The following appeared in Jordan times

By Daoud Kuttab

After months of consultations a new/old government has finally received the vote of confidence.

The 82 for, 66 against vote from Parliament gives Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour’s second government the confidence to carry out its programme, which includes removing subsidies on electricity tariffs and dealing with the explosive Syrian file.

However, the most important reform issue, the Elections Law, has failed to garner much interest in the new Parliament’s first months, which clearly indicates that we will not see a new law during this Parliament’s term.

One more immediate question, however, is whether parliamentarians will be able to hold Cabinet posts. The issue was deferred during the discussions Ensour held with MPs, despite the premier’s public promises that parliamentarians will become ministers within this year. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The image will remain engraved in many people’s memory about the first intifada. A Palestinian woman dressed in a skirt and blouse holds here high heel shoes in one hand and throws a stone on members of the occupying Israeli forces with the other. Clearly the image is not so much about violence as it is about defiance and the integral role of women in the Palestinian uprising.

Match that image with this week’s decision by the Islamic-led powers in Gaza to ban a marathon in the Strip because women had decided to participate in it or the decision last month to apply strict Islamic dress code on female university students. This comparison, while focusing on external descriptions, is perhaps the most telling image of the retraction, rather than the progression, of Palestinian women in the last four decades.

Other more substantive comparisons of laws, regulations and social attitudes tend to confirm this trend, although there are exceptions. Continue Reading »

Following appeared in the Jordan Times.

By Daoud Kuttab

This week, hundreds of Palestinians attempting to return home using the only crossing point allowed to them, the King Hussein Bridge, found themselves stuck for hours and hours at the bridge.

It appears that Israeli bridge officials were not ready to accept the Palestinians, which included many umra pilgrims.

On Sunday and Monday the bridge was closed at noon, causing travellers who made it before closure nearly 10 hours of delay, while others arriving after that time were asked to come back the following day. Some, choosing to pay as much as $108 per person to cross the bridge using the VIP service, had to wait for at least four hours.

This is not the first time that Palestinians suffer from long delays, which is routine in summer months. Ever since October 2000, the Israelis got rid of the Palestinian police that was stationed at the bridge, reduced bridge hours from the 24 to an 8am-10pm weekday schedule and a much more reduced schedule on Fridays, Saturdays and on Jewish holidays. The Israeli airport and other crossing points are open around the clock, even during Jewish holidays. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Following appeared in the Jordan Times and Huffington Post

also check out these other stories

http://forward.com/articles/175016/salam-fayyad-doomed-by-israel-and-palestinian-enem/?p=all

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/salam-fayyad-resignation-abbas-replacement.html

Israel may say that it wants peace, but the reality has become clear. Once U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry left the region, Israel felt protected by the charm handed to it for free by Obama and subsequently ignored his advice on how to work on ending the occupation.

If you are generous to a decent person, you own him, and if you are kind to a nasty person, he rebels, goes a famous Arab saying.

What we are witnessing now is Israel’s rebellion against its generous benefactor: the U.S.

Here are a few examples. Before Obama came to Israel, there was discussion about some confidence-building measures. Palestinians were asked to refrain from taking Israel to the International Court of Justice while Israel was asked to freeze settlement activities in order to facilitate a return to peace talks. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” So states the preamble to the constitution of UNESCO. I refer to this passage in light of the Israeli government recently dismissing the efforts of US President Barack Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry.

While ending the occupation is clearly a decision that must be made by the occupiers, not the occupied, it is interesting to see a role reversal between the Arab and Israeli sides as to which party is interested in peace and which is rejecting all peace overtures.

The US president lavished the Israeli occupiers with praise and words of support in the hope of encouraging them to take a step toward peace. Instead, the moment he left the region, the Israelis reverted to their arrogant, rejectionist behavior. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The outgoing Palestinian prime minister was a unique Palestinian who fought hard against many odds, but in the end was unable to carry the mantle alone and without accommodations from Israel, the US or fellow Arab countries.

What is unique about Salam Fayyad is that he combined true patriotic national service without being tainted by the usual negative side of politics and the corruption that is often associated with a high-ranking position.

Fayyad served with distinction the post of prime minister of a country whose borders are outside his government’s reach with no control over the movement of people and goods within or outside the areas that were under his control. He was a Palestinian patriot without leaving any opening for Israel and its supporters to attack him. He worked tirelessly to establish the foundation of a Palestinian state while being unable to control the politics of the Israeli occupier and the whims of their leaders and US supporters. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Sports has often been a national unifying factor. Palestine is no exception.

Palestinian sports has received public and community attention for some time, indeed, ever since the International Olympic committee allowed Palestinian athletes to participate in the Atlanta games in 1996. Majid Abu Maraheel, 32, a distance runner from Gaza and a father of five, was one of three Palestinians who had the honor of carrying the Palestinian flag for the first time in any Olympic meet. Maraheel, a member of the presidential security force, trained for years on the shores of the Mediterranean and thus qualified to run in long-distance races in Atlanta.

Abu Maraheel didn’t win any medals but became a sort of hero among Palestinians for breaking the Olympic ice and raising the Palestinian flag in the United States. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

University life and Palestinian nationalism have been inseparable since the 1960s, when the Fatah movement was formed by student activists in Egyptian universities. Since then and throughout the world, Palestinian nationalism has been part of university life, and nowhere more so than in Palestine.

This fact has not gone unnoticed by Islamist student activists. University students supporting the various Islamic movements such as the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad have been very active in various Palestinian universities, often making impressive victories. The Palestinian split between Gaza and the West Bank, as well as between PLO nationalists and Islamists, is reflected in student-council elections. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

In order to predict who will replace the outgoing Palestinian prime minister, one needs to figure out the real reason for Mahmoud Abbas’ acceptance of his resignation. Did Abbas accept Salam Fayyad’s resignation because of his failure to fundraise, or was it because of internal pressure from Abbas’ Fatah movement? Three possible candidates’ profile can answer this question.

If Salam Fayyad’s departure had to do with over-dependency on Western aid and a desire to seek Arab funding, the next Palestinian prime minister could be someone like Rami Hamdallah, the president of the largest Palestinian university, in Nablus, who has been successful in raising funds for this institution of higher education from Arab sources. His appointment could indicate a shift from Western funding to Arab as the main pillar of keeping the Palestinian government and economy afloat. Hamdallah has good relations with Hamas and was a member of the Central Elections Commission, which just completed a successful registration drive in Gaza. He could be a reconciliation candidate that both Fatah and Hamas would be able to live with. Appointing Hamdallah would be a clear shift by the Palestinian leadership and a distancing from near-total dependency on Western aid. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Something strange happened during the last Arab League summit meeting, held in March in the Qatari capital, Doha. The final announcement, which typically presents the points of agreement reached to by the participating heads of state, was possibly the longest communiqué drafted by an Arab summit. It went on and on, detailing the position of the leaders on almost every issue affecting Arab League members.

Squeezed in among the tens of thousands of words was a reiteration of support for the Arab Peace Initiative approved at the 2002 summit in Beirut. The plan has also been approved by the Organization of Islamic Countries. Thus, all in all, 57 Arab and Islamic states have been on the record for more than ten years in support of a peace plan that guarantees normalization with Israel in return for its withdrawal to the 1967 borders and an agreement to a just resolution to the Palestinian refugee problem. Continue Reading »