By Daoud Kuttab

Music and art festivals are common occurrences in the summer the world over. But the Bet Lahem Live festival held in Bethlehem this week had a higher calling: mixing music and entertainment with the need to strengthen the steadfastness of Palestinians and a special focus on Palestinian Christians.

The Bet Lahem festival organized by the Holy Land Trust, a local NGO set up by Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, which ended Sunday night, was a resounding success. It brought local and international attention to a neglected part of the birthplace of Jesus.

Held in the old city of Bethlehem with activities throughout the city’s Star Street, the festival has done more to revive a forgotten and historic part of the city than all actions of politicians and local leaders combined.

Star Street was recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 2012. Long ignored and neglected, Star Street received a fresh look as volunteers hit the streets cleaning, painting and reviving the oldest route to the Church of the Nativity. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Contrary to what many believe, the possibility of US intervention in the Syrian crisis will undoubtedly increase US pressure on Israel to solve the Palestinian conflict.

The decision by the Barack Obama administration on June 13 to inform Congress of its assessment that chemical weapons have been used multiple times by the Syrian regime is the clearest indication yet that Washington will become more deeply involved in the conflict. In a situation so reminiscent of the US intervention in Iraq, American officials most certainly will be calculating the political costs of such a decision.

Obama’s belated decision to arm the rebels and encourage other parties to possibly share in creating a no-fly zone in Syria will be welcomed by the rebels and Sunni Arab leaders. A considerable portion of the Arab population, however, is likely to be angered by Americans once again intervening in the affairs of a sovereign Arab country. As with Iraq, the single most-repeated phrase will be “double standard.” Various Arab thinkers and commentators as well as demonstrators will ask this simple question: Why intervene in a civil war while refraining from taking a serious position in the 46-year-old military occupation by a US ally? Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Amona Abed Rabo remembers the TV interview with Israeli President Shimon Peres quite well. Demonstrating with a photo of her son Issa Abed Rabo when US President Barack Obama visited Bethlehem, she repeated every question and answer of a TV interview with President Peres. She slows down and raises her voice when she gets to the section of the interview in which the architect of the Oslo Accords confirms his commitment to the release of Palestinians imprisoned before the Oslo Accords.

Some 107 Palestinian prisoners (some accounts say 103) arrested before September 1993 are still held in Israeli jails. The prisoners, who belong to the PLO’s Fatah movement, feel betrayed by Israel and their own leaders. Having been sent on military missions by their PLO leaders, these men are rotting in jail while the leaders who gave the orders for them have been free since 1993. Promises made by the Israelis, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have not been fulfilled.

This week it was revealed that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected an Israeli offer to have 50 of the prisoners released. Abbas insists that all prisoners must be released as part of a US-brokered agreement to restart face-to-face peace talks. US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was due to visit the region for an unprecedented fifth visit, has postponed his trip. Some believe that the disagreement over the release of the Palestinian prisoners might have something to do with Kerry’s decision to delay a visit that was aimed at announcing a small breakthrough. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Ever since the creation of the first Palestinian government headed by Mahmoud Abbas, there has been tension between the presidency and the prime minister’s office. At the time of that first government, there was pressure on Palestinians to shift as much power as possible away from former President Yasser Arafat and to the government of Prime Minister Abbas.

After Arafat’s death, the tables were turned when Abbas became president. Attempts were made to shift some of the powers back to the president, especially after the victory of pro-Hamas members of Parliament in 2006 and the appointment of Ismail Haniyeh as prime minister.

Former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad reversed the trend one more time, insisting on enjoying the full authority given to him by Palestinian law. The conflict between Abbas and Fayyad reached its pinnacle when Fayyad refused Abbas’s call to allow resigned Finance Minister Nabil Kassis to return. Eventually, Abbas won the tug-of-war with the resignation of Fayyad. A photo during a ceremony in which Abbas honored Fayyad for his 13 years of service with the medal of honor shows both leaders emotionless, a clear reflection of how bad the relationship had become. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

One of the most controversial Israeli laws that have been attacked as having a racist connotation was passed in the Israeli Knesset in 1950. The Absentee Law considered property belonging to Palestinians who left their lands and homes during the 1948 war to automatically belong to the Custodian of Absentee Property. This controversial law is being applied to lands in East Jerusalem whose owners live in nearby West Bank cities. Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem were part of one country in 1967. It is typical for Palestinians to own land in East Jerusalem even if they don’t live in Jerusalem.

The Israeli news site Ynet quoted a statement made by the Israeli attorney general in an Israeli court that this 1950 law is being used against Palestinian property. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein stated that property in East Jerusalem belonging to Palestinian residents of the West Bank is to be defined as Absentee’s property. Weinstein was asked to produce a ruling on the issue in the course of a Supreme Court debate. Ynet states that in the past, attorneys general have given differing instructions on the subject, and now the Supreme Court has to rule whether Weinstein’s stance is acceptable. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

In a surprise move only two weeks after promises to the contrary, the Jordanian government ordered three local Internet service providers to shut down nearly 300 news websites that have not been licensed by the government-run Press and Publications Department.

The decision ordered midday June 2 followed 10 months of promises by the government and the royal court that the controversial law ordering the owners of any website that deals with news and commentary about Jordan to be licensed. The order does not include web giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Google or Yahoo. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

It is not clear what we can conclude from the appointment of Rami Hamdallah to head the Palestinian government following the resignation of Salam Fayyad.

On the one hand, Hamdallah is known during his long term as the president of Palestine’s largest university as an efficient, centralized bureaucrat who gets the job done. On the other hand, many suspect that he is an interim prime minister being brought in to fill the vacuum that exists between the departure of Fayyad and the expected elections that will occur once all the details of the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas are resolved.

One hint as to which of these two options is the valid one might be found through keeping an eye on what is happening at Hamdallah’s current employer. The talk at An Najah University in Nablus is that Hamdallah is expected to appoint a deputy — possibly Vice President for Academic Affairs Maher Natashe — who will be given the title of acting president. If that takes place and Hamdallah doesn’t officially resign from his position, then we are witnessing an interim prime minister and not one who will be around for some time.

Faculty and students alike at An Najah say that Dr. Rami Hamdallah is very much a hands-on bureaucrat who tries to be involved in all details of almost every aspect of university life. He is given, every morning, a list of attending faculty, what time they arrived and who was late. He is not a delegator, but rather a control person. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Alaa from Beit Jala was surprised like many other Palestinian Christians this week when their local church leaders acquired three-month travel permits that will allow them to visit Jerusalem and Israel, and even stay overnight if they choose to. The permits, however, were not given to all Palestinian Christians.

“As part of the easings given to the Palestinian Christian population for Easter, approximately 21,000 permits were issued,” the Israeli army’s coordinator office told Al-Monitor.

There has been little information as to what led the Israelis to give hundreds of unsolicited permits to Palestinian Christians. Reverend William Shomali, the auxiliary bishop and patriarchal vicar for Jerusalem and Palestine, told Al-Monitor that he was as surprised as everyone else.

“We didn’t ask for these permits, and I don’t like that they are given to a specific group of Palestinians and not to all.” Shomali believes that the entire permit system is a problem and that the right to movement should be made available to all Palestinians.  Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The US efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations continue to face obstacles, but this has not stopped a continuous trickle of information and leaks about some of the major details of the proposed talks.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saed Erekat told the Voice of Palestine Thursday, May 30 that US Secretary of State John Kerry’s plans have three parallel tracks. According to Erekat, the Kerry plan has a political track, a security track and an economic one. While the appointment of Gen. John Allenappears to shine some light on the security track and Kerry’s speech at the WEF conference hints the economic track, little information has come out in regard to the political track. Both Israelis and Palestinians seem stuck on the reference point of the peace talks. Palestinians want the talks to be based on the concept of a two-state solution, while Israel considers such a commitment before the talks to be a precondition it is not willing to accept.

So instead of banging his head against a brick wall, the top US diplomat is apparently looking for ways to go around the problem. One way to do that may be to encourage (codeword for pressure) the Israelis into loosening their grip on the occupied Palestinian territories. The practical translation of such talk often means that Israel must turn over to the Palestinian government lands that its security and administrative arms currently control, areas that are generally referred to — using the Oslo Accords terminology — as Area C. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

The Israeli website that broke the story is not well known, but the content was so appealing that Palestinians jumped all over it. The site, Debkafile, claims that US Secretary of State John Kerry offered to help the Palestinians build their long-awaited airport and to get Israel to turn over a large section of land that includes part of the Dead Sea. The US offer, reportedly the first in a series, aims to encourage the Palestinian leader to go back to face-to-face talks with the Israelis without the latter stopping settlements or defining the eastern borders of Israel.

The reason that the report from a totally unknown site has received so much attention, including from Palestine’s Maan News Agency, is because it touches a nerve among the movement-restricted Palestinians, especially those living in the West Bank. The only exit and entry from this landlocked area is the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge, which is under the total control of the Israeli army. Even the partial control by Palestinian police that existed for a short period prior to 2000 has long been cancelled. All attempts to return the Palestinian police to the bridge, including the commitments in theRoad Map, have been rejected despite Palestinian security receiving high marks from the Israeli army for its ability to control the region. Continue Reading »