Yousef Munayyer says it’s time for the Palestinians to give the Israelis an ultimatum: the Palestinian Authority should set a date for the Israeli occupation to end and settlements be dismantled. “If this deadline is not met, the PA should dissolve the authority and convert the disjointed national movement into a broad civil rights movement seeking equal rights in a bi-national state.”
Munayyer writes:
Among those involved in the Middle East peace process industry there is much talk about “time running out” for a two-state solution.
Recently, the same sentiments were echoed by the US state department, reflecting a shift in the way the Obama administration is publicly talking about the conflict.
On more than one occasion, the state department and other Obama administration figures have said that “the status quo is unsustainable”. Notice again the element of time.
Time has been running out for a two-state solution since the beginning of Israel’s colonial enterprise in occupied Palestinian territory in 1967. Yet despite this reality, analyses of the situation continue to repeat this now-meaningless cliche year after year, decade after decade. It seems that, to many, time in the Middle East can be magically be suspended. Gravity, in this war-torn region, ceases to affect the inverted hourglass.
The idea that time is running out presupposes some actual threshold beyond which time will actually have run out – a midnight hour when the Cinderella-style fantasy of a two-state solution wakes up to the embarrassing reality of facts on the ground.
However, we never hear analysts specify where the threshold lies – at what point Israeli actions of settlement construction and expansion are considered to have finally tipped it over the edge. Without this, the two-state solution becomes the consummate zombie, very much alive in the policy discussion despite being long dead in reality.
A growing number of Palestinians support the establishment of a single state for Jews and Arabs including Israel and the occupied territories, according to a poll released on Wednesday.
The survey by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre (JMCC) found that support for a bi-national state in which Israelis and Palestinians would have equal rights had grown to 33.8 percent from 20.6 percent in June 2009.
During the same period, support for a negotiated two-state solution dropped from 55.2 percent to 43.9 percent, while 32.1 percent of respondents said the “peace process is dead” in response to a separate question.
Most Palestinians, 43.7 percent, support peaceful negotiations, while 29.8 percent support armed struggle and 21.9 percent support peaceful resistance as the best strategy for ending the Israeli occupation, the poll found.
The day before Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel — supposedly on a mission to help kick-start peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians — the Netanyahu government made its contempt for the Obama administration clear by approving new settlement construction.
They were quick to take offense — they being the Israelis!
“While we welcome Vice President Biden, a longtime friend and supporter of Israel,” Danny Danon, the deputy speaker of the Knesset, told the Washington Post, “we see it as nothing short of an insult that President Obama himself is not coming.”
Washington on the other hand had no interest in creating a fuss about settlement growth — its impotence on that particular issue has already been amply demonstrated. Pushing for a real settlement freeze is passé. The new game is proximity talks and shuttle diplomacy.
After 17 years of direct talks it’s now time to talk from a distance and have George Mitchell like an Energizer bunny going back and forth between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Irrespective of how much life there might be in his batteries, the Arab League has thankfully imposed a four-month deadline on this charade.
If the latest “initiative” seems like an exercise in atmospherics, an Israeli official was straightforward enough to confirm the fact when he told Ynet that resuming talks with the Palestinians “would create an atmosphere in the Arab world and the international community that would allow the world to focus on the real threat – Iran.”
George Mitchell is going to allow the Israelis to talk to the Palestinians so that the world can focus on Iran.
It’s not a novel idea. It came up three-and-a-half years ago in Washington when Philip Zelikow, Special Counselor to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, caused a stir by making a similar linkage between the threat from Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The controversy in Zelikow’s suggestion was that it hinted that the Bush administration might defy Tel Aviv and remove the peace process from its preservative, but Zelikow’s concern was the same as that of the Israelis now: how to mount pressure on Iran. This depended, he said, on strengthening an anti-Iran coalition.
What would bind that coalition and help keep them together is a sense that the Arab-Israeli issues are being addressed, that they see a common determination to sustain an active policy that tries to deal with the problems of Israel and the Palestinians. We don’t want this issue … [to] have the real corrosive effects that it has, or the symbolic corrosive effects that it causes in undermining some of the friends we need [as] friends to confront some of the serious dangers we must face together.
Note that Zelikow was not pushing for anything so grand as a resolution to the conflict, merely that an effort be made to create “a sense” that the issues were being addressed.
Initiatives, summits, and dark-suited earnestness with a liberal sprinkling of handshakes — we all know the routine. “What will they ask Israel to do? Meet with Abu Mazen? – so you’ll meet with Abu Mazen,” one Washington hand told Haaretz at the time.
That was 2006. Now in 2010 the Israelis don’t even need to inconvenience themselves by sitting in the same room as the Palestinians, even though Netanyahu would be happy to be granted the photo-op of face-to-face talks — talks that he can be confident will be fruitless.
The anti-Iran coalition might still be rather shaky but there is another coalition that has proved to be durable and near universal: the coalition of states who remain content to pay lip-service to the Palestinian issue; the political leaders who gladly shake hands with Mahmoud Abbas as though having Ramallah’s jaded political leaders received in global capitals was all the Palestinians could ever have aspired for.
But when it comes to dealing with the Israelis no one has a better understanding than the Israelis themselves. Jewish settlers in the West Bank insist that if they are uprooted, others will be forced to pay the “price tag.”
President Obama on the other hand insists that for Israel “the status quo is unsustainable” but neither he nor any of the other political leaders who profess some level of concern for the Palestinians have been willing to exact a price for Israeli intransigence. Until a price tag is applied effectively, Israel can remain confident in the durability of the status quo.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is busy day and night, preparing Israel for a fateful confrontation with Iran. But his real problem may occur elsewhere. The territories are heating up, with the Palestinians escalating their protests against the settlements and the separation fence. The settlers, meanwhile, can smell Netanyahu’s weakness and are undermining the authority of the state.
Two events in recent days indicate the threat of an outburst: the protest in Bil’in, which Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad participated in, where some of the 1,000 demonstrators tore apart a short portion of the fence; and the invasion of dozens of right-wing activists into the ancient synagogue of Na’aran, saying “we will return to Jericho and Nablus.” In both incidents, the violence was limited and no one was injured. But the struggle over the West Bank has transitioned to a new stage.
Fayyad, the former darling of official Israel, is proving to be Netanyahu’s most problematic rival. The one-time economist and technocrat has gradually become a politician – enjoying exposure, kissing children, stepping up to the head of the “White Intifada,” as dubbed by researchers Shaul Mishal and Doron Matza in their article in Haaretz this week. On Monday, the Palestinian government adopted a plan of action for “non-violent opposition” to the settlements and the fence.
Fayyad’s White Intifada is different from its predecessors. It has a clear political goal: Declaring a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders by the summer of 2011. By then, Fayyad will have completed the building of national institutions and will work on gaining international recognition through a diplomatic pincer movement on Netanyahu. He is receiving enthusiastic approval from the U.S. administration as a successful manager. Some 2,600 Palestinian policemen have already graduated from the training course run by U.S. General Keith Dayton in Jordan and are back in the territories, expecting to serve an independent state, not as subordinate agents of an Israeli occupation. The foreign ministers of France and Spain, in a joint article published yesterday in Le Monde, called to expedite the establishment of a Palestinian state and complete its recognition by October 2011.
The readiness of PA security forces to step outside the role of being occupation subcontractors is not evident to Jesse Rosenfeld:
Israeli invasions of PA territory have increased since the summer, hitting Ramallah regularly for the past few months to arrest popular struggle leaders and international solidarity activists, and raiding the offices of grassroots anti-occupation movements. While usually it is impossible to go more than two blocks in the West Bank Palestinian political centre without seeing armed PA forces, when the Israelis come into town, they are ordered back to their barracks and are nowhere to be seen. I witnessed this countless times while living in Ramallah.
Meanwhile, Israeli military assassination missions against resistance in Nablus resumed on 26 December, with three men linked to the Fatah movement being killed in cold blood while PA security forces connived with the Israeli military and were nowhere to be seen. Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri was quoted by Maan news agency speculating that there was PA involvement in the assassination and warning that “resistance should be encouraged, not plotted against”.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Spanish counterpart Miguel Moratinos are promoting an initiative by which the European Union would recognize a Palestinian state in 18 months, even before negotiations for a permanent settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are concluded.
According to senior European diplomats and senior Israeli officials, Israel has relayed its opposition to the initiative – warning that it would undermine any chance of a successful peace process.
A senior European diplomat noted that Israel was informed about the initiative several weeks ago, a fact confirmed by a senior Israeli official. The Israeli official said the initiative is being spearheaded by Kouchner who recruited the support of the Spanish foreign minister, whose country also currently holds the rotating European Union presidency.
Israeli sources say the two foreign ministers are preparing an article they intend to publish together in some of the main European dailies. The main message of the article is that the European Union should recognize a Palestinian state before the completion of negotiations, under the assumption that such a declaration will be made by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Update – Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, was reported saying: “These statements concerning PA [Palestinian Authority] involvement [in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s murder] are too hasty. This is not the official position of the movement, that the PA was involved. When the investigation is finished, we will announce who is behind the killing.” His statement followed reports such as the one below from Ynet identifying two Palestinians detained in Dubai and a report in The Guardian claiming that a Hamas operative Nahro Massoud was being questioned in Damascus about the Dubai killing.
In Jordan, an informed Palestinian source said that it was likely that the two Palestinians who were handed over to the UAE authorities by Jordan were in possession of Palestinian passports specifically used by Gaza Strip residents. He said that the two Palestinians were most likely residing in the UAE, and fled the country via the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman aboard a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight but without first securing the proper visas, and were therefore not allowed to enter Jordanian territory.
The source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that any Palestinian living abroad or in the Gaza Strip needs a visa from the Jordanian Ministry of Interior and the consent of the security services prior to entering Jordan, whereas West Bank citizens are able to enter Jordan via the King Hussein Bridge and are not required to obtain all of these documents. He said that the two Palestinians were arrested in the airports transit lounge after the security services received information from UAE authorities that the two wanted figures had boarded a plane to Jordan.
The source also confirmed that the two Palestinians were held until a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight could take them back to Dubai the next day. The Palestinian ambassador to Jordan, Atallah Khairy denied that the two individuals have any ties to the Palestinian Authority, and he also confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the Palestinian Authority does not have anything to do with this assassination. Khairy also pointed out that senior Hamas official Ayman Taha, who originally leveled these accusations at the Palestinian Authority had retracted his statement.
Whatever the role of the two Palestinians detained by the Dubai police, one fact is striking: all the other operatives belonging to the team that they were supposedly collaborating with made a clean getaway. So how come these two guys didn’t have suitable travel documents? It makes you wonder whether they were recruited simply as a means to try and so division among Palestinians.
While the diplomatic fallout from the Dubai murder continues to expand, there are several new twists in the story.
Though the real identities of the murder suspects whose passport photographs have been released are unknown, two Palestinian suspects under arrest in Dubai have been linked to Mohammed Dahlan, the Fatah security chief who was ousted from Gaza in June 2007. Dahlan has been accused in the past of collaborating with Israel and being a CIA agent.
A senior Hamas official told Ynet on Thursday that Anwar Shheibar and Ahmad Hasnain, two officers in the Palestinian General Security Services suspected of being involved in the assassination of Hamas’ Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, fled the Gaza Strip after Hamas took power. The suspects were arrested in Jordan and handed over to the Dubai police following the hit.
Shheibar is a resident of the Sabra neighborhood, west of Gaza City, and Hasnain is a member of one of the large families in the Sajaiya neighborhood. The two, both in their 30s, were members in what was known until a few years ago as “the death cells” led by Nabil Tamus, who claimed he was an associate of senior Fatah member Mohammad Dahlan.
These cells, according to Fatah rivals and Dahlan’s rivals, regularly suppressed Palestinian Authority opponents, especially among Hamas members.
Tamus, who led the cells, also left the Gaza Strip around the time Hamas took power. According to Palestinian reports and according to the senior Hamas official, the three were employed by Mohammad Dahlan’s real estate and investment firms in Dubai.
In the past, Dahlan, for his part, vehemently denied conducting any such activities in the United Arab Emirates. “I don’t have the towers people say I have in Dubai,” he used to say in interviews with the media.
Both Shheibar and Hasnain recently received their salaries from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Hamas claims that their arrest proves beyond any doubt that the PA had direct collaboration and deep operational involvement in every detail of the assassination.
Hamas also claims that the Mossad enjoyed logistical support from the two men, who lived in Dubai in recent years, and thus were deeply familiar with the UAE. Hamas said publicly in the past few days that the two are associated with Dahlan’s camp.
Robert Fisk, based on the observations of an “impeccable” source in Abu Dhabi, says that Israel’s intelligence service is suspected by the UAE of having received European assistance.
Collusion. That’s what it’s all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe’s “security collaboration” with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel’s enemies. At 3.49pm yesterday afternoon (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source – impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi – to say that “the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?”
The voice – I know the man and his origins well – wants to talk. “There are 18 people involved in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Besides the 11 already named, there are two Palestinians who are being interrogated and five others, including a woman. She was part of the team that staked out the hotel lobby.” Two hours later, an SMS arrives on my Beirut phone from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It is the same source.
“ONE MORE THING,” it says in capital letters, then continues in lower case. “The command room of the operation was in Austria (sic, in fact, all things are “sic” in this report)… meaning the suspects when here did not talk to each other but thru the command room on separate lines to avoid detection or linking themselves to one another… but it was detected and identified OK??” OK? I ask myself.
My source is both angry and insistent. “We have sent out details of the 11 named people to Interpol. Interpol has circulated them to 188 countries – but why hasn’t Britain warned foreign nations that these people are using passports in these names?” There was more to come.
“We have identified five credit cards belonging to these people, all issued in the United States.” The man will not give the EU nationalities of the extra five – this would make two women involved in Mr Mabhouh’s murder. He said that EU countries were cooperating with the UAE, including the UK. But “not one of the countries we have been speaking to has notified Interpol of the passports used in their name. Why not?”
Palestinian Legislative Council speaker Aziz Dweik on Thursday denied reports by Israeli news outlets that he said on Wednesday Israel has a right to exist.
“The media reports in question were inaccurate,” he said in a statement, adding that since his release from an Israeli prison last year, Israeli news outlets have repeatedly misrepresented his views.
The Jerusalem Post, an English-language Israeli newspaper, quoted Dweik as saying on Wednesday that the Islamic movement has accepted Israel’s right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter, which calls for dismantling the state.
The remarks were said to have been made during a meeting in Hebron with British millionaire David Martin Abrahams, who reportedly maintains close ties with senior Israeli and British government officials.
Dweik told Ma’an, however, that he offered no such recognition of Israel’s “right to exist on Palestinian land,” as was reported, and moreover, that he told Abrahams the PLO had made a mistake by nullifying its charter.
“The PLO canceled its charter, and Palestinians achieved nothing,” he said. “This is Hamas’ stance and the opinion of any Hamas leader regarding the nullification of [its] charter.”
Dweik said the talks was held at Abrahams’ request, and came within a series of meetings with the PLC’s leadership with international officials, delegations and other news outlets. There was nothing unusual about Abrahams’ visit, he said. [continued…]
Hamas has accepted Israel’s right to exist and would be prepared to nullify its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, Aziz Dwaik, Hamas’s most senior representative in the West Bank, said on Wednesday.
Dwaik’s remarks are seen in the context of Hamas’s attempts to win recognition from the international community.
Dwaik is the elected speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. He was released a few months ago after spending nearly three years in an Israeli prison.
Dwaik was among dozens of Hamas officials and members who were rounded up by Israel following the abduction of IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit near the Gaza Strip in June 2006.
His latest remarks were made during a meeting he held in Hebron with British millionaire David Martin Abrahams, who maintains close ties with senior Israeli and British government officials.
Abrahams is scheduled to brief British Foreign Secretary David Milliband this weekend on the outcome of his meeting with Dwaik and other top Hamas officials in the West Bank.
Abrahams, a major donor to Britain’s Labor Party, told The Jerusalem Post he would urge Milliband to “consider the implications of Hamas’s positive overtures.” [continued…]
Speaking to reporters last night Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hammered away on one of his favorite points: the Palestinian precondition, no peace talks without a comprehensive freeze on West Bank settlement construction. “Let’s stop piling preconditions.” Said the Prime Minister, “Let’s get on with it. Let’s get on with peace negotiations.”
During the same speech, Netanyahu also insisted that East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want for a Capitol of their future state, is not up for negotiation and will remain part of Israel at the end of a peace deal. He demanded that Israel maintain a presence “on the Eastern side of a Palestinian state” to keep militants from using the territory to launch rockets at Israel ’s heartland. The Prime Minister was not clear if that simply meant a military presence on the Jordanian border or if Israel would keep the Jordan valley. Either way, it would leave the future Palestinian state as an Island with no control of its border. [continued…]
The Palestinians on Thursday rejected the idea of an Israeli presence on the eastern border of their future state, which was mooted by Israel’s hawkish prime minister.
“The Palestinian leadership will not accept the presence of a single Israeli soldier in the Palestinian territories after the end of the occupation,” Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for president Mahmud Abbas, told AFP. [continued…]
The underground tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are a lifeline for those trapped inside the blockaded Strip, but along with the clothes, furniture and food that make their way through the tunnels, a dangerous drug – Tramadol – is also entering the territory. Tramal, as it is known in Gaza, is a dangerously addictive painkiller which is illegal without a prescription, but an increasing number of Gazans are becoming hooked on it. Uncomfortably Numb talks to some of those addicts, those who are trying to help them and the authorities seeking to crack down on drug abuse.
Turkey and Israel are at loggerheads again, and this should come as no surprise.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon recently staged a rebuke of the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv over the contents of a Turkish television show. Israel subsequently apologized, but this will go down as yet another milestone in the ongoing tension between Turkey and Israel.
Despite some Israeli and American efforts to paint Turkey’s objections to Israeli policies as “anti-Semitic,” people in the business of statecraft understand very well where Turkey is coming from.
They recognize that disagreements between Turkey and Israel are likely to continue provided there is no recognizable change in issues such as improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza. They also recognize the complete and immediate freezing of settlements and the overall posture of Israel toward the peace process – if one can still talk about such a process. [continued…]
The American editor of a Palestinian news agency was removed from Israel on Wednesday after being questioned by authorities about his “anti-Israeli” views…
“They judged me to have anti-Israeli politics,” Malsin, 24, said from a cellphone as he boarded the El Al plane. “It’s outrageous that would even appear in a legal argument, that a person’s politics would be a relevant issue.”
An official with the Israeli Interior Ministry said Malsin had refused to answer questions about his presence in Israel and had “exploited” the fact that he is Jewish to say he wanted to explore immigrating to Israel.
“He was asked, why would he want to make aliya and become an Israeli citizen, as his opinions are clearly anti-Israeli,” Interior Ministry official Mietal Rochman wrote in an account of Malsin’s interrogation at the airport, which included a check of numbers stored in his cellphone and a review of his writings on the Internet. “The passenger chose to remain silent.” Malsin’s attorney provided a copy of Rochman’s report. [continued…]
The Palestinian Authority, in coordination with the American government, is building a new settlement in the West Bank. This one is intended to provide 40,000 “Palestinians with homes in an American-style development.” The Huffington Post carries the whole story.
When I first heard about the Rawabi plan I was repulsed. It took some time for me to distill exactly what made me so uncomfortable. It wasn’t the Pavlovian conditioning; direct exposure to the Jewish settler colonies in the West Bank and Gaza has created a psychological association between objectively neutral architectural features – red-tiled roofs, trimmed hedges, cul-de-sacs – and racism and apartheid for me. It wasn’t that though; Rawabi seemed more profoundly wrong.
Rawabi is a painful outgrowth of the continued obliteration of Palestine. Here is something so clearly alien, something so obviously conceived in an alien mind, masquerading as Palestinian. Some State Department bureaucrat was saying to me, “We are destroying you and your culture to recreate you in our image.” Palestinian cities and towns, which grow organically – really, an amalgamation of family homes and municipal buildings – are now qualitatively inferior. The Palestinian village is old, antiquated, disorganized, dysfunctional, anarchical, loud and dirty. By contrast, Rawabi is new, organized, efficient, beautiful, clean, ordered and ‘American.’ Rawabi is the tangible materialization of the American mission civilisatrice in the West Bank, not to mention the project to alienate Palestinians from one another. [continued…]
Leaders in Washington and Jerusalem have publicly locked horns over the issue of West Bank settlements. And Israeli public opinion has largely viewed America’s new administration as unfriendly. But behind the scenes, strategic security relations between the two countries are flourishing.
Israeli officials have been singing the praises of President Obama for his willingness to address their defense concerns and for actions taken by his administration to bolster Israel’s qualitative military edge — an edge eroded, according to Israel, during the final year of the George W. Bush presidency.
Among the new initiatives taken by the administration, the Forward has learned, are adjustments in a massive arms deal the Bush administration made with Arab Gulf states in response to Israeli concerns. There have also been upgrades in U.S.-Israeli military cooperation on missile defense. And a deal is expected next year that will see one of the United States’ most advanced fighter jets go to Israel with some of America’s most sensitive new technology.
Amid the cacophony of U.S.-Israel clashes on the diplomatic front, public attention given to this intensified strategic cooperation has been scant. But in a rare public comment in October, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren praised the Obama administration’s response to complaints about lost ground during the close of the Bush years as “warm and immediate.” [continued…]
Palestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned.
Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that prohibited torture and provided for the lawful interrogation of detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the CIA is co-operating with security agents whose continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups.
The relationship between the CIA and the two Palestinian agencies involved – Preventive Security Organisation (PSO) and General Intelligence Service (GI) – is said by some western diplomats and other officials in the region to be so close that the American agency appears to be supervising the Palestinians’ work.
One senior western official said: “The [Central Intelligence] Agency consider them as their property, those two Palestinian services.” A diplomatic source added that US influence over the agencies was so great they could be considered “an advanced arm of the war on terror”. [continued…]
President Barack Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer, senior officials in Jerusalem told Haaretz.
They said Obama warned President Hu Jintao during the American’s visit to Beijing a month ago as part of the U.S. attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran if it does not accept Western proposals for its nuclear program.
The Israeli officials, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the United States had informed Israel on Obama’s meetings in Beijing on Iran. They said Obama made it clear to Hu that at some point the United States would no longer be able to prevent Israel from acting as it saw fit in response to the perceived Iranian threat. Continue reading →
Palestinians have formally asked the European Union to urge the UN security council to recognise a fully independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in response to the current impasse in peace negotiations with Israel.
Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, confirmed that the request to the EU was made on Monday as Israeli ministers repeated warnings that any unilateral moves would trigger counter-measures that could include the annexation of more of the occupied West Bank.
Erakat, speaking in Ramallah, said Israel had for 18 years continued to “impose facts on the ground by stealing Palestinian lands and building settlements and barriers aiming to finish off the two-state project”. He added: “We will seek the support of all members of the international community.” [continued…]
While Palestinian officials continued to threaten Sunday to unilaterally declare independence, one senior Israeli defense official summed up the growing assessment in the defense establishment by saying, “Just let them try.”
Behind the dare is a belief in the IDF and Defense Ministry that even though the past year has seen an unprecedented improvement in the performance of Palestinian security forces and civilian institutions – largely due to increased cooperation with Israel – the Palestinian Authority is still far from being able to hold it together on its own.
One official gave the water situation in the West Bank as an example. While Israel has recently come under growing international criticism for allegedly denying Palestinians adequate access to water, according to Israeli officials the situation would be far worse without Israeli assistance.
“The Palestinian Water Authority wouldn’t last a day on its own,” an IDF source said. “We allocated them a piece of land on the coast to build a desalination plant and they have decided not to build it.”
Another example focuses on security cooperation, which has significantly increased over the past two years, since Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip. Next month, the fifth Palestinian battalion trained by US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton in Jordan will return to the West Bank for deployment. Another one will then depart for four months of training in Jordan.
Despite the deployment of these forces – which IDF officers openly admit are doing a good job cracking down on Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank – whenever PA President Mahmoud Abbas travels outside of Ramallah to another Palestinian city, the IDF, Shin Bet and Civil Administration are all involved to coordinate and ensure his safety.
“When Abbas travels it is like a military operation,” one officer explained. “Everyone is involved since the PA forces cannot yet completely ensure his security.” [continued…]
Editor’s Comment — This has to be the definition adding insult to injury: Mahmoud Abbas cannot travel safely around the West Bank without Israeli protection.
A question one hears frequently among Palestinians these days is why the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), a group some view with suspicion and others with sympathy, has become nearly invisible in the West Bank. Certainly Hamas has suffered a series of security blows in the last few years. Israel arrested roughly one thousand of Hamas members, included elected delegates of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), following the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006. And since Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007 following a bloody conflict with Fatah, Palestinian security forces have carried out campaigns against the group in the West Bank. Hamas claims to have suffered 30,000 incidents of questioning, arrest, closure of organizations, or confiscation of financial assets. As of now, 600 of its members are detained in Palestinian Authority (PA) prisons and 150 of its affiliated organizations are closed.
Hamas, however, is more than simply a militant organization or a social welfare service provider. It is a broad network of members and followers, which garnered 444,000 votes in the 2006 legislative elections, with an ideological and political agenda. It has a large popular following, especially among Palestinians opposed to the Oslo agreement and disenchanted with corruption in the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). So where have Hamas and its supporters in the West Bank gone?
Sources inside Hamas say that the movement has frozen its activities, in line with a 1989 strategy delineating how the movement should handle crises. Hamas followed this course in 1992, for example, when Israel exiled 416 activists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad to southern Lebanon following the kidnapping and murder of Israeli border patrol soldier Nassim Tolidano. Hamas is not ready, according to one of its leaders, to mobilize supporters behind a coherent course of action for fear of exposing them to arrest by the PA or Israel. Hamas also is reluctant to cause its followers to lose their jobs, given that 1200 of them have already been laid off from government jobs in the West Bank. [continued…]
Palestinian officials said Sunday they are preparing to ask the United Nations to endorse an independent state without Israel’s consent because they are losing faith in the peace talks.
The idea appeared to be largely symbolic. The U.S., Israel’s closest ally, would likely veto any initiative at the United Nations, and Israel controls the areas where the Palestinians want to establish their homeland. Nonetheless, the move reflected growing Palestinian frustration with the deadlock in peace efforts. [continued…]
Palestinian election officials said they can’t hold planned elections in January, which could give President Mahmoud Abbas a way to stay in office despite his threat to stand down — but could further roil Palestinian and Israeli politics.
Mr. Abbas’s threat, and a wider breakdown of U.S.-led peace efforts, are beginning to take a toll in the Palestinian territories and on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel. The premier has begun to come under fire for not making headway toward peace, including from within the Israeli leader’s ruling coalition, .
Speaking at a televised news conference in Ramallah, Palestinian election officials said Hamas’s opposition to polling is the main obstacle. Hamas has rejected holding new elections until reaching a long-stalled reconciliation accord with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah Party. [continued…]
Opposition MK Shaul Mofaz is planning to meet with senior Hamas officials, the Channel 10 website reported late Monday.
On Sunday, Mofaz presented his peace plan, which calls for the establishment within a year of a Palestinian state with provisional boundaries on 60 percent of the West Bank. He urged dialogue with Hamas as a means of achieving peace with the Palestinians.
Mofaz portrayed his proposal as a challenge not only to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also to his own party’s leader, Tzipi Livni.
The plan sparked severe criticism, both from the Palestinians as well as within Israel. In response, Mofaz said Monday that “I will talk to the devil himself if that’s what will bring peace,” Israel Radio reported.
In recent years, Mofaz has vehemently rejected any contact with the Islamist Hamas, who violently seized control over the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup in 2007. In a complete turnaround, Mofaz told Israel Radio Monday that if Hamas is voted to power in the upcoming elections – scheduled for January – he is willing to negotiate with them. [continued…]
Something is stirring within the Hamas body politic, a moderating trend that, if nourished and engaged, could transform Palestinian politics and the Arab-Israeli peace process. There are unmistakable signs that the religiously based radical movement has subtly changed its uncompromising posture on Israel.
For example, in the last few months top Hamas officials have publicly stressed that they want to be part of the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not part of the problem. What is happening inside Hamas’ mosques and social base shows a concerted effort on the part of its leadership to re-educate its rank and file about co-existence with the Jewish state and in so doing mentally prepare them for a permanent settlement in the future.
In Gazan mosques, pro-Hamas clerics have begun to cite the example of Salah al-Din al-Ayubi, a famed Muslim military commander and statesman, who, after liberating Jerusalem from the Western Crusaders, allowed them to retain a coastal state of their own. The moral lesson of the story is that if the famed leader could tolerate the warring, bloodthirsty Crusaders, then today’s Palestinians should be willing to live peacefully with a Jewish state in their midst. [continued…]
The possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s negotiating partner, loomed Monday, as several aides to its president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that he intended to resign and forecast that others would follow.
“I think he is realizing that he came all this way with the peace process in order to create a Palestinian state, but he sees no state coming,” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said in an interview. “So he really doesn’t think there is a need to be president or to have an Authority. This is not about who is going to replace him. This is about our leaving our posts. You think anybody will stay after he leaves?”
Mr. Abbas warned last week that he would not participate in Palestinian elections he called for, to take place in January. But he has threatened several times before to resign, and many viewed this latest step as a ploy by a Hamlet-like leader upset over Israeli and American policy. Many also noted that the vote might not actually be held, given the Palestinian political fracture and the unwillingness of Hamas, which controls Gaza, to participate.
In the days since, however, his colleagues have come to believe that he is not bluffing. If that is the case, they say, the Palestinian Authority could be endangered. [continued…]
More than 40 years of Israeli military occupation have had a devastating impact on Palestinians in Gaza. Air strikes, artillery shelling, ground invasions, jet flybys and other acts of violence have all led to an epidemic of suffering among Gaza’s most vulnerable inhabitants. The most recent studies indicate that the vast majority of Gaza’s children exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Soon after the Israeli winter assault, a group of scholars at the University of Washington discussed different aspects of the situation in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Dr. Evan Kanter, a UW School of Medicine professor and the current president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, delivered a somber talk describing the mental health situation among Gaza’s population. The numbers he cited described a staggering level of psychological trauma.
Dr. Kanter described studies that revealed 62 percent of Gaza’s inhabitants reported having a family member injured or killed, 67 percent saw injured or dead strangers and 83 percent had witnessed shootings. [continued…]
In the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders are full of self-congratulation. But their paeans to universal freedom ring hollow, when they bear large responsibility for another wall constricting human freedom: the apartheid wall dividing the Palestinian West Bank.
Israeli authorities refer to it as a “separation barrier,” but that’s misleading. The wall doesn’t separate pre-1967 Israel from the West Bank. If that’s all it did, it would be an entirely different political object. Instead, the wall cuts deep into the Palestinian West Bank, separating Palestinians from each other and from their land, and signaling to the Palestinians that Israel intends to annex territory that Palestinians want for an independent Palestinian state. The fact that Western countries that support the Israeli government – above all the United States – say nothing about the West Bank wall signals to Palestinians that Western support for Palestinian statehood is merely rhetorical.
Today, AFP reports, Palestinians tore down a chunk of the wall near Ramallah. [continued…]
Obama hosts Netanyahu By Charles Levinson and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2009
The prime minister’s visit comes as fears grow inside the Obama administration that its aggressive plans for promoting Mideast peace could be unraveling. Mr. Netanyahu hasn’t agreed to a complete freeze of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem as a precursor to talks, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced last week that he wouldn’t seek re-election in protest over the U.S. failure to deliver such a commitment.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fueled outrage in the Arab world when she visited Mr. Netanyahu just over a week ago in Jerusalem and praised the Israeli leader for his agreement to a partial freeze, rather than pushing him publicly for more.
Mrs. Clinton’s comments drew criticism in Arab capitals that Washington was tilting toward the Jewish state. U.S. officials briefed on the secretary’s visit said there also were tensions between Mrs. Clinton and her Israeli counterparts over the Israelis’ hard line. Mrs. Clinton, who is traveling in Germany, won’t be part of the White House meeting.
The brinksmanship over a one-on-one meeting between the two leaders represents a rare display of pique by the White House toward Israel. Mr. Netanyahu had long been scheduled to visit Washington to speak at the assembly of Jewish groups. While he had no confirmed plans to meet Mr. Obama, it would be rare, but not unprecedented, for an Israeli prime minister to visit Washington without meeting the U.S. president. [continued…]
Editor’s Comment — A few days ago, the Yedioth Ahronoth columnist Nahum Barnea wrote: “For days the White House has refused to set a date for a meeting. It was embarrassing and humiliating. Netanyahu was angry. Not mildly angry. He was incensed.”
Thank God President Obama has come to his senses and is ready to do whatever it takes to please America’s most important ally.
Palestinians may have to abandon the goal of an independent state if Israel continues to expand Jewish settlements and the United States does not stop it, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Wednesday. It may be time for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to “tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option”, Erekat told a news conference.
Israel has rejected the idea of a de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank, incorporating the Palestinians as citizens, as “demographic timebomb” that would make Jews the minority. [continued…]
Editor’s Comment — The problem with the expression “one-state solution” is that it treats “one-state” as a proposition about something that might or might not exist in the future and then considers who would or would not consent to its creation.
The question is, can Israel dismantle what it has already created?
Gaza would seem to prove that the answer is no, since even when Israel showed it could withdraw its troops and a few thousand settlers, it couldn’t relinquish military and economic control over the territory. Gaza also serves as the most compelling reason why most Israelis won’t seriously entertain the idea of ending the occupation of the West Bank.
More than anything else, the two-state solution has functioned as a mirage that distracts attention away from the present one-state reality.
The task at hand seems to have more to do with destroying an illusion and unmasking a reality than it does with constructing a vision of a better future.
Once it dawns on the majority of Israelis that without having a consensus about what they were doing, they have indeed created a single state in which half the population is Palestinian, a decades-long process of political reform can begin.
Rioting settlers forced a Palestinian family out of their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah yesterday, after the district court denied the residents’ appeal to remain on the premises.
Shortly after the verdict was passed dozens of settlers stormed into the house with hired security guards, demanding that the family vacate immediately. A violent riot erupted between the Jewish settlers and the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents. Police were called in to disperse the protesters.
A legal battle has raged for some 30 years over the ownership of 28 houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The specific house in question, built 10 years ago by the al-Kurd family, was unoccupied and locked up for eight years by court order pending the settlement of a land-ownership dispute. [continued…]
Irael has expropriated some 35 per cent of East Jerusalem’s territory, over 24,000 dunums of land, from its Palestinian owners despite the fact that in 20 years the majority of Jerusalem’s population will be Palestinians, a study said.
According to the study, compiled by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Palestinians currently make up 35 per cent of the city’s population compared with 25.5 per cent in 1967, adding that “in the absence of a political agreement on the borders of the city and the status of its Palestinian residents, Jerusalem is approaching a bi-national urban reality”.
The study by the Germany-based organisation examined the building policies in Jerusalem intended to change the facts on the ground and ensure a solid Jewish majority in the city, said a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times yesterday. [continued…]
Gaza Strip ruling Islamic Hamas movement rejected on Friday the decree of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who called on the Palestinians to go for general elections on Jan. 24, 2010.
In a written statement sent to reporters, Hamas movement considered Abbas’ decree “a destructive strike” to all the efforts to achieve an inter-Palestinian reconciliation, adding “the decree is a rejected step.”
Meanwhile, Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Radwan told Xinhua in an interview that holding the Palestinian elections without a national agreement of accordance “is a response to the American instructions.” [continued…]
… he post-Oslo culture has espoused a class of contractors. These are businessmen who are either high-ranking officials in the PA and the Fatah Party, or both, or closely affiliated with them. Much of the billions of dollars of international aid that poured into Palestine following the signing of Oslo found its way into private bank accounts. Wealth generated more wealth and “export and import” companies sprung up like poison ivy amidst the poor dwelling of refugees throughout the occupied territories. The class of businessmen, still posing as revolutionaries, encroached over every aspect of Palestinian society, used it, controlled it, and eventually suffocated it. It espoused untold corruption and, naturally, found an ally in Israel, whose reign in the occupied territories never ceased.
The PA became submissive not out of fear of Israeli wrath per se, but out of fear that such wrath would disrupt business — the flow of aid and thus contracts. And since corruption is not confined by geographical borders, PA officials abroad took Palestinian shame to international levels. Millions marched in the US, Europe, Asia, South America and the rest of the world, chanting for Gaza and its victims, while some PA ambassadors failed to even turn out to participate. When some of these diplomats made it to public forums, it was for the very purpose of brazenly attacking fellow Palestinians in Hamas, not to garner international solidarity with their own people.
Readily blaming “American pressure” to explain Abbas’s decision at the UNHRC no longer suffices. Even the call on the 74-year-old Palestinian leader to quit is equally hollow. Abbas represents a culture, and that culture is self-seeking, self-serving and utterly corrupt. If Abbas exits (and considering his age, he soon will), Mohamed Dahlan could be the next leader, or even Habbash, who called on Gaza to rebel against Hamas as Israel was blowing up Palestinian homes and schools left and right.
Palestinians that are now calling for change following the UN episode must consider the Oslo culture in its entirety, its “revolutionary” millionaires, its elites and contractors. A practical alternative to those corrupted must be quickly devised. The Israeli annexation wall is encroaching on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, and a new war might be awaiting besieged Gaza. Time is running out, and our collective shame is nearly complete. [continued…]
Nowhere is Israel’s defiance of Mr Obama’s demand for a settlement freeze more dangerous than in Jerusalem, and it is activists inside Israel (particularly Raed Salah of the Islamic Movement of the North) who are rallying opposition to what they see as Israeli efforts to take over the Muslim holy sites (although Israel insists it has no intention of doing so). And there are elements on the Israeli side who have an interest in sabotaging any new peace initiatives by provoking confrontation in Jerusalem. A single protest turning violent could start a firestorm across the Middle East.
With Gaza under siege, much of it still rubble because Israel’s blockade has prevented construction materials from entering the territory, the potential for a new outbreak is higher still.
Despite the similarities with 2000, however, it’s worth remembering the adage that you never step into the same river twice. There are also differences: the Palestinian population is battered, and could not easily sustain another round of confrontation. Its leadership is more fractured than ever, with no Arafat figure capable of uniting even the disparate factions of Fatah, while the motives of Hamas are complex: it has been gaining steadily on the diplomatic front during the calm in Gaza over the past 10 months, and from its indirect negotiations with Israel over ceasefires and prisoner exchanges. Gazans expect them to deliver real improvements to their lives, not another pummelling by Israel. [continued…]
There is no chance of an early solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and people must “learn to live with it”, the Israeli Foreign Minister warned yesterday.
“Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict… simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions, ultimately leading to disappointments and an all-out confrontation here,” Avigdor Lieberman said in a radio interview.
He added: “I am going to say very clearly: there are conflicts that have not been completely solved and people have learnt to live with it, like Cyprus.”
Mr Lieberman, the head of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party, suggested that a long-term, interim deal with the Palestinians could ensure prosperity, security and stability, but tougher questions should be left until later.
“We have to be realistic,” he said. “We will not be able to reach agreement on core and emotional subjects like Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees.” [continued…]
The Palestinian leadership has quickly backtracked in its approach to a U.N. report accusing Israel of possible war crimes in Gaza, in what its top diplomat acknowledged Thursday is erupting into a “clear crisis” for its people. [continued…]
A divided U.N. Security Council will meet next week at the request of Arab countries to discuss a U.N. report on war crimes committed by both Palestinian militants and Israel’s army during last December’s conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East was scheduled for October 20, but after a request from council member Libya that some western diplomat’s characterized as a bit of a “surprise”, the 15-member body agreed in closed consultations Wednesday to move up its session to October 14. [continued…]
Naming collaboration — even treason — for what it is has always been a painful taboo among Palestinians, as for all occupied peoples. It took the French decades after World War II to begin to speak openly about the extent of collaboration that took place with the Nazi-backed Vichy government. Abbas and his militias — who for a long time have been armed and trained by Israel, the United States and so-called “moderate” Arab states to wage war against the Palestinian resistance — have relied on this taboo to carry out their activities with increasing brazenness and brutality. But the taboo no longer affords protection, as calls for Abbas’ removal and even trial issued from Palestinian organizations all over the world.
Hamas too seems to have been taken by surprise at the strength of reaction. Hamas leaders were critical of Abbas’ withdrawal of the Goldstone resolution, but initially this was notably muted. Early on, Khaled Meshal, the movement’s overall leader, insisted that despite the Goldstone fiasco, Hamas would proceed with Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks with Fatah and smaller factions scheduled for later in the month, stating that reaching a power-sharing deal remained a “national interest.”
As the tremors continued, however, Hamas leaders escalated their rhetoric — seemingly following, not leading, public opinion. Mahmoud Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, labeled Abbas a “traitor” and urged that he be stripped of his Palestinian nationality. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, speaking before a hastily convened session of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said Abbas was personally responsible for the “crime” committed in Geneva, and a senior officer from the Hamas-controlled Gaza police force held a press conference to announce that Abbas and his associates would be subject to arrest if they set foot in Gaza. [continued…]
Last week, an incident that could have set the entire Middle East on fire was prevented. Netanyahu’s secret plan to visit a disputed tunnel in the East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, at the site known as Ir David (the City of David), was canceled, probably with some international intervention. Am I exaggerating the danger? No. Judging from past experience, provocations in Jerusalem never end well, and with the tensions in Jerusalem clearly rising in recent weeks, the potential for an explosion is very real. [continued…]
Israel is considering recalling its ambassador to Stockholm in light of Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s remarks in support of a UN report claiming war crimes were committed by both sides during the Israel-Hamas Gaza conflict.
Bildt told reporters in Stockholm Thursday that South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who headed the investigation into the war, is a person with “high credibility” and “high integrity” and that his report carries weight.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon called to re-examine Israel’s relations with Sweden. [continued…]
As Abbas falls, have no doubt that he got pushed by an inept administration that similarly gets weak-kneed whenever it feels pressure from either the Israel lobby or the Israeli government.
Yesterday, State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly, was asked: “What role specifically did the United States play in pressuring the Palestinian Authority to make that decision [to shelve the Goldstone report]?
Kelly, squirming like an eel, responded:
Well, I don’t know if I would accept your characterization of pressuring. I think that we recognized that we had serious concerns with the recommendations and some of the allegations. We felt very strongly that while these investigations should be investigated and addressed, that we thought on the one hand that Israel had the kind of institutions that could address these allegations. And of course, we urged Israel to address these very serious allegations.
But I think we had a broader concern that we didn’t want the report to distract us from our ultimate goal, which was to address the root causes of the tragic events of last January, and that’s the lack of a regional and lasting peace between the two parties – between the Israelis and the Palestinians. So we were concerned that we stay focused on that ultimate goal.
And we are not saying that the allegations in the report – we’re not saying that they should be ignored. We simply do not want the report itself to become any kind of impediment to this ultimate goal. We appreciate the seriousness with which the Palestinians approach this very, very difficult issue, and we respect this decision to defer discussion of the report to a later date for the reasons that I just stated – that we want to make sure that we stay focused on the ultimate goal here.
(Goldstone discussion begins at 6 minutes 55 seconds.)
What kind of tortured logic is this? On the one hand war crimes committed in Gaza are somehow extraneous to an understanding of the root causes of the conflict, yet the root cause of the conflict is conflict itself?
The administration needs to make up its mind: Either this conflict is all about violence, in which case Israeli violence can’t be ruled out of the equation. Or, the violence is merely symptomatic of underlying political injustices and a natural outcome of addressing those injustices will be a long sought peace. Take your pick.
Of course, the true sentiment that few American officials are crass enough to utter, yet apparently everyone believes, is that when Israelis kill hundreds of Palestinians they really don’t intend to kill any (“we shoot and we cry”), yet when Palestinians kill a dozen Israelis they merely fall short of accomplishing their genocidal intentions.
* * *
After taking stabs at solving the Middle East conflict, engaging Iran, bringing about global nuclear disarmament, healing the rift between Muslims and the West, shoring up the global financial system, tackling climate change and reforming America’s health care system, there are strong indications that Obama came into office intoxicated by his image as a world savior.
Even so, his cool created the impression that he might actually be impervious to the influence of adulation, but even though some of us thought he had risen above the massive projections that were being imposed on him, the evidence is that to some extent he got sucked into the myth that had been created around him.
To see Obama now as either a tragic figure or as the victim of circumstances essentially absolves him of responsibility for his own actions.
I don’t think it’s premature to be conducting an autopsy on Obama’s Middle East initiative and the first question to ask is this: Did he manage to cross the most minimal threshold for a defensible approach? That is, can he claim at least to have done no harm?
Unfortunately, the harm appears grossly evident and it hinges on his choice to raise expectations across the region and then allow those expectations to founder. Expectations dashed are much more destructive than expectations never formed. (George Bush never disappointed anyone because no one took his promises seriously. In office and life he mastered the art of setting a low bar.)
So, could Obama have entered the situation differently and put himself in a better position to at least live up to the Hippocratic oath (which, incidentally, all politicians should be forced to take)?
He could have acknowledged that he had on his plate more than any human president could address (“sorry folks, I’m not the Messiah”) and he could in his first days in office have said something like this:
“The Middle East conflict is a wound to which no easy remedy can be applied. I do not come into office claiming to have any greater powers than all of my predecessors who struggled with limited success to deal with this issue.
“I do know this, however: setting aside the many intractable political issues, there is right now a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We haven’t had time to assess the scope of this crisis but having appointed George Mitchell as my Middle East peace envoy, I’ve asked him to put the crisis in Gaza at the top of his agenda. In the next few days he will be visiting the area to assess which needs must most urgently addressed.”
At that point, the Israel Lobby’s wheels would have started spinning frantically. But how do you conduct a campaign focused on preventing Mitchell going to Gaza and addressing a humanitarian crisis?
No doubt, phones in the White House and the State Department would have been ringing off the hook as Abe Foxman and other Jewish community leaders and Israeli officials objected, saying that such a move would not be “helpful”. But seriously, how do you conduct a public campaign whose direct aim is to prevent help reaching tens of thousands of people whose homes had been flattened?
What happened in reality? Obama and Mitchell made the choice of staying out of Gaza. Neither of them had a gun pointed at his head.
Obama had the opportunity to craft a policy that grew modestly and organically from the facts on the ground. A combination of fear, arrogance and perhaps lack of political imagination, led him to pass up that opportunity.
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alestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organisation Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned.
pposition MK Shaul Mofaz is planning to meet with senior Hamas officials, the Channel 10 website reported late Monday.