Following appeared in the Huffington Post.com

Ten Myths about Gaza

It is known that truth is the first casualty in wars. The current war on Gaza is no different. Below is a list of 10 myths perpetuated by Israel and repeated ad nauseum by many in the media.

Myth # 1 Israel had no alternative

Ever since starting the air campaign the Israelis have been stating that they had no choice but to carry out this invasion. Acting Israeli prime minister repeated this myth saying that Israel had no alternative but to begin the ground war on the Gaza strip.

The truth is that Israel had a clear alternative. The Islamic Hamas movement and the various Palestinian factions in Gaza offered to extend the truce in December if the Israelis agreed to lift the massive blockade and siege on Gaza. Israel also had an even easier alternative, they could have agreed to talk to Hamas and worked out a true and lasting ceasefire, but they choose to refuse to legitimize the rulers of Gaza backed by the so called global war on terror that Israel’s main ally, the Bush Administration has been implementing.
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To Gaza’s Victims, Politics Means Little
My colleague and long-time friend Ayman Bardawil got a call from his family in Rafah. The house he was born and raised in was totally destroyed last week. His brother and family, who live in that house, were miraculously saved because one of his daughters had a cold and they went over next door moments before the house was shelled. These are the kind of stories that you hear every day. Ayman’s family support Fatah, but that didn’t save them from the destructiveness of the Israeli onslaught.
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A well repeated Arab saying dealing with conflicts states: al bad’azlam, the initiator [of a conflict] is the wrong one. So if you are trying to figure out who is wrong in the current round of violence around Gaza all you have to do is figure out who started it. But the moment you begin this search you will find yourself in a more complicated bind namely figuring out what is your starting point, time wise.
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Published in the Washington Post
Has Israel Revived Hamas?
By Daoud Kuttab
Tuesday, December 30, 2008; A15

JERUSALEM — In its efforts to stop amateur rockets from nagging the residents of some of its southern cities, Israel appears to have given new life to the fledging Islamic movement in Palestine.

For two years, the Islamic Resistance Movement (known by its Arabic acronym, Hamas) has been losing support internally and externally. This wasn’t the case in the days after the party came to power democratically in early 2006; despite being unjustly ostracized by the international community for its anti-Israeli stance, Hamas enjoyed the backing of Palestinians and other Arabs. Having won a decisive parliamentary majority on an anti-corruption platform promising change and reform, Hamas worked hard to govern better than had Fatah, its rival and predecessor.
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The following appeared in the Huffington Post

Daoud Kuttab

Posted December 14, 2008 | 12:25 PM (EST)

Israel’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni raised many eyebrows when speaking to Israeli high school students this week. Her attempts to sound tough while advocating the two state solution backfired badly. Even her attempts to repair the damage continued to reveal the basic problem of racism that Zionists have when it comes to Palestinians whether under their occupation or Palestinian citizens of Israel.
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Daoud Kuttab

Lame-duck Palestinian, Israeli and US leaders are making serious effort these days to ensure that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process enters an irreversible track before they leave office.

This irreversible train left the station in September shortly after Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, resigned from his office due to police investigation. Olmert, who has continued as caretaker prime minister, surprised the Israeli public by stating publicly that the ultimate solution of this conflict will require a return to the 1967 borders and will have to include Israel giving up parts of Jerusalem.
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PUBLISHED ON THE HUFFINGTON POST

President-elect Barack Obama will announce in his inauguration speech the intention of his administration to close down the Guantanamo prison.

A source within the Obama transition team visiting Amman stated that the actual closure will take up to six months to complete because of the uncertainty of what to do with some of the more notorious prisoners held in the Cuban US base. The source who is involved in the national security team refused to be identified because he was not authorized to disclose the contents of Obama’s inaguration speech.

In addition to Guantanamo the Obama transition team is also studying ways to reverse the decisions of the Bush-Cheney administration regarding torture, and the US’s international commitments and obligations in the field of human rights and the world court.

كلمة داود كتاب في افتتاح مؤتمر أريج

قبل عدة أشهر وأثناء وجودي في جامعة برنستون الامريكية شاركت عبر الانترنت وبالتعاون مع المركز الدولي للصحفيين في دورة للإعلامين العرب حول الصحافة الاستقصائية. وضمن نشاطات الأسبوع الاول للدورة طلبنا من المشاركين مراجعة وسائل اعلامهم المحلية خلال الايام الثلاثة الماضية واختيار تحقيق إستقصائي لكي يتم مناقشته بين المشاركين في الدورة. عكست النتيجة مشكلتين لطالما واجهتنا. اولا عدم قدرة غالبية الصحفيين العرب على التمييز بين التحقيق العادي، او ما نسميه ريبورتاج او فيتشر، والتحقيق الاستقصائي. وثانيا وهو الاهم الغياب النوعي والكمي للتحقيقات الاستقصائية في إعلامنا العربي.
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following appeared in the Jordan Times and in the Huffington Post

What preoccupies young Palestinian minds

By Daoud Kuttab

The occupation is foremost on Palestinian youth’s mind. This was made clear in the Palestinian village of Beita, near Nablus, at an event held on November 17: the opening of the youth development resource centre, funded by USAID and some private international IT companies.

The audience included US Undersecretary of State James K. Glassman, responsible for public diplomacy and public affairs, Ziad Asali, president of the American Task Force on Palestine, Jean Case, chief executive officer of the Case Foundation (the two are co-chair of the US Palestinian public-private partnership), senior Palestinian officials, town leaders and practically all 8,000 residents of Beita.
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by Daoud Kuttab

It seems like an appropriate enough cartoon. The depiction of the president elect Barack Obama with the US flag behind him and the bubble quoting Obama as saying the change has come to Washington. Looking up to the Obama depiction was an excited Egyptian woman congratulating the African American senator, reminding him not to forget that people around the world have been hoping and praying for his success. This was followed by the Arabic phrase: ‘uqbal inna meaning may the same [change] happen to us.

According to the opposition weekly Sawt al Umma, the cartoon appearing in a major Egyptian daily caused an emergency among the Egyptian leadership. The weekly stated that 150,000 copies of the paper’s first edition were quickly removed from the streets and destroyed and the ‘troublesome’ phrase disappeared from future prints that day. The before and after cartoon depiction appeared in Sawt al Umma.http://www.shobiklobik.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=172011

This is certainly not the first time that a political cartoon has caused powers in our region to be worried about losing their powers. But the paranoia of the Mubarak regime is a reflection of the concern by many Arab autocrats about the Obama euphoria empowering those calling for change. Obama’s victory on the change mantra was not lost to people around the world yearning for political reform. Continue Reading »