Dec
15
2011
 
 By Daoud Kuttab
JERUSALEM — When they were young, one of my children’s favorite games was reciting the family lineage. In our culture a person’s full name is a combination of his paternal parentage. My son, born in Jerusalem in 1988, would say his name is Bishara Daoud George Musa Qustandi Musa Kuttab.
Our family name came from the profession two brothers had a long time ago. The first Kuttabs were scribes who sat outside the court and wrote up petitions for people who had a claim with the authorities. Kuttab is Arabic for writers or scribes. Continue Reading »
Dec
15
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Prime minister of Israel at the time Yitzhak Rabin, wrote to Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman Yasser Arafat: “In response to your letter of September 9, 1993, I wish to confirm to you that, in light of the PLO commitments included in your letter, the government of Israel has decided to recognise the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and commence negotiations with the PLO within the Middle East peace process.â€
Continue Reading »
Dec
08
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Did the independent media help produce the Arab Spring or did the revolutions succeed in liberating local media in the Arab world? This and many other questions were debated and discussed by Arab and international freedom of expression advocates and media practitioners and experts in Amman this week.
The Arab Spring was the buzzword in two consecutive international media conferences: Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) held its fourth annual conference where Arab investigative journalists met with fellow professionals from around the world. The ARIJ conference opened with a powerful keynote speech by Yosri Fouda, a former Al Jazeera investigator who has been running a TV talk show that was active in the Egyptian revolution. Continue Reading »
Dec
01
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Leaders have a habit of creating expectations for their people; these are higher in the case of groups that suffer from injustice.
Not wanting to set precise time limits, leaders sometimes say elections will take place in the winter of the coming year, in the first half of the following year, and similar such vague dates. Continue Reading »
Dec
01
2011
 
 By Daoud Kuttab
 RAMALLAH, WEST BANK
Few in Washington may realize that the issue of U.S. funding for Palestine is the talk of the town in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities. And the talk is not pleasant.
 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been telling aides that he plans to reject some $150 million in federal money earmarked for Palestinian security.
Abbas’s opposition is principled. The funds are part of an $800 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development that Congress appropriated in June 2009. Shortly before the funds were disbursed this summer, however, the larger grant was held up by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. A Republican from Florida, Ros-Lehtinen, now chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, placed an informational hold on this budgetary line item in August. It is her prerogative to do so as a member of Congress. But rather than delay the funds to investigate a concern, the hold was meant as punishment — a warning to the Palestinian Authority not to seek recognition as an independent state at the United Nations General Assembly meeting the following month. Continue Reading »
Nov
24
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Suleiman al Kabaili sits in an office that has clearly been rearranged to convert it into a makeshift studio. The wall behind the desk has a naked nail that used to hold a framed photo of the Libyan dictator. Suleiman, a radio studio director, dates the genesis of the current crop of media to an event exactly one year before the launch of the 17th of February revolution.
“We were producing a radio programme called “good evening Benghazi†on the local Benghazi state-owned radio station. The programme was dealing with local issues with a critical approach and had discussed the call for investigation of the Abu Slim massacre in which 1,200 are reported to have been killed. The following day we were called by the security and detained.†Continue Reading »
Nov
24
2011
 By Daoud Kuttab
The first thing you notice upon entering Mitiga Airport in Tripoli is a series of signs with the word “No†in capital letters next to illustrations of automatic weapons. The second thing is just how liberally most Libyans interpret these rules.
In the days following the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the rules were not quite in effect. Revolutionaries nonchalantly toted their Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers as they whiled away their preboarding hours at the gate. An airport official roamed the terminal with a gun marked with a bar-code tag, beseeching the owner to claim his checked luggage. Continue Reading »
Nov
24
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
 “Ziara azima†(fabulous visit). This was the description Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave to the unexpected visit King Abdullah made to the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
The King’s visit on Monday was the first to Palestine in a decade. He didn’t visit or meet any Israeli official.
It is not that the King and Abbas do not see each other. Almost every time that the PLO leader leaves Ramallah to travel abroad he makes a stop to visit his “brotherâ€, King Abdullah. However, what makes this particular visit important is its public nature. Continue Reading »
Nov
17
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said this week that he was quite happy to step down from his position in order to remove any obstacle in the way of Palestinian reconciliation.
It is not the first time he made such a statement, but this time it is politically important, and timely.
Fayyad’s statement comes as PLO’s efforts at the UN Security Council failed to produce any positive results and talks of reconciliation have once again heated up. Continue Reading »
Nov
10
2011
By Daoud Kuttab
If the UN bid for Palestinian statehood has shown anything, it has shown the Palestinians, again, who their friends are.
It was clear, despite US President Barack Obama’s earlier rhetoric, that US would not move in any direction that would upset the Israelis. But it was not only Washington and the British (Tony Blair and David Cameron); it was also the French who are nowhere close to being the true friends of Palestine. Continue Reading »