By Daoud Kuttab

Predicting the next Intifada, or popular outbreak, is next to impossible.

The past years have seen many predictions of an imminent third Intifada, only to have these expectations proven wrong.

While prophesying a wave of mass protests is difficult, one can look back at the last two Intifadas and the many smaller Intifadas and point out the ingredients that can possibly cause the third uprising.

One major ingredient of a popular uprising is the sense of hopelessness.

In 1987, 20 years after the Israeli occupation and eight years after the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, there was no sign of a political process that would lead to the end of the occupation.

In 2000, similar disenchantment occurred, this time not because of the absence of a peace process but because of the failure of one. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

For the first time in decades, a major confrontation is about to take place in the Middle East in which Palestinians are totally uninvolved. The expected attack against Syria and the potential for the widening of the theater of war to neighboring countries has so far totally excluded Palestine. One informal chart shows lines of support and hatred between the various countries and parties in the region, with no mention of Palestine and Palestinians.

Part of the reason for confidence that Palestinians will not be on the receiving end of any retaliatory attack is the simple fact that in all direct and indirect threats by the Syrian government against Israel, Turkey and Jordan, the Palestinians have never been mentioned. In fact, Syrians, and for that matter, many other Arab regional powers, are competing to support Palestinians the most. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

One of the most repeated questions that was asked by many following the Israeli attack on Palestinians in the Qalandia refugee camp on Aug. 26 — which left three killed — was why? Why does the powerful Israeli army need to carry out a raid inside a Palestinian refugee camp at a time of relative quiet? More perplexing is why this was done during ongoing peace talks aimed at bringing an end to the 46-year Israeli occupation?

By Daoud Kuttab

An already strong alliance between the Jordanian and Palestinian leadership was made even stronger over the weekend. Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat made an unusual public pledge on Aug. 24 by declaring that every document the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) plans to submit to the Israelis in negotiations will be first shown to Jordan. Also pledged was that every document the Israelis present will also be passed onto Amman.

What makes this allies so strong?

Palestinians, who have so far failed to acquire any role for the Quartet in the current talks and have even failed to secure a US presence inside the negotiating room, are now seeking a role for Israel’s best existing Arab peace partner. Israel has signed two peace treaties with Arab states: Egypt in 1979 and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1994. Peace with Egypt has been described as cold, and has been further sidelined by the changes in Cairo since the Arab Spring. With Jordan, which has the longest border with Israeli-controlled areas, the peace treaty has been solid and relations have been stable. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

One of the longest-standing arguments between Israelis and Palestinians concerns the most efficient mechanism for solving their decades-old argument. Palestinians believe that the conflict is the result of biased and conspiratorial international involvement with one of the parties to the conflict, and therefore, can only be resolved if the international community is actively engaged to fix the situation.

Palestinians note that Israel was legitimized through the combination of a United Nations resolution and their abandonment by a colonial power to a people, many of whom had suffered in Europe in World War II. Furthermore, Palestinians believe that Israel’s creation in 1948 — which resulted in the eviction of the Palestinians from their land, creating the refugee problem and the occupation of more Palestinian land in 1967 — has been rejected by the international community in numerous resolutions and treaties that Israel has ignored. Therefore, the same international community has an obligation to this part of the world. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The near secret negotiations taking place in Jerusalem and an undeclared West Bank city are expected to cover the five final status issues that are the source of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In Washington, both sides agreed that borders, security, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem will be fully discussed during the talks mandated to last at least nine months.

There are at least three major components that need to be dealt with regarding Jerusalem: the holy sites, the residents and certain neighborhoods. When discussing the holy sites, most people focus on the walled Old City. This one square kilometer, which in 1981 was declared a World Heritage Site, includes sites holy for Christians, Jews and Muslims. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa and other locations connected to the Christian faith are not expected to be a cause of much controversy. The site of the Islamic Haram al-Sharif and the Jewish Western Wall, which are physically connected, will be the hardest issue. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

I believe it is a good idea for the US and other world countries to immediately stop aid to any country that shoots civilian demonstrators.

This principle should be applied without exception.

Double standards should not be tolerated when dealing with soldiers causing fatalities when confronting civilian demonstrators.

While this principle is being discussed in regard to the use of force by the Egyptian security forces, there has never been any discussion about using the same punishment against Israel, which has killed many unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.

UN resolutions allow for resistance, including armed resistance, to a foreign military occupation. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

After Kerry’s well-publicized July 19 statement in Amman and the highly visible opening session of the talks in Washington on July 29, both sides appear to have deliberately avoided the spotlight. The local media was full of stories about journalists trying to determine where the Jerusalem meeting was to take place, but to no avail. In the end, the media was forced to publish the only photo released by the negotiators of the Jerusalem meeting, held at an undisclosed location. It might prove to be more difficult to avoid the spotlight during the next meeting planned for Jericho or Ramallah simply because of their smaller size and limited number of possible locations.

US Secretary of State John Kerry seems to have succeeded in one important aspect regarding the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. He publicly stated that he had received a commitment from both sides that the talks would be kept secret, and so far it appears to have worked. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Simultaneously with the resumption of peace talks, the Israeli high court has been hearing a petition by families of 15 Palestinians killed years ago, and whose bodies have been kept by the Israelis since.

As the second round of face-to-face peace talks got underway, another emotional issue has arisen. The return of the bodies of Palestinians killed in the decades long conflict with Israel.

At least four cemeteries have recently been exposed as being the “cemeteries of numbers,” where dead Arabs have been buried, rather than having been returned to their families or countries of origin.

It is unclear how many bodies continue to be held by Israel. One of the recently exposed cemeteries has more than 500 plates with numbers. The names of 23 missing Jordanian citizens were published by the weekly newspaper Al-Majd on Aug. 5. Continue Reading »

Following appeared in the Jordan Times

By Daoud Kuttab

When Palestinian negotiators enter the Jerusalem hotel designated for the face-to-face negotiations with their Israeli counterparts on Wednesday, they would complete falling into a well-planned negotiations trap.

Palestinians have committed themselves to participate in the talks for the next nine months, irrespective of what Israel does on the ground. The Israelis, who carefully laid this trap, have already reaped the benefits of knowing that no matter what they do Palestinians are highly unlikely to walk out of the talks. The Israeli Cabinet’s announcement of hundreds of settlement tenders in Jerusalem and other West Bank areas proves that Israel has the upper hand in this process.

The setting up of this trap began when the Israelis realised that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was intent on obtaining the release of some 100 fedayeen that were the foot soldiers of the PLO over 20 years ago. At the time, these fighters received orders from PLO leaders like Yasser Arafat and Abbas and carried out military operations against Israelis. These soldiers, who were captured and sentenced, had been left to rot in Israeli jails while their leaders were free in Tunisia and were later given permission to return to Palestine and take over the Palestinian Authority. Arafat and the PLO had always asked for their release and in fact in 1999 as part of the Sharm El Sheikh agreement their release was agreed. But they were not freed when the second Intifada erupted in October 2000. When the current talks began, Abbas made the release of these pre-Oslo prisoners his personal crusade. Continue Reading »