The secret talks between US and Israeli officials, aimed at convincing the Israelis to change their position regarding the settlement freeze, started to smell more and more like a bribe, with some media reports calling it the $3 billion bribe.

The amount is in reference to the cost of the 20 advanced US fighter planes that the Obama administration is promising to give Israel in return for the Netanyahu government’s agreeing to a mere three-month freeze of illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

If anyone thinks that this is a mere sweetener to support Israel’s security, one needs to ask why this issue did not come up until after the rightwing Israeli government declare its total rejection of the extension of the 10-month moratorium on settlement activities in the occupied territories, excepting Jerusalem and a few other places. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The secret talks between US and Israeli officials, aiming at convincing the Israelis to change their position regarding the settlement freeze, started to smell more and more like a bribe, with some media reports calling it the $3 billion bribe.

The amount is in reference to the cost of the 20 advanced US fighter planes that the Obama administration is promising to give Israel in return for the Netanyahu government’s agreeing to a mere three-month freeze of illegal settlements on Palestinian land. Continue Reading »

For years I have succeeded to avoid it, but for some reason, I fell in the trap. I am not sure if my decision to fly out of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport rather than my usual starting point of Amman’s Queen Alia Airport was to see if things might have changes or some crazy sadistic desire to suffer on the hands of the Israeli airport security.

I started my trip early enough, leaving my Jerusalem home at 5am and arriving at the first airport checkpoint exactly two hours before flight time. I chose to drive the car rather than my 22 year old son with the hope that my gray hair would somewhat help. Not at all. While cars ahead of us and behind us were wized through, we were asked to pull over to the side. After handing him my US passport and my and my son’s Israeli blue residency ID card, the young Israeli security guards asked me to turn off the car and give him the keys. Not sure where he thought I would have run if he I was to keep the keys. Continue Reading »

The elections of Jordan’s 16th Parliament held a number of surprises which point to the simple fact that Jordanians are wiser than many give them credit. Much work is still needed to bring about political reform and accountability, but there is no doubt that these elections have shown the political maturity of many citizens.

This growing wisdom can be seen in both the decision to boycott the poll as well as in the choices made by the people who voted. The decision by the largest opposition party, the Islamic Action Front, and a coalition of secular (mostly left wing) smaller parties, to boycott was based largely on the deficiencies of the Elections Law. Continue Reading »

I can see the path to the state of Palestine. And education is an integral part of it.

Palestinians have always prided themselves on being among the highest educated among all Arabs, but if this was true in the past, it is not true anymore, and it is certainly not true for Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Sure, the illiteracy rate is very low. And it is true that Palestinians continue to seek basic and higher education, but in the last few decades the level of Palestinian education has suffered and local universities have had to lower their standards in order to be able to accept the recent high school graduates. Continue Reading »