What was more dangerous than the ‘appeasement’ reference

By Daoud Kuttab

While the Barak Obama , Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, the media and others were correct in pouncing on President Bush for his ‘appeasement’ remark during his speech at the Israeli Knesset, an even more dangerous trend was totally ignored.

In his gushing praise for Israel as a Jewish state, the president not only injected domestic politics but he crossed the church state line that is the bedrock of American politics.

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By Daoud Kuttab

As the state of Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinians remember the naqba, or “catastrophe” – their story of dispossession, occupation, and statelessness. But, for both sides, as well as external powers, the events of 1948 and what has followed – the occupation since June 1967 of the remaining lands of historic Palestine – represents a tragic failure.

Israel is most at fault for this failure, owing to its continued military occupation and illegal settlements. Despite paying lip service to peace, the Israeli refusal to leave the Occupied Territories continues to be in direct contravention to what the preamble to United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 termed the “inadmissible taking of land by force.”
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Following appeared in the Washington Post

Priority: Statehood
The Palestinian right of return is not what’s holding up a peace agreement.

By Daoud Kuttab
Monday, May 12, 2008; A19

In the spring of 1948, my father, George Kuttab, and his brother Qostandi fled Musrara, a Jerusalem neighborhood just outside the walled city, after their sister Hoda’s husband was killed in front of her and their children. When Dad used to tell us about the Naqba, the catastrophe that befell Palestinians in 1948, he never talked politics or hatred. He would laugh as he told us how his brother secured their home near Damascus Gate. To assure his mother and brother that the house (in what is now Israeli west Jerusalem) would be safe, my uncle joked that he had double-locked the door, turning the heavy metal key twice. He took that key with him to Zarqa, Jordan, expecting to be able to use it again one day.

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My interview on NPR’s morning edition can be heard on http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=4&islist=true&id=3&d=05-14-2008

by Daoud Kuttab

Shortly before the convening of the one day Annapolis meeting aimed at giving a push to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, last November, Condoleza Rice held a much smaller meeting in the state department. Huddling with the authors of a brand new book on negotiating an Arab Israeli peace, the US secretary of state met with former US ambassador Dan Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky. Their book Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East by Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky. Putting the book aside Rice asked the two authors to verbally tell her what was the one issue that she should focus on as she prepares for the Annapolis meeting. According to Kurtzer who gave a talk at Princeton University where he is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School, they pointed to lesson five of the ten lessons in their book.

Lesson 5 states the following “Commitments made by the parties and agreements entered into must be respected and implemented. The United States must ensure compliance through monitoring, setting standards of accountability, reporting violations fairly to the parties, and exacting consequences when commitments are broken or agreements not implemented. ”
Secretary Rice seems to have accepted this particular advise and convinced President Bush to appoint a three state US general to monitor Palestinian and Israeli compliance to their own commitments. US President George W. Bush named in January Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to monitor progress that Israelis and Palestinians sides are making on the peace process known as the “road map.”

In his speech at Princeton, early in April, Kertzer was pleased that their idea was picked up by the Bush Administration. However, Ambassador Kurtzer complained that Washington is not taking this issue seriously. He explained that it is not enough to send the general two days a month and expect that to count as monitoring.

Kurtzer was not the only person who felt that President Bush was not serious in wanting to hold the parties (especially Israel) accountable to their commitments. Jewish settlers in Hebron and to a lesser degree the Israeli government clearly don’t seem to have taken this issue seriously. On Friday May 1, the Israeli daily published the following story:

The American bodyguards of a Bush administration envoy who was dispatched to the region to monitor the implementation of the road map engaged in a violent confrontation with right-wing Israelis who sought to disturb a visit to Hebron on Friday, Israel Radio reported. One of the rightists is reported to have driven his jeep into the convoy accompanying General William Fraser. Subsequently, one of the vehicles in the convoy heavily collided with the jeep, according to Israel Radio. A fracas ensued between the guards and the rightists before the Americans decided to cut the visit short, Israel Radio reported.
It is amazing that a three star general appointed by the US president is physically harassed and denied to do his job by citizens of a country that America has a special relationship with. Until this writing, neither the state department nor the white house have even made a public statement about the incident. IF Washington is silent about the fact that one of its generals whose mission is to monitor the parties commitments is being pushed around by Israelis how can we ever expect this American military envoy or the US government to actually publicly point the finger at the side that is violating the agreement, especially if that side is the Israeli side?

published on the Huffingtonpost.com web site

By Daoud Kuttab
Shortly before the convening of the one day Annapolis meeting aimed at giving a push to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, last November, Condoleza Rice held a much smaller meeting in the state department. Huddling with the authors of a brand new book on negotiating an Arab Israeli peace, the US secretary of state met with former US ambassador Dan Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky. Their book Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East by Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky http://www.usip.org/newsmedia/lasensky_kurtzer_press/index.html . Putting the book aside Rice asked the two authors to verbally tell her what was the one issue that she should focus on as she prepares for the Annapolis meeting. According to Kurtzer who gave a talk at Princeton University where he is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School, they pointed to lesson five of the ten lessons in their book. http://www.usip.org/newsmedia/lasensky_kurtzer_press/top_ten.html
Lesson 5 states the following “Commitments made by the parties and agreements entered into must be respected and implemented. The United States must ensure compliance through monitoring, setting standards of accountability, reporting violations fairly to the parties, and exacting consequences when commitments are broken or agreements not implemented. “
Secretary Rice seems to have accepted this particular advise and convinced President Bush to appoint a three state US general to monitor Palestinian and Israeli compliance to their own commitments. US President George W. Bush named in January Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to monitor progress that Israelis and Palestinians sides are making on the peace process known as the “road map.”
In his speech at Princeton, early in April, Kertzer was pleased that their idea was picked up by the Bush Administration. However, Ambassador Kurtzer complained that Washington is not taking this issue seriously. He explained that it is not enough to send the general two days a month and expect that to count as monitoring.
Kurtzer was not the only person who felt that President Bush was not serious in wanting to hold the parties (especially Israel) accountable to their commitments. Jewish settlers in Hebron and to a lesser degree the Israeli government clearly don’t seem to have taken this issue seriously. On Friday May 1, the Israeli daily published the following story:
The American bodyguards of a Bush administration envoy who was dispatched to the region to monitor the implementation of the road map engaged in a violent confrontation with right-wing Israelis who sought to disturb a visit to Hebron on Friday, Israel Radio reported. One of the rightists is reported to have driven his jeep into the convoy accompanying General William Fraser. Subsequently, one of the vehicles in the convoy heavily collided with the jeep, according to Israel Radio. A fracas ensued between the guards and the rightists before the Americans decided to cut the visit short, Israel Radio reported.
It is amazing that a three star general appointed by the US president is physically harassed and denied to do his job by citizens of a country that America has a special relationship with. Until this writing, neither the state department nor the white house have even made a public statement about the incident. IF Washington is silent about the fact that one of its generals whose mission is to monitor the parties commitments is being pushed around by Israelis how can we ever expect this American military envoy or the US government to actually publicly point the finger at the side that is violating the agreement, especially if that side is the Israeli side?