Mideast suspicion of US foreign policy fertile grounds for rumors
By Daoud Kuttab
Initially it seemed like a true story. A blogger reports on a lecture given by an advisor to the republican presidential nominee making outrageously radical statements. It should have raised some eyebrows but it didn’t. The blog starts by the name of the writer and the story quoting Carnegie endowment fellow Robert Magen’s talk at New York University and saying that the republican presumptive nominee plans to declare the Kingdom of Jordan as the Palestinian state. The report was so cleverly written that it included a supposed Jordanian student of Palestinian origin complaining during the lecture that was supposedly attended by thousands of student and faculty.
Jordanian web sites and bloggers were among the first to notice the story. With a click of their mouse the story written in Arabic is pasted on the popular web sites and within 24 hours major Jordanian newspapers repeat the details of the lecture. Jordanian politicians, parliamentarians, union members and even the Jordanian Bar Association put out press statements and denounce the anti Arab republican leader.
This supposed lecture, however, never took place. Megan was in Brussels not in New York and when reached by Carnegie and the Jordanian Embassy in Washington he denied having lectured or made the controversial statement.
What is strange is that it took nearly 48 hours before this storm to begin to subsidize. The atmosphere in the Middle East has been so fragile, the nerves so raw that a story on a weird radical Israeli web site is taken as the truth without question. No one knows who owns this strange blog that is called filkaisrael. Although it has many stories in Arabic, their about us section states clearly that their mission is “the destruction of the Kingdom of Jordan and replacing it with greater Palestine.”
Jordanians, Palestinians and many other Arabs are so suspicious of America’s foreign policy that they were quick to believe the fabrication peddled as news. Even the government owned daily newspaper Al Rai was caught up with the fabrication, ran an editorial opposing the statement. In a front page interview the Jordanian paper of record published an interview with King Abdullah II insisting the Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine, even though the King is known to be a personal friend of McCain. Ironically even after the Jordanian embassy issued a statement denying that the lecture had even taken place, very little attention was given to the public denial.
The Jordan is Palestine theory had been espoused by right wing Israelis in the 80s but was publicly rejected by Likud leader Ariel Sharon when he became prime minister. Only ideological settlers and the ultra right wing Moledet party (which calls for the transfer of Palestinians) still supports this ethnic cleaning plan.
The fragility of the situation in the Middle East has created a skeptical population that can believe almost any story. While Arabs have little faith in America’s foreign policy they brace themselves ever election campaign. This year things were no different as America’s foreign policy watchers had become used to American political one upmanship. The season had began with anti Iran military rhetoric and included a surprise statement by the democratic nominee. Anyone with any hope about change in the US policy to the Middle East were in for a setback when presumptive democratic nominee Barack Obama publicly took sides and prejudged the results of the negotiations in Jerusalem in favor of the Israelis.
While the natural lesson of this incident is that internet based news should be scrutinized before being published, a more important lesson is that in the Middle East, nothing coming out of the US election’s campaign will surprise anyone.

Daoud Kuttab an award winning Palestinian journalist is the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. His email is info@daoudkuttab.com

Local community radio breaks Arab sound barrier Sun, 12-11-2006

By Dale Gavlak, The Associated Press

AMMAN, November 12 — The breathless caller was desperate, with nowhere else to turn: “Help me get a bedouin and his camels and sheep out of my street,” he pleaded. “The herd nearly attacked two neighborhood boys.”

Another caller wanted help rescuing his three Lebanese nephews stranded on the Syrian border because they did not have the proper papers.

It’s all in a day’s work for AmmanNet, an alternative radio station that aims at ordinary Jordanians, providing them with more than the usual Arab fare of pop music and news.

“Unlike satellite TV in the Middle East, which focuses on regional and world news, radio stations, such as AmmanNet, have really helped play a role in informing people on a community level about what’s going on in their own backyard,” said Frances Abouzeid of Freedom House, a Washington-based democracy advocacy group.

“AmmanNet is the first in Jordan to use a kind of documentary style of telling a story, having people call-in, inviting them into the studio and hearing about the local context,” she said.

That achievement will be recognized during a weeklong conference of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, which began in Amman on Saturday and was opened by Government Spokesperson Nasser Judeh deputizing for the prime minister.

The conference is the first of its kind in the Arab world and will discuss such topics as empowering women and increasing access to information in isolated communities.

Other community radio stations are being planned at Yarmouk University in Irbid — with help from Western Kentucky University and the Washington-based Internews Network — and in Maan, with assistance from the British Council.

AmmanNet was the brainchild of Palestinian journalist, Daoud Kuttab, who established the station six years ago as the Arab world’s first online radio station.

At the time, the law prohibited private FM stations. But AmmanNet’s streaming broadcasts over the Internet drew Arab listeners as far away as the United States and Europe.

As the law was gradually relaxed, AmmanNet began broadcasting at 92.4 on the FM dial in July 2005. The four other FM stations focus on music and cater mostly to a small segment of the capital’s mainly Westernized youth.

AmmanNet has found its niche in the impoverished districts of east Amman and in Zarqa, a gritty, industrial city just north of the capital that was also the home of the late Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Mussab Zarqawi.

“We feel we are really doing a good job because what I was talking about in east Amman is even worse in Zarqa — the poverty, unemployment, pollution and they are really marginalized,” said Sawsan Zaideh, a journalist and producer with AmmanNet.

“We try to give more space for ordinary people to speak on the broadcast because we believe that the mainstream media are more focused on the government voice,” she said.

AmmanNet’s 24-hour broadcast includes a call-in show receiving complaints about public services — including farm animals in the streets — as well as a program offering legal counseling.

A cultural program — “The Smell of Coffee” — features poetry readings, music and the arts as well as live broadcasts from the sometimes stormy Parliament sessions.

“At first we thought this would be really boring for people, but we discovered they really wanted to know what the lawmakers they voted in were saying and doing,” Zaideh said.

Among the most controversial programs were two which dealt with women’s rights in a male-dominated society.

“Other topics were very sensitive, even taboo, like women’s sexuality,” Zaideh said. “We tried not to say

things directly but would link them to a discussion of traditions and get into the subject that way.”

Those traditions include honor killings, where girls are murdered by close male relatives for presumed sexual activity that “shames” the family. Although honor killings are illegal, the tradition runs deep among poor families.

“There are upwards of 25 honor killings each year in Jordan and the majority of them are committed by youth who are unemployed, poor and marginalized,” she said.

Buthaina Sulieman, a secretary at a government ministry, said she finds the shows “stimulating and beneficial.”

She said her favorites are those that discuss women in the workplace — from bankers and lawyers to street vendors, farmers and even prostitutes.

“I always learn something new when I tune into AmmanNet. Truth really can be more extraordinary than fiction. Best are those things I’ve learned that help me live a better life,” Suleiman said, chuckling.

Jordanian lower house sues Radio Al-Balad for “insulting” chamber

LENGTH: 405 words

Text of report in English by privately-owned Jordan Times newspaper on 5 March

[Report by Mohammad Ghazal: “Radio Al Balad banned from broadcasting Lower House sessions”]

AMMAN -The Lower House has filed a lawsuit against Radio Al Balad, formerly Ammannet, and banned it from broadcasting its sessions for allegedly insulting the chamber of deputies, House Secretary General Fayez Shawabkeh said.

“We prevented the radio’s correspondent from broadcasting last week after we discovered that the station insulted the Legislative Authority,” Shawabkeh told The Jordan Times.

According to the secretary general, several deputies complained to the Lower House General Secretariat when they learned that Radio Al Balad insulted the Lower House.

“We sent a letter to the Audiovisual Commission to see if any insult was aired by the radio station and received a reply from the commission confirming this fact,” Shawabkeh said.

Despite several attempts by The Jordan Times to contact them, officials at the commission did not return the calls.

Sawsan Zaidah, radio manager, said the station’s correspondent was prevented from broadcasting from its studio at the Lower House last Wednesday and was told that he will not be allowed to relay the session due to an insult to the House published on the station’s website.

Zaidah said a comment deemed “insulting” by the Lower House was discovered after checking the website’s archives.

The comment on an article published on January 29 was posted by a reader, she explained.

According to Zaidah, as of early January, the station started implementing a monitoring system on the website that filters comments.

“In the system, we have created a blacklist of words. If one of the words in the blacklist is in the comments, the system will not publish it. But the word that the Lower House sees as insulting was not on this blacklist,” she told The Jordan Times.

Zaidah added that there is a disclaimer on the station’s website clarifying that comments solely reflect readers’ opinions.

According to Yehya Shqeir, a media law expert, article 189 of the Penal Code imposes penalties on publications and media outlets that publish words or descriptions deemed insulting to the Parliament or its members.

If it is proven that the insult was published deliberately, the penalty ranges from one to six months in prison or a fine ranging between JD10-50, according to Shqeir.

Source: Jordan Times, Amman, in English 5 Mar 08

There is no avoiding land for peace
Daoud Kuttab

After Israel’s crushing defeat and occupation of Arab lands in 1967, the United Nations introduced the concept of land for peace into the conflict by unanimously enacting Security Council Resolution 242.

Much has been said about whether the resolution demands Israel to withdraw from all “the territories”, in accordance to the French version, or just “territories”, a formulation that without the “the” has caused Israel and its supporters to claim that the country has a right to retain some occupied land. But in both cases, the concept as specified in the preamble was the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security.”

Land for peace has therefore been the bedrock of all post-1967 peace efforts. And except for a short period at the height of the rule of the hard line Likud party, when it suggested a peace for peace resolution, Israel has always publicly supported the land for peace formula. Naturally the big problem has always centered on which lands and what kind of peace. Here the Israeli position has been rendered hypocritical by Israeli actions on the lands that were supposed to be traded for peace.

By confiscating Arab land and moving Jewish Israeli settlers into the territories occupied in 1967, Israel violated international law and rendered the concept of land for peace much more difficult. Israel’s decision to annex East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and place them under its civil rule completely contradicted the concept, and no country in the world has recognized these unilateral Israeli actions.

While Israel withdrew its settlers from the Sinai as part of its land for peace deal with Egypt and unilaterally removed its settlers from Gaza in 2005, there has been no serious attempt to rescind any settlement activities in the West Bank or the Golan Heights since 1967.

For their part, the Arabs have backtracked from their opposition to peace with Israel (the Khartoum resolutions in the fall of 1967). Arab countries, represented most prominently by the Arab League, have come from rejecting peace to supporting peace and finally to supporting normalized relations with Israel in return for the latter ceding occupied Arab lands. The Arab summit in 2002 (which included Palestinians and Syrians) unanimously approved a Saudi plan that called for peace and normalization with Israel in return for Israel withdrawing from all Arab territories occupied in 1967 and a fair resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem. This Arab peace initiative was repeated in 2007.

While decisions on the “land” side of the formula are physically in the domain of the military power controlling it, the Arab “peace” portion could not be articulated other than through public resolutions and conditional governmental commitments. Third party attempts have failed to produce any breakthroughs. The cold war and the so-called war on terror have helped deflect any effective international pressure on the party with troops on the ground.

The first Gulf war and the Syrian alliance with the anti-Saddam western coalition produced the Madrid peace process and almost brought about a breakthrough on the Golan front that was only thwarted by a last minute Israeli reluctance to allow Syrian sovereignty over the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee. Since Madrid, it seems that the Syrian-Israeli track that developed was only pursued when the Palestinian-Israeli track was stuck or when it was expedient for either party for purely domestic reasons.

Although the land for peace concept mixes a very tangible issue with a purely psychological one, it seems clear that if Israel wants to save its Jewish majority and some semblance of democracy it must at least give up Palestinian territories with large concentrations of Palestinians. The ceding of the Golan Heights lands would also entail that Israel give up the Shebaa farms, a small territory that Israel refused to turn over to Lebanon in 2000 on the claim that it is Syrian.

Strategically, land for peace with Syria will bolster the Assad regime, which has been steadfast in refusing to compromise an inch of Syria’s lands. It will likely weaken the regional American efforts to isolate Iran and Syria. But it is unclear how exchanging land for peace with Syria will reflect on the larger Middle East conflict. Peace with Syria will likely weaken Hizballah and Hamas’ anti-Israel positions. Both Islamic movements have benefited from the state of belligerency. But, ironically, by talking and reaching an accord with Syria, Israel will have a harder time justifying not talking to Hamas.- Published 5/6/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org

Obama’s promises fail at the AIPAC conference
By Daoud Kuttab
It was so sad. To see a grown tower of a man come to his knees. Just like everyone before him, the presumptive democratic followed the suit of all US political leaders before him and bowed down at the footsteps of the pro Israel lobby. What happened to the anti lobby nominee.
On the day his nomination had been sealed, at a time when his chances of being elected had been all but ensured Barack Obama failed the test. What happened to the nominee who was going to change the way Washington was run. What happened to the promise of “I will tell you what you have to hear not what you love to hear.”
Speaking at the pro Israel lobby the first black presidential nominee who is being seen world wide as a potentially global president turned on every promise he made during the run up to the nomination.
It wasn’t as if he needed the Jewish money or votes. This has been the first presidential run which succeeded in circumventing large donors and prided itself with the million donors who gave less than $100 was suddenly kowtowing to a sector of America whose major source of power has been their ability to raise large funds. On the day that he succeeded in getting the Democratic National Committee to announce that they will not accept lobbyist money, he was pandering to the most powerful of all lobbies. How can we believe that lobbyists will not run Obama’s administration.
Content wise, Barack Obama contradicted himself and every foreign policy rule he has been espousing. Gone was the need to favor diplomacy over militarisms as Obama promised to give Israel $30 billion in military funding. Gone was the need to talk to Iran and instead the saber rattling was repeated in the form of declaring that the military option in defense of Israel. Gone was the need to talk to our enemies and replaced by the repetition of claims of Bush claim of Iran’s nuclear military program a claim that have been disproved by 16 American intelligence agencies.
The pandering to Israel at the AIPAC conference even produced criticism from the Daily Show’s John Stewart. An unashamedly Jewish comedian tore apart Obama’s twin flag (Israel and US) pin, made fun of the gushing attempts to woe the pro Israeli audience and the lack of a single word of criticism by all three speakers. The pro Israeli love fest was so sad that Obama needed Hillary Clinton who had yet to concede the nomination, felt it necessary to vouch for the young Illinois senator’s pro Israel credentials.
During the campaign, and while speaking to a group of American Jewish leaders in Cleveland Obama noted that he was impressed with how the debate inside Israel was more vigorous than in the US. He also was honest enough to tell them that his policies will not be similar to that of Israel’s right wing Likud party. I read and re read the speech and couldn’t find anything in it that the current Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu would find problematic.
During the ‘03 Democratic convention, Obama excited Americans of all backgrounds by his unity speech. I remember the pride I and many others felt when he legitimized Arab Americans by including them in the new America he was advocating. The term Arab American has since disappeared in Obama’s stomp speech. Obama repeated verbatim Bush’s position regarding the two state solution, calling Israel a Jewish state, the need to stop new settlements and even his prejudging the results of negotiations by his support for Israeli sovereignty over a united Jerusalem. His call on the illegal Israeli occupiers to ease travel restrictions was conditioned with the caveat “consistent with its security.” Unlike Bush, Obama promises us that he will begin efforts for peace from the beginning of his term and not in its waning days. Why should we believe this particular promise when all previous ones have been reversed?
America’s black nominee who would have supported divestment on racist south Africa blasted international divestment calls on Israel, and libeled Arab oil producing countries by saying that “petrodollars are responsible for the killing of American soldiers and Israeli citizens.” How pathetic.
If there was a time that a presidential candidate should have had courage to change course on the way Washington is run this was the time. If there was a group that deserved a more honest speech it was this. Obama failed in both tests. This is a shame.

It ended rather quickly. After punching in the grades on the special peoplesoft web site of the university my last formal activity at Princeton University was over. In the span of this year I taught upper class students a seminar entitled New Media in the Arab world, ran a freshman seminar class entitled Authentic Arab Voice and taught helped a few more upper class with their Arabic in the Arabic Media III class.

My journey to Princeton started years ago when NY Times reporter Chris Hedges urged me to apply for a Ferris Journalism Professorship. He encouraged me again when I met him three years ago at a human rights event in Italy , I finally decided to apply and sure enough I was chosen one of the 2007 Ferris.

Coming to Princeton from Jerusalem and Amman was not easy. I had to leave media organizations which I had helped establish and yank our kids out of their schools. But the reward of teaching some of the most intelligent students at American’s best school and living the Princeton experience has been well worth it.

Princeton has been a wonderful personal and professional journey. Living on campus with my family has allowed me to spend more time with them than I have in ten years. Living on campus, attending conferences and events and interacting with students, faculty and the community has been professionally refreshing.

Of all the great things about Princeton , I was most impressed with the students. Their wide-ranging knowledge and at the same time their ability to immerse themselves in another culture thousands of miles away was impressive.

The atmosphere at Princeton has been wonderful. Lecturers are blessed with a high quality support, the libraries are world class and all requests to add Arabic language books and films were immediately and positively responded to.

While at Princeton , I had an opportunity to listen to and meet with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, who gave the university community an opportunity to listen to an authentic voice from the Arab world.

During a reception after the King’s talk, I had a chance to chat with President Tilgman about Princeton and its future. I told Princeton ’s president what I have been sensing ever since coming to this great university. That this high level academic institution lacks more comprehensive and authentic voices from the Arab Middle East. At a time when the US is deeply involved in the Middle East in a war of choice that has brought disastrous results to Washington and America ’s image, it is high time that our higher institutes of education dig deeper in providing students with faculty that has a deeper more authentic understanding of this strategic region.

While the decision to go to Iraq rest clearly on the shoulders of the President and his key staff, faculty from America’s Ivy League university’s must bear responsibility for not being forceful enough in pointing out the pitfalls that awaited American soldiers and diplomats in Mesopotamia. More importantly now is the need to be sure that no further mistakes are committed in regards to the dealings with Iran .

A more balanced Middle East policy has been discussed and encouraged by the Baker-Hamilton bipartisan commission which included among other things the need to resolve the Palestinian conflict and to engage Syria and Iran .

The Ottoman period and history is quite well researched at Princeton , possibly due to Bernard Lewis’ focus on it. But a more contemporary study of the Arab world is badly lacking at Princeton . The number of Arab faculty or faculty with deep knowledge of the Arab Middle East is quite low. I was surprised when talking to upper class students at Princeton how little knowledge they have of the Arab region. I had to correct students more than once about some simple facts such as that not all Arabs are Moslems and not all Moslems are Arabs or that Iran is not an Arab country and that there are Christian Arabs.

The number of students wanting to study Arabic has spiked in recent years reaching over 170 students. This is not surprising with so much happening in the Arab world that is of interest to Americans. Princeton must respond to this challenge by rethinking its course offerings, faculty hirings and general approach to this region. Encouraging more Arab scholarship at Princeton is not a partisan request. It is needed to offset the decades of ignoring this vital part of the world. Visits to the region must also be encouraged.

As I head back to Jordan and Palestine , I will forever cherish the friends I have made, the students I have come in contact with and the wonderful atmosphere that my family and I felt in Princeton . Our home in Amman and my contacts in both Palestine and Jordan are at the disposal of any interested in continuing the wonderful welcome and opportunity that was provided to us. To the students, faculty and administration of Princeton , thank you. Go Tigers.

published in the Huffington post

The Kippa, the Keffiya, Green and Orange
by Daoud Kuttab

Upon arriving for my freshman orientation at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania back in 1971, I was asked to wear a cardboard beanie. Having just come from Jerusalem I was rather upset at having to wear that head covering. The beanie that I was given looked very much like the kippa that Jewish settlers wear in the occupied Palestinian territories. I later discovered that there was no connection between the two head coverings. Since then I have seen that small rounded item put on the head on different individuals include the Catholic Pope and the Anglican Bishop.

I thought about the beanie this week as the right wing bloggers and even some misguided liberals mercilessness attacked Dunkin’ Donuts for featuring Rachael Ray wearing a scarf that looked like the keffiya, the Arab head dress.

For the record, the keffiya is not a symbol of either Islam or terrorism and predate Yasser Arafat. The head dress (which comes in white, checkered black or checkered red) came into importance in the early 20th century as part of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans who ruled the Middle East for over four hundred years left a two class system of landlords and peasants. The landlords generally wore a red high hat regularly referred to as a tarbouch or fez. Peasants wore the keffiya as a practical head cover to protect from the hot sun in the daytime and the cold winds at nights.

Once the Ottomans began to loose power sympathy with peasants and the average people took the symbolism of the keffiya.

Visit any rural Arab areas or the traditional Bedouins and you will see them dressed in one color or another of the keffiya. In 70s Europe, the keffiya became a fashion symbol as part of a general sympathy with university students around the world taking on power structures. It is true that Palestinian guerillas and Yasser Arafat took on the keffiya (the latter more to cover his bald head) making it a symbol of people’s liberation in the same way as the Che Guevara t-shirts came to reflect a particular left wing political leaning but certainly not symbolic of terrorism or Islam. Turning a centuries old symbol of a proud people into a claim of terrorism is unacceptable to the millions of people around the world who proudly wear the keffiya.

Much to the surprise of environmentalists, green is the symbolic color of Islamists. The autocratic leader of Libya Muaamar Qadafi calls his unique revolution the green revolution in which he mixes Islam with his form of populism. The country’s flag is only one color green. Jewish settlers opposed to the withdrawal from Gaza waved orange flags.

I hope that green continues to be the color of environmentalists and I am certainly not willing to allow the right wing Jewish settlers to hijack the color of orange. What I hope is that bloggers and others rethink their opposition to the Rachael Ray scarf.

What was more dangerous than the ‘appeasement’ reference

By Daoud Kuttab

While the Barak Obama , Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, the media and others were correct in pouncing on President Bush for his ‘appeasement’ remark during his speech at the Israeli Knesset, an even more dangerous trend was totally ignored.

In his gushing praise for Israel as a Jewish state, the president not only injected domestic politics but he crossed the church state line that is the bedrock of American politics.

While its people are largely church goers and people of faith, the United States has prided itself as a country that separates religion from politics. In addressing the Israeli Knesset, a predominantly secular legislature whose members include a minority of Christian and Moslem Arabs, President George Bush went out of his way to inject terminology that is specifically and exclusively Jewish. By calling Israel “the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham, Moses and David- a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael,” the American president clearly crossed a line. How can his administration be publicly trying to bring peace between Palestinians (who include Christians, Moslem and non believers) and Israelis (who also include people of faith and non believers), while he is bestowing divine right to the Jews of Israel?

Is President Bush playing Biblical games by pushing for a particular Christian Zionist interpretation on all the peoples of the region? Are Moslems expected to accept this divine order. What about Christian Palestinians, where are they in this divine order that seems to be transmitted directly from the Almighty to this Texas cowboy George W. Bush.

President Bush mixes the seventeenth century faith of the American founders with the modern day Israeli secular state. He even confuses the concept of promised land by saying that the early Americans felt that their new discovered lands was their “new promised land.” So are we talking here about two promises lands, one in America and one in Israel. Then President Bush tells us the names of American cities bestowed by these early settlers in America. Bush documents the names of Bethlehem and the new Canaan as an example of how fond these pioneers felt that this was their promised land. But why use the name of a Palestinian city which his own administration clearly realizes will be part of the Palestinian state. Is this a hint of US support for some strange expansion of the internationally recognized Israeli state to include hjthu6u6hu6yBethlehem?

In his conclusion, America’s president returns one more to the same divine issues. “You have raised a modern society in the Promise Land, a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” What a sad conclusion in which the president of the United States appoints himself the Divine Commander in Chief and turns the Almighty into a real estate agent.

Daoud Kuttab a Palestinian Christian journalist is the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. His email is info@daoudkuttab.com

By Daoud Kuttab

As the state of Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinians remember the naqba, or “catastrophe” - their story of dispossession, occupation, and statelessness. But, for both sides, as well as external powers, the events of 1948 and what has followed - the occupation since June 1967 of the remaining lands of historic Palestine - represents a tragic failure.

Israel is most at fault for this failure, owing to its continued military occupation and illegal settlements. Despite paying lip service to peace, the Israeli refusal to leave the Occupied Territories continues to be in direct contravention to what the preamble to United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 termed the “inadmissible taking of land by force.”

But the international community, Palestinians, and Arabs all bear responsibility as well, albeit at different levels. Indeed, the list of disappointments predates Israeli statehood and the naqba itself: the King-Crane Commission of 1919, the 1937 Peel Report, the British White Paper of 1939, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry of 1945, and the UN Partition Plan of 1947. Since then, we have had UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, the Rogers Plan, the Mitchell Plan, the Tenet Plan, Camp David, Taba, the Saudi plan, the “road map,” the unofficial Geneva Initiative, the People’s Choice, and the Beirut Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.

To be sure, Palestinians and Arabs are also to blame for their inability to empathize, recognize, and understand the plight of the Jewish people. Although Palestinians had nothing to do with European anti-Semitism and the Nazi Holocaust, they should not have turned a blind eye to the Jews’ tragedy. Palestinians were so locked in their opposition to Zionism that they were unable to appreciate the Jews’ existential needs, just as they failed to appreciate the effects of indiscriminate acts of violence against Israeli civilians.

Consumed with legitimate anger, Palestinians and Arabs failed to come up with a serious approach to reach out to Israelis and failed to devise a workable political strategy that would address daily Palestinian needs and national aspirations. Cross-border attacks, hijackings, Arab and international diplomacy, secret talks, non-violent resistance, suicide bombings, rockets, regional Arab initiatives, international peace envoys: Nothing has succeeded in ending the occupation. With each approach, Palestinian leaders, believing the Arab states’ hollow proclamations of solidarity with their cause, have failed to measure accurately their own powers vis-�-vis the Israelis.

Indeed, the Arab states have come nowhere close to matching the level of US and European aid to the Palestinians, much less the even higher level of Western support - political and military, as well as financial - that has been the key to Israel’s ability to withstand Palestinian demands for freedom. While European public and private support to Israel, especially in its founding years, is believed to be very extensive, the US has created a firewall of vetoes and political protection for Israel, in addition to providing massive financial support. Writing in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Shirl McArthur, a retired US Foreign Service officer, estimates that direct US aid to Israel between 1949 and 2006 totaled $108 billion.

After the US, Germany is the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel. By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments for Nazi atrocities. Total German assistance to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals, and Israeli private institutions has been roughly $31 billion, or $5,345 per capita, bringing combined US and German assistance to almost $20,000 per Israeli.

In the face of Israel’s strength, the Palestinian national movement’s failure has now played into the hands of Islamists. The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which emerged during the first intifada in 1987, grew more powerful in the 1990s, after the return of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Yasser Arafat and the creation, as a result of the Oslo Accords, of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas’ rejection of the Oslo Accords bore political fruit as it became increasingly clear to Palestinians that the handshakes on the White House lawn would not produce the coveted end to the Israeli occupation, or even of Israel’s illegal settlement activities.

Yet, despite history’s long train of failures, Hamas’ June 2007 seizure of control of Gaza, and its pariah status in the West, we are repeatedly told by the US that 2008 will be the year of a peace agreement. Meanwhile, the Arab peace proposal, which calls for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and a fair solution to the refugee problem in exchange for normalization of Arab states’ relations with Israel, appears doomed.

After 60 years of failures, and as the generation that lived through the naqba passes from the scene, a political settlement that can provide Palestinians with freedom in an independent state alongside a secure Israel and a fair solution of the refugee problem is more necessary - but also appears less possible - than ever.

Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist, is currently a visiting professor of journalism at Princeton University. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate (c) (www.project-syndicate.org).

Following appeared in the Washington Post

Priority: Statehood
The Palestinian right of return is not what’s holding up a peace agreement.

By Daoud Kuttab
Monday, May 12, 2008; A19

In the spring of 1948, my father, George Kuttab, and his brother Qostandi fled Musrara, a Jerusalem neighborhood just outside the walled city, after their sister Hoda’s husband was killed in front of her and their children. When Dad used to tell us about the Naqba, the catastrophe that befell Palestinians in 1948, he never talked politics or hatred. He would laugh as he told us how his brother secured their home near Damascus Gate. To assure his mother and brother that the house (in what is now Israeli west Jerusalem) would be safe, my uncle joked that he had double-locked the door, turning the heavy metal key twice. He took that key with him to Zarqa, Jordan, expecting to be able to use it again one day.

As Palestinians look back on the 60 years since they became refugees and Israelis celebrate the 60th anniversary of their statehood, it is important to take stock of Palestinian aspirations.

Our family took refuge from the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, but only my uncle had a U.N.-issued refugee card allowing him rations. No one in my family lived in tents or refugee camps; even if we are technically refugees, I do not pretend to understand that particular part of the refugee tragedy. I do, however, understand the aspiration of Palestinians to return to their homes. Palestinians’ inalienable right to return is sacred and must be honored. How politicians implement this right is negotiable. But regardless of what terms are reached, the Palestinian public must be able to vote in a referendum on the proposed deal.

The long-term desire of most Palestinians to return to their homes and lands in Jaffa and Haifa is little more than a dream today. Return is not a priority for everyday Palestinians; certainly it is not a priority for Palestinian negotiators. If forced to choose between continuing the conflict or living in an independent, democratic and free state of Palestine without the return of all refugees, Palestinians overwhelmingly would take the latter.

Pre-state armed Zionist groups were responsible for creating the refugee problem. Israeli researcher Ilan Pappé details what happened in his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.” And since its establishment, Israel has refused to implement successive U.N. resolutions demanding that it permit refugees to return.

In every Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiation, while Palestinians have demanded the right of refugees to return to the lands where they lived before 1948, they were always willing to make concessions on how this right would be implemented. The basic demand is not the physical return of all refugees but for Israel to take responsibility for causing this decades-long tragedy.

Palestinian negotiators have said that in various rounds of talks, whether in Oslo, Stockholm, Camp David or Taba, issues such as Jerusalem and borders were the real obstacles.

Jews worldwide, including modern-day Israelis, should be the first to understand Palestinians’ desire to return. For 2,000 years Jews reminded each other of the prayer for Zion, repeating the hope “next year in Jerusalem.” No one opposed that dream. Likewise, no one should demand Palestinians stop yearning to return.

Palestinian refugees who have lived away from their homes for 60 years have established themselves elsewhere. Few have a sincere desire to live in today’s Israel. Respected Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki found in 2003 that only 10 percent of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip were willing to move to the areas that today constitute Israel.

What Palestinians want is for Israel to admit its historic and moral role in creating the refugee problem and its moral responsibility to them. Such an admission by a courageous Israeli leader would satisfy, and neutralize, many Palestinians who hold their keys and demand the literal right of return. As part of a bilateral agreement, surely Israel would allow divided Palestinian families to reunite with relatives who stayed in what became Israel after 1948.

These or similar suggestions cannot be implemented alone. They must be part of a comprehensive agreement that includes real Israeli withdrawal and the creation of a sovereign, viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity within the 1967 borders.

My father, aunt and uncle all passed away never having had the opportunity to return to their homes in Musrara. Yet their absence has not diluted the yearning of Palestinians for an independent homeland in Palestine. That yearning lives on in my children and their grandchildren and in our people around the world.

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian columnist and founder of the Arab world’s first Internet radio station, AmmanNet. He is teaching a course on new media in the Arab world at Princeton University. His e-mail address isinfo@daoudkuttab.com.