about US President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Robertson stressed the need for the West to “stand by our traditional allies” in the Gulf, noting that Gulf states felt an “existential threat” posed by Iran’s nuclear program.

When asked if success over Iran’s nuclear talks would result in greater pressure on Israel over its nuclear program, Robertson said it had not been mentioned. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

When Palestinian leaders agreed to suspend their efforts to join various United Nations agencies last summer, the United States assured them that all 104 long-term Palestinian prisoners held by Israel would be released. This was not the first time that the United States had made such a promise. At the 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, attended by US, Egyptian, Palestinian and Israeli leaders, agreement was reached that these particular prisoners would be released. Nothing happened, however, until last year, when US Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a quid pro quo. Palestinian prisoners would be released in return for Palestine suspending its bid to join UN agencies. Failure to release the prisoners would relieve the Palestinians of their commitment.

By Daoud Kuttab

A leading Palestinian official has said that the end of March, rather than the end of April, could be the date that the Palestinian leadership moves to join United Nations agencies. “Our agreement was clear,” Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview. “In return for Israel releasing all 104 [Palestinian] prisoners, we will refrain from joining any further UN agencies. If they renege on this issue, we are free to join UN agencies. This has nothing to do with the end-of-April deadline for the face-to-face talks.” Zaki called the current situation “very dangerous” and said the Central Committee is holding an “open-ended emergency session.”

Zaki, a former ambassador of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to Beirut, asserted in the interview that the Palestinians continue to yearn for peace, but not at any cost. “We have absolutely no regrets for taking the path of peace, but if this process is a failure and a waste of time, we will not hesitate to say so.”

Speaking on the upcoming Arab summit, scheduled March 25 in Kuwait, the current commissioner for Arab affairs in Fatah said that he hoped Arab leaders would support Palestine and refrain from taking contradictory positions. “We want them to truly support the Palestinian negotiating position and to ensure that the United States remains neutral in the negotiations. What we don’t want is for anyone to volunteer a position without knowing the background to it.”

Zaki said that the issue of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state has been rejected by Palestinians as well as Arab foreign ministers at a meeting in Cairo in the preceding days. More of the interview follows. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A search is on among Christian evangelists to find a new theology that can take the place of the discredited dispensational theology, which many are unable to defend in light of the realities on the ground. The most critiqued part of dispensationalist theology is blindly assigning support for the state of Israel in the name of the Bible. This search was most obvious recently when Palestinian Christian evangelists met in mid-March with fellow global evangelists in a theological conference, Christ at the Checkpoint, held in the occupied Palestinian city of Bethlehem.

The complaint raised by Palestinian evangelicals is that God’s Old Testament promises can’t be used to support the injustice taking place against them and their fellow citizens. The natural Christian alternative to dispensationalism, which gives special privileges to secular and nonsecular Israelis solely because of their Jewish faith, is to stress that the Church today has taken the place of the Jewish people in God’s eyes. However such talk is considered, replacement theology, which has been used in an abusive way for centuries in Europe, to persecute the Jews, ultimately leading to the Holocaust. Any attempts to promote such alternative theologies, like any attempts to criticize Israel, are quickly dismissed as the religious source of the scourge of anti Semitism.

While many evangelicals are now calling themselves progressive dispensationalists, the alternative to dispensanalism remains elusive. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received a hero’s welcome in Ramallah after returning from what was billed as a tough summit in Washington with US President Barack Obama.

Neither US officials nor Palestinians have stated what went on in the closed meeting. Public demonstrations in support of Abbas were held in many West Bank cities before and during the meeting. While thousands rallied in the West Bank, Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip banned the holding of similar demonstrations.

The fact that Abbas held his ground was indirectly admitted by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin, who told Al-Monitor that the Palestinian leader has not changed his position “one millimeter.” Abbas himself basked in the public support and gave a short statement reassuring his supporters that he has held his ground politically. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The loss of the Nazareth mayoralty in the March 11 recall elections marked the beginning of the end of the Israeli Communist Party in Israel. Ramez Jaraisi, the mayor for nearly four decades, lost to Ali Salam, who won more than 61% of the city’s votes.

While the election campaign turned sectarian in the early stages of the election campaign, that Salam’s “Our Nazareth” list was endorsed by well-known Christian leaders and clergy reduced much of the tensions. Many feel that the religious-sectarian issue was manufactured, rather than a real reflection of any Christian-Muslim tensions on the ground.

The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, a coalition led by the Israeli Communist Party, has been the major political force for Palestinian citizens of Israel since it was created in this form in 1977. The Jabha as it is called in Arabic, or Hadash in Hebrew, has maintained an Arab-Jewish partnership despite the vast majority of its members and voters being Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. Israeli Communists, through different coalitions, have maintained three or four members of the 120-member Israeli Knesset since the establishment of Israel. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Christian Zionism, which cites the Bible to support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, received heavy criticism at a conference organized by Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem the week of March 10 and attended by Al-Monitor.

Rev. Alex Awad, pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church, explained how Christian Zionism has led many Christians to blindly support Israel. Awad then went even further, describing the wariness of many evangelicals toward calls for peace. “Some Christians are suspicious of peace because they’ve heard sermons that delegate peace and peacemaking as the work of the Antichrist,” Awad said. “But the Bible calls us to be peacemakers,” he added.

Awad, who is also dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College, the conference founder and sponsor, explained that many evangelicals think that supporting the actions of the State of Israel, even if they violate human rights and dehumanize Palestinians, is a way to obey and love God. He asserted, “They conflate political backing of a secular state with spiritual blessing upon God’s chosen people.”  Continue Reading »