By Daoud Kuttab

For a few minutes on Sunday I wondered what would have happened if I was reading rather than listening to US President Barack Obama’s statement from Hawaii. The US president took time off his Christmas vacation to speak about the incident that occurred on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Had I not heard his voice and seen his picture, I would have thought that the speaker was none other than former US president George W. Bush. What has happened to Obama in less than one year?
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following appeared in the January 2010 issue of this week in Palestine

The Need to Support the Fledging Television Industry in Palestine

By Daoud Kuttab

Television production is rather new in Palestine. Until 1994 Palestinians had access to regional and international television stations. Palestine TV was born with the Oslo Accords when Palestinian negotiators extracted the concession from the Israelis on the reasoning that radio and television were needed for the presidential and parliamentary elections that were due to take place as part of the PLO-Israeli Memorandum of Understanding. The same agreement had a clause for licensing other Palestinian radio and TV stations within the context of a joint Israeli-Palestinian technical committee. Over a period of 15 years Israel basically vetoed any properly licensed stations by refusing every request to allow the committee to meet. This, however, has not stopped the mushrooming of tens of local radio and TV stations that have “half” a license.

The stations have a piece of paper from the Palestinian Authority to work, but in terms of the International Telecommunications Union (the body that allots frequencies to countries), all the privately established stations are nothing more than pirate stations. This, of course, has resulted in the lack of any serious investment going into these stations and, conversely, the station owners have flaunted intellectual property regulations. Major football games, Hollywood movies, and Arab soaps are broadcast on these terrestrial stations without any restrictions.
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The following appeared in FOreign Policy
The Only Hope Left?
Why a unilaterally declared state might be the only one that Palestine can get.

BY DAOUD KUTTAB | NOVEMBER 17, 2009

Mahmoud Abbas is in a bind. Faced with a seemingly insurmountable impasse to negotiations with Israel, the Palestinian Authority president can either resign from his PLO chairmanship or come up with some serious, unilateral action to break the deadlock. With hopes that Barack Obama would stand up to the right-wing Israeli leadership dashed, an unwillingness to return to violent resistance, and the inability to resign his presidency of the PA in protest, the Palestinian leader has no alternative but to declare a Palestinian state unilaterally.
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By Daoud Kuttab

Reforming and regulating Jordan’s media appears to be one of the priorities of the administration of Samir Rifai who is considered a friend of many Jordanian journalists, editors and publishers.

As in all efforts that seek greater freedom for the press, two global issues must always be remembered. One is that press people abhor legislation, no matter how reformist it might appear. Global press freedom defenders repeatedly call for less legislation and more self regulation. The other is that governments, no matter what their motivation is, are never very good at producing quality and professional media content. These principles might appear to leave very little for the Rifai’s administration to work with, but the reality is much different.

As a thoughtful article written by a colleague showed, the Jordanian Government can do much to improve the media industry without creating additional laws. Instead, a number of distortions in the existing Press and Publications Law, and the Audio Visual Law need to be removed.
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RAMALLAH – Television penetration in Palestine is nearly 100 percent. Almost every home-no matter how poor the family-has a tube in its sitting room. Television viewership is higher than average amongst Palestinians for two main reasons: Because of the continuing conflict, people feel the need to watch television to keep up with the events in the news that directly affect their lives. Also, with high levels of insecurity and troubles outside the home, the television is often the only source of entertainment.

But although Palestinian families spend many hours a day glued to their TV sets, original Palestinian children’s programming is almost non-existent. Instead, hours of dubbed Japanese and other types of cartoons fill the airwaves, especially in key children’s viewing hours. Such dubbed programming usually falls into one of three potentially disadvantageous categories; it is dubbed into classical Arabic (in order to ensure sales in all 23 Arab countries), it consists of imported programming with violent content, or it revolves around religious themes.
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Daoud Kuttab

AMMAN – If the Islamic movement Hamas succeeds in obtaining the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many with long-term sentences, it will, no doubt, complicate the delicate attempts to reach a negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Such an accomplishment will prove that those who use violence can produce better results than those—like President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad—who rely on non-violent negotiated means to achieve the liberation of land and prisoners.
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By Daoud Kuttab

Forty-two years is a long time. Israel somehow thinks that with passing of time, and by passing unilateral laws, it can dictate history.

This week, the Israeli arrogance in going against international will, which has been going on for so many years, seems to be facing a reality check. The next logical step is then for European Union countries to refuse to recognise any products produced in industrial zones created in East Jerusalem as coming from Israel.
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following appeared in today’s Jordan Times
Breakthrough or more of the same?

By Daoud Kuttab

Ever since the announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run in the next Palestinian presidential elections, political circles in Palestine have been witnessing a sort of paralysis.

Gone are the daily meetings in Ramallah’s muqatta with foreign leaders, and gone are the almost daily statements by US, Israeli and Palestinian officials. Naturally, with the presidency in deep freeze, the Palestinian issue has been dropped from the headlines. Except for a brief moment when a prisoner exchange appeared to be happening, Palestine has become a nonstory.
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