By Daoud Kuttab

The apparent failure of the ongoing secret Palestinian-Israeli talks appears to have led their US sponsors to put more emphasis on economic issues. A three-year plan has been drawn up by the US peace delegation working through the offices of the Quartet, still nominally headed by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Deputy Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa told the local wire service, Ma’an, that the US gave them a 200-page plan outlining their economic vision for the future of Palestine.

The US economic plan, which will require some $4 billion in investment, will attempt to strengthen the Palestinian IT sector, tourism, industry and agriculture. Mustafa insists that the plan will apply to all Palestinian areas, including the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, and that US officials promised to work with the Israelis to help in its implementation.

A major focus area of the plan is said to be the sparsely populated Palestinian areas totally under Israeli security and administrative control, where the Israelis have not permitted any development. Some 60% of the West Bank is declared Area C, including, among other areas, almost the entire Jordan Valley. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The following appeared in the Jordan Times

The Palestinian cause continues to attract supporters from around the world. Volunteers wishing to give some of their time and expertise in solidarity with Palestinians have become a regular feature in Palestinian society.

Many young people wanting to spend a year or so in a conflict area choose Palestine for many reasons.

By volunteering in Palestine a person is clearly and publicly siding with the oppressed in their just struggle for freedom and independence. Some of the volunteers involve themselves in Palestinian nation building while others take on a more direct role in the resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Even those who are involved in overt acts of solidarity with Palestinians and resistance to occupation can be divided into a number of groups. Some express their solidarity by joining Palestinian demonstrators protesting various symbols of occupation.

Perhaps the most repeated act of international solidarity in recent years has been the participation of internationals in the weekly Friday demonstrations against the Israeli security wall built deep in Palestinian territories.

Internationals expressing solidarity are seen weekly in protests at Bilin, Nabi Saleh and other Palestinian locations. Continue Reading »

by Daoud Kuttab

Proponents of the two-state solution have for years faced a grim outlook. Every new Jewish settlement that pops up on the lands slated for a Palestinian state has added to the despair and disillusionment with any peace process.

After 46 years of military occupation and colonial policies highlighted by an aggressive attempt to build exclusive Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas, it is no surprise that many are losing faith in a peace based on the two-state solution. The latest intellectual to join the ranks of the disenchanted is American political scientist Ian Steven Lustick.

In a powerful essay in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Lustick, a University of Pennsylvania professor, lays out the problems that the continuation of defending and promoting the two-state solution has created. Using examples from Ireland, the Soviet Union and other places, Lustick simply argues that the two-state solution currently makes no sense and that clinging to it is an illusion. He criticizes the US diplomatic machinery, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel — as well as pundits, journalists and nongovernmental organizations — all of which have built careers on defending the indefensible. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The Russian-American breakthrough that has averted an attack on Syria for using chemical weapons has given some in the Middle East hope that such cooperation can be helpful in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

While this week marks the 40th anniversary of the 1973 war, few are suggesting that the current US-Russian cooperation is anything akin to the Cold War. But the presence of a second power, albeit, much less powerful than America, does provide possibilities for shaking up a unipolar world, especially in the volatile Middle East.

Russia is no stranger to the Middle East conflict. There are perhaps more Arabic-speaking diplomats and experts in Russia than in any other major world power. Russian diplomacy has even added to its arsenal the Arabic service of Russia Today, an Arabic language satellite station that has become a necessary ingredient for any country interested in having a say in the Middle East. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Twenty years ago, then-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn to publicly declare mutual recognition and to sign the interim memorandum of understanding that had been agreed to in secret talks in Oslo. The Oslo Accordsand the various agreements that stemmed from them have become the main reference point between Palestinians and Israelis. But instead of being a precursor to permanent peace, these accords are seen by many Palestinians as the main source of the continuation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. There are 15 problems with the accords, as seen from the Palestinian side:

1. Temporary nature. The accords were produced in such a way as to promote a gradual change in the situation. The authors of the agreement wanted to give the leaders time to convince their publics and to build trust. The agreement was expected to last no more than five years. Now, 20 years later, the Palestinian nightmare that the interim agreement would become permanent has been realized. No clause existed in the agreement to deal with this problem.
2. Lack of framework. Not only has this temporary agreement become permanent, but its temporary nature allowed its framers to avoid some basic issues that should have set the parameters. Issues such as borders, settlements, refugees, security and Jerusalem were to be solved within this five-year period without a clear reference point by which future negotiators would be bound. The absence of a framework also left vague the status of the areas occupied in 1967, so Palestinians couldn’t and still can’t demand that Israel treat these areas as occupied territories, although the entire world sees them as such. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A quick roundup of statements by Palestinian leaders to the press and details of discussions with Western officials reveal an increase in the level of frustration in the peace talks with Israel. Regardless, it is clear that the Palestinians have no interest in scuttling the nine-month time frame of the negotiations, possibly due to the staggered dates for releasing long-term Palestinian prisoners.

Of interest, none of the statements credited to Palestinian leaders include President Mahmoud Abbas or the chief negotiators, Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh. Palestinian and Israeli leaders have made a commitment to US Secretary of State John Kerry to keep the talks secret, with only the United States being authorized to make statements regarding the peace process.

The volley of statements began with a scathing comment by Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, who warned in August that the talks could end in “disaster.”

The New York Times ran a Sept. 9 story that quoted unnamed Palestinian sources complaining about the absence of an agreed upon reference point for the talks. The report was written largely by veteran journalist Mohammad Daraghmeh, who has strong and reliable connections among the Palestinian leadership. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

A strange phenomenon exists in Palestine these days. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is constantly attacked and criticized, continues to do very well in local and international polls, and his policies are generally well-regarded among ordinary Palestinians. What makes the Palestinian president such a Teflon leader, where accusations against him never stick and his popularity remains relatively high?

A simple search of social media will reveal a lot of negative adjectives associated with the Palestinian leader. He is called a traitor, Israeli puppet, sell-out, corrupt, unpatriotic, fraud and an unelected autocrat, among many other terms. Some of these accusations are at times publicly stated, as in the recent demonstrations staged in Ramallah against the peace talks. In speaking to his own Fatah leadership, Abbas even commented on the vile language that is being used in some of these public protests.

But for all this negative language leveled against the Palestinian leader, very little of it seems to stick. Public opinion polls consistently give Abbas high-performance ratings, and whenever he is polled against potential competitors, he and his Fatah movement have done very well. The latest pollconducted in August shows Abbas continuing to outpoll Hamas’ Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Information leaked to Al-Monitor from the hush-hush Palestinian-Israeli peace talks reveal that negotiators are stuck on where they should begin. Palestinians want the talks to begin where they left off the last time substantive talks took place, during Ehud Olmert’s premiership. At those talks, Palestinian and Israeli leaders apparentlymade headway on some of the most difficult issues, including borders and Jerusalem. The Benjamin Netanyahu government, however, appears to reject such an idea and wants instead to start from scratch. In the eyes of the Israelis, since all issues are open for discussion, the current government is not bound by any previous commitments or understandings.

Israel’s attempts to negate all previous understandings place the entire peace talks in jeopardy and bring back to the fore the Palestinians’ insistence that the talks be based on an agreed framework. The Palestinians want the talks to be based on the framework presented by US President Barack Obama in his 2012 speech to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. Obama’s framework is that the negotiations be based on a two-state solution along the June 1967 borders with some land swaps. The Israelis rejected this request, so the talks began without a framework, which has resulted in the negotiations being stuck at ground zero. Continue Reading »

Following appeared in Jordan Times and Huffington Post

By Daoud Kuttab

As the world is riveted to the Syrian crisis, it may surprise many to know that the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations are still going on.

The talks, held in secret, do not appear to have achieved any discernible results yet. The absence of information, however, should not be used to indicate that the negotiators are doing nothing important.

Still, the issue of negotiations and time must be addressed clearly and frankly.

Most observers of negotiations would argue that parties to any set of talks rarely reveal their bottom line until the very end.

The hundreds of hours committed to the peace process have probably produced answers to all possible scenarios. What is needed is not negotiations but political decisions. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

It was reported on Aug. 30 that five Israeli-administered Palestinian schools operating in east Jerusalem have added the Israeli curriculum to their programs, causing a political firestorm. Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the move, noting that it is part of a campaign dating back to 1967 to rewrite Palestinian history and undermine Palestinians’ identity. He also asserted that the imposition of the curriculum was a violation of international law and indicated that Israel had no intention of ending its occupation.

Within weeks of the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel extended its law and administration to east Jerusalem. Law and Ordinance Order no. 11, passed by the Knesset on June 27, 1967, declared the Palestinians of Jerusalem permanent residents, giving them and their institutions the same legal status as that of Israeli institutions in Tel Aviv. The Palestinians, however, were not granted automatic citizenship, but were eligible to apply for passports. Continue Reading »