http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/16/while_no_ones_looking_the_palestinians_are_building_a_state

In the world of Palestinian politics, the recent weeks have been a study in contrasts. The international media has trained its focus off the shores of Gaza, where the flotilla fiasco has generated dramatic images of dead civilians and battered Israeli soldiers. The politics of this incident reflect the traditional sturm und drang of the Palestinian national movement: full of grand gestures and transformative ambitions that might result in bloodshed and embarrassment for Israel, but make no substantive contribution to Palestinian liberation.

But in Bethlehem, far away from the television cameras and breathless news reports, 2,000 Palestinian financiers also gathered recently at the second Palestine Investment Conference to quietly go about the business of building the economy of a viable Palestinian state. They discussed almost $1 billion in new projects targeting high-growth sectors, including information and communications technology, housing, and tourism. The politics of the conference represent a paradigm shift quietly taking place in the West Bank under the leadership of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in which Palestinians are increasingly turning to the mundane, workaday tools of governance and development as their principal strategy for ending the occupation.

This strategic transformation is the result of a conundrum facing the Palestinian leadership, which has gambled its political future on a two-state agreement with Israel. If they fail, it is likely that both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) will permanently fade from history and the national movement will be captured by Islamists led by Hamas. Even PLO leaders, however, are still extremely skeptical about the ability of diplomacy to yield significant short-term progress, given the hard-line attitude of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Therefore, Palestinians have gravitated toward solutions that avoid exclusive reliance on diplomacy, which depends on American determination and Israeli seriousness, or slipping back into counterproductive, self-defeating violence.

The most important of these initiatives is the state- and institution-building program adopted by Fayyad’s cabinet last August. This program marks an attempt to build the administrative, infrastructural, and economic framework for a Palestinian state — not only in spite of the occupation, but as a means of confronting it. The plan calls for every PA ministry to meet a series of administrative and institutional goals, from economic and infrastructural developments to good governance and transparency measures. A budget document released in January added even more details to the program. The idea is that, if you build the state, it will come.

Palestinian nationalism had previously been conceived of as largely a top-down affair, concerned with success on the battlefield or at the highest levels of international diplomacy. But rather than seeking an impossible military victory or waiting for the sudden achievement of a major peace treaty, the state-building program seeks to create Palestine as a practical reality. Even as they continue to insist on their moral right of self-determination, Palestinians are seriously taking up their practical responsibilities of self-government.

Palestinians have also adopted nonviolent tactics designed to confront the occupation — particularly the PA’s boycott of settlement goods and mass protests against abusive occupation practices, such as the West Bank separation barrier. These tactics are designed to ensure that both Israelis and Palestinians understand that the state-building approach is not, as is sometimes claimed, a form of collaboration or “beautifying” of the occupation, but rather a sophisticated form of resistance to it. This approach also seeks to achieve clarity on the status of the occupied territories and confront Israelis with a simple question: Is this land going to be part of our state, or is it a part of yours?

This strategy is making quiet but significant progress. Last year, the PA completed more than 1,000 community development programs. It has created the nucleus of a Palestinian central bank and developed a transparent and accountable system of public financing. Hundreds of major development and public-private initiatives are under way, including at least two major telecommunications companies and the first planned Palestinian city. With significant international support, the framework of the Palestinian state is starting to take shape before our eyes.

The bedrock of the state-building program is the new security services trained by multinational forces Palestinians have deployed 2,600 officers in five major West Bank cities, ensuring unprecedented levels of law and order and facilitating the removal of a number of Israeli checkpoints. Israelis themselves have commended the effectiveness of the forces and praised their security coordination with Israeli forces. The combination of security improvements, increased access and mobility for Palestinians, and the PA’s economic development projects led to a growth rate of 8.5 percent in the West Bank last year, one of the highest in the recession-plagued world economy. Perhaps even more significantly, about half of the PA’s budget is now provided by Palestinian taxes and not international support.

In addition to this paradigm shift in the West Bank, Palestinian diplomacy is finally back on track after a difficult 12 months. Abbas’s June 9 visit to the White House revealed that the PLO is presenting itself, for the first time in many years, as a real political partner to the United States. Abbas was able to achieve broad agreement with President Barack Obama’s administration on most key points, including the necessity of easing the siege of Gaza without benefiting Hamas and reaching an agreement that, though direct Israeli-Palestinian talks are important, more political and diplomatic preparation is still required before they can be launched.

There have been some significant failures, of course, particularly regarding the problem of Hamas’s grip over Gaza. Hamas stymied plans to hold national elections in January and July, which represented the only viable peaceful option for reunifying the Palestinian national movement. For the foreseeable future, therefore, national reconciliation appears to be a slogan rather than a practical possibility. The PLO and Hamas currently agree on absolutely nothing, from how to deal with Israel to the cultural and religious foundations of Palestinian society. The future of Hamas will likely be determined by the success or failure of the PA’s state-building project, and its diplomatic efforts. A decisive failure of the new Palestinian tactics will probably make an Islamist takeover inevitable, but its success will discredit Hamas and weaken the organization’s appeal.

The recent Gaza flotilla disaster and Israel’s unconscionable and counterproductive blockade of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza poses a significant challenge to the PA’s strategy. In the coming months, its leadership will attempt to deny Hamas the ability to reap political benefits from Gazans’ suffering. Particularly after Israel’s bloody attack on the flotilla, PLO leaders are determined to help find a way to ease the siege without strengthening their rivals. They think that the blockade has primarily strengthened Hamas’s grip on power in Gaza and are calling for a new way to separate the interests of Hamas and ordinary Gazans.

Palestinian strategy must contend not only with the fallout from the flotilla debacle, but with the constant stresses imposed by the occupation’s continued restrictions on Palestinian economic development and the meager progress of diplomatic negotiations. RecentWorld Bank and IMF studies confirm that, though the institution-building project is meeting its stated objectives, under present conditions it can only go so far: The occupation must continue to recede for it to develop further. This means that increased Israeli cooperation is essential. The PA’s state-building approach and its nonviolent tactics are means for achieving progress on the ground, but in the end they cannot be a substitute for a negotiated agreement.

Although the flotilla fiasco and international outrage concerning Gaza may be more dramatic, all parties have an interest in ensuring the success of the groundbreaking developments in the West Bank. International support and Israeli cooperation are essential for this project to realize its full potential. If that happens, the creation of a viable Palestinian state might attract more than a few newspaper headlines of its own soon enough.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/07/israel-must-clarify-palestine-status

While world attention has been heavily focused on efforts to break the siege of Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are pursuing a series of new, nonviolent, strategies challenging the Israeli occupation. What they are primarily seeking, and what the Israeli government is desperately trying to avoid, is clarity about the status of the occupied territories.

Palestinians are insisting that Israel cannot continue to treat theterritories occupied in 1967 in a selective manner, regarding settlers and settlements as unambiguously “Israeli” but the Palestinian population as fundamentally alien and outside Israel. The new Palestinian strategies are pressing the uncomfortable but unavoidable question: are these territories part of Israel, or not?

Throughout its policies in the occupied territories, Israel picks and chooses according to its convenience, maintaining an untenable ambiguity regarding the legal and political status of the territory and its residents. This ambiguity begins with the legal and political status of the population of the territories. While Israeli settlers live under Israeli civil law and with all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, Palestinians live under Israeli civil and military administration with a very different set of laws and without the rights or responsibilities of citizenship. This structure based on dual registers of reality in the same space extends throughout the entire system of the occupation.

The recent flap over Israel’s OECD membership is an excellent case in point. Israelis were outraged that Palestinians would object to Israel’s attempt to join the organisation, but the Palestinians were making an important point: Israel includes the prosperous, heavily subsidised, settlement economy in all of the “national” economic statistics it submitted for OECD membership, but excludes all aspects of the Palestinian economy that struggles under occupation. It’s not just a question of veracity of Israel’s figures. It is a demand to know on what basis Israel can consider the settlements part of the “Israeli” economy but surrounding Palestinian villages not.

Clarity is also the ultimate aim of the boycott of settlement goodsrecently launched by the Palestinian Authority. The boycott serves many purposes, including bolstering the Palestinian economy and harnessing Palestinian spending power in developing its own society.

However, it is unlikely that the boycott will really damage the economic viability of settlements, which are heavily subsidised and are ideological rather than for-profit enterprises. Probably the most important function the boycott performs is to focus everyone’s attention on the clear distinction between settlement goods and legitimate Israeli products, and thereby isolate and highlight the distinction between Israel itself and the settlements.

Israel’s infuriated reaction to the boycott is a clear indication of how uncomfortable it is with such clarity. The political dangers were illustrated recently when two large Italian grocery chains took a principled decision not to sell settlement products, only to discover that Israel refused to clearly label settlement goods or distinguish them from “Israeli” products generally. As a consequence, the companies decided not to sell any Israeli exports on the grounds that there is no clarity.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s protestations that the boycott is only hurting the Palestinians themselves rings extremely hollow. If that were true, why are he and his colleagues so upset by it? Israelis indignantly ask Palestinians: are you partners or are you enemies? The answer is simple: partners in peace, security and all legitimate matters, yes; partners in occupation and settlements, no.

Palestinians cannot be expected to acquiesce to, much less subsidise, their own oppression and they have every right to peacefully and lawfully challenge the occupation and demand clarity.

The same logic ultimately applies to the PA state and institution building programme. By developing the framework of Palestinian statehood, the programme forces Israel into the clarity of a simple choice: either gradually and however grudgingly cede more and more attributes of sovereignty in greater and greater parts of the occupied territories to the PA in order to allow the programme to develop, or kill it. The state building programme cannot survive stasis. It requires continuous, even if gradual, expansion. It asks Israel a simple question: are the occupied territories ultimately your country or ours?

Israel is alone in not recognising that it is the occupying power in the territories conquered in 1967. Heretofore its policies have been structured around obfuscation that allows the settlements and the settlers to occupy a legal and political space indistinguishable from Tel Aviv and its inhabitants, except, of course, for all the special subsidies and privileges they are accorded, while all aspects of Palestinian life are characterised by occupation. The Palestinian point is that there cannot be two legal and political registers: a virtual Israel that exists wherever an Israeli settler happens to be and an ambiguous, unresolved occupation everywhere else.

Because peace will depend on ending the occupation, it also requires clarity about the occupation. Palestinians are doing themselves, the world, and ultimately the Israelis as well, a big favour in rejecting Israel’s fog of ambiguity and demanding simple, necessary clarity.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/May/20/The-US-may-have-no-Plan-B-but-the-Palestinians-do.ashx#axzz0oTbuh0Gs

The Obama administration was successful in arranging for the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations through “proximity talks,” which began recently. However, expectations in all quarters are understandably low for any near-term breakthrough. Consequently, Palestinians have been systematically developing a new set of peaceful strategies to achieve independence and advance a resolution to the conflict.

 

Since the United Nations General Assembly meeting in the fall, the whole thrust of American policy has been to try to get the parties back into negotiations, with the apparent hope that this would generate its own dynamics and open spaces up for significant progress.

 

The idea of “proximity talks” in which Americans would speak alternately to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators who would not meet directly, came out of the administration’s efforts to find a way for the Palestinians to return to negotiations with Israel without a complete settlement freeze. This is, of course, an unfortunate throwback to the pre-Madrid era. An even worse throwback is the renewed Palestinian reliance on “approval” from the Arab League for what ought to be strictly Palestinian decisions regarding negotiations with Israel.

 

With expectations for the talks being what they are, all parties are wondering whether or not the Americans have a Plan B. Washington is currently embroiled in significant debates about the alternatives. One camp is urging the possible development of a broad-ranging and specific US peace plan. Another is cautioning against raising expectations and counseling that no significant progress is possible under the present circumstances. A third possibility is for the United States to internationalize the process by calling a peace summit at the end of the year in the event of a continued stalemate.

 

The Palestinian leadership is committed to negotiations, but has no confidence it can achieve anything significant immediately given the present political climate and makeup of the Israeli Cabinet. At the same time, Palestinian officials are resolutely opposed to armed struggle or a return to another violent intifada. Because of this conundrum, they have been developing a series of creative alternative strategies designed to complement diplomacy and provide additional sources of momentum toward peace.

 

The most important of these is the state and institution building program adopted in August 2009 by the Palestinian Authority Cabinet, which includes creating a fully functioning bureaucracy and the institutional, economic and infrastructural basis for a successful, independent Palestinian state.

 

The idea is that as negotiations proceed slowly for the meanwhile, Palestinians can build the framework of their state, making independence not just a theoretical possibility but a potentially practical reality. It calls the bluff of all parties, challenging them to assess if they were ever serious about their stated commitment to a peace based on a Palestinian state.

 

In addition, the Palestinian Authority has been increasingly promoting nonviolent protests and civil disobedience in the West Bank targeted at the occupation. These protests, such as those at villages affected by the West Bank separation barrier, highlight abusive Israeli policies, and confront the occupation in a proactive but peaceful manner.

 

A third tactic in this emergent peaceful strategy to confront the occupation is to develop various economic measures aimed at ridding the Palestinian economy of settlement goods, encouraging European and other states to boycott settlement products, and preventing Palestinians from working in settlements. The aim here is to replace the settlement elements of the Palestinian economy with indigenous ones. This would provide alternatives to the Palestinians subsidizing the settlements themselves while simultaneously expanding the Palestinian economy.

 

All these measures are designed to emphasize the distinction between Israel itself and the occupation, and focus attention on the contradictory nature of the interests of most Israelis on the one hand and extremist settlers on the other. Palestinians are saying to ordinary Israelis, “Our policy is not aimed at you or your country but at the extremist settlers whose activities, because they are antithetical to peace, are in the end are as damaging to you as they are to us.”

 

All this means that, while the Palestinian leadership is committed to a negotiated agreement, it is not relying solely on American leadership or Israeli sincerity; instead, it is developing parallel, complementary tracks that Palestinians can control and that bolster diplomacy.

 

All the parties seriously committed to a two-state agreement, especially the international community, should welcome and support these new Palestinian initiatives, especially the state and institution building program.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/mar/24/binyamin-netanyahu-palestine-us

The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is not being honest with his fellow Israelis by insisting that settlement building is compatible with a peaceful future between Israelis and Palestinians, or that the colonisation of occupied East Jerusalem “in no way harms” Palestiniansand is not in any sense different from building in Tel Aviv.

Limiting or freezing settlement construction has been at the heart of all recent peace efforts because the settlements make the borders of a future Palestinian state more difficult to conceptualise, let alone determine, and increase the frequently belligerent Israeli constituency opposed to meaningful territorial compromise.

At the political level, they make permanent status negotiations very difficult for the Palestinian leadership because of the legitimate Palestinian fear of being once again drawn into a peace process that is all process and no peace. During the Oslo era in the 1990s, when Palestinians believed they were negotiating an end to the occupation, in fact the number of Israeli settlers more than doubled. Because of this experience and the practical problems settlements create for the creation of a Palestinian state, settlement building undermines the viability and credibility of negotiations and negotiators. Settlement activity ensures that the status quo between Israel and the Palestinians is not a manageable flat plane but rather is a downward spiral of ever-increasing complication, bitterness and difficulty.

However, in his present coalition Netanyahu is surrounded by people to his political right who are committed to settlement activity, especially in occupied East Jerusalem. While he presented the partial, limited settlement moratorium to the United States as a major concession, his government has taken numerous steps to ensure continued expansion of the Israeli presence in much of the West Bank and above all in Jerusalem. The recent confrontation with the Obama administration over new settler housing units in Jerusalem announced during the US vice president Joe Biden’s trip to the region reflected the unbridgeable divide between Washington’s expectations and the demands of the rightwing parties in Netanyahu’s coalition.

The confrontation has placed Israel settlement activity under an even more powerful microscope than it already has been. Israeli colonisation of East Jerusalem is not just a Palestinian problem now, it has become an American problem as well, and that is a serious complication for any Israeli leader who wants to preserve political relations with the Obama administration.

It appears that the confidential new US-Israel understandings that defused the confrontation involved Israel’s agreement that upcoming negotiations will include all core issues, including Jerusalem, something Netanyahu had been trying to avoid for many months. Proximity talks are therefore now likely to be structured in the way Palestinians have wanted, and not on Israeli terms. Netanyahu also reportedly agreed to ease the siege of Gaza. Finally, although details on the new understanding regarding settlement activity in Arab East Jerusalem are quite murky, clearly it is going to be more politically difficult and costly for Israel from now on.

Obviously, all of this is far short of a real settlement freeze, and serious progress on peace is eventually going to require that. However, the confrontation has delivered significant gains to the Palestinians. The bottom line is this: the Palestinians had been willing, although extremely reluctant, to go back into proximity talks without a clear agenda or terms of reference. Now, they will be able to go into them with much more satisfactory arrangements. Clearly this is a gain to be built upon, not squandered.

http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=27195&lan=ar&sid=0&sp=0&isNew=1

واشنطن العاصمة – يشتد النقاش، في الوقت الذي يضغط فيه الفلسطينيون على المجتمع الدولي لتحقيق التزاماته بضمان إنشاء دولة فلسطين المستقلة إلى جانب إسرائيل، حول طبيعة الدولة الجديدة. يتوجب على الفلسطينيين، لصالحهم، أن يخالفوا التوجه الإقليمي السائد المتعلق بالسياسات الدينية، وأن يضمنوا منذ البداية إنشاء دولة علمانية بشكل حازم لا تراجع عنه.

ليس هناك من تساؤل بأن الفلسطينيين هم، بشكل عام، شعب محافظ متديّن. إلا أن هذا يشكل سبباً أكبر لاعتناق شكل علماني من أشكال الحكم. لا تعني الحكومة العلمانية الإلحاد الرسمي أو مهاجمة المعتقدات والمؤسسات الدينية أوالعداء تجاه الإيمان الديني والممارسة الدينية، وإنما تعني الحياد التام للدولة في الشؤون الدينية، وبالتالي الحفاظ على الحريات الدينية لكافة المواطنين. وهي تعني حرية جميع الطوائف الدينية من تدخّل الدولة، وكذلك حرية الدولة من سيطرة أية سلطة دينية.

يعتبر المجتمع الفسطيني مجتمعاً متغاير الخواص بشكل بارز. هناك نسبة عالية من المسيحيين من طوائف مختلفة، لعبوا دوراً رئيسياً في الحركة الوطنية وفي المجتمع بشكل عام. سوف تعمل أية محاولة لإنشاء هيكل حكومي يرتكز على المبادئ الدينية الإسلامية من حيث المبدأ على تهميش الفلسطينيين المسيحيين إن لم يكن التمييز ضدهم أواستثناءهم.

أعرب العديد من القادة الفلسطينيين عن استعدادهم السماح للمستوطنين الإسرائيليين اليهود الذين يرغبون بالبقاء في فلسطين والالتزام بقوانين الدولة الجديدة أن يفعلوا ذلك. يثير ذلك احتمالات وجود أقلية يهودية في فلسطين كذلك. ومن المحتمل أن تصر إسرائيل، وليس فلسطين، على إخلاء كامل المستوطنات، بسبب الصعوبات التي ستبرز أمام أية حكومة إسرائيلية في حال بقاء يهود أو إسرائيليين في الدولة الفلسطينية الجديدة ومواجهتهم لأية صعوبات ذات أهمية. إلا أن استعداد القادة الفلسطينيين احتضان أقلية يهودية كمواطنين أو مقيمين على قدم المساواة تحت القانون يشكل مبدأ هاماً يجب الحفاظ عليه.

سوف تكون الحكومة العلمانية بالطبع أساسية في توفير معاملة متساوية للمسيحيين الفلسطينيين بل وحتى الأقليات اليهودية تحت القانون، ووصول متساو إلى كافة حقوق ومكتسبات المواطَنة. تشكل العديد من دول الشرق الأوسط، بما فيها إسرائيل، أمثلة يجب عدم تكرارها في التعامل الاجتماعي والوضع السياسي للأقليات الدينية، حتى عندما تتوفر الحريات الدينية رسمياً.

هناك تنوع هام حتى داخل المجتمع الإسلامي الفلسطيني. يتراوح المسلمون الفلسطينيون في تبعيتهم بين العلمانيين سياسياً والمتشددين دينياً، إلى الإسلاميين (وفي بعض الحالات الإسلاميين المتطرفين)، إلى المسلمين غير الراغبين بممارسة دينهم. هناك كذلك مجموعات هامة من الملحدين واللاأدريين في كل من الجاليتين الفلسطينيتين المسلمة والمسيحية.

شكلت القيم العلمانية تاريخياً سمة رئيسية للحركة الوطنية الفلسطينية، والتوجه الحديث نحو إعادة تعريفها بتعابير دينية، إلا أن الأمر جاء معاكساً بشكل كامل. كان لتكثيف الطروحات الدينية، تصاحبها مستويات متزايدة من التشدد المسلّح والعنف أثناء الانتفاضة الثانية، وبدفع من الإسلاميين بشكل رئيسي، وعلى رأسهم حماس، وبمشاركة من الوطنيين الذين سعوا لعدم تهميشهم في مجال الشرعية الدينية، كان لها نتائج كارثية على الحركة الوطنية الفلسطينية.

كذلك كان هناك ما يماثل عملية تقديس النضال على الجانب الفلسطيني من حيث تصاعد التعصب الديني الزائد في المجتمع الإسرائيلي، رغم كونه أقل وضوحاً وإنما مماثل في تشدده. ويشكّل التحول بعيداً عن النزاع، والذي يتميز بالتنافس على الأرض والسلطة بين مجموعتين عرقيتين وطنيتين، كما كان الحال عليه حتى الآن، وباتجاه حرب دينية حول مشيئة الله والسيطرة على المواقع الدينية، يشكل تهديداً إلى كل من الإسرائيليين والفلسطينيين على حد سواء. النزاعات السياسية عرضة للتوصل إلى اتفاقيات متفاوض عليها، ولكن الحروب الدينية ليست كذلك.

لقد أوصينا أنا وزملائي في فريق العمل الأمريكي من أجل فلسطين ومنذ فترة طويلة بأن تكون الدولة الفلسطينية ديمقراطية وتعددية، منزوعة السلاح وحيادية في النزاعات. وبالطبع، حتى تكون الدولة تعددية بشكل صحيح لا يمكن أن تسيطر عليها وجهة نظر دينية واحدة، وأنما يجب أن تسمح بأوسع مجال ممكن من التعبير عن التنوع الديني.

تعتبر جميع المجتمعات متغايرة الخواص فيما يتعلق بالإيمان، وهذا هو الوضع الواضح في المجتمع الفلسطيني. وهذا واحد من أسباب كون الحركة الوطنية الفلسطينية تاريخياً علمانية سياسياً رغم الطبيعة الورعة دينياً لمعظم المجتمع الفلسطيني. يتعرّض المبدأ لتهديد خطير نتيجة لتنامي السياسة الدينية، ولكن يجب الدفاع عنه بعزم وتصميم.

يجب أن تمثل أية دولة تستحق النضال من أجل إنشائها، جميع مواطنيها بشكل متساوٍ، ويتطلب هذا إنشاء فلسطين تكون فيها الدولة حيادية في القضايا الدينية، أي أن تكون حكومة علمانية.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/02/palestinian-state-build-israel

Two weeks ago the Palestinian Authority issued a detailed budget for thestate and institution-building programme it adopted last August. The programme calls for Palestinians to unilaterally build the administrative, economic and institutional framework of an independent state in spite of the Israeli occupation and as a peaceful, constructive means of countering it.

This agenda might be conceptualised as the Palestinian answer to Israeli settlement-building by creating positive, unilateral new facts on the ground that restructure the strategic equation, but with the crucial difference that, unlike settlement activity, it is consistent with international law, welcomed by the international community, and promotes rather than hinders prospects for a peace agreement.

The new document, Palestine: Moving Forward, Priority Interventions for 2010, spells out priorities for the Palestinian government in the coming year, and includes cost estimates and funding status. Building on the August cabinet document, this detailed financial agenda is a clear guide to what the Palestinian government seeks to accomplish and how this can be supported financially, technically and politically by all those seeking to promote peace based on the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The major priorities outlined emphasise “the building of central and local government institutions that are essential to the establishment of a modern and sovereign state of Palestine”, upgrading of public services, the development of “strategically significant infrastructure”, and measures to “improve and promote the image of Palestine internationally”. The programme is ambitious, but those who closely follow events on the ground in the occupied West Bank will know that projects are already under way and things are beginning to happen in both the public and private sectors. Among numerous examples are the first planned Palestinian city in the West Bank and the first private equity fund aimed at developing small and medium-sized Palestinian businesses. However, as a new document demonstrates, too many items are either unfunded or have funding pending.

The Palestinians require international support to succeed in their attempt to prepare for successful independence and changed the strategic landscape in favour of peace. Financial and technical assistance is indispensable, as is political protection for the programme from the United States. In a recent Cif article, Ben White outlined the obstacles to this programme posed by the Israeli occupation, and these serious concerns demonstrate the extent of political protection, as well as financial and technical support, the plan will require if it is to succeed.

International interest in the agenda as a parallel track to diplomacy is growing, but the programme deserves a good deal more attention than it has received thus far. Billions of dollars have been pledged in international support for the PA but little has been delivered and the Palestinian government continues to live hand to mouth. This is utterly unacceptable, and contributes to both instability and lack of progress towards peace.

The Palestinian ability to transform international support into serious governmental programmes has been demonstrated by the success of the new security forces, a model of cooperation that needs to be extended to all levels of administration and institution building in the occupied territories. Israel was initially deeply suspicious of the new security forces, however the programme received financial, technical and political backing from the United States and went forward nonetheless. There is now an Israeli consensus that the security force programme was a positive development, and this process can be repeated in sector after sector.

For Palestinians, a crucial challenge has been to put meat on the bones of the skeleton released in August, and the new priorities document is a creditable and timely second step. Now, however, as they seek international funding and support, almost every item in the new budget will eventually require its own detailed outline if donors, funders and partners are to be fully engaged.

While it is essential for all parties to continue to pursue the top-down diplomatic agenda that will shape the terms of peace, it is just as important for the international community to move quickly to support this bottom-up state and institution-building plan that will complement, reinforce and protect the diplomatic track, and ensure that the Palestinian state, when it is established, will be functional and successful. It can also serve as an alternative source of momentum in the direction of peace if diplomacy is at an impasse or yielding too few results too slowly.

The PA has provided the international community with an unparalleled opportunity that is also a test of its commitment to peace in the Middle East. If the real commitment is there, international actors must launch a multi-year, coordinated and global effort to help the PA build the infrastructure of the Palestinian state everyone says is the key to peace.

The question is: do we really mean what we say about the importance of peace based on the creation of a Palestinian state, and are we willing to act on it?

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/01/palestine_must_be_a_secular_state.html

As Palestinians press the international community to live up to its commitment to ensuring the establishment of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, conversation is intensifying about the character of this new state. In their own interests, Palestinians should buck the regional trend towards religious politics and ensure, from the outset, that it is firmly and irrevocably a secular state.

There is no question that the Palestinians are, in general, a relatively conservative and religious people, but this is all the more reason to embrace a secular form of government. Secular government does not mean official atheism, iconoclasm or hostility towards religious belief and practice. It means rather the strict neutrality of the state on religious matters and, therefore, the upholding of religious freedom for all citizens. It means the freedom of all religious communities from state interference, but also the freedom of the state from the dominance of any one religious authority.

Palestinian society is strikingly heterogeneous. A very significant percentage of Palestinians are Christians of numerous denominations, and they have played a major role in the national movement and in society generally. Any move to establish a government structure based on Muslim religious principles by definition would marginalize if not discriminate against or exclude Palestinian Christians.

Numerous Palestinian leaders have expressed the willingness to allow Jewish Israeli settlers who wish to remain in Palestine and abide by the laws of the new state to do so. This raises the prospect of a Jewish minority in Palestine as well. It is likely that Israel, rather than Palestine, would insist on a complete evacuation of settlements, because of the political difficulties arising for any Israeli government should Jews or Israelis remaining in the new Palestinian state encounter any significant difficulties. However, the willingness of Palestinian leaders to embrace a Jewish minority as equal citizens or residents under the law is an important principle that ought to be upheld.

Obviously, a secular government will be essential to affording Palestinian Christian and possibly also Jewish religious minorities equal treatment under the law and equal access to all the benefits of citizenship. Numerous Middle Eastern states, including Israel, serve as examples not to be emulated in the social treatment and political status of religious minorities, even when freedom of religion is officially afforded.

Even within the Palestinian Muslim community, there is significant heterogeneity. Palestinian Muslims range in orientation from the politically secular but religiously devout, to the Islamist (and even in some cases extreme Islamist), to the religiously disinclined. There are also significant constituencies of atheists and agnostics within both the Palestinian Muslim and Christian communities.

Historically, secular values have been a major feature of the Palestinian national movement, and the recent trend towards re-defining it in religious terms has been almost entirely counterproductive. Driven mainly by Islamists led by Hamas, but also engaged in by nationalists seeking not to be outbid on religious legitimacy, the intensification of religious rhetoric, accompanied by increasing levels of militarization and violence during the second intifada, had disastrous results for the Palestinian national movement.

This sanctification of the struggle on the Palestinian side has been matched by a less well-recognized but equally fanatical and dangerous rise in religious zealotry in Israeli society. The shift away from a conflict characterized by the competition for land and power by two ethno-national groups, as it has thus far largely been, and towards a holy war over the will of God and control of sacred spaces is profoundly threatening to both Israelis and Palestinians alike. Political conflicts are amenable to negotiated agreement. Holy wars are not.

My colleagues and I at the American Task Force on Palestine have long recommended that the Palestinian state be democratic, pluralistic, non-militarized and neutral in conflicts. Obviously, for a society to be genuinely pluralistic, it cannot be dominated by one religious opinion but must allow for the greatest possible expression of religious diversity.

All societies are heterogeneous on matters of faith, and Palestinian society is obviously so. This is one of the reasons why historically the Palestinian national movement has been politically secular in spite of the relatively devout nature of much of Palestinian society. This principle is being seriously threatened by the rise of religious politics, but it must be resolutely defended.

Any Palestinian state worth struggling for and establishing must represent all of its citizens equally. This requires the establishment of a Palestinian system in which the state is neutral on religious matters, in other words a secular government.

http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/20/jerusalems-undying-ethnic-strife-deepens-urban-divide/8514/

Worldfocus: How would you characterize the current situation in Jerusalem?

Hussein Ibish: Jerusalem is the most divided city in the world. Israelis in West Jerusalem and the Jewish quarter feel like normal citizens of the Israeli state living under Israeli law. For them, life is very normal.

But East Jerusalem is more than 80 percent Arab. The situation is similar to that in the rest of the occupied territory, but it’s starker in Jerusalem because they’re living in such proximity. Insofar as an analogy to “apartheid” applies, this is more stark in Jerusalem than anywhere else, where separate and unequal is almost universal.

Most Jerusalem Arabs are not in effect subjects of Israeli law but practically live under martial law. In many cases, they’re technically residents of Israel — but not citizens. They can’t vote in national elections. And they generally don’t vote in municipal elections. Jerusalem is the flash point for the conflict.

Worldfocus: Why can’t the leaders on both sides reach a rational agreement about sharing the city?

Hussein Ibish: The cultural, religious and political importance of the holy places means that Jerusalem is central to both populations. Both sides are becoming increasingly influenced by right-wing religious rhetoric. The conflict is transforming from an ethnic struggle over land and power in a small area — into a religious struggle between bearded fanatics on both sides about the will of God and holy places.

The Old City of Jerusalem requires a creative solution and the unique formula like the Vatican City. It can’t be the exclusive preserve of any of the religious or ethnic groups. A unique formula has to be found. But it’s not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution for this, because the national interests of all parties require it.

Worldfocus: Are there certain deal-breakers on the issue of Jerusalem?

Hussein Ibish: For the Israeli side, the “right of return” (for Palestinian refugees) is a deal-breaker just like the claim that Jerusalem is the undivided and eternal Israeli capital is for the Palestinians. This kind of rhetoric acts as a political narcotic: it makes people feel good, but it’s extremely damaging.

But when you get into the final status agreement, these are all issues that can be negotiated successfully. Both parties have a stake in making it work. That could keep Jerusalem united and parts of the city jointly administered — although with separate sovereignty. All it takes is political will and some creativity. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’m a skeptical person, but it seems possible to me. It’ll be an unusual arrangement reflecting the unique character of the place.

There are reciprocal bitter pills on the right of return and Jerusalem both sides must swallow in their own existential national interests.

The only serious player really resistant to this idea [to create two capitals in Jerusalem] is the Israeli government, which is trying to prevent Jerusalem from being a topic of discussion in any the final status talks. But Obama made it very clear that the terms of reference need to be clear and precise — and involve security for both parties, borders, refugees and Jerusalem. The U.S. position on Jerusalem is closer to the Palestinian view than to the Israeli one. There is implicit understanding in the U.S. that most of East Jerusalem needs to be the Palestinian capital.

There will also clearly have to be a land swaps. The Palestinian people accept that, and the leadership accepts it. Not every settlement in and around Jerusalem must be evacuate. I don’t mean that the Palestinians will be unwilling to have Israelis [in Palestinian-controlled East Jerusalem] or elsewhere in the Palestinian state. But the Israel government would probably not want to face the crisis of some incident involving Israeli citizens living in newly sovereign Palestinian state, and I think it will be they who push for
evacuation in the event of an agreement.

Both sides should be creative and flexible and Israel should be willing to evacuate settlements that make Palestinian statehood impossible. It’s politically problematic but not impossible. These are painful concessions for both but they are obviously necessary. It’s all about a series of complicated quid pro quos. This is not a menu where you can go through and choose what you want based on your tastes, its a delicate pattern of concessions. It’s also a kaleidoscope. Every time you move the image a little, the whole pattern shifts.

Worldfocus: Do you envision that Jewish Israelis will be able to stay on in the areas that become Palestine in East Jerusalem and the West Bank?

Hussein Ibish: Palestinian citizenship or dual citizenship for them is possible, but I don’t think the Israeli government will allow it in the West Bank, though they might find a way to make it work in East Jerusalem.

An agreement is in the core existential national interest of both parties. Settlements will be evacuated according to a variety of formulae. At least 75,000 [Jewish settlers] will need to be removed. That means perhaps up to 200,000- 300,000 will be staying where they are in the small parts of West Bank such as Ma’ale Adumim that will become part of Israel.

The bottom line is that the Palestinians cannot be denied 22% of Mandatory Palestine — the equivalent of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. I think they need and deserve that.

Worldfocus: What role will Palestinian Gaza play if it continues to be a separate entity from the Palestinian West Bank?

Hussein Ibish: Gaza has no independent future from the rest of Palestine. The idea of a political status that is separate is completely wrong. Very few people in the Gaza Strip want that. Israel is strategically trying to emphasize these divisions, but it’s not something that will take.

I don’t think we’re looking at a scenario yet where Hamas can really succeed in replacing the PLO. They’re quite far away from that. All they hope to do so is for negotiations to break down. Hamas are weak and isolated — only able to maintain control in Gaza through brute force and oppression. Hamas thrives on chaos, stalemate [in talks] and a rhetoric of confrontation and violence. Their core constituency — at most 13-15 percent of the Palestinian population — believes in the Muslim Brotherhood model. But that’s not really a major political force unless there is no hope for peace.

Worldfocus: How about fresh alternatives to the Fatah-Hamas split?

Hussein Ibish: Salam Fayyad a very serious actor on the scene, yet he’s not a politician. Fatah is a dysfunctional political party but commands major support. The PA could use Fatah’s political authority to facilitate Fayyad’s state-building agenda and technocratic prowess. This is crucial because Fayyad’s plan provides another avenue for progress, change and momentum towards ending both the occupation and the conflict. If 1/20 of Fayyad’s plan could be implemented, there would be a serious transformation of the strategic environment, greatly enhancing Palestinian interests and the prospects for peace.

I think his plan could serve as a crucial augmentation of diplomacy and a parallel track that is constructive, serious and transformational. The biggest threat to it at the moment is the idea of dissolving the PA and going back functioning strictly through the PLO as a diplomatic but not a governing entity. With international financial support and political protection, it would be very difficult for Israel to block this institution-building plan. In short order, this could really change the Palestinian political scene and the strategic environment for the better.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-levin-jd/fort-hood-tragedy-is-bein_b_355712.html

In the aftermath of the appalling attack at Fort Hood, one of the most important questions is how this rampage by a twisted fanatic has affected relations between Muslims and other Americans of different faiths. For some, Hasan’s obvious fanaticism is not simply a starting point for thoughtful analysis about the harmful effects that splinter extremism poses in general, or specifically on an alienated, unstable individual. An aggressive and vocal group of Islamophobes are seeking to exploit the tragedy as a siren call to bigotry, a springboard to legitimize the marginalization of not merely extremists, but rather Muslims as a whole from meaningful participation in society, starting with military service.

These bigots should listen to the words of the daughters of murdered Fort Hood physician assistant Michael Cahill. Kerry Cahill told CBS’ Early Show, “You can’t blanket a whole group of people. There’s extremists in every religion, and there’s extremists all over the world…when this man was obviously ill, I think.” Another daughter, Keely Vanacker said, “The death of our father or any of these victims shouldn’t be an excuse or a reason to begin to hate an entire group of people.”

For a slew of odious bigots, the massacre was simply too big of an opportunity to pass up. To them, it is not Hasan, or even the twisted minority of extremists who inspired him, but either Islam as a whole or all Muslims that must be incapacitated.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters shared his forthright analysis of what threatens American society on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor Tuesday evening: “Its clear that the problem is Islam.”

His new novel, The War After Armageddon, recounts how a revitalized Christianized United States government dispatches a reorganized National Guard called the “Military Order of the Brothers in Christ” to crusade against Muslims who have attacked the United States and destroyed Israel and Europe.

Pat Robertson, who once blamed secularists like abortion doctors, gays, and People for the American Way for fomenting the 9/11 attacks, has narrowed his broad bush to mostly focus on Muslims for the Fort Hood attack on the November 9 broadcast of the 700 Club on CBN:

“If we don’t stop covering up what Islam is, Islam is a violent, I was going to say religion, but it’s not a religion. It’s a political system, it’s a violent political system, bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim and they talk about infidels and all this but the truth is that’s what the game is. So you’re dealing with a, not with a religion, you’re dealing with a political system and I think we should treat it as such. And treat its adherents as such as we would members of the Communist Party or members of some fascist group.”

Dave Gaubatz, a leader of an organization that has called for illegalizing Islam in the United States, overtly called for what he described as “professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders,” and some of his supporters in Congress, including Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), have declined to condemn or even distanced themselves from his appeal to hate and discrimination.

American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer said, “We should not allow Muslims to serve in the US military and we have got to raise questions about whether we can afford to allow Muslims to immigrate into the United States at all.” Not surprising since his overall perspective is “While Christianity is a religion of peace, founded by the Prince of Peace, Islam is a religion of war and violence, founded by a man who routinely chopped the heads off his enemies, had sex with nine-year old girls, and made his wealth plundering merchant caravans.”

That Hasan was born in the United States and serving as an Army psychiatrist only exacerbates the potential for this incident to spread unjustifiable fear of Muslim Americans in general. It may exacerbate irrational anxieties that the Muslim community is threatening because it is supposedly very difficult to distinguish between extremists and mainstream Muslim Americans.

Obviously, the alleged killer’s ethnicity, religious affiliation, name and other signs identifying him as both an Arab and Muslim American are all the explanation needed for some. However, if we truly wish to prevent this tragedy from repeating itself, it is crucial to examine the totality of the personality of the offender, including not only his sick ideology, but the role that personal dislocations and fears may have played in his eventual spiral toward violence.

These include fear and conflict over an impending first deployment, unresolved distress over the loss of his mother, difficulties with his colleagues and in finding a mate, a cross-country move, and repeated exposure to traumatized soldiers. After two of the main support systems that he knew all his life, namely job and family grew distant, extremism apparently filled the void. A comprehensive analysis of Maj. Hasan suggests a religious and political fanatic, motivated partly by idiosyncratic madness and partly by these extreme beliefs.

In America mayhem caused by deranged violent individuals intoxicated by a twisted ideology is nothing new and certainly nothing particular to the Muslim American community, let alone being typical of it. Obvious, examples include the Branch Davidians at Waco, an offshoot of Seventh Day Adventist Christians; accused abortion doctor killer Scott Roeder; and the Klan bombers of Birmingham’s 16th Street Church who killed four young girls. Another obvious and well-known example would be Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, an angry, isolated and politically extreme former serviceman motivated to a significant degree by the infamous Turner Diaries that inspires a great deal of the ultra-right wing “militia movement.”

To their credit, Muslim and Arab American organizations were almost instantaneous and absolutely unanimous in their condemnation of the act, forming relief funds for victims and their relatives, and sparing little effort to express their outrage. With the exception of a small group of vocal and dangerous extremists — some already wanted by the United States on criminal charges — Muslims in the Middle East also reacted with horror and loud condemnation.

Proponents of profiling — systematic discrimination and heightened scrutiny against Muslim Americans simply on the basis of their identity– have seized on this incident to press their case. What these people of ill will fail to consider is the warning signs about Maj. Hasan’s instability and extremism were known to the government, but wrongly ignored. Obviously, methods of evaluating extremist behavior, of whatever variety, that might lead to violence in the Armed Forces and other institutions need to be seriously reviewed.

However, the notion that this tragedy justifies discrimination in the military or elsewhere must be categorically rejected by all persons possessing common sense and decency. Targeting people on the basis of warning signs of obvious political or religious extremism makes complete sense, but targeting them based on their identity obviously does not. Credible national security analysts reject crude systems of profiling based merely on ethnicity or religious affiliation as both unworkable and counterproductive.

Moreover, the requisite mechanisms in the United States simply do not exist, and would probably be unconstitutional. In the United States we generally do not officially classify individuals by religious affiliation, except in certain limited cases and then on the basis of self-identification. Enforcement could not exist without instituting a system of government categorization of people based on religious sectarian identity. Moreover, the Census Bureau categorizes all persons of Middle East origin as “white,” so there is no mechanism for identifying Arab-Americans (a majority of whom, by the way, are Christians).

As an extremist, Maj. Hasan was as much of an oddball among Arab and Muslim Americans as he was in the military. The proper and reasonable basis for identifying him as a potential danger was his behavior and extremism, not his identity.

While there is certainly now a small but dangerous extremist subculture among Muslims, that’s also been true for a small number on the Christian right, as well as Jewish extremists like those in the Jewish Defense League, among other violent fanatics. Law enforcement activities and national security policy must be focused on these extremist subcultures, wherever they may be, and not broadly on mainstream people of faith or entire communities.

It is pointless and incorrect to deny that Maj. Hasan’s actions were, in part, prompted by a violent extremist ideology existing among a small subculture of Muslims throughout the world. The Muslim mainstream here and overseas must spare no effort in marginalizing and denouncing this fanatical, hateful worldview.

But, as the McVeigh case and so many others demonstrate, it is hardly the only dangerous ideology that exists on the fringes of various parts of American society that can erupt into atrocious acts of inexcusable violence.

Our law enforcement and national security policies need to deal with all of these extremist perspectives vigorously and vigilantly, but there is no justification for a “backlash” of any kind against Arab or Muslim Americans in general. To do so would abandon our long cherished American values set forth by none other than George Washington, who in 1790 described the ideals of a government that gives religious “bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/11/palestinian_despair_for_peace.html

It is almost impossible to adequately convey the present degree of Palestinian despair, but the recent announcement that President Mahmoud Abbas might resign and that the rest of the Palestinian Authority leadership may follow — in effect dissolving the PA — should provide some indication.

This seems to many to be the only real weapon the Palestinian leadership has left, albeit something of a doomsday scenario. President Abbas and the others clearly feel all their other options have been systematically foreclosed. They embraced the roadmap and — at considerable political cost — fulfilled their responsibilities on security to the best of their abilities, as acknowledged by both the United States and Israel. When the Obama administration began its peace initiative, Palestinians were given every reason to expect that Israel would be compelled to fulfill its own roadmap responsibilities and end settlement activity.

From the Palestinian perspective, all of their substantive efforts have been met with stonewalling and disingenuous rhetoric from Israel’s new prime minister, and deeply damaging ineffectiveness on the part of the Obama administration.

All of this was compounded by the PLO’s own mishandling of the Goldstone report, as it was unable to balance demands from international powers to back off with domestic political sentiments to push forward. The Palestinian leadership was therefore always going to pay either a domestic political or international dramatic price over the Goldstone question, but managed to end up paying both, almost in full.

It would appear that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s comments in Israel that appeared to imply a certain American satisfaction with the Israeli position were the final straw.

The Palestinian leadership is ready to give up because it feels it has done everything possible to accommodate the peace process established by the international community, and has gotten nowhere. Denied the slightest political accomplishment to which it can point as a measure of the success of its policies, it clearly came to feel that only the most drastic measures might communicate its political desperation to the outside world.

The attitude among many ordinary Palestinians is, if anything, even more grim.

For them, the 16-year era of peace talks has meant 16 years of further occupation, settlement building and land confiscation, bitter disappointment and denial of basic human and national rights. In addition to Israel and the international community, ordinary Palestinians also blame their own leaderships — both Fatah and Hamas — for not reuniting after the violent split in 2007, and blame all parties for the ongoing human catastrophe caused by the siege of Gaza.

Under such circumstances, it should be readily understandable that the concept of a viable peace process now seems like a sick joke to so many Palestinians.

This is the political context in which the Palestinian leadership has to operate: an exceedingly skeptical public and international actors that don’t seem to comprehend the limitations of Palestinian patience.

At last, it seems, even the most die-hard adherents of negotiations have concluded that either the dynamic must be changed or abandoned.

From the point of view of the Palestinian national project, the most serious threat posed by the present crisis is obviously to the Palestinian state and institution building program proposed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The plan could enact a dynamic, unilateral, nonviolent and constructive resistance to the occupation, creating the necessary framework for Palestinian independence, and constituting a dramatic transformation of the strategic environment in favor of both Palestinian interests and the prospects for peace.

Obviously, for this plan to succeed, it would require not only the financial and technical support of the international community, and most especially the United States, but also direct and vigorous political protection as well. It would be very difficult for Israel to block the project were it under international political protection, and almost impossible to interfere with specific projects that were being jointly pursued with American and European cooperation and involvement.

However the present crisis plays itself out, it is essential that this state building enterprise continue. It is the only thing on the horizon that offers a serious path forward towards ending both the occupation and the conflict, and can create hope in the midst of despair.