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 »

Daoud Kuttab

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

Political analyst Rami Khouri gives two main causes for the anger that has brought Arabs to the streets: humiliation and the search of legitimacy. These sources are clear as Palestinians prepare for the visit of Pope Francis to Palestine as part of his Holy Land visit that also includes Jordan and Israel.

The latest schedule issued by the church and Palestinian officials indicates that the pope will arrive in Bethlehem by a Jordanian military helicopter. A news report by AFP quoted a Palestinian church official as saying that the pope will arrive in Bethlehem without crossing the Israeli-controlled King Hussein Bridge or any Israeli checkpoint, and will “recognize Palestine” and oppose the occupation. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Journalists are supposed to cover the news, not become the subject of it. This was the case, however, with two Israeli journalists who defied a request by Palestinian demonstrators not to film their bare faces.

Israeli journalist Avi Issacharoff, by his own admission, mistakenly thought he and photographer Daniel Book could stay put and weather the storm. As a result, he was pushed around by Palestinian demonstrators until he decided to leave, along with two Palestinian security officials. Assertions by the Israeli journalist that he had escaped a near lynching, instigated simply because he is an Israeli journalist, seem a bit exaggerated by his own description of the event as well as those of fellow Israelis who were at the scene and were not attacked.

The incident took place in the Palestinian town of Beitunia, south of Ramallah, on May 16. A day earlier, two Palestinian youths, Muhammad Odeh Abu al-Daher and Nadeem Siam Nawara, had been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers using live ammunition. While Israel has promised to conduct an investigation into the fatal shootings, previous investigations have resulted in a white washing of events and absolution of the soldiers involved. Continue Reading »

Daoud Kuttab

Since the breakdown of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and the reconciliation agreement between the West Bank and Gaza leaderships, Palestinians have been considering an important question: Will the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) apply to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), and when would be the right time to do so?

While Palestine can legally join the international court, it is not clear that it wishes to do so, especially considering the possible reactions by the Israelis who might face trial for war crimes if the process is completed. On the other hand, given the experience of previous years, Palestinians are now convinced that even if Israel and the United States scream and shout about such a move, it is unlikely to turn the tables on the Palestinians for taking this nonviolent action. Similar threats were made when the PLO asked the United Nations for recognition and when it recently approved the reconciliation with Hamas.

Pressure to join the ICC is not only coming from Palestinians, but also from major international human rights organizations, 17 of which, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to join the court. In a May 8 statement, they noted that if the state of Palestine “signed up to the Rome Statute of the ICC, the Court would have jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on Palestinian territories and by its nationals elsewhere.” Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Mahmoud al-Ramahi is secretary-general of the Palestinian Legislative Council, an Italian-educated doctor and the father of five. Ever since taking this position after the Hamas electoral victory in 2006, he has suffered continued detention at the hands of Israeli occupation forces. He was last re-arrested in Nov. 12, 2012. He had been released five months earlier after a series of repeated administrative detentions. He is currently held in the Ketiziot prison in the Negev desert without charges.

Salem Dirdisawi, from al-Bireh, was arrested April 28, 2014, and is held in solitary confinement in the Ayalon prison.

Ahmad Rimawi was 18 when he was arrested in November 2012 and is the youngest Palestinian administrative detainee on hunger strike. He is being held in the Negev.

The above is a small sample of Palestinians held by Israel without charges, generally referred to as administrative detainees. According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 186 Palestinians are currently being held without charges.

About 140 of these prisoners declared a new hunger strike on April 24 demanding an end to a situation internationally recognized as illegal. A campaign to support the striking prisoners has spread from Palestine all over the world, with a high visibility on social media. On May 8, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners joined their fellow inmates in a one-day supportive hunger strike. Daily protests are ongoing in Palestine and many Arab countries such as Jordan. Imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti has also joined the hunger strike. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Imagine being stopped at an Israeli checkpoint and being taken into custody. Then finding yourself in an Israeli jail for six months without charge or trial. After six months, the administrative order signed by a military commander is renewed. An Israeli military judge is presented a secret file which neither you nor your lawyer are allowed to see. Within minutes your nightmare is extended for another six months. And this same thing happens again and again. During this entire period you are held without charge or trial, based on the antiquatedBritish 1945 Emergency Regulations that the current rulers of Israel were so critical of that they compared it to Nazi laws. The above is not a fictional story and it does not take place in North Korea or a Third World dictatorship. At present, 186 Palestinian doctors, parliamentarians and teenagers are held without charge or trial by Israel, a country that calls itself the Middle East’s only democracy. Continue Reading »