Back to a corrupt occupation

Haaretz :By Amira Hass

"Under the auspices of what is called 'the peace process' between 1994 and 2001, and under the mantra of 'strengthening the Palestinian economy will advance peace,' many of the senior Fatah people and their circles hastened to make their personal fortunes. This might have been legitimate, of course, had the economic situation of a considerable part of the inhabitants of the occupied territories not become worse because of the Israeli restrictions on movement and had it not been a matter of money found for them in the coffers of Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, or in shadier ways.

All too often there was a direct correlation between the newly rich Palestinian's ties to members of a Palestinian security force and the latter's ties to the Israeli Shin Bet security service or senior people in Israel. Closeness of this kind (to senior Fatah members and the Shin Bet) provided movement permits, ensured 'family reunification,' and so on. These and other kinds of occupation-dependent protectionism led the Palestinians to make a connection between 'the peace process' and corruption.

The failures of 2006 and 2007 have not produced any proof, yet, that Fatah has learned the lesson. It has not distanced itself from protectionism and the system by which those close to the right people have convenient opportunities to get richer - in a sea of impoverishment.

Blair Asserts ‘Sense of Possibility’ After Meeting 2 Sides in Jerusalem as Mideast Peace Envoy

New York Times: By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM, July 24 — Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, on his first visit to Jerusalem in his new post as international diplomat seeking to advance Mideast peace, declared after meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders that he felt “a sense of possibility.”

He declined, however, as did those he met, to explain the basis for his optimism at a time of deep political divisions and weak regional leadership....

He met with Fatah and independent politicians in the Palestinian government but did not speak to the Hamas faction, elected by Palestinians and running Gaza and regarded as a terrorist group by Israel and the West. He may well make discreet contact with Hamas through independent intermediaries, however....

That effort suffered somewhat overnight, when elite Presidential Guard units reportedly mistreated the daughter and son of the jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti. According to an account in the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the guards stopped the daughter, Ruba Barghouti, in a car. The guardsmen laughed at her, she called relatives who came, and a fight occurred.

Similar accounts of rudeness and criminal activity by Fatah-affiliated gunmen and security forces have regularly angered Palestinians. ...

Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud opposition, recommended to Mr. Blair specific economic incentives from private industry that could quickly improve the economy in the West Bank and create jobs, a Netanyahu aide said. Mr. Netanyahu warned against relying on the public sector, which has been slow and corrupt.

Institutions, order and hypocrisy

Haaretz : By Amira Hass

Even in this region, where diplomatic platitudes don't begin to disguise the preferential treatment afforded Israel (although it is the occupier), the mandate of the new Quartet envoy Tony Blair rings particularly hollow. His role is reported as being 'to help create viable and lasting government institutions representing all Palestinians ... and a climate of law and order for the Palestinian people.'

Internal Palestinian negotiations between Hamas and Fatah may yet stop the disintegration of the Palestinians' civil institutions and the complete severance between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, at the last moment. These institutions functioned during the most difficult times under Israeli military attacks, but started to crumble after January last year when the West, Israel and some Fatah elements tried in vain to topple a Hamas government founded on democratic elections.

One can go on about Hamas' brutal takeover of the security apparatus in the Gaza Strip, and one could go back and discuss the chaos deliberately brought on by the leaders of those organs. Indeed, Hamas appears to be determined to prove that a national-Muslim regime in the 'liberated' area is effective. But Hamas is not homogenous, and the boycott and siege policy has merely strengthened its extremists and their anonymous handlers...

[B]oth movements are well aware that ultimately they will have to climb down, and that only negotiations can deliver the ladders they need to do so. Only a return to the logic of internal dialogue can save the institutions that Blair was sent "to help create."

One of my most knowledgeable and assiduous readers has urged me to seek out and post pieces on Palestinian life by Amira Hass. This is the first piece by her I've seen in a while. Haas is an exceptionally tough internal critic of Israeli policy, and I often find it painful to read her reports. I often disagree with her policy prescriptions, as I do here. But those who care for Israel and its future, not to speak of the human suffering of the Palestinian people, cannot blinker their eyes from the harsh realities she typically forces us to confront.

Forced to Get Along

New York Times: By Mark Helprin

Contrary to the received wisdom, last summer Hezbollah overplayed its hand. Israel emerged shaken but with few casualties and an economy that actually grew during the hostilities. It took 4,000 of the vaunted Katyusha rockets to kill 39 Israelis, they did little material damage, and not one has been launched in the year since the war. Israel showed that upon provocation it could and would destroy anything in its path, thus creating a Lebanese awakening that has split the country and kept Hezbollah fully occupied. Though Hezbollah is rearming, it remains shy of Israel.

Hamas, too, has overplayed its hand, which has provided the opening from which a Palestinian-Israeli peace may emerge. For the first time since 1948, a fundamental division among the Palestinians presents a condition in which the less absolutist view may find shelter and take hold.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader and Palestinian president, is weak in many ways, but he has decisively isolated the radicals....

The starving and oppressed Gazans who watch Hamas fire rockets, the chief effect of which is to summon Israeli tanks, may soon see a prosperous West Bank at the brink of statehood and at peace with its neighbors and the world. The quarantine of Gaza will cast a bright light upon the normalization of the West Bank. And although Hamas leaders portray Mr. Abbas as a collaborator, it is they who may be held to account for keeping more than a million of their own people hostage to a gratuitous preference for struggle over success. ...

Egypt, the Persian Gulf states and Jordan have so much to contend with at home and in the east that they cannot afford an active front in their midst, and are therefore forming ranks against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, bringing most of the rest of the Arab states with them.

This is extraordinary and it is where we are now: on the verge of a rare alignment of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the leading Arab nations and the major powers....Anything for the worse can happen in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and usually does; but now the chief pillars of rejectionist policy lie flat and the spectrum of positions is such that each constructively engaged party can accommodate the others.

In the heat of a failing war, historical processes have unfrozen. If Israel and the Palestinian Authority can pursue a strategy of limited aims, concentrating on bilateral agreements rather than a single work of fallible grandeur, they may accomplish something on the scale of Sadat’s extraordinary démarche of 30 years ago. The odds are perhaps the best they have been since, and responsible governments should recognize them as the spur for appropriate action and risk.

In my rare hopeful moments, I hope for something like this. Not very romantic or idealistic, but perhaps, just perhaps, a path forward.

Bush’s Mideast: Missing Shades of Gray

New York Times: By STEVEN ERLANGER

By conflating Hamas with jihadist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Mr. Bush presented a picture that most Palestinians do not recognize. Their internal divisions — even with Hamas having routed Fatah in Gaza last month and Fatah running the West Bank — are much more complex that the one posited by Mr. Bush.

Palestinians elected Hamas in January 2006 to rule them, after all, and even many Palestinians who voted for Fatah say the United States-led boycott of Hamas has meant it has never been given a chance to govern.

They also know that Fatah has hardly been spotless, which is why they voted against it, and that Fatah has done very little to reform itself since....

Mr. Fayyad has no troops and no electoral mandate, but with Mr. Abbas’s support he promises to create a Palestinian administration in the West Bank that can deliver what Hamas won the election promising: change and reform, security and order.

But if Mr. Fayyad succeeds, it will be without democratic legitimacy. And a putative Palestine divided between the West Bank and Gaza only perpetuates a deep Palestinian political division, leaving out Hamas and the sizable minority who support it. That will undermine the credibility of whatever deal Mr. Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, and Mr. Fayyad might be able to reach with a skeptical Israel, where the rightist Likud Party leads the polls....

Accusing W of missing shades of gray is a bit like accusing water of being wet.

It's difficult to be sure whether NYT's Erlanger is buying into this analysis or just reporting it. He is surely correct that the present strategy of trying to build up Fatah and isolate Hamas has its difficulties and risks, but it is less clear what alternative, at this point, would be more promising. The focus on "democratic legitimacy", while sounding persuasive to Western ears, seems off key in the context of Arab politics, where such "legitimacy" is rarely, if ever, the norm. (The Bush Administration's near exclusive focus on elections as the determinative measure of "democracy" has been a fiasco throughout the Middle East; real democracy, as more than a dictionary simplification, requires protections for civil rights and liberties and functioning institutions of civil society (such as free speech, a free press, and robust mechanisms for political organizing), some notions of accountability (and limits to corruption), and certain democratic sentiments (and eventually traditions) among the citizenry.)

Hmm, it sounds like we could work on some of that in the U.S., let alone in the Middle East.

Actually, there may be some respects in which proto-Palestine is more advanced than some--indeed, many--of the "moderate" Arab governments with which we are allied--perhaps not the most helpful or impressive observation.

But I'm getting off track. What is Erlanger comparing the present strategy to, exactly? I guess a more supportive attitude (by the U.S. and the international community) toward a Hamas government for Palestine? We didn't give Hamas a chance? But the situation was rather like civil contempt in law--Hamas held the keys to its isolation cell in its own pocket, by meeting the international conditions for its legitimacy and recognition, and refused to use them. And suffered the consequences of that choice (as did the Palestinian population, ever captive to lousy leadership).

What exactly is wrong with those conditions as a basis for moving toward, if not an ideal peace, a better likelihood of moving toward a better future for the region?

Pray, tell.

Farfur eats dust; Jews must die

Palestinian statehood within a year?

Haaretz :

There is, however, a way to foster the emergence of a Palestinian partner. The key is to make security performance part of the process of ending the occupation, rather than a precondition for negotiations. Here is how:

Jerome Segel proposes a rapid, step-by-step process toward a two state solution with agreed final borders, but leaving resolution on Jerusalem and refugees "for later". Implementation would be "performance-based", with incentives for Hamas to join the game following a Palestinian referendum/ ratification process.

Comments (hardly representative, but suggestive) suggest decreasing interest in pursuing a two state solution, with more (right wing?) Israelis talking about getting Jordan and Egypt to "take back" (parts of) the West Bank and Gaza. So much for a "Palestinian nation" in this generation.

My own despair: Arafat really, really blew it in 2000-01 (as I thought then, and continue to believe). Actions have consequences, and it's hard to put broken eggs back together again.

As Shells Fall, Goods Go to Gaza at ‘Vineyard of Peace’

New York Times: By ISABEL KERSHNER

KEREM SHALOM, Israel, July 11 — Real life has a way of intruding into the airy absolutes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Each side may deny the other’s historical legitimacy, or plot the other’s demise, but somehow, the gritty business of coexistence marches on.

For the past month, since the Islamic militants of Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, Israel has kept the main commercial crossing point at Karni shuttered, squeezing the life out of the limp Gazan economy. Israel bans contact with Hamas, and Hamas seeks Israel’s destruction, making border crossing etiquette more precarious than elsewhere....

Hamas officials say they want to start negotiations with Israel about reopening the formal crossings. Major Lerner said that Hamas had “a few things to do” first, including recognizing Israel’s right to exist and freeing Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured and taken to Gaza in a raid more than a year ago.

But the ultimate test of pragmatism may come in September when the Hebrew calendar enters what is known in Jewish law as a “shmita” year. Then the fields of Israel are supposed to lie fallow, and observant Jews seek agricultural products grown elsewhere. Before the Hamas takeover, Israel’s rabbis had reached agreements with Palestinians to import vegetables from Gaza, Major Lerner said. Given the needs of both sides, it may still happen.

Condoleezza Rice cancels planned visit to Israel

Jerusalem Post:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled her visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, which was planned for next week.

Things are moving right along. I wonder what would happen if Middle East peace were not such a high priority for this Administration.

Hamas Boycotts Meeting of Palestinian Legislature

New York Times: By STEVEN ERLANGER

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, convened the Palestinian legislature today, but a boycott by the Hamas party meant there was no quorum, which was precisely what Mr. Abbas wanted. With parliament unable to transact business, he can extend the life of the emergency cabinet that he appointed after Hamas fighters took control of the Gaza Strip....

If the legislature is unable to convene, Mr. Abbas may be able to declare the government a “caretaker,” to hold power until new elections can be held. Hamas has said it will not allow new elections to take place before January 2010, when the regular term of four years will be over, and Mr. Abbas has already backed down once, after announcing last December that emergency elections would be held.

An aide to Mr. Abbas said the president is also considering dissolving the legislature and making the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Fatah controls, the caretaker parliament. ...And in any event, in Fatah’s struggle with Hamas, legal niceties are not being observed by either side, and the debate over what is or is not allowed in the flawed basic law is seen as essentially academic. ...

An independent legislator, Hanan Ashrawi, said: “We are in deep crisis. We cannot continue in this manner. Elections are the only way out of this dangerous constitutional crisis.”

Comment would be superfluous, and probably fatuous.

Apparel shopping in Gaza

Oy vay

Is terrorism on the way out?

Haaretz : By Bradley Burston

As anti-Muslim intolerance mounted in much of the West, there was a tendency in the press, as in academia, to coddle Islamists, to sidestep thorny questions, to refrain from pursuing the kind of relentless probing that, locally for example, had for decades yielded reams of newsprint on 'How Israel Has Lost Its Soul,' or 'How Jews Suffered at the Hands of Nazis, and Now Palestinians are Suffering at the Hands of Israelis.'

Many journalists, steering clear of value judgments or words like terrorism, saw themselves as implementing a kind of affirmative action of the mind, telling the untold story of disadvantaged and despairing Muslims, the subtext being: this is the root problem, the World Trade Center and the 18 Jerusalem City Bus were but the symptoms.

Nonetheless, revolutions, like viral epidemics, tend to run their course in time."...

There is little question that as terror hit enlightened nation after enlightened nation, the journalists and editors of each country immediately adopted the idea that there is such a thing as terrorism after all. Victim-blaming gave way overnight to sympathy for the victim.

In the Palestinian context, the irony of the resort to terrorism, is that acts designed to catapult the Palestinian issue to the top of the world's agenda, have over time had the opposite effect. Suicide bombings and post-withdrawal Qassam rockets have soured the world to the plight of the Palestinians, while chaos and brutal fighting between rival parties has drained sympathy for the idea of Palestinian statehood.

The world has tired of its Palestinians, and, at this point, even the Palestinians know why. ...

f we have learned anything in this decade of invasion, occupation and dismay, it is that Muslim terrorism will only end when Muslims decide that it should. Perhaps the obscenities of Muslims fighting Muslims in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Pakistan are beginning to cause the fire of Islamist terror to consume itself.

Part of the range of Israeli opinion. Burston is very idiosyncratic in his views; I'm not quite sure what to make of this posting.
Whistling past the graveyard?

A glimmer of hope in Gaza?

Slate Magazine: By Mitchell Prothero

But besides proving that they could be firm and nuanced at the same time, Hamas did something else that was widely overlooked in the understandably joyful coverage of [British journalist Alan] Johnston's release: They failed to disarm Jaysh al-Islam, and they even released all the prisoners that had been taken in the campaign to pressure the family.

Why? Ask Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured just over a year ago in a joint operation between Hamas and, you guessed it, Jaysh al-Islam. Hamas might need to prove it can control Gaza, but it also has to maintain its street credibility among militants, at least for now. They are torn between guns and butter.

This tension between armed militancy and good governance is hard to reconcile....

What is often overlooked about Hamas is that although destroying Israel is certainly high on its to-do list, the group represents the much broader agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood, or "Ikwhan," is a Pan-Arab movement out to prove that most Arab regimes are corrupt, brutal, and ineffectual—a point that's hard to dispute when you've visited a few of them. The Brotherhood solution is to combine religious discipline with technocratic know-how to build a better society for the Arab world. Some consider them a moderating influence on the al-Qaida types, others point out that both groups share the same sources of intellectual inspiration...

...[I]t's also clear that Hamas isn't sure how this whole thing will play out. They cannot, or will not, openly come to peace talks with Israel. But both sides would benefit from an end to the nonstop, bloody drama in and around Gaza. And for once, Israel and America have someone to talk to that could actually deliver a version of peace. We're a long way from Hamas removing the stuff about destroying Israel from its charter, and we may never reach that point. But in the ministries and police stations of Gaza, there's a near pathological desire by Hamas officials to prove they can govern, and this could be turned into a long-term cease-fire, which Hamas admits they're willing to discuss.

BBC Journalist Freed in Gaza

New York Times:

At the news conference, Mr. Johnston thanked all those who had worked for his release, including Mr. Haniya and Hamas. He said he was only beaten in the last half-hour before his release, and said that once Hamas took over Gaza, his kidnappers, whom he described as “comfortable,” began to get very nervous.

“It was really grim,” Mr. Johnston said. “It was like being buried alive, really, removed from the world.” His kidnappers were indifferent and he became very ill twice, he said, “and I had the feeling that they would watch television while the British guy died in the other room.”

Mr. Haniya said the release was a moment of pride for all Palestinians, and another senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, said Hamas would enforce the rule of law in Gaza and protect foreigners. “It’s a new era,” Mr. Zahar said. “We will not allow illegal activities against anyone.”"

I suspect that last statement will bear some interpretation.

Hamas television to replace 'martyred' Mickey Mouse look-alike

Haaretz : By Reuters

A Hamas television station that last week killed off a Mickey Mouse look-alike who urged children to fight against Israel will use other famous characters to further their Islamist agenda, station officials said on Monday.

The host of the children's show 'Tomorrow's Pioneers,' Farfur, dressed in a full-body suit to resemble the Walt Disney cartoon character. The character was beaten to death in the show's final episode last week by a character posing as an Israeli.

Farfur and a female co-host instructed their young viewers on Hamas's militant brand of Muslim piety and urged children to support armed resistance against Israel.


Mohammad Saeed, the director of production at Al-Aqsa Television, told Reuters the station would use other famous cartoon characters in future shows.

'Farfur was a story alive and he has turned into another story as a [martyr]...

Hamas Rejects an Outside Force for Gaza

New York Times:

Hamas leaders have called on Mr. Abbas and his secularist Fatah movement to renew dialogue with them since their takeover of Gaza, but Fatah has rebuffed the overtures. Fatah leaders accuse Hamas of having carried out a coup in Gaza, and some have suggested that the Islamic group should no longer be included in the democratic process.

“In my opinion, after Gaza, Hamas ceased to be part of the Palestinian national fabric,” Nasser Jumaa, a Fatah legislator from Nablus, said recently. “I was one of those originally calling for Hamas to be absorbed and included,” he said, “but this experience was enough for me.”

Fatah leaders were especially upset at the scenes of Hamas militants breaking into the home of Mr. Arafat in Gaza during their victory celebrations, which included the looting of former symbols of Fatah power.

After touring the Arafat house on Saturday, accompanied by aides and reporters, Mr. Haniya telephoned the former Palestinian leader’s wife, Suha, in Tunis, in what appeared to be a gesture aimed at patching relations and restoring Palestinian unity. He told her that the house was untouched, and sent his regards to her and Mr. Arafat’s daughter, Zahwa.

Perhaps you could remind us of Suha's current net worth, in relation to that of the typical Gaza resident?

With Hamas Takeover, Tough Calls for Israel

washingtonpost.com:
By Scott Wilson

JERUSALEM -- Since the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, Israel has faced an increasingly complex set of military options to stop attacks from the territory, and a debate over its humanitarian responsibilities for the strip's 1.4 million people.

The political split between the West Bank and Gaza has also strengthened calls in Israel to abandon the idea of a Palestinian state, which was at the core of the Oslo peace accords signed in 1993....

"The only way Abbas can be rescued is by getting a political process started with Israel," said Walid Salem of the Panorama center, a Palestinian institute in Jerusalem that promotes democracy. "Otherwise, what happened in Gaza will happen in the West Bank within two years."

But former Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who heads the opposition Likud Party, and other politicians have redoubled their arguments that the idea of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank is over.

Netanyahu has revived a proposal calling for Jordan, most of whose residents are of Palestinian descent, and the West Bank to enter into a "confederation" that would bind them together economically, politically and on security matters. Such an arrangement would presumably leave much of the West Bank, at least that portion Israel has effectively annexed with its separation barrier, under Israeli control.

Under that proposal, Egypt would assume responsibility for Gaza, which it held before the 1967 Middle East war. But Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic political movement that is President Hosni Mubarak's chief opposition. ...

Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at Hebrew University, said Israel's "policy moves over the years have been consistently rational in the decision-making stage and utterly irrational in terms of understanding the consequences."

"It has always thought of its policy toward the Palestinians and the region as moves in a chess game," he said. "But the situation has always been far more like trying to keep a small boat steady in a rushing river."

Tony Blair is the wrong man for the job

Slate Magazine: By Shmuel Rosner

Building institutions for the Palestinians and bringing the two sides closer to an agreement demands a long-term commitment to move forward in baby steps. Keep dreams in a vault and focus on the day-to-day 'management of the conflict' to save lives and ease the pressure—and wait for a better opportunity. The appointment of Blair—a world celebrity with an ego to match—to mediate the conflict is meant to bring more attention, more money, and a higher profile to heal the bleeding wound. But the higher the profile, the higher the expectations, and as was proved at Camp David, the higher the expectations, the more painful the failure to fulfill them.

I often disagree with Rosner, and hope he is wrong here. Baby steps (too often with a baby's sense of direction) have not worked in Israel/Palestine since the assassination of Rabin. I continue to wonder whether Clinton's final push might have worked if the clock had not run out, and if the Arab states (with more adroit American diplomacy) had put more pressure on Arafat to make a deal. The "conservative" Arab regimes now have reason for concerted action in response to growing Shi'a power and influence (and their own fragility), and Blair potentially has some time to work. I'm hoping for better, but not betting on it.

Mediators Appoint Blair Mideast Envoy

New York Times: By CHRISTINE HAUSER and TAGHREED EL-KHODARY

Tony Blair, who stepped down today as the prime minister of Britain, has been appointed a new senior peace envoy for the Middle East, working on building the framework for a Palestinian state, officials said today.

The widely expected announcement was made at the United Nations in New York and at the State Department"...

A State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said Mr. Blair would spend significant time in the region “working with the parties and others to help viable and lasting government institutions representing all Palestinians, a robust economy and a climate of law and order for the Palestinian people.”

President Bush welcomed the appointment today.

“Tony will help Palestinians develop the political and economic institutions they will need for a democratic, sovereign state able to provide for its people and live in peace and security with Israel,” he said in a statement. “I thank him for his willingness to give his time to this goal, which would be a historic step toward peace in the Middle East.”

As had been speculated, Blair's mandate (as stated)
focuses largely on the development of internal governing institutions for the Palestinians, apparently assumed to be a necessary step toward meaningful progress in negotiations with Israel on Palestinian statehood. Very interesting.

Olmert (and othes) at Sharm summit

Haaretz:

Addressing the Palestinian people, Olmert said, 'We are not indifferent to your suffering. We are not ignoring the need to bring it to an end, through understanding and peacemaking.'

'As Israel's prime minister, I say to you: We have no desire to rule you... nor run your lives.

'We have no intention to make decisions for you. I believe that soon you will be able to live in your state alongside the State of Israel.'

Abbas appealed to Olmert during their meetng Monday to resume serious talks on the estblishment of a future Palestinian state.

"Our region stands at a crossroads between the paths of peace and violence," said Abbas.

"The decisions of this summit must give hope to the [both] peoples and begin a peace process toward a better future," he added.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide, said following the summit that "now the time has come to turn words into actions on the ground."

If only...