Dec
08
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Did the independent media help produce the Arab Spring or did the revolutions succeed in liberating local media in the Arab world? This and many other questions were debated and discussed by Arab and international freedom of expression advocates and media practitioners and experts in Amman this week.
The Arab Spring was the buzzword in two consecutive international media conferences: Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) held its fourth annual conference where Arab investigative journalists met with fellow professionals from around the world. The ARIJ conference opened with a powerful keynote speech by Yosri Fouda, a former Al Jazeera investigator who has been running a TV talk show that was active in the Egyptian revolution. Continue Reading »
Dec
01
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Leaders have a habit of creating expectations for their people; these are higher in the case of groups that suffer from injustice.
Not wanting to set precise time limits, leaders sometimes say elections will take place in the winter of the coming year, in the first half of the following year, and similar such vague dates. Continue Reading »
Dec
01
2011
 
 By Daoud Kuttab
 RAMALLAH, WEST BANK
Few in Washington may realize that the issue of U.S. funding for Palestine is the talk of the town in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities. And the talk is not pleasant.
 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been telling aides that he plans to reject some $150 million in federal money earmarked for Palestinian security.
Abbas’s opposition is principled. The funds are part of an $800 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development that Congress appropriated in June 2009. Shortly before the funds were disbursed this summer, however, the larger grant was held up by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. A Republican from Florida, Ros-Lehtinen, now chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, placed an informational hold on this budgetary line item in August. It is her prerogative to do so as a member of Congress. But rather than delay the funds to investigate a concern, the hold was meant as punishment — a warning to the Palestinian Authority not to seek recognition as an independent state at the United Nations General Assembly meeting the following month. Continue Reading »
Nov
24
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Suleiman al Kabaili sits in an office that has clearly been rearranged to convert it into a makeshift studio. The wall behind the desk has a naked nail that used to hold a framed photo of the Libyan dictator. Suleiman, a radio studio director, dates the genesis of the current crop of media to an event exactly one year before the launch of the 17th of February revolution.
“We were producing a radio programme called “good evening Benghazi†on the local Benghazi state-owned radio station. The programme was dealing with local issues with a critical approach and had discussed the call for investigation of the Abu Slim massacre in which 1,200 are reported to have been killed. The following day we were called by the security and detained.†Continue Reading »
Nov
24
2011
 By Daoud Kuttab
The first thing you notice upon entering Mitiga Airport in Tripoli is a series of signs with the word “No†in capital letters next to illustrations of automatic weapons. The second thing is just how liberally most Libyans interpret these rules.
In the days following the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the rules were not quite in effect. Revolutionaries nonchalantly toted their Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers as they whiled away their preboarding hours at the gate. An airport official roamed the terminal with a gun marked with a bar-code tag, beseeching the owner to claim his checked luggage. Continue Reading »
Nov
24
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
 “Ziara azima†(fabulous visit). This was the description Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave to the unexpected visit King Abdullah made to the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
The King’s visit on Monday was the first to Palestine in a decade. He didn’t visit or meet any Israeli official.
It is not that the King and Abbas do not see each other. Almost every time that the PLO leader leaves Ramallah to travel abroad he makes a stop to visit his “brotherâ€, King Abdullah. However, what makes this particular visit important is its public nature. Continue Reading »
Nov
17
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said this week that he was quite happy to step down from his position in order to remove any obstacle in the way of Palestinian reconciliation.
It is not the first time he made such a statement, but this time it is politically important, and timely.
Fayyad’s statement comes as PLO’s efforts at the UN Security Council failed to produce any positive results and talks of reconciliation have once again heated up. Continue Reading »
Nov
10
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
If the UN bid for Palestinian statehood has shown anything, it has shown the Palestinians, again, who their friends are.
It was clear, despite US President Barack Obama’s earlier rhetoric, that US would not move in any direction that would upset the Israelis. But it was not only Washington and the British (Tony Blair and David Cameron); it was also the French who are nowhere close to being the true friends of Palestine. Continue Reading »
Nov
08
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
If the UN bid for Palestinian statehood has shown anything, it has reminded Palestinians of who their real friends are. It was clear, despite Obama’s earlier rhetoric that US would not move any direction that would upset the Israelis. But it was not only Washington and their British poodles (Tony Blair in the quartet and Cameron in Downing Street), even the French are not as close to being the true friends of Palestine as they would like to be seen. Sure Sarkozy wants to keep French business ties with the Arab world, so he looks for photo opportunities with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. But when it comes to the true test of French-Palestinian friendship, the French aren’t fulfilling their part. Early information from the Security Council debates have indicated that the French will abstain despite voting in favor at the UNESCO vote, at which the US has no veto.
While the UN bid exposed the hypocrisy of the west, it marked the end of two important phases. Going to the UN marked the total failure of the negotiating process that began two decades earlier in Madrid and was followed by the Oslo Accords. The failure at the Security Council exposes the impotence of the international community.
Mahmoud Abbas has asked his top advisors to come up with a post-UN strategy. To the disappointment of some, the new strategy will not contain the option of dissolving the Palestinian National Authority. The idea has been debated a lot but has never gotten much traction. Repeated as late as a few weeks ago by senior PLO official Saeb Erekat, the idea calls for dissolving the PA and throwing the keys to the Israelis. Proponents of the idea feel it will change the paradigm by forcing the Israelis to pay (literally and figuratively) for continuing the occupation. While the theory sounds good, such an idea will have disastrous effects on Palestinians. It will reverse accomplishment institutional state building gains made in the past two decades. Ramallah officials are agreed on at least this part. Continue Reading »
Nov
03
2011
Daoud Kuttab
A visitor to Libya now, be it to Benghazi or Tripoli, cannot help but make some comparisons between the Libyan revolution and the Palestinian Intifada.
Walk the streets of liberated Libya and you will immediately notice graffiti on the walls and the liberation flags on all locations. To be fair, the Libyan graffiti is much more colorful and creative. The image of Muammar Qaddafi — often referred to as the despot — with his distinctive hairdo, overwhelms all other images. Graffiti in Tripoli and Benghazi naturally praises the February 17 revolution and flags of the new Libya adorn every possible location. Continue Reading »