Mar
30
2014
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.
“Generally speaking if you want to end a war, arming both sides is not the way to do it,†he told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview on March 26, on the sidelines of his tour of Syrian refugees in Jordan.
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.â€
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 »
Mar
30
2014
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.
The Israelis keep trying to get something new for the same goods. In fact, Israeli attempts to sell the same goods more than once are at the center of a dispute that could blow up this fragile agreement. Israeli officials, including Tzipi Livni, justice minister and head of negotiations, now want the Palestinians to commit to the continuation of the peace talks after the April 29 deadline in return for Israel releasing the last tranche of prisoners. Palestinian officials have rejected this request and warn that they will restart their efforts to join some 63 international agencies if the Israelis carry out their threat not to release the prisoners by the end of March.
Continue Reading »
Mar
25
2014
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.â€
Israeli officials, including Tzipi Livni, the justice minister and lead negotiator, have threatened that the release of the fourth tranche of prisoners, scheduled for late March, would not go forward unless the Palestinians agreed to an extension of the talks beyond their April 29 deadline.
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.â€
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.â€
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 »
Mar
23
2014
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 »
Mar
23
2014
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.
Abbas was hailed as having stood his ground in the Oval Office meeting, resisting strong pressure from the United States to budge on at least two publicly stated issues: recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and the long-term deployment of Israeli troops in the Jordan Valley.
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 »
Mar
19
2014
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.
Israeli Communist leaders in Nazareth accepted defeat and issued a statement six days later to congratulate the new winners, stating that they accepted the will of the people of Nazareth. They also promised to search hard for the reasons for their political setback. Jaraisi gained almost the same number of votes, 16,000, while his opponent (who was his deputy for years) won over the votes that went to other groups that competed in the first round against Jaraisi.
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 »
Mar
19
2014
By Daoud Kuttab
A Palestinian college in Bethlehem will host a weeklong conference aimed at weakening the traditional evangelical support to Israel, despite strong Israeli pressures.
The third Christ at the Checkpoint Conference at the Bethlehem Bible College is expected to host the “widest and most diverse†group of evangelical Christians, according to conference organizers. The conference scheduled to commence on March 10 will feature well-known evangelical speakers from around the world as well as Palestinian Christian theologians and activists. Speakers include Geoff Tunnicliffe, secretary-general of the World Evangelical Alliance, and Joseph Cumming, who previously served as the director of the Yale University Divinity School’s Reconciliation Program.
Messianic Jewish leaders Evan Thomas and Daniel Juster will be present, along with Holy Land Trust Director Sami Awad and Bethlehem Bible College President Jack Sara.
Participants will hear leading world evangelicals critique traditional pro-Israeli Christian theology, interact with fellow Palestinian Christians and take note of the suffering that Israel and its occupation is causing for Palestinians. Continue Reading »
Mar
13
2014
By Daoud Kuttab
For 46 years the bridge connecting the West Bank with Jordan has been a source of hardships, humiliations and extremely long and unnecessary delays, not to mention cumbersome and exaggerated body and baggage searches. This nightmare has to end.
What happened on Monday morning March 10th is a symptom of the occupation versus occupied paradigm that must come to an end. A 38-year-old Jordanian father of two and a sitting judge in Amman’s Court of First Instance, attempted to travel to Nablus like many Palestinians and Jordanians of Palestinian origin. His altercation with Israeli soldiers that ended with his death must be a warning flag that this injustice and humiliation cannot continue.
Anyone who crosses the King Hussein Bridge knows very well how the Israelis have for decades forged a shameful occupier-occupied relationship with the power of their guns. The Oscar-winning film Twelve Years a Slave, perfectly illustrates the way that the oppressed absorb all kinds of humiliation simply in order to survive as they wait for salvation.
Raed Zuaiter, the Jordanian judge, like any other human being, apparently walked into this mess without the added shield of years of humiliation and he couldn’t accept it. For their part, the Israeli soldiers, brainwashed to suspect every passenger as a potential “terrorist”, viewed the rebellion against accepting the occupier-occupied paradigm as enough proof that the rebellious person must be a terrorist. As they say, the rest is history.
The Israeli spin machine quickly went into action. The oft-repeated defense was that Zuaiter went for the soldier’s gun. Later it was adjusted that he went for his throat, attempting to strangle him. The “terrorist” label also required some audio. So again the spin machine fabricated that the judge yelled Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar before lunging for the soldier’s gun (or throat), thus confirming that he was a terrorist. Continue Reading »
Mar
04
2014
By Daoud Kuttab
The possibility that Palestine will soon have an access-to-information law is looking promising. Concrete steps by the Palestinian government and a public advocacy campaign are being taken to prepare for such a decision.
Despite the Palestinian Legislative Council being dormant for seven years due to the internal Palestinian split, Ramallah is poised to pass a much improved access-to-information law, a draft of which has recently been circulating in public forums.
The 41-article draft law has received a positive evaluation from the international nongovernmental organization Article 19. The NGO welcomed the draft law and said it has many “positive features,†while suggesting a few changes to bring it into full compliance with international standards and best practices.
Before the council’s suspension, a draft access-to-information law was made available for discussion. But political paralysis put the law on hold until it was recently revived by Palestinian media activists.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) has taken upon itself the responsibility of fighting to improve the draft law and advocating for its approval. In 2012, MADA organized a public campaign that attempted to bring together civil society activists, parliamentarians, access-to-information experts, journalists and Palestinian government officials. Continue Reading »
Mar
02
2014
By Daoud Kuttab
The stage appears set, if the Palestinian leadership chooses, to reconcile the Gaza Strip with the West Bank and end the unjust siege that has fallen on Gaza for the past seven years.
Palestinian-Israeli peace talks scheduled over a period of nine months are due to end in April. Palestinians had agreed in late July 2013 to talks in return for Israel implementing a previous agreement to release 104 prisoners held in Israeli jails before the Oslo Accord. At the same time, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to postpone any movements to join international agencies, such as the International Criminal Court, during the period of negotiations.
Both Israel and the United States are keen to extend the talks that have yet to bear any fruit. US Secretary of State John Kerry made this US position crystal clear when he publicly called for an extension of the talks for another nine months. Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat immediately responded by refusing any extension of the talks.
Israel has been regularly leaking stories to the media indicating its desire for an extension of the talks. The Israelis and even Kerry are concerned that the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) would get a huge boost if the talks ended without result. US universities are in the midst of a week-long anti-Israeli campaign under the title Israel’s Apartheid Week. Continue Reading »
