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Islamic Jihad: Yes to PLO, No to PA
Daoud Kuttab With the bulk of the Palestinian reconciliation effort being focused on Hamas and Fatah, little attention has been paid to other nationalist and Islamic factions that compose the Palestinian movement. One of these factions is Islamic Jihad, a militant nationalist movement that has adopted Islam politically rather than religiously. Unlike Hamas — which believes…
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Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation Would Be a Reset for PLO
By Daoud Kuttab A liberation organization was established in the early summer of 1964. Since then it has gone through shifts of ideological direction as well as leadership changes. Change is expected again. With support and encouragement from the Arab League, the Palestine Liberation Organization was established with the goal to liberate Palestine and to ensure…
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Palestinian Revolutionary Seeks First Visit to Homeland
By Daoud Kuttab Officials in the Palestine Liberation Organization have confirmed that the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) — currently based in Syria — is asking once more for a chance to come to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Nayef Hawatmeh, born in the Jordanian city of Salt in 1938, has led…
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Obama’s Visit to Region Brings New Hope for Peace
By Daoud Kuttab Just when it appeared that the United States was about to wash its hands from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, new information is emerging from Washington indicating the opposite. Many observers of U.S. foreign policy understand that in an election year, the U.S. is unable to articulate a coherent (and possibly confrontational with…
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UN Report Sets Stage for Hague Case Against Israel
By Daoud Kuttab It was no coincidence that Israeli representatives boycotted the Jan. 29 meeting of the UNÂ Human Rights Council, at which Israel’s record was to be reviewed. They had been aware for months that a three-person fact-finding mission headed by French judge Christine Chanet would be extremely critical of Israel. In fact, according…
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Does Dress Code Signal ‘Hamasization’ of Gaza?
By Daoud Kuttab As if the Palestinian people didn’t have enough problems with the occupation and the political splits, we are now experiencing a new controversy, this time a social one. The problem began last Sunday, Jan. 27, when the board of trustees of Al Aqsa University voted unanimously to impose a “dress code 
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Jordanian Elections Season Exposes Flaws
By Daoud Kuttab After months of discussions and debates, the parliamentary election season in Jordan is finally upon us, and it exposes numerous flaws and weaknesses. Jordanians spent the better part of 2012 arguing about the best elections law for the country. In the aftermath of the Jordanian Arab Spring, many wanted an elections…
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Accepting reality after Jordan’s elections
Following appeared in Jordan Times By Daoud Kuttab “The people have spoken, the voters have decided and I bow to the will of citizens and accept the election result.” This sentence or a variation of it is often spoken to the press by candidates who lose elections, often after having made a congratulatory phone call…
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Winners and losers
Following appeared in Jordan times. By Daoud Kuttab Even before a single vote was counted and results announced, it was clear who were the main winners and losers. And for the most part, they were not the candidates. The biggest winner in the Jordanian legislative elections was the state. It bargained on the public and…
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Palestinians Smiling, If Unsure About Israeli Election Results
By Daoud Kuttab The ambiguous results of the Israeli elections have left Palestinians with an attitude best embodied by the novel of the late Palestinian novelist Emile Habibi, a pessoptimist. Palestinians were dumbfounded by the unanticipated and unclear results, which have left them torn between feelings of optimism and pessimism. There were plenty of reasons to…