Oct
07
2015
By Daoud Kuttab
The escalating violence in Palestine is producing a multitude of commentary and reactions, but few are able to answer simple questions like what is the direction of the tension, what is the end game and what do people expect.
There is no doubt that the absence of a national agreed-to Palestinian strategy is at the heart of the problem.
Without unity between the PLO and Hamas, unity of Fateh members or of Palestinians in Palestine and abroad, we have no chance of cobbling together a coherent national liberation strategy.
Major levers of power in Palestine are tied up. Well-known factions and movements have their hands tied and are unable to move.
Years of Israeli repression have had their toll on the ability of leaders to chart an independent strategy.
In the absence of organised Palestinian institutions, parties and factions, what we are seeing today is an ad hoc Intifada by individuals, which has no clear plan, direction and strategy.
Without clarity and sustainability, such individual actions, while praised by an angry Palestinian public, will not go far in reversing a trend that has been etched in reinforced concrete.
The Israeli wall, as well as the clever outsourcing of most security operations to the Palestinians, has resulted in a win-win situation for Israel, which sits and watches as Palestinian security does all its dirty work. Palestinians relieve Israelis of patrolling the Nablus casbah.
It is becoming clear now that there is a limit even to Mahmoud Abbas’ patience.
While the Palestinian president continues to believe wholeheartedly in the negotiating/political track as the only viable path ahead, he is becoming frustrated with the Israelis, and even more, with the apathetic Americans who seem to have lost interest in the Palestine issue.
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Oct
06
2015
By Daoud Kuttab
Two weeks before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the 70th session of the UN General Assembly, he had warned on Sept. 16 of a “political bomb“ he planned to drop in his speech.
Commentators have argued that while Abbas did threaten to end Palestinian adherence to the 1993 Oslo Accord, he didn’t actually detail when and how he plans to end the legal commitment to the US-sponsored agreement.
Abbas’ comments about the agreement were stated in diplomatic terms. “As long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to release the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements.â€
Abbas’ lawyer-like language didn’t translate into a direct and unequivocal abandonment of the accord. Some commentators said that Abbas’ actions are tantamount to exposing a hand grenade but leaving it unexploded on the table without any date of when it might explode. Others said Abbas pulled the hand grenade’s pin but didn’t throw it, implying that it might blow up in his face.
The conditionality of Abbas’ threat is worth digging into. What are the commitments that the Israelis have violated, and what are the clauses of the Oslo Accord that Abbas will stop honoring?
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Negotiations Affairs Department published on its website an undated document pointing out nine Israeli violations of the Oslo Accord, among them failure to honor the provisions for ending the occupation, settlements, continued restrictions on movement — including the safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank — and the refusal to release prisoners incarcerated before the signing of the September 1993 agreement at the White House.
Abdelrahman Barqawi, a member of the Palestine National Council and a retired Palestinian Ministry of Health senior official, told Al-Monitor that Palestinians should suspend security cooperation, division of land and economic issues. “The division of our land into areas A, B and C, which inexorably affects our sovereignty and hurts farmers, must end. We should also end the Paris economic agreement, which has damaged our economy, making it subservient to the Israeli financial system.â€
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Oct
05
2015
By Daoud Kuttab
For the first 27 days of the 2015-16 school year in Israel, some 33,000 Palestinian students stayed at home during a strike demanding equality with Jewish schools, the first such action of its kind. On Sept. 27, the country’s 47 private Christian schools — on strike since Sept. 1, the first day of the school year — announced their unanimous support for an agreement reached by a six-person committee representing the Christian schools and the Israeli Ministry of Education. The strike had focused primarily on the state subsidies provided to schools to allow them to lower the tuition paid by students’ families.
Botrus Mansour, general director of the Nazareth Baptist School and one of the six negotiators, told Al-Monitor that September had been a difficult month, filled with pressure from the Israeli government as well as the parents of students. Everyone involved in the episode, however, is content with the results, according to Mansour.
“Our efforts began a year ago, and for six months, between March and August, the Israeli officials didn’t talk to us. Our unity and perseverance paid off. This was a huge success,†said Mansour. Christian schools — suffering from a decline in the government subsidy while having to adhere to a cap on tuition fees — had been attempting in vain to reach agreements with the Israeli Ministry of Education so they could remain open without running into financial difficulties.
The Catholic and Protestant schools that went on strike have existed for decades, long before the establishment of the State of Israel. The heart of their mission has been to educate and transmit knowledge. Palestinian students in these Christian-run schools were exposed to a huge civics lesson in the weeks they waited and watched as the adults struggled to convince the government that the right of equality should be universal, irrespective of religion or national background. Continue Reading »
Oct
01
2015
By Daoud Kuttab
The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, welcomed what he described as “efforts to create an effective multilateral approach†to resolving the Palestinian conflict. Speaking by phone to Al-Monitor, Mansour said that France is working hard to create an effective mechanism similar to that which succeeded in reaching the Iran nuclear deal.
“The thinking is to find a way to expand the scope and the working style of the Quartet, as well as to add some countries to it that can make a valued contribution to its efforts,†said Mansour.
Mansour admitted that world leaders are totally preoccupied with the war on the Islamic State (IS), but he signaled that this effort would be a waste if it didn’t include an attempt to solve the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Mansour related Palestine’s intervention Sept. 29 in a US-initiated meeting on countering violent extremism on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “We made it clear that no effort to end extremism will work without dealing with the Palestine issue because the Israeli violations and occupation are poisoning the atmosphere.â€
The head of the Palestinian mission at the UN also expressed support for the worldwide boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) efforts against Israel. “We consider the BDS to be a positive movement; we feel that the time has matured for an effective, worldwide campaign against Israel, and we will be using the UN forum at the right moment to give this effort an international impetus.”
Al-Monitor spoke with Mansour a day prior to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ address before the UN General Assembly on Sept. 30. In this speech, Abbas signaled that he plans to walk away from the 20-year-old Oslo Accord. “So long as Israel refuses to commit to the agreements signed with us, cease settlement construction and release prisoners, Israel has left us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to these agreements,†he said to world leaders from the UN podium. Continue Reading »
