Dec
30
2005
December 28 & 29, 2005
I was invited to participate and give a workshop in a conference on nonviolence held in Bethlehem. The conference entitled Celebrating Non violence was organized by the Washington based Nonviolence international and the Bethlehem-based Holy Land Trust. The two organizations are run by people that I respect a lot. The first is run by Dr. Mubarak Awad, (who is also my favorite cousin) and the second was run until recently by another relative (Sami Awad) who has recently resigned because he is running for the Bethlehem Christian seat of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Continue Reading »
Dec
30
2005
December 27, 2005
My trip from Amman to Ramallah this week was quite unusual. I succeeded in making the door to door trip in less than three hours. The taxi, driven by the veteran Haj Abdel Salam (who has been on the Amman-Bridge route for 38 years) picked me up from my Rabiah home shortly after seven am. I managed to get through the Jordanian passport control rather quickly, got was one of the last people to get on the first bus and was one of the first people to get off. Got through the Israeli passport control rather quickly (since I was the first there). Continue Reading »
Dec
21
2005
Integrating Hamas into the political mainstream will contribute in deescalating the cycle of violence
By: Daoud Kuttab*
Ramallah – On the surface of it, the resolution of the US congress and the statements of Javier Solana of the EU threatening to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if it allows the Islamic movement “Hamas†to participate in the upcoming legislative elections seems in tune with the west’s anti terror policy. But the fact is that the resolution demands of Palestinians more than what the Israeli government the EU and the US administrations have demanded. Congress and Solana have missed the ball and have clearly taken sides in this conflict. Continue Reading »
Dec
16
2005
Daoud Kuttab
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not in a comfortable position these days. He seems like a nice, fatherly figure in not so nice a neighbourhood. He heads a party (or a movement) which has last held a congress of its activists more than 15 years ago.
He is caught between old leaders, most of whom came to Palestine from abroad, and new leaders who had been part of the Intifada. He is the commander in chief who is unable to secure and protect the Central Election Commission offices. He has an Israeli counterpart who pays little attention to him despite his repeated position against the militarisation of the Intifada. Continue Reading »
Dec
09
2005
Courage In Their Coverage
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A25
DUBAI — Talking with brave Arab journalists such as Hussein Shobokshi, I hear the passion that animates good reporting everywhere. And it makes me all the more disgusted by recent revelations that my own government has been corrupting the nascent Iraqi free press by planting stories.
Shobokshi was fired by the Jiddah daily paper Okaz in 2003 after he wrote a column imagining a democratic Saudi future in which his daughter could drive, leaders were elected and the budget was public. This June he was attacked for writing a column in Asharq al-Awsat titled, “Why Do We Hate the Jews?” He described “a very noble and polite” Jewish doctor in America who had treated his young nephew for a rare cancer, and he asked why Saudis were encouraged “to hate Jews and pray against them, too.” Continue Reading »
Dec
07
2005
December 2-6, 2005
I was invited to two back to back media-related conferences in Dubai . The Aspen Institute’s US-Arab media round table was first and the second was the Arab Thought Forum’s huge media conference titled: Arab and World Media: Getting Right.
Although I had visited Dubai on three other occasions, this was a totally new experience. I finally get it, when people talk so passionately and positively about Dubai . The two conferences were held in the Madinat Jumeirah. I arrived late but by the time I had gotten into the room (well it was a bit more than a room) that was booked for me, I had gotten it.
Dec
02
2005
Daoud Kuttab
What has been expected for some time has finally materialized. The leading Palestinian national movement, Fatah, is coming of age as a political party rather than a national movement.
The on-again, off-again Fatah primaries have revealed the movement’s chaos in the aftermath both of the loss of its historic leader and the long-overdue convening of the sixth general assembly. While Palestine has witnessed presidential elections and, very belatedly, municipal elections, neither do as much to revive the blood of the body politic as parliamentary elections. The legislative elections due late in January will be only the second such balloting in Palestine’s history. Continue Reading »