By Daoud Kuttab

Students of political negotiations might remember the long and difficult discussions in Paris about the shape of the negotiating table for the talks to end the Vietnam War. In the Palestinian-Israeli context, the discussion is not so much on the shape of the table as it is about the participants at the table.

One of the most abused and repeated claims made in Washington is that the Americans cannot want peace more than the parties in the Middle East. The reason why this statement is so false is that the Americans have had a long history of involvement in the Middle East conflict, almost exclusively on behalf of the Israelis. Whether they want to admit it or not, the United States has for decades sided privately with the Israelis while publicly claiming to be neutral. Serious investigation into the motivation for this bias always points to domestic politics as the major, but not exclusive reason for it.

Yet despite the Palestinians’ knowledge of the Americans’ true position, they have generally wanted the United States to be involved. In fact, they have demanded it. When the Quartet — the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States — proved incapable of making headway against Israeli obstinacy, the Palestinians turned to Washington as the party that could, if it chose to, apply direct or indirect pressure on the Israelis. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The body language evident in two recent pictures of American, Israeli and Palestinian officials speaks volumes. The first was of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas along with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli President Shimon Peres. The picture was taken during the World Economic Forum held on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea in May. It was during this conference that Kerry pitched the economic plan that included the goal of raising up to $4 billion to boost the Palestinian economy.

The second photo worthy of deconstruction was taken at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday at the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. In addition to Kerry, the photo includes chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israeli Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni.
In both photos a trend can easily be noticed: the Israeli participants flash the widest smile possible, followed by the Americans, while the Palestinians have forced Mona Lisa-like smiles.
It is easy to understand why the Israelis were smiling at the Dead Sea and in Washington. They have finally received the payoff that they have been demanding, namely the appearance of talks. Many have commented that the Israeli side is more interested in the process of peace talks than in peace itself. Israelis believe that the photo opportunity of talking to Palestinians will help to cleanse the Israeli image from all the sins and guilt that they have accumulated as an occupier holding another people against their will for an astounding 46 years of military occupation.
Kerry has his reasons for smiling. Following guidance from President Barack Obama and his own gut feelings developed over years as a senior member of the US Senate’s foreign relations committee, Kerry understands clearly the importance of photos with Palestinians and Israelis shaking hands or standing alongside each other. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The dinner with US Secretary of State John Kerry on July 29 will be the first face-to-face meetings between Israeli and Palestinian officials in more than three years. It is unclear what the agenda of the two days of meetings at the State Department will be, but it is clear that instead of the incremental process of the past, the talks will focus immediately on borders and security. The idea is that if these issues are settled, it will be easier to determine how to resolve the other final status issues — settlements, refugees and Jerusalem.

One of the unknown factors in these talks is the degree of seriousness each side is devoting to the peace process. A superficial review of public statements of the two sides’ leaders and cabinet members as well as pundits indicates a predominantly pessimistic outlook. But is that the reality?

Some would argue that the best way to gauge the seriousness of the parties is to focus on what the leaders are telling their own people. This barometer might not be a true measure for the simple reason that the parties have agreed to a certain level of secrecy about the talks. Both Israelis and Palestinians have promised their people that they will put any final agreement to a public referendum. In other words, don’t ask us for step by step details, wait for the results. Continue Reading »

Below is my interview with CNN followed by the opening statement of fareed and the interview with the Israeli ambassador. On air my interview was last but on my home page I can change the order.

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We asked their official representative in Washington to join us, but the Palestinians say Secretary of State John Kerry has requested them to keep a low profile so they actually politely declined to come on the show.

So, I am not joined by a very distinguished Palestinian journalist, Daoud Kuttab. He is the columnist for Al Monitor, has written extensively for a number of Arab and Western papers and he joins us now from Amman, Jordan.

Welcome.

DAOUD KUTTAB, COLUMNIST, AL MONITOR: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: So, what is it that has made the Palestinian side agree to come back to negotiations?

For a long time, they said, you know, they wanted a settlement freeze. They were unwilling to get back to direct negotiations. What do you think changed?

KUTTAB: Well, I think the persistent of Secretary of State John Kerry, the support that President Obama has given to the idea of a Palestinian state on the ’67 borders and the seriousness that the European Union has shown lately by declaring settlements not part of Israel.

These combined with the fact that the Israelis were a bit more willing to release some of the prisoners that were arrested and detained before the Oslo Agreement.

A combination of these things, I think, made it possible for the Palestinians to be willing to at least discuss the issues of the negotiations.

ZAKARIA: So, let me ask you about some of the thorny issues. And I asked Michael Oren about the — you know, the requirement the Prime Minister Netanyahu has made which is that the Palestinian side recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.

Do you think this poses any obstacle for the Palestinian side/

KUTTAB: Well, the Palestinian side is the PLO and the PLO is seen as a representative of all Palestinians and that includes Palestinians who were left in Palestine when Israel was created.

The Palestinian citizens of Israel are not Jewish and so by declaring Israel a Jewish state, I think it’s a slap to fellow Palestinians who are living in Nazareth or in Haifa or in the Negev.

So, it’s an emotional issue and actually — the feeling is that it would add to the discrimination against citizens of Israel who are not Jewish.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that on something like this there is room for some kind of compromise?

KUTTAB: Well, I think the whole issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one that has to be resolved obviously in private conversations.

If there is serious interest in a settlement that ends this conflict and there is a withdraw of Israel to the ’67 borders, I think the Palestinian side is expecting and willing to make needed verbal and other compromises to allow the Israeli’s to accept the creation of a two-state solution

We are neighbors with the Israelis. We want to be neighbors with the Israelis. This is not an attempt to create a religious war. We’re trying to live in freedom. Forty-six years of occupation is a long time, Fareed, and Palestinians just want to be free in their own country on their own land.

The Jewish people are respected by the Palestinians, by the Islamic faith. There’s no problem with the Jewish people. The question is whether the state of Israel is a state for its citizens or a particular religious group and I think this is where the problem is.

ZAKARIA: What about the issue of the right of return? Where will the Palestinian refugees go? Will they go to Israel proper or will they go to the new Palestinian state?

Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

As thousands of Egyptians hit the streets in response to a call from Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi asking for a mandate to crush demonstrating supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, one has to ask the simple question: Is the Middle East turning away from radicalism and becoming more moderate?

The signs of moderation in political leadership can no longer be ignored. Look at Iran, where after eight years of a radical president, Iranians elected the relatively moderate Hassan Rouhani. Look at Qatar, where the emir and prime minister had been intervening in regional conflicts on behalf of hard-liners, but now publicly supports the military-installed interim president of Egypt after its new, young emir, Sheikh Tamim, took over and fired the prime minister.

Al Jazeera, Qatar’s once-dominant pan-Arab TV satellite channel, has been losing audiences who can no longer tolerate its brand of biased and sometimes-inciting rhetoric. The most popular comedian in the region, Bassem Youssef, has become one of the most influential Arabs after cloning the American Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Last month, Youssef hosted Jon Stewart, who spoke openly about his Jewishness in front of a Cairo studio audience and millions of TV viewers. Even relatively moderate rule by Islamists in Turkey is being challenged as the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pressured to be more accommodating to the country’s secular activists. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The case before the US Court of Appeals in Washington involved whether an American couple could register their son as being born in “Jerusalem, Israel.” Challenging the US State Department in the suit were, in addition to the child’s parents, were a number of major prominent US Jewish organizations — including the Anti-Defamation League, Zionist Organization of America, American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists and American Jewish Committee — and six members of the US Senate.

In question in Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State was the decades-old practice of registering “Jerusalem” as the country of birth of all Americans born in that city after 1948, whether Jewish or Arab. Specifically, the case questions why the US State Department has chosen to ignore Section 214(d) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, fiscal year 2003, if the citizen or his guardian so requests it. The three-judge appeals court panel noted in its July 23 unanimous decision, “The Secretary has not enforced the provision, believing that it impermissibly intrudes on the President’s exclusive authority under the United States Constitution to decide whether and on what terms to recognize foreign nations.” The court concluded, “We agree and therefore hold that section 214(d) is unconstitutional.”
Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Many analysts and activists are questioning the wisdom of the Palestinian leadership agreeing to preliminary talks in Washington, without having secured the coveted settlement freeze and the declaration by Israel that the 1967 borders are the basis of the negotiations.

Palestinians and Israelis have debated whether these issues are considered preconditions to peace talks or simply the required framework for which any conflicting parties need to agree on, to establish the relevance of peace talks about a territory that one side continues to occupy and colonize.

Whatever the definitions are, the requirements for peace talks appear to be partially approved by the one mediator who is able — if so choosing — to obtain the required agreement for the end of the 46-year-old Israeli occupation and illegal settlement building in what the world has determined to be the areas of the state of Palestine. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The city of Jerusalem has many diplomatic missions that have the official title of consulate general. These include the US, most Western European and Scandinavian countries, as well as Turkey.

These diplomatic missions report directly to their capitals and they are not accountable officially to their counterparts from their country’s diplomatic missions in Israel and, more recently, in Ramallah.

This practice has been going on since the Ottoman/Turkish rule in Palestine and the region in the 19th century.

After the creation of Israel in 1948 these missions continued to operate mostly in East Jerusalem (some, like the Americans, owned property in West Jerusalem) and they have continued to work after the June 1967 occupation.

While these missions mostly served the Palestinian community politically, culturally and consular wise, the only difference after 1967 was that these missions widened their (mostly consular) services to all the population of Jerusalem. The US consulate in East Jerusalem continued to provide consular and cultural services while the building owned by the Americans in West Jerusalem’s Agron Street became the residence of the US consul-general and later housed caravans that provided space for USAID officials working in the Palestinian areas.

American citizens who lived in the Greater Jerusalem area as well as the rest of the West Bank (both Israelis and Palestinians) were restricted to the Nablus Road consulate in East Jerusalem for their consular affairs. Continue Reading »

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 19, 2013 Decided July 23, 2013

No. 07-5347

MENACHEM BINYAMIN ZIVOTOFSKY, BY HIS PARENTS AND GUARDIANS ARI Z. AND NAOMI SIEGMAN ZIVOTOFSKY,

APPELLANT

v.

SECRETARY OF STATE,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 03cv01921)

Nathan Lewin argued the cause for the appellant. Alyza D. Lewin was on brief.

Robert G. Kidwell was on brief for amici curiae Anti-Defamation League et al. in support of the appellant.

David I. Schoen was on brief for amicus curiae Zionist Organization of America in support of the appellant.

Paul Kujawsky was on brief for amicus curiae American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists in support of the

appellant.

2

Gregory E. Ostfeld, Elliot H. Scherker and Marc Stern were on brief for amicus curiae American Jewish Committee

in support of the appellant.

Theodore B. Olson was on brief for amici curiae Members of United States Senate et al. in support of the appellant.

Dana Kaersvang, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for the appellee. Stuart F. Delery,

Acting Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen, Jr., United States Attorney, and Harold Hongju Koh, Legal

Adviser, United States Department of State, were on brief.

Lewis Yelin and Douglas N. Letter, Attorneys, United States Department of Justice, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney, entered appearances.

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge:

Section 214(d) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, Pub. L. No. 107-228, 116 Stat. 1350, requires the Secretary (Secretary) of the United States Department of State (State Department) to record “Israel” as the place of birth on the passport of a United States citizen born in Jerusalem if the citizen or his guardian so requests. Id. § 214(d), 116 Stat. at 1366. The Secretary has not enforced the provision, believing that it impermissibly intrudes on the President’s exclusive authority under the United States Constitution to decide whether and on what terms to recognize foreign nations. We agree and therefore hold that section 214(d) is unconstitutional.

Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A well-known American bureau chief in Israel of a major US newspaper always prided himself with knowing the key to getting Israel to politically move in the peace process. You must use invisible hands to hurt them, he told me shortly after the first intifada broke out. The Israelis must feel the pain without being able to clearly identify or expose the source of the pain, he said.

A look at the workings of the Obama administration in the last few weeks clearly points to the fact that they seem to have adopted this advice. Speaking during her confirmation hearing at the US Congress, the next US ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers, reversed a statement she had made years earlier. In 2002, Power proposed imposing a peace deal on Israelis and Palestinians militarily, even if such a policy alienated wealthy pro-Israel American Jews. Power totally recanted her statement. “I gave a long, rambling and remarkably incoherent response to a hypothetical question that I should never have answered,” she said. Continue Reading »