Israeli report reveals demographic policy in Gaza
By Daoud Kuttab One of the key obstacles to permanent Israeli control of the West Bank is the presence of Palestinians in it. Unable to physically move them or have them leave voluntarily, Israel has over the years deployed an administrative process that is called “transfer.” The basic foundation of this racist policy is […]
Jordan eager to represent Jordanian-Palestinian refugees
By Daoud Kuttab Up until the convening of the Arab League summit in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, in October 1974, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was the official representative of Palestinians. After all, Jordan was home to most Palestinians before 1967, and the West Bank (including east Jerusalem) was part of the kingdom from […]
Status of Jerusalem may again scuttle peace talks
By Daoud Kuttab Ever since the current Palestinian-Israeli negotiations commenced, all the leaked information about the talks focused on borders and whether Israeli soldiers will be present in the Jordan Valley. Israel’s demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state received a lot of coverage. But while the Palestinian refugee issue received scant coverage, one topic was […]
Kerry responds forcefully to Israeli insults
By Daoud Kuttab US senior officials, including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, have for years been the subject of Israeli criticism and overtly nasty insults. For the most part, they have tried to absorb such attacks and continue to pursue a healthy, positive relationship with their most important ally — […]
Palestinians and Arabs will not budge on Jerusalem
By Daoud Kuttab Following appeared in today’s Jordan Times. How similar is today to yesteryear? When US president Bill Clinton failed to move Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman Yasser Arafat on the issue of Jerusalem at the 2000 Camp David talks, he decided to turn to America’s Arab allies. He tried and failed. US Secretary […]
Palestinians and Sharon
By Daoud Kuttab In Arab tradition it is not customary to say bad things about a dead person even if he/she is your biggest enemy. I am not sure that this tradition will work on most Palestinians regarding the Israeli king of the settlement movement, but for some reason the passing of Ariel Sharon after […]
Palestinians may be missing the point on Sharon legacy
By Daoud Kuttab The Palestinians’ insistence on regarding late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, even after his death, as nothing more than a war criminal responsible for the massacre in Sabra and Shatila and the construction of the settlements is overly simplistic and anachronistic. More than anything else, this approach misses the complexity of the man and the central […]
No Palestinian tears for Sharon
By Daoud Kuttab If you were to ask a 20-year-old Palestinian today about Ariel Sharon, you might be surprised how little this generation knows about him. The past eight years, in which Sharon became incapacitated, and the few years before that in which he had softened his radical stance, appear to have chipped away at the […]
Israel appears disoriented on peace talks
By Daoud Kuttab Multiple reports two weeks before US Secretary of State John Kerry’s 21st visit to Palestine and Israel focused on a new Israeli concern: unorganized and uncoordinated acts of violence. The conclusion was that Israel’s main problem was impromptu and independent acts by frustrated Palestinians. One of the implications of this Israeli security assessment was that the Palestinian government […]
Palestinian-Israeli framework recalls previous interim agreement
By Daoud Kuttab When the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed to recognize Israel and sign a memorandum of understanding in 1993, the organization was experiencing an all-time low. The PLO had been routed from Beirut, and later from Tripoli. An internal struggle within the Fatah movement had erupted under the name Fatah al-Intifada, and the Berlin Wall had fallen, leaving Palestinians […]