ISBN 978-0-9785614-2-0

INTRODUCTION

BY SALIBA SARSAR

We are a people without a State and, therefore, a people without credentials, without recognition, without representation, without the privileges of a nation, without the means of self-defense, and without any say in our fate.

In our hands is a fresh yearning for you…

Give us love, so we may build the collapsed universe within us

anew and restore the joy of fertility to our barren world.

Give us wings to open the horizons of ascent, to break free from

our confined cavern, the solitude of iron walls…

The ongoing changes in the political landscapes of Israel and the Palestinian community, whatever their causes or ramifications, will not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unless Israelis and Palestinians realize that neither extremism and violence nor occupation and domination spell peace. Peace comes to both peoples through good will, intentional peacemaking and peace building, and compromise. 

The above quotations, one stated by a male politician and the other written by a female poet on opposite sides of the Palestinian-Israeli divide, speak of a deep desire for predictability and stability, for actualization of both individual selves and nationality. It is not easy to guess who the authors are, for the need for dignity and national self-determination in both communities is similar and strong.

It took Jewish leaders fifty-one years from the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 to secure a state in historic Palestine. Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has not overcome being a nation at war. Even with few episodes of border tranquility, security and social justice remain elusive. Arab citizens of Israel generally are subjected to unequal treatment, and most Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip feel encircled or stranded behind military occupation checkpoints and walls.

Palestinians have longed for independence and statehood for decades. Their experiences of conflict and wars since the early 20^th century have produced and are producing markings in their lives, which are mostly perceived and commemorated in negative terms: Nakbah (catastrophe), dispossession, exile, refugee camps, crossing points, harassment, imprisonment, and death. In response, Palestinians have fiercely clung to their past and their memory of home. They have developed deep roots, with Palestine considered as a real place, not just a state of mind.

Missed Opportunities for Peace

Countless national and international efforts have attempted to work through the competing Israeli and Palestinian identities, memories, and positions in order to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict peacefully. The Oslo accords (1993); Wye River accord (1998); Camp David meeting (2000); Taba negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli delegations (2001); George Mitchell’s proposal (2001); George Tenet’s plan (2001); United Nations Resolution 1397, which affirmed a vision of a region where Palestine and Israel would live side by side within secure and recognized borders (2002); the Saudi peace proposal adopted unanimously by the Arab League (2002) [See Appendix I for the text of the Arab Peace Initiative]; the “roadmap” for peace adopted by the Quartet (2003); and the Geneva Accord (2003) [See Appendix II for a summary of main points] between moderate Palestinian and Israeli leaders—all have taken forward steps for peace, but backward steps prolong the agony and tragedy. Psychological barriers, religious dogmas, ideological extremism, territorial imperatives, national interests, and security concerns continue to block opportunities for finding an acceptable solution to the majority in both national communities.

Moreover, peace-building approaches have been neglected, thus diminishing the common good of both peoples. In emphasizing security and violence, strategies have endangered others through insecurity and counter-violence, fueling passions that lead to communal guilt, collective punishment, and revenge rather than due process and distributive justice.

Each of the Israeli and Palestinian populations has either become proponent of the party line or has dutifully followed, often out of fear, psychological numbing, or social acculturation. Some have chosen to immigrate or go into self-imposed exile. Those able to do so have engaged in the public peace process or in community-based and functional arenas. Their motivation is to hasten peace and to set a solid foundation for peace once a peace treaty is signed. Still others have become extreme, espousing maximal demands and carrying out aggressive actions. 

While there are legitimate, serious differences between both national communities over such issues as Jerusalem, Israeli security, Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees, Palestinian statehood, borders, and fresh water resources, many excuses and actions have been used to justify positions and policies. Israelis cite aggressive Arab attitudes, Arab demographic advantage, and Muslim extremism, and Palestinians list Western imperialism, exclusionary Zionism, and Israeli militaristic expansionism and occupation. Israelis rush to create one fait accompli after another without genuinely envisioning a State of Palestine as a legitimate neighbor, and Palestinians are stuck in redressing past injustices without genuinely envisioning a future with Israel in it.

The world powers—principally England, the United Nations, and the United States—have tried over the decades to settle the Israeli-Palestinian zero-sum game but their influence and interests have resulted in less, not more accommodation, between the two contending parties. Today, the United States is highly sought as ally and friend by both sides, with Israelis demanding more and more support and Palestinians demanding more balance, fairness, and justice.  

National Leadership and Actions

For Palestinians, leading necessitates making hard and sometimes unpopular policy choices. It means finding trustworthy leaders at all levels of society who are able to unite, heal the Palestinians, and move them along from a stateless to nation-state status. Leadership implies building institutional, political, financial, legal, and environmental infrastructures; empowering citizens and respecting their basic civil rights; opening up the economy; and transforming education for peace in the twenty-first century. Good governance will go a long way to enhance peace, a good society, and the future, which also involves persuading or compelling extremists, religious and otherwise, to follow a nonviolent path of national struggle. There must not be two separate armies and countless militias or a state within a state.

Externally, leading involves negotiating with the State of Israel over very tough issues. The more that Palestinians insist on peace with justice, but are open to creative negotiations and compromise, the faster they will have self-determination and independence. Moreover, leading involves opting for a defensive defense and for neutrality in foreign policy. The former would emphasize military forces and weapons that are clearly non-threatening to other states. It would create an environment where defense has supremacy over offense, where repelling an aggressor is possible, and where war is less likely to happen. The latter implies that the state commits itself never to engage in any future conflict and, in case of war, be prepared to forcibly keep its neutrality, security, and independence.

Good governance, defensive defense, and neutrality are necessary and right. While good governance would help Palestinians to enhance their well-being and secure their rights, defensive defense and neutrality would relieve them of the burden of military preparedness, thus refocusing their energies on civilian affairs. These policies would also assure and safeguard Palestine’s neighbors, specifically Jordan and Israel, and conversely signal to Palestine’s neighbors and others the Palestinian intention and course of action.

With regards to Israel, security and peace must have a better balance. Needed is enlightened leadership that sees beyond tomorrow and that is capable of designing and implementing policies that assure Israel’s viability and accommodates Palestinian moderate aspirations. Israel, like other countries, is entitled to security for its citizens, but continued occupation and frequent creation of facts on the ground will only result in more polarization and destabilization.

Israel will benefit tremendously from facilitating the establishment of a State of Palestine and from supporting its democratic development and economic growth. A democratic, prosperous, and secure Palestine and a democratic, prosperous, and secure Israel have a strong potential to coexist in peace and to transform the Middle East in a constructive direction.

As a superpower, with considerable historic, economic, and strategic interests to protect and with democracy and freedom to promote, the United States can do much to influence the policies and actions of other countries. It must become proactive in assisting both Palestinians and Israelis “get to yes” by taking appropriate and responsible risks for peace. 

If an even-handed approach is pursued by the United States toward Israel and the Palestinians, countries and nongovernmental organizations will surely contribute to peacemaking and peace building. Many are already doing so under dangerous conditions; imagine how many more will be engaged in peacetime.

Conclusion

The first quotation at the start of the Introduction is by David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) who, in 1945, expressed the need of the Jewish people for a state, credentials, representation, privileges of a nation, means of self-defense, and a say in the future. [It appears in J. C. Hurewitz, Struggle for Palestine. New York: Schocken Books, 1976, p. 220.] He later became Israel’s prime minister twice, during 1948-1953 and 1955-1963, respectively. The second quotation is by Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), a renowned Palestinian poet, who yearned for self-empowerment and expressed her people’s aspirations. [It appears in Nathalie Handal, ed. The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology. New York: Interlink, 2001, p. 306.]

If peace and reconciliation are to grow and be sustained, memory must go beyond the thoughts of suffering to enable the restructuring of identity, regaining of humanity, and embracing of constructive relationships. It behooves Palestinians and Israelis to look beyond yesterday and today to the future. Using the principles of law, justice, and compromise, Palestine and Israel, side by side, are both possible and right.

***

This volume, Palestine and the Quest for Peace, presents multiple issues, policy analyses, and informed opinions, as well as seven appendices, relevant to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which have been published or stated between 2006 and 2009. Arranged developmentally and thematically—not chronologically—these selections or chapters speak of an unshakeable commitment to peace and to the creation of a Palestinian state living alongside Israel in peace, security, and prosperity. [See Appendix III for ATFP’s “A Vision for the State of Palestine: The Nature and Character of the State.”]

Palestine and the Quest for Peaceis divided into three parts: the first on dispossession and war, the second on the crucial U.S. role in peacemaking and peace building, and the third on dialogue and peace. 

Starting with the need to defend the dignity of the Palestinians, which is at the core of what the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) does, the chapters lead not only to perspectives on the 40^th year anniversary of the June 1967 War, Israel at 60, and the Palestinian plight, but also the necessity for peace. As it is concluded in Chapter 5, “Israelis and Palestinians need “less bereavement and more reconciliation, enlightened leaders who see beyond the next election, and a new beginning where, as equals, they can live in a world beyond fear.”

The chapters then focus on the responsibility to address the Arab Peace Initiative as an important approach to the resolution of the Question of Palestine. A key player is no other than the U.S., especially the Executive Branch. The two-state solution is right, as several American leaders have stated [see Appendix IV and Appendix V for addresses by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicolas Burns, respectively] and as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority advocates, regardless of the obstacles [see Appendix VI]. The two-state solution, as President Barack Obama made clear in his speech at Cairo University on June 4, 2009, is “in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest.” [See Appendix VII.]

Finally, the chapters explain why reaching a peaceful solution is urgent. It takes leadership, political will, and perseverance, as well as education and the creation of a real coalition on peace. The last chapter provides hope when Arabs and Jews; Palestinians and Israelis; Jewish, Christian, and Muslim become advocates for each other. As is written, “when a peace agreement is signed, it is the people who must live the peace…together.”

Palestine and the Quest for Peaceis published by ATFP. I extend my heartfelt thanks to ATFP’s President, Dr. Ziad Asali; Mrs. Naila Asali and the other members of the Board of Directors; ATFP Senior Fellows Dr. Hussein Ibish and Mr. Ghaith al-Omari for their dedication and vision. I also express my deep gratitude to the authors and the media outlets in which their contributions appeared. It goes without saying that the views expressed in each chapter are those of its author(s), and not necessarily those of ATFP. Last, but not least, I acknowledge with much appreciation the care and support provided by Monmouth University—my New Jersey home away from my Jerusalem home—where leaders look forward!

PART I: WHY DISPOSSESSION AND WAR
DEFENDING THE DIGNITY OFTHE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

BY ZIAD ASALI

Welcoming Remarks, ATFP Third Annual Gala

“The Courage to Persist, the Will to Build”

Ritz Carlton, Washington, D.C.

October 12, 2008

Iwant to begin by talking about dignity, which is at the core of what we do at the American Task Force on Palestine: Defending the dignity of the Palestinian people in their land, and dignity of Palestinian- and Arab-Americans in their land too.

The only difference between Palestinians and all other peoples is that they have no state of their own. They need a place where they can be at home as first-class citizens. It will not be possible for them to fully reclaim their dignity until they gain independence.

A two-state solution is not a device to finesse the resolution of the conflict. It is the only solution that will allow the Palestinians to achieve a normal state and the only vehicle for Israel to become a normal state.

The policy of the international community now is a two-state solution. This policy is frustrated by politics, and it is our collective task to bring politics into alignment with policy.

Palestinian-Americans—indeed all Arab-Americans—are like all other Americans. Like others before us, we have had to deal with prejudice, subtle and occasionally naked forms of prejudice, and racism. Our quest for dignity can end only when we are treated like others, no better and no worse.

The underlying impulse for establishing the American Task Force on Palestine is to chip away at the one-dimensional, negative stereotypes that we and our children and grandchildren deal with. The objective for all three of our annual galas has been the same: to recognize and honor outstanding Palestinian Americans who are national leaders, public servants, inventors, leading physicians, attorneys, academics, musicians, entrepreneurs, artists, and fashion designers. These are the Palestinians we want the rest of America to meet, acknowledge, and respect, and to say after the encounter: We have met the Palestinians, and they are us.

The American leaders who addressed our Gala dinners in the past, and the ones who are doing so this evening, the audience that is here tonight, and the many friends who support us everywhere are giving but one statement: The Palestinians are OK, they are entitled to equal rights in America, and they have earned the right to a state.

The theme for this year’s Gala, “The Courage to Persist, the Will to Build,” is more than just a statement: It is a mindset, a program, and a strategy.

As you will hear later tonight from our distinguished guest, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, that this is precisely the program that he and President Mahmoud Abbas are implementing in Palestine. It is their way of creating facts on the grounds. They are not sitting and waiting for the occupation to end, they are establishing the structures the state will require as soon as the occupation comes to an end.

People ask, with justified cynicism: When will the occupation end? And I have but one answer: When the forces inside Israel, Palestine and the United States that support an honorable and lasting two-state solution win over those opposed to it in all three places. That is when the occupation will end.

But, in the meantime, we must not lose heart. The Palestinians, with our help, must build their economy, their legal and social institutions, and above all a security system that, through good governance, restores the authority of government and rule of law.

The Israelis cannot go on building and expanding settlements and expect a resolution to this conflict. We welcome statements from leading policy makers in Israel that call for ending the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian State through negotiations based on the 1967 borders. We appreciate their words, and understand that the issues are difficult and there are no quick fixes.

On November 4, the American people will choose a new leader. We welcome him in advance and ask him to make this issue a top priority. It will take courage and political willpower on the part of a truly engaged statesman to resolve this conflict. We wish him, and all of us, good luck.

PERSPECTIVES ON THE 40TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE SIX-DAY WAR

BY ZIAD ASALI

Americans for Peace Now, Weekly Q&A with Yossi Alpher

June 6, 2007

Drums of war were beating in early June 1967 in the waning days of my internship at the Hospital of the American University of Beirut. We were excited at the prospect of a just war that would liberate Palestine, allowing those of us who became refugees in 1948 to go back to our homes, and fully confident of victory against the small Israeli army. I distinctly remember a conversation I had in the cafeteria with professor of surgery Dr. Abdel-Latif Yashruti, an urbane, British-trained aristocrat.

His sharp blue eyes fixed on mine, he asked, “What makes you think that we will win?” I began reciting the number of planes and tanks that Arab armies had in comparison to the puny numbers of the Israeli military. Calmly, he said, “Look. I left Haifa once. I have lived in many places but I like it here. I don't want to become a refugee again.” My response—impolite, rash and most regrettable—questioned the patriotism and wisdom of my professor. In the ensuing years, I have come to recognize that the wars of 1948 and 1967 bracket, like bookends holding together a number of volumes on a shelf, the objective, realizable political realities in the conflict. They define the constraints that the existence and persistence of both Israelis and Palestinians place upon each other's ambitions in the small area of mandatory Palestine—as it is said, “between the river and the sea.”

The war of 1948 marked a definitive end to Palestinian and Arab hopes that Zionism would fail to realize a Jewish state in Palestine. Palestinians could no longer aspire to achieve the kind of independence the other Arab states had achieved, or for Palestine to remain an “Arab” Palestine. Moreover, the effect of the war was so devastating to Palestinian society that it took almost 20 years to reconstitute the national political identity. Much of that society continues on its uneven road to recovery to this day, almost 60 years later.

The decisive nature of the 1948 war in establishing Israel as a state that would be part of the political landscape for the foreseeable future was dramatically reinforced in 1967. Any enduring Arab hope for a reversal of the outcome of 1948 could now seem plausible only to the most self-deluding. 1948 and 1967, in this sense, clearly established the limitations of Palestinian and Arab aspirations—Israel was here to stay. Ironically, however, the era since 1967 has demonstrated analogous limits to the ambitions of some Israelis and Israeli governments in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Obviously, it is impossible to look back on the past 40 years, particularly as a Palestinian, without noting the terrible effects of the occupation on the Palestinians. Understandably, critiques of the occupation tend often to focus on the systematic denial of rights to the occupied population. But it is more significant, from a political point of view, that these repressive measures, and two major conflicts— the first and second Intifadas (the first largely unarmed, the second disastrously militarized)—in the occupied territories have not consolidated Israeli control in any meaningful sense. Resistance to Israeli control, manifested in many legitimate and, of course, some profoundly illegitimate forms, is stronger than ever.

Almost no one outside the settler movement sees the situation as viable or defensible, and everyone has a plan for change because the realities are so plainly intolerable. The challenge facing Israelis in recent decades has been a mirror image of that faced by most Arabs in the early decades of the conflict, particularly between 1948-1967, that is to say a recognition of the limitations of one's own political ambitions, the permanent presence of the other national constituency, the legitimacy of its national rights, and the necessity, therefore, for an accommodation involving two states living together in peace and security. While most observers see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as divided principally along nationalist constituencies, the more significant division is between those on both sides who understand and accept the finality of the outcome of the 1948 war and those who do not. Those who recognize 1948 as a decisive historical moment understand that it established insurmountable limitations for both Palestinian and Israeli nationalism, and that the armistice lines of 1949 have come to constitute the only serious basis upon which the conflict can be resolved.

1967 was crucial for demonstrating this to many Arabs, although certainly it took time to translate these obvious realities into political positions. The years since 1967 should by now have had a similar effect on most Israelis, none of whom can any longer fail to understand that Palestinians are not going anywhere, they will not disappear, and they will not agree to live as non-citizens of a non-state in their own country. We must all recognize that there will be no peace until the national aspirations and dignity of both peoples are respected. The only formula that can fulfill these conditions is the creation of a state of Palestine to live alongside Israel. It is up to all friends of Israel and Palestine to cross the national religious, racial and ethnic fault lines that divide us and form a national and international alliance for two states. The “realities on the ground” that have prevented an ending of the conflict must be overcome by this vision, and by the political forces that we bring to bear on it.

Young men and women in the Middle East, struggling with their sense of injured pride and violated justice, coping with fear, vengeance, poverty and greed, can only be spared the fate of earlier generations by a wise and courageous leadership on all sides, relentless in its pursuit of a historic compromise. My professor of surgery understood what I did not in 1967, but have come to embrace wholeheartedly: the future is more important than the past.

ISRAEL AT 60: RESOLUTION FAR AWAY

BY DAOUD KUTTAB

The Daily Star (www.dailystar.com.lb/)in Collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org)

May 15, 2008

As the state of Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinians remember the Nakbah or “catastrophe”—their story of dispossession, occupation, and statelessness. But, for both sides, as well as external powers, the events of 1948 and what has followed –the occupation since June 1967 of the remaining lands of historic Palestine—represents a tragic failure.

Israel is most at fault for this failure, owing to its continued military occupation and illegal settlements. Despite paying lip service to peace, the Israeli refusal to leave the Occupied Territories continues to be in direct contravention to what the preamble to United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 termed the “inadmissible taking of land by force.”

But the international community, Palestinians, and Arabs all bear responsibility as well, albeit at different levels. Indeed, the list of disappointments predates Israeli statehood and the Nakbah itself: the King-Crane Commission of 1919, the 1937 Peel Report, the British White Paper of 1939, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry of 1945, and the UN Partition Plan of 1947. Since then, we have had UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, the Rogers Plan, the Mitchell Plan, the Tenet Plan, Camp David, Taba, the Saudi plan, the “road map,” the unofficial Geneva Initiative, the People’s Choice, and the Beirut Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.

To be sure, Palestinians and Arabs are also to blame for their inability to empathize, recognize, and understand the plight of the Jewish people. Although Palestinians had nothing to do with European anti-Semitism and the Nazi Holocaust, they should not have turned a blind eye to the Jews’ tragedy. Palestinians were so locked in their opposition to Zionism that they were unable to appreciate the Jews’ existential needs, just as they failed to appreciate the effects of indiscriminate acts of violence against Israeli civilians.

Consumed with legitimate anger, Palestinians and Arabs failed to come up with a serious approach to reach out to Israelis and failed to devise a workable political strategy that would address daily Palestinian needs and national aspirations. Cross-border attacks, hijackings, Arab and international diplomacy, secret talks, non-violent resistance, suicide bombings, rockets, regional Arab initiatives, international peace envoys: Nothing has succeeded in ending the occupation. With each approach, Palestinian leaders, believing the Arab states’ hollow proclamations of solidarity with their cause, have failed to measure accurately their own powers vis-à-vis the Israelis.

Indeed, the Arab states have come nowhere close to matching the level of US and European aid to the Palestinians, much less the even higher level of Western support—political and military, as well as financial—that has been the key to Israel’s ability to withstand Palestinian demands for freedom. While European public and private support to Israel, especially in its founding years, is believed to be very extensive, the US has created a firewall of vetoes and political protection for Israel, in addition to providing massive financial support. Writing in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Shirl McArthur, a retired US Foreign Service officer, estimates that direct US aid to Israel between 1949 and 2006 totaled $108 billion.

After the US, Germany is the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel. By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments for Nazi atrocities. Total German assistance to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals, and Israeli private institutions has been roughly $31 billion, or $5,345 per capita, bringing combined US and German assistance to almost $20,000 per Israeli.

In the face of Israel’s strength, the Palestinian national movement’s failure has now played into the hands of Islamists. The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which emerged during the first intifada in 1987, grew more powerful in the 1990s, after the return of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Yasir Arafat and the creation, as a result of the Oslo Accords, of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas’ rejection of the Oslo Accords bore political fruit as it became increasingly clear to Palestinians that the handshakes on the White House lawn would not produce the coveted end to the Israeli occupation, or even of Israel’s illegal settlement activities.

Yet, despite history’s long train of failures, Hamas’ June 2007 seizure of control of Gaza, and its pariah status in the West, we are repeatedly told by the US that 2008 will be the year of a peace agreement. Meanwhile, the Arab peace proposal, which calls for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and a fair solution to the refugee problem in exchange for normalization of Arab states’ relations with Israel, appears doomed.

After 60 years of failures, and as the generation that lived through the Nakbah passes from the scene, a political settlement that can provide Palestinians with freedom in an independent state alongside a secure Israel and a fair solution of the refugee problem is more necessary—but also appears less possible—than ever.

THE PALESTINIAN PLIGHT

BY ZIAD ASALI

Washington Times(www.washingtontimes.com/)

June 18, 2007

Forty years ago this month, Israel stunned the Arab states in six days of war whose consequences are yet to be resolved. Hamas' version of its own six-day war has created new political realities that may be with us for some time to come. Negotiations, conferences and meetings of diplomats and pundits flying around the world will do very little to undo the new realities if we dither and lose the opportunity this crisis presents.

The Palestinian people have paid, yet again, an incalculable price for the decisions of their leaders. The world will stand sanctimoniously by judging the barbaric behavior of a people reduced by degradation, poverty and incarceration. We will hear, as we already have, about the Palestinians losing their moral right to a state because of the abominable acts of the combatants. A mean-spirited public debate will do nothing but fuel hatreds and diminish serious prospects for solutions.

The essence of the historic compromise for peace cannot be anything but a state of Palestine alongside Israel. Israeli and Palestinian rejectionists have consistently frustrated the realist moderates and found ways to block their efforts to bridge the gap between the two peoples in search of a compromise. The right-wing militant Israeli rejectionists have been aided greatly by the violent actions of Palestinian militants, by leftist nationalists in the past or Islamists more recently, to justify and maintain the disasters that the occupation inflicted on the Palestinian people.

Polarizing extremist forces on both sides have understood, but not discussed, the tactical coordination that served their strategies. They both believe that time is on their side, and not that of their opponents, in their exclusive claim to the whole land. The only chance that moderate realists of both sides can achieve a compromise is by having their own tactical coordination. Without hope of a political settlement, violence, in the name of religion and resistance, will polarize and pay off in political dividends. Those Israelis who wanted to maintain the occupation, and to expropriate the land, could not think of better partners than violent Palestinian militants. These militants provide the rationale for the facile argument that there is no Palestinian partner. The danger in their actions lies in the fact that Israel occupies Palestinian land.

Since there is no military solution, the occupation can only end through political means. Winning the hearts and minds of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples for compromise is a strategic tool for peace, while scaring or alienating them is a recipe for continued conflict and occupation. There will always be a constituency amongst both peoples for an exclusive claim to the land. This is the constituency for war and so far it has done well for itself.

The events that happened in the last few days in Gaza are the most significant since the Oslo Agreement. They exposed the gap over the two fault lines that divide the Palestinians: a political one between the moderate realists and the religious absolutists and a geographic and cultural one between Gaza and the West Bank.

Desperate attempts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to the point of exposing himself to ridicule and accusations of weakness and indecision, have failed to prevent the rupture. In a brutal fratricidal battle, marred by acts of savagery that reveal deep psychological wounds, Hamas routed Fatah and the forces of Mr. Abbas. Abandoned by their military leaders, they were outgunned and out-disciplined and went down to a speedy, humiliating defeat.

Gaza and the West Bank will be governed by two different systems in the immediate future. However, in the long run their fate is one and the same. Gaza has no future by itself and has no choice but to be part of Palestine. Israel has walked away from it and Egypt does not want it. However, in the short run it will be run by Hamas. In a few months, the people of Gaza will be comparing their lives with their cousins in the West Bank: Are they safer, freer, better off? Hamas will have to provide worldly answers to the most densely populated place on the planet with one and a half million people. It has to deal with issues like food, water, electricity, security, schools and, yes, a budget with money in the bank to pay to keep these people alive. It also must deal with its neighbors and the rest of the world.

There should be no doubt that even the most heartless in the international community should not allow the Gazans to starve or suffer extreme want and need. The international economic blockade is unlikely to be lifted soon. Calls for renegotiating with Fatah and Mr. Abbas to reconstruct the unity government or any such device will go unanswered for some time. Hamas will have to fend for itself in Gaza with no other Palestinian partner to provide it cover.

In the West Bank, licking his wounds, Mr. Abbas has taken action. He asserted his constitutional responsibility and dissolved the unity government which he desperately tried to hold together for three months, fired its Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, and asked the respected Salam Fayyad to form an emergency government. By so doing he removed the cover of legitimacy from the mutineers of Gaza and freed his government from the political and economic boycott imposed on Hamas. He at last did what he vowed he would never do: He jumped without a safety net in hopes that the West, Israel and the Arab governments will shoulder their responsibilities. Now that he has confronted Hamas he can legitimately claim his role as a genuine partner with Israel and the international community and enter into serious negotiations to end the conflict about Palestine.

After suffering military defeat and the loss of Gaza, he and the Fayyad government stand to defend a secular, progressive state of Palestine against the rising militant Islamist tide that is spreading across the Middle East. His proving grounds are in the West Bank. It is up to the United States, responsible Arab states and especially Israel to decide whether they will stand with Messrs Abbas and Fayyad, as genuine partners in establishing a secular free state, or to let them fail and live with the consequences.

The time to help is now: What is needed is a genuine partnership, where Palestinians do their own heavy lifting as their partners extend assistance and support. Israel has to face its moment of truth: no excuses. It has to decide whether it will support and partner with a moderate Palestinian state in words and in deeds or will face a religious militant movement that will drag it and the region into a holy war. Avoiding this partnership now is political malpractice. Palestinians have to declare the indivisibility of their future state in the West Bank, Gaza and Arab Jerusalem as they negotiate final-status issues based on previous agreements and discussions. Creative solutions can overcome all obstacles if a strategic partnership is forged between the Palestinians, Israelis, moderate Arabs and the United States. A political horizon is indispensable for the political transformation that must take place in Palestine and will govern its relations with its neighbors and the world.

The emergency government of Mr. Fayyad has to provide the following:

A defined, competent security leadership that can impose its will across the land under its control. It must prevent efforts to undermine it.

A palpable improvement in the economy and mobility that is widely spread and benefits citizens of all classes.

A prompt and serious commitment to accountability, transparency and rule of law. An attorney general and a special tribunal should be authorized to weed out corruption from this moment forward and to impose the most stringent penalties.

It has to inspire the people, level with them, and work with them to build a nation and a state. Let the citizens make their contributions.

The international community has to express its support for this government by specific and immediate measures:

Israel needs to release Palestinian tax money, promptly remove all non-security roadblocks and checkpoints and put an end to the humiliating encounters between its government employees and Palestinian citizens. The carrots and sticks at Israel's disposal should now be used to empower moderation.

The United States has to publicly and openly provide funds and systems of assistance to the Palestinian government. President Bush also has to express his commitment to the two-state solution as he reiterates and redefines his vision for a lasting peace.

Arab governments, as they offer to negotiate on the basis of the Arab League Initiative, need to provide immediate financial contributions to the Palestinian economy.

Egypt and Jordan need to play a special role in stabilizing the political and security needs of the new Palestinian government.

The Quartet needs to enter into immediate negotiations with the emergency government to provide coordinated assistance to all government departments and civil society. It must resume its political role to revise and update the Road Map with the view of implementing a political program that aims at ending the conflict. Palestinians should expect political and violent opposition in the West Bank directed against the government, the people and also against Israel and they must deal with it.

Their dream of ever having a state rests on their success at this beginning. Politics, national and domestic, have consistently thwarted efforts of politicians to do what they know they must to solve this conflict. Present leaders who have everything to gain, and little to lose, in the United States, Palestine and Israel have an opportunity for a historic breakthrough by committing to solve it. The world cannot wait for them to act.

SEEING BEYOND FEAR

BY SALIBA SARSAR AND

HIYAM ZAKHARIA SARSAR

Common Ground News(www.commongroundnews.org)

July 16, 2009

Fear haunts Palestinians and Israelis and disfigures their psyche and spirit. Both have imprisoned each other in a circular trap of claims and counterclaims, violence and retaliation, with conflagrations every decade or so as if they are fulfilling a biblical injunction.

We have spent much time coming to terms with our own personal experiences with the conflict and the wars that it has produced. Even though we are often discouraged by the daily news from Israel and Palestine, we remain committed to a bright future for all peoples there.

Long before we met, during the Six-Day War, when one of us was eleven and the other four, we experienced the battle for Jerusalem. We still remember the fear of the night and day and the anxiety that gripped our parents as they attempted to protect us from harm. Although our plight paled in comparison to those of others—one of us lost two neighbors in that war—the memory of that war persists.

When the barbed wire and walls separating East from West Jerusalem were cleared away, we met the enemy for the first time. To our surprise, the enemy was just like us. The enemy became a friend and the unfamiliar became commonplace. What still concerns us, however, is the mistrust and fear with which each national community views the other, given the longstanding differences and current impasse.

At the height of the first Intifada—the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation between 1987-1993—the younger of us, like thousands of others, lived under fire. Fear truly became part of life, as demonstrations erupted, stones targeted soldiers, car tires were burnt, tear gas bombs exploded, bullets were fired, youngsters were beaten and arrested while others were seriously injured or killed.

During the 1991 first Gulf War, like most Israelis and Palestinians, the younger of us also faced the danger of Scud missiles launched by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against Israel. With a gas mask in hand, every time the siren sounded, she ushered her entire family into the “safe” room, taped the door shut and prayed until the clear signal was given.

As children and adolescents, we worried about tomorrow and learned to plan for the unexpected, which, in turn, often became reality. Why must children have abnormal lives? Why must parents live in constant fear, agonizing about their children’s present and future? When will leaders realize that fear cannot be overcome by force but by a secure state of mind achieved through peace? Why do conscience and political will disappear in times of extreme crisis?

We understand that most Israeli and Palestinian children do not dare to dream of peace. Their parents embrace them as if it is their last embrace. Bombs in public places, rocket attacks and the occupation weigh heavily on everyone’s mind. An estimated 33 percent of Israeli youth and 70 percent of Palestinian youth suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Painful memories cling to the minds and hearts of Holocaust survivors and their descendants and to those who suffered during the successive Arab-Israeli wars.

Palestinian refugees—who left or were forced to leave their homes in the 1948 Nakbah (Arabic for catastrophe) and the 1967 Naksah (Arabic for setback)—or their descendants hold tightly to the worn-out deeds and rusted keys, hoping to return but afraid that the promise of return will never materialize.

The perennial conflict has led some to extremism and violence, with the expected response of yet more extremism and counter-violence. The Israeli occupation and its settlement project continue with walls and military checkpoints, turning Israel into a fortress and Palestinian areas into large enclaves, if not prisons. Palestinians are becoming increasingly more desperate, publically holding onto the past but privately fearful that the past has guided them toward a dead end.

Palestinians and Israelis are entitled to a better future. We envision Israel and Palestine living alongside each other in peace and security. We envision Jerusalem as an open city where people of faith can sojourn without hindrance. We envision Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam (Oasis of Peace)—a village, jointly established by Jewish and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, which is engaged in educational work for peace, equality, and understanding between the two peoples—as the norm, not the exception.

Israelis and Palestinians need more social workers and therapists instead of fighters, less bereavement and more reconciliation, enlightened leaders who see beyond the next election, and a new beginning where, as equals, they can live in a world beyond fear.

PART II: WHY THE U.S. ROLE IS KEY

NEGLECT PALESTINE, BE IRRESPONSIBLE

BY HUSSEIN IBISH

The Daily Star(www.dailystar.com.lb)

September 22, 2006

The one obvious lesson to be drawn from this summer's conflict between Israel and Hizbullah is that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is indispensable for the two principals, the region and the world. The problem is, a great many people haven't learned a thing.

The Israeli establishment has apparently failed to notice the total bankruptcy of a strategy based on force and unilateralism, and is busy debating technical issues. A consensus now rejects “over-reliance” on air power in the vain hope that better intelligence and more commando forces will produce a better outcome “next time.”

Some Israelis and their American supporters are even trying to spin the Lebanon fiasco into some sort of “success,” so unwilling are they to acknowledge the political limitations of the science of killing.

Meanwhile, far too many Arabs have been seduced by the illusion of a “divine victory” that may have enhanced Hizbullah's image as a vanguard in the struggle with Israel, but which left much of Lebanon and its economy in ruins. Once again one hears the old siren song that if the Arabs were only united enough, steadfast enough, or religiously fanatical enough, they would defeat Israel on the battlefield.

The truth, of course, is that neither Israel nor the Arabs can improve their position by blowing each other up.

Can any Palestinian or Israeli—other than self-serving demagogues—seriously claim to have gained anything from the incessant violence that has wracked the Occupied Territories and, from time to time, Israel since September 2000?

Which Palestinian honestly believes that Israel can be driven out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by guerrilla warfare or suicide bombings? Is there a single Israeli still clinging to the delusion that disproportionate force, the unilateral drawing of borders and concrete walls, especially after Hizbullah’s rocket attacks, constitute a security strategy?

The second intifada was a disaster for Palestinian diplomacy because of some of the indefensible tactics that came to define it. Israel's already very poor international reputation suffered badly as well, and took an even more severe blow following its bombardment of Lebanese civilians and infrastructure last July and August. For much of the rest of the world, Israel has become synonymous with racism and brutality, and Palestinians synonymous with terrorism.

Another clear lesson of this summer's bloodletting is that the region, Lebanon above all, will continue to be destabilized as long as there is an ongoing struggle between Israel and the Palestinians.

It is simply extraordinary that some Lebanese commentators would suggest that the best course of action for the international community would be to allow the Israelis and Palestinians to continue to battle it out until exhaustion might bring them closer to an agreement—apparently without recognizing that this sentences Lebanon to the certainty of continued chaos and probable periodic calamity.

It is obvious that Israelis and Palestinians, as well as their neighbors, all urgently require a negotiated agreement to end the conflict. Solid majorities of both peoples consistently say this is what they want.

The outlines of such an agreement are well-known: mutual recognition of Israel and a Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories with some agreed land-exchanges; both parties' enjoying sovereignty—separate or joint—over Jerusalem; and a compensation package and the return of some refugees, within a framework that does not undermine the concept of two ethno-national states living alongside each other.

Some suggest that, given the numerous failed efforts in the past to craft such an agreement, and the intransigence of both Israel's Kadima-led government and the Hamas-led Palestinian government, there is no point in the rest of the world’s wasting any further effort on the quest for a diplomatic resolution. And, indeed, the international community, led by the United States, has expended very little real energy on this issue over the past five years.

However, the conflict cannot be left unresolved without dire consequences for the entire world, because of its political and emotional significance for hundreds of millions of people. As Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf put it, “The tragedy of Palestine is an open wound of the psyche of every Muslim.”

The question of Palestine has been infused with a reservoir of political energy that will not dissipate because the issue is being ignored by the international community. That energy is being increasingly harnessed by a variety of radical groups reaping huge political benefits, while casting moderates committed to peace as weaklings or even quislings.

Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a panacea for all ills in the Middle East. Dysfunctional political systems will not be suddenly transformed. Neither the war in Iraq nor the menace of Al-Qaeda will vanish overnight.

But ending the conflict would make those problems, and many more, including the increasing alienation between Arab and Western societies, much more manageable. Nothing else could have a comparable healing effect.

It is no longer enough to say that the parties are not ready for an agreement. Given the asymmetries of power, it's not surprising that, left to their own devices, Israelis and Palestinians cannot untie the bloody knot binding them together.

The Arabs, the Europeans, and above all the Americans, should stop enabling this recalcitrance and must induce the parties to come to terms. Political forces in the West and the Middle East that prefer to see the conflict continue instead of making difficult compromises must give way to bolder leadership.

A tall order, perhaps, but that’s what it was always going to take to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And as the recent Lebanon war demonstrated, the stakes have never been higher for everyone.

ORAL TESTIMONY OF DR. ZIAD J. ASALI

House Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia

Chairman Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY)

February 12, 2009

Mr. Chairman,

I wish to thank you and the Sub-Committee’s esteemed members for the privilege to testify here, and summarize my written testimony.

Although Hamas launched reckless and provocative rocket attacks against Israel, Gazans are not Hamas, they are not combatants, and should not be punished. As a human being, and as a physician, I was horrified by the tragedy that has befallen the people of Gaza by Israel’s disproportionate use of force. After an estimated 1,400 deaths and 5,400 injuries, 80% of surviving Gazans now depend on food aid and 51,000 need shelter. Their suffering must immediately stop.

Gaza lies in ruins, but Hamas still controls Gaza, and the responsible policies of the PA and other US Arab allies have been undermined.

Mr. Chairman,

The challenge now is providing essential aid and reconstruction to the people of Gaza without bolstering Hamas. Opening the crossings and implementing the Access and Movement Agreement of 2005 is essential.

Immediate humanitarian assistance should proceed unimpeded and without politicization, to deliver food, shelter, medical, fuel, and educational supplies, as well as power and sanitation. It should be provided and expanded through existing agencies, including UNRWA and international NGOs. If Hamas again attempts to interfere, it risks the suspension of aid.

Reconstruction however, takes time, and requires a new international mechanism that can ensure construction materials enter Gaza, secure from political interference. Any party blocking the reconstruction process must publically bear the blame.

This mechanism should be structured to quickly grant contracts, vet recipients, and have security and logistical components. This must be coordinated by the new US Special Envoy to the Middle East and composed of the Quartet, Egypt and the PA.

Private reconstruction should be managed through direct bank transfers from the PA to beneficiaries, as proposed by Prime Minister Fayyad, which will benefit 21,000 property owners at a cost of $600-800 million.

The Palestinian partner for reconstruction can only be the PA under President Abbas. A non-partisan Palestinian “national accord” government could help. But it must meet the Quartet conditions, exert security control, and have the specific mandate of overseeing reconstruction, and preparing for elections.

Mr. Chairman,

There is no military solution to this conflict, and until it is resolved through two states—a secure Israel alongside a viable Palestine freed from occupation—further violence is inevitable.

Unless progress is made on advancing Palestinian statehood and quality of life through negotiations, and unless the PA and Fatah expand serious and genuine reform efforts, the PA will continue to weaken. Without progress, anything rebuilt will be destroyed. Our actions can either foster hope or feed hate.

Permanent status negotiations must continue, but cannot be sustained without expanding the space of freedom in Palestinian cities, and delivering tangible improvements in access, mobility, and economic opportunities.

Settlements entrench the occupation and are the most pressing political and logistical impediment to peace. All hopes for progress depend on an immediate settlement freeze, and this is where US leadership must be asserted to preserve the credibility of the two-state solution.

US assistance must be intensified to help the PA further develop the new professional security system, which has proven its effectiveness under difficult circumstances; develop the fledgling economy unimpeded by unreasonable restrictions; and pursue good governance reform, transparency, and the rule of law.

A devastated Gaza, a stagnant West Bank, and a moribund peace process would validate extremism. The losers will then be the Palestinians, Israel, the cause of peace, and, most importantly, our own national interest.

Thank you.

PUTTING THE ARAB PEACE INITIATIVE INTO ACTION

BY GHAITH AL-OMARI

ATFP Policy Focus

Original Commentary for Middle East Bulletin

December 12, 2008

The fact that more than five years after its publication, the Arab Peace Initiative continues to be a topic of conversation is a testament to its strength. Its recent resurgence presents an opportunity for Arabs, Israelis and Americans alike to breathe new life into the shaky and uncertain Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Yet, like many good ideas, the Initiative will fail or succeed on the skill, energy and determination of those who manage it. Arabs must do more to market it and turn it into a concrete diplomatic and political tool. Israel should grasp the strategic potential it holds to advance its regional and security interests. And a new U.S. administration, as it formulates its approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict—and to the region as a whole—will be well-advised to take a deeper look into how to take advantage of this tool, how to integrate it within its own process design, and how to get the Arab world—or at least, initially, like-minded allies in the region—more engaged in the peace process.

There is little doubt that the Initiative is a significant document. It provides symbolic incentives in the form of Arab and Islamic normalization with Israel, concrete security guarantees, as well as obvious political incentives (the first Israeli Prime Minister to visit a Gulf capital will go down in history.)

If nothing else, it represents a major departure in the Arab nations’ articulation of their understanding and definition of the conflict with Israel. It posits the conflict not as an existential one—as was defined in previous Arab League decisions, most notably the “three no’s” of the Khartoum summit—that can only be resolved by the destruction of Israel. Instead, it defines it as an issue that is related to the Israeli occupation: once that ends, hostility to and conflict with Israel end with it.

Mistakes and Misunderstandings

With the benefit of hindsight, the timing of the Initiative was unfortunate. Coming as it did at the height of violence that marked the beginning of the Intifada, it was overshadowed by reports of terrorist attacks and military incursions. In this context, neither Palestinians nor Israelis were in the mood to entertain peace initiatives as each braced for military confrontation.

The main authors and supporters of the Initiative—Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt—had exhausted their energy and diplomatic capital in neutralizing spoilers and ensuring that the Initiative was adopted in an acceptable format. They did not have the energy to organize an effective marketing campaign in Israel and the West.

For their part, Israeli officials either dismissed the Initiative or offered myriad reservations. Some might have been based on ideological considerations, but others were clearly based on misunderstandings of the nature of the Initiative.

The biggest substantive misunderstanding that persists in Israel until today revolves around the relation between the substance of the Initiative and the content of any final peace deal between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In particular, Israeli politicians—even those supportive of the Initiative—continue to voice concern about the mention of the 1967 borders as well as the reference to UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

These concerns, while understandable in such a delicate negotiation process, miss the Initiative’s point. The Initiative does not aim to dictate the terms of a peace deal. Indeed, even the formulation of the thorny refugee issue—the Initiative talks about a solution “to be agreed upon”—was deliberately fashioned to indicate that the terms of the agreement are for bi-lateral negotiations. Rather than attempting to constrain bilateral negotiations, the Initiative promises a basket of rewards to facilitate the conclusion of bilateral Arab-Israeli peace agreements.

Even with this substantive misunderstanding cleared up, however, the Initiative still raises a couple of important concerns. First are the overly general and vague promises it makes. It talks about normalization and security guarantees, but does not elaborate on the exact nature of these measures. The second concern relates to its “all-or-nothing” nature. As it stands today, the Initiative will only kick in once peace deals are signed. The horizon it offers is too vague and too distant to be of much use in the turbulent day-to-day management of the peace process.

Where to Go From Here?

For the Initiative to live up to its potential, some steps are still needed. Arab leaders need to explain the Initiative, not only to the general public, but also to policy makers in Israel. The recent advertisements placed by the Palestinian Authority are a good first step to familiarize the general public with the existence and contours of the Initiative. This effort must be sustained and its tools diversified to go beyond name recognition into generating buy-in from the Israeli public. Such an effort can be especially effective as political debate in Israel intensifies in the build up to the February elections. Arab countries must contribute to such a campaign to give it more credibility.

On the policy and process levels, it must be turned from an idea into a plan. Serious policy work aimed at turning the Initiative from a vague goodwill gesture into a politically beneficial tool that is an integral part of the peace process will require governments to outline practical and operational steps.

First, the all-or-nothing approach must be replaced by a gradual, reciprocal process—a roadmap of sorts. Certain degrees of normalization must be linked to benchmarks of progress whether in the negotiations themselves or in the conditions on the ground. Such an approach was hinted at recently—too vaguely and too quietly—by the Arab League when it promised some reciprocity were Israel to institute a settlement freeze. What triggers such reciprocity, and what concrete steps the Arab world will take in response must be spelled out. Such an approach would create real cumulative incentives for progress, keep the Initiative relevant for the duration of the process, and guarantee a more active and supportive Arab role in the peace process.

The meaning of “normalization” is fairly straightforward, with measures ranging from economic and consular to full diplomatic relations all the way up to the much-coveted photo opportunity between an Israel prime minister and a gathering of Arab leaders.

More important, perhaps, is defining the “security guarantees” that the Initiative promises. Such definition is important not only because of the deep and overriding concern Israel has for security, but also because of how such security guarantees fit within the new strategic map in the Middle East. These guarantees will inevitably focus to a large part on how to handle the long-term issue of Iran, which—whether with or without nuclear capabilities—will continue to be a matter of concern in the region. While such discussions cannot proceed directly until significant progress in the peace process is achieved, a third party—particularly the United States—can start an early process of exploration. Such a process can help the parties gain better understanding of, and comfort with, each others’ strategic direction, and will help the United States as it seeks to establish a new security architecture to deal with a new Middle East.

With so many challenges and obstacles in the path of forging Arab-Israeli peace it would be a mistake to fail to avail ourselves of such a potent tool as the Arab Peace Initiative. Yet, for it to be a truly effective tool, all the parties must bring the skill, energy and determination to make it succeed.

U.S. KEY TO RESOLVING THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT

BY SALIBA SARSAR

The Jordan Times(www.jordantimes.com)

November 1, 2006

The words we use and the statements we make define who we are, what we believe. The more accurate our pronouncements are, the closer we are to the truth and to understanding each other. The better the understanding, the more engaged we become when the opportunity avails itself.

In her keynote address to the American Task Force on Palestine in Washington, DC on October 11, 2006, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brought much understanding to the question of Palestine and to the American role in resolving it. She promised her personal commitment to bringing about a Palestinian state because: “I believe there could be no greater legacy to America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who have suffered too long, who have been humiliated too long, who have not reached their potential for too long, and who have so much to give to the international community and to all of us.”

A similar commitment was made by President George Bush in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, 2006. He said: “I’m committed to a Palestinian state that has territorial integrity and will live peacefully with the Jewish state of Israel. This is the vision set forth in the roadmap—and helping the parties reach this goal is one of the great objectives of my presidency.”

If the U.S. president and secretary of state are committed to a Palestinian state, why is there no movement in that direction? Why have Middle East leaders and specialists alike seen only indecision and inertia for peace in the Middle East during the last two years of the Bush presidency?

While Palestinian and Israeli leaders are ultimately responsible and should be held accountable for their daily actions and their intractable conflict, the real answers for a resolution reside in the White House. Bush must prove Middle East leaders and specialists wrong by actively advocating for peace. If he waits to become a peace maker or peace builder only after he leaves office, as some former presidents have done, the urgent need today will be sidetracked and peace will be delayed for several years to come.

Bush must overcome his fear of criticizing Palestinians and Israelis when criticism is deserved. As Dennis Ross correctly points out in The Missing Peace, the United States must hold both sides accountable. That is, “there must be a consequence for non-performance—and to have real meaning, it must be publicly seen.”

Requiring Palestinians to maintain law, order and security and to create good governance, and requiring Israelis to stop settlement building and expansion in the West Bank and in Jerusalem will generate balance and symmetry. These will generate the right environment for ending the Israeli occupation and the resultant Arab boycott, and for resolving the perennial issues separating Palestinians from Israelis.

Bush, like other political leaders, must also overcome his fear of depoliticizing Palestinian-Israeli relations, mainly promoting and being engaged in peace making regardless of the American election cycle or the influence of political lobbies and ideological religious groups.

Bush has everything to gain by championing Palestinian-Israeli peace. Through his vision of a two-state solution and active participation, he will fulfill American commitment to Israel's security and keep his promise of creating a state of Palestine. Such deeds can benefit American involvement in the Middle East, thus freeing up the United States to address other hotspots and win the war on terror.

As the American Task Force on Palestine argues, Palestinian statehood will remove the greatest single source of anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, enhance the security of all states in the Middle East by establishing defined borders for Israel, establish a democratic model for the rest of the Arab world to emulate, and open up substantial markets in the Middle East and North Africa to greater opportunities for economic cooperation.

Besides normal diplomatic gestures, Bush is advised to appoint a respected American as his special envoy to Israel/Palestine. With assistance from a team of Middle East experts and peace-building organizations and in coordination with all relevant parties (e.g., Arab world, European Union, Russia, United Nations), the envoy will help Palestinians and Israelis unmask their fear of each other and stop further damage to themselves and to each other. The envoy must be empowered to apply necessary pressure on both Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate in good faith and implement their agreements.

If peace is to be advanced, the United States key must be used now. Waiting longer will result in another missed opportunity and will make more complex and complicated a just resolution.

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND THE UNAVOIDABLE ISSUE OF PALESTINE

BY GHAITH AL-OMARI

ATFP Policy Focus

February 5, 2009

Overview

The recent Israeli military operation in Gaza clearly demonstrates that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will continue to be central to stability—or the lack of it—in the Middle East. In addition to the human and political toll this conflict has taken on the two principal parties, it is increasingly developing the potential to spill over, at least politically, and destabilize key United States allies in the region. Because of its potential to shake the foundations of Arab governments and the regional order, rejectionist or extremist governments and organizations in the Middle East will continue to use the conflict in attempts to destabilize traditional US allies and to gain political advantage and ideological influence.

Previous US policies that accorded a low priority to resolving the conflict, or which sought to distantly manage or contain it have failed, as the issue has repeatedly forced itself back onto the agenda. President Barack Obama's early engagement with the issue and the high priority he has apparently assigned to its resolution presents a new and vitally important opportunity for progress.

The most immediate item on the agenda obviously is dealing with the aftermath of the Gaza hostilities. The US must work to consolidate a stable ceasefire, meet immediate humanitarian needs, and commence expeditious reconstruction, while ensuring that Hamas does not politically use international reconstruction and civilian relief efforts in Gaza to erode the Quartet conditions and strengthen its position without moderating its policies.

The priority should remain ending the conflict by reaching a peace agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel. Fortunately, the incoming Administration has inherited a fundamentally sound diplomatic architecture in the form of the Annapolis process. The logic of Annapolis—namely progressing simultaneously and in parallel on both the macro-political level through permanent status negotiations, and the micro level through tangible, on-the-ground measures—is a solid one that needs to be continued, expanded and refined. In particular, two initiatives must be granted a higher priority than they have in the past: enforcing a settlement freeze and developing the role of the Arab states in resolving the conflict.

Hamas and Gaza

The recent armed hostilities in Gaza have created an immediate set of new complications that require urgent action, particularly with regard to the provision of humanitarian aid and reconstruction. However, basic issues regarding Hamas, Gaza and the balance of power within the Palestinian polity remain fundamentally unchanged.

In the short term, Hamas is predictably trying to extract political gains from the conflict by claiming victory. The extent to which such claims may gain traction partly depends on the terms that will emerge from the ceasefire, and the political conditions that develop in the aftermath of the conflict. In particular, Hamas is seeking the following: opening the Gaza crossings under its control, being accepted as the address for the Gaza reconstruction efforts and funds, loosening its diplomatic isolation and acquiring the ability to claim and even exercise the right to resist (through a short-term ceasefire and the ability to rearm). The extent to which it can point to achievements in any of these spheres will determine the degree of political credit it can claim in the near-term.

A situation in which Hamas emerges politically and diplomatically strengthened would complicate much needed efforts to re-unite the Palestinians politically and geographically. A Hamas that feels victorious would continue imposing conditions on national unity that fall short of international demands. Such conditions would not be acceptable to the Palestinian Authority (PA) or to major regional actors as they would almost certainly result in a return to the international isolation of the Palestinians. This would obviously be strongly against Palestinian interests, and would continue to complicate peace-making efforts. Instead, the post-Gaza conflict reality needs to be leveraged to bring Hamas into the political mainstream under conditions that are internationally acceptable. Hamas needs to realize that continuing to operate outside a national consensus will harm it politically, while accepting international conditions would bring it—and the Palestinian people—tangible benefits.

While the siege of Gaza must be lifted, and crossing points must be opened, this should not be done through, and therefore validate, the authority of Hamas. Instead, the 2005 Access and Movement Agreement should be applied, and accordingly crossing points should be operated under PA and with international supervision. This would create a breathing space for Gaza civilians while accruing political credit to the strategy of diplomatic negotiations as opposed to violent confrontation.

Reconstruction efforts are equally crucial and should be managed in a way that minimizes the role of Hamas. Whether reconstruction is undertaken by the PA, through existing international mechanisms or through a new international body created for this purpose, Hamas should have no direct or indirect access to international reconstruction funds. It should be clear that attempts by Hamas to bypass international modalities and conditions regarding aid would result in its suspension until such modalities are restored.

Keeping Hamas out of the border crossings and away from reconstruction funds is crucial. If Hamas is able to claim credit for progress on these fronts, it will put the PA—and its efforts to resume negotiations—under further domestic political strain. As important is the message such an outcome would send to other extremist groups in the region. In the same way that Hamas was emboldened by the perceived Hizbullah “victory” in 2006, a credible claim of “victory” by Hamas will embolden other extremist and confrontationalist groups. This is particularly important for countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan that took a strong stance during the conflict and consequently endured withering political and rhetorical attacks.

The dynamics of the split between Hamas in Gaza and the PA in the West Bank have not been changed in the aftermath of the hostilities. Irrespective of its popularity, Hamas' power in Gaza is secure as it has methodically and successfully eliminated all organized opposition to its rule. There is no concrete internal threat to its rule over Gaza, nor are there realistic threats of an externally-driven regime change in the immediate future. Similarly, and also irrespective of its popularity, the PA is fairly secure in the West Bank, with President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad continuing to enjoy support from the security services, regional actors and the international community. Hamas lacks the ability to forcefully overthrow the PA in the West Bank—for now.

While a unity arrangement is preferable to a continued split between the PA and Hamas, chances of reconciliation are now even lower than before the Gaza conflict. As both are secure in their respective territories, neither side feels any urgency for “national unity.” On the contrary, each side will try to leverage the Gaza confrontations to their benefit by extracting more favorable terms in any reconciliation, resulting in more inflexible—and therefore less achievable—demands. In particular, Hamas will seek to maintain its separate military and security assets. Any agreement that allows it to do so will be highly unstable, as Hamas will maintain the option of using violence to disrupt the political and diplomatic process whenever it chooses, in a manner analogous to Hizbullah’s behavior in Lebanon. While Hamas might possibly emerge with more domestic political credit, it has strongly antagonized its Arab neighbors—particularly Egypt which was politically targeted by Hamas and its Iranian and Muslim Brotherhood allies—and will be in a weaker negotiating position as a result.

While the international community should continue to encourage Palestinian unity, it should also be clear that a unity arrangement should not jeopardize the PA's commitment to a negotiated two state solution and to existing Palestinian agreements. It should also be clear that such a Palestinian political reunification arrangement should be rendered sustainable by including concrete provisions for the removal of guns from Palestinian party and electoral politics.

An alternative to a “national unity” arrangement would be the creation of a non-partisan, so called “national accord” government, composed of individuals who are not members of the major political parties but who are approved by them. Such a government would not resolve the underlying ideological and security differences between Hamas and the PA, but could be helpful in the short term for handling the immediate Gaza reconstruction needs. As a minimum, though, such a government should operate clearly under the power of President Abbas, meet the Quartet conditions, and be able to exert security control in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in effect reversing the Hamas coup of 2007. Such a government should be an interim one and should have the specific mandate of overseeing Gaza aid and reconstruction and preparing for elections at a specific date.

The international community, under US leadership, must continue to be clear regarding its conditions for engaging with Hamas. Any engagement that takes place before Hamas accepts the international conditions will be seen as a victory for Hamas and a signal to others that—with time and some violence—the resolve of the international community will erode. Hamas—whether on its own or as part of a national unity arrangement—must accept the goal of a two state solution and legitimacy of existing Palestinian-Israeli agreements, including the letters of mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel, and should disarm and renounce violence.

Ultimately, what will determine the outcome of the power struggle between Hamas and the PA will be the success or failure of the peace process. If the PA is unable to point to economic, security, and—above all—political achievements, it will continue to decline in popularity and ultimately in power. If, on the other hand, advances towards ending the occupation and political achievements are secured through the peace process, Hamas' fundamental message—that negotiation and diplomacy are futile while violence and terrorism produce results—will be refuted, putting Hamas on the defensive.

Reviving the Peace Process

While efforts will initially be concentrated on the aftermath of the Gaza conflict, focus needs to quickly shift again towards resuming and invigorating the peace process. This requires action on permanent status negotiations, progress on the ground, and achieving a settlement freeze.

Permanent Status Negotiations

A breakthrough in permanent status negotiations in the coming year is unlikely. This is less a function of substantive differences—though these still exist and are significant—than a function of domestic politics. After more than a year of talks since Annapolis—which themselves were built upon previous negotiations—the areas of agreement and difference are fairly well defined, and so is the range of possible solutions to these differences. There is not much that is needed in terms of new or creative substantive ideas.

The problem so far has been primarily a political one: the instability in both the Palestinian and Israeli political systems has prevented the emergence of strong, stable leaderships on either side capable of taking the necessary, and politically costly, decisions that would define an agreement. A quick glance at the political map among the Israelis and the Palestinians does not promise the emergence of politically stable governments in the immediate future.

However, despite the improbability of a peace agreement in the short term, permanent status negotiations must be maintained. A collapse of the process would create additional political instability and would particularly weaken the moderate PA leadership that has invested its whole political legitimacy and credibility in the peace process. Such a collapse will serve the argument of those in Palestine and elsewhere in the region that advocate violence and confrontation. The collapse of the negotiations during the Clinton Administration had dramatically negative consequences that are still not fully resolved and continue to contribute to instability at several levels.

Credible, ongoing permanent status negotiations would help the Palestinians implement their Roadmap obligations, specifically the central obligation of ensuring security and fighting terrorism. An ongoing peace process will enable the Palestinians—as they did in the mid-1990s—to demonstrate that their counter-terrorism actions are necessary steps to maintaining a process that will ultimately end the occupation and bring about independence. Conversely, a lack of a process would enable rejectionist parties to define such steps as a form of collaboration with the occupation, as they did after the collapse of the negotiations in 2000.

Similarly, such a process could help the Israeli side implement its central Roadmap obligation, namely freezing settlements. It would enable the Israeli government to place such a freeze in the context of securing peace, achieving strategic stability and realizing a permanent end to the conflict.

While it is important for the US Administration to bring the parties to the negotiating table and ensure that they stay there, the issue of substantive US intervention and initiatives is more delicate. Presenting far-reaching American proposals prematurely could force the two sides to retrench and could be counterproductive. Unless the Administration is willing to expend significant political and diplomatic capital in presenting and sustaining its substantive ideas, it might be more effective to present such proposals at a stage in the negotiations when the areas of disagreement between the parties are more clearly defined and their respective leaderships are in a political position to make the necessary decisions.

Progress on the Ground

While it is important to keep permanent status negotiations going, and while it is essential that the incoming Administration strongly reaffirm its unwavering commitment to a two-state solution by word and deed, the initial bulk of the American diplomatic focus should shift towards improving conditions, both on the ground and diplomatically. Such improvements would facilitate creating conditions in which a peace deal can, in fact, be realized. This would require maintaining, stepping up and fine-tuning the ongoing efforts in the economic and security spheres, in addition to pushing for a settlement freeze and working with the Arab world to develop the potential of the Arab Peace Initiative (API).

It must be emphasized that such measures on the ground—important as they may be—are not sustainable nor are they fully realizable if the overall political environment is not changed. Specifically, as long as the occupation remains in place, economic and security progress will be stunted. This, however, should not be an excuse for not developing these areas within the context of a viable political and diplomatic process.

Economy

Economic progress is essential for both political and structural reasons. Politically, economic progress can demonstrate the benefits of peace and help maintain momentum as the permanent status negotiations take their course. Structurally, building a sound economy is essential for the creation of a stable and sustainable future Palestinian state. A situation in which the Palestinians continue to be among the largest per-capita recipients of international aid is neither sustainable nor desirable. The foundation of a self-sufficient, effective economy must be laid—even if full realization of such an economy is not possible under conditions of occupation.

Removing obstacles to freedom of movement is the most fundamental requirement for creating a functioning economy. While some of the obstacles to movement may in fact have a security rationale, many checkpoints in the West Bank have no obvious security basis. These should be removed immediately. Even those that do fulfill a security need can be managed in a more predictable, less time-consuming, and less abusive manner using technology and better staffing, particularly regarding movement of goods. Restrictions on and impediments to the movement of people should be minimized and, whenever possible, eliminated.

Removing obstacles to freedom of movement is an essential component of enabling the most important driving force in the Palestinian economy: the private sector. All obstacles to the development of this sector, whether in terms of freedom of movement, the legal and commercial infrastructure, or access to markets must be removed. American initiatives to encourage export of Palestinian goods to the US, as well as initiatives aimed at encouraging foreign investments in Palestine, need to developed.

Since the major natural resource of a Palestinian state is likely to be its human capital, education is of paramount importance to Palestinian social and economic development in the long-term. Health care is another urgent matter, as it directly impacts the quality of daily life of ordinary people, and speaks directly to trust in institutions and the ability of the society to protect the individual’s most basic physical needs and interests.

Infrastructure and housing projects can also be initiated to meet pressing needs of the population while creating immediate jobs. Israel will need to facilitate such projects, and adopt less prohibitive security criteria. This obviously requires higher levels of security coordination, and also third party oversight to ensure that security conditions or restrictions are only raised when warranted and unavoidable.

Ultimately, a system must be put in place to balance legitimate Israeli security concerns, when applicable, with the need for Palestinian economic and institutional development. Failure to economically develop the West Bank would reinforce the impression that the PA’s approach is futile and would further erode its authority and legitimacy. Alleviating poverty and improving the economic prospects for the Palestinian people is not a substitute for a dynamic political process leading to an end-of-conflict agreement, but it is a necessary component thereof.

Security

Security progress is also important for political and structural reasons. It is clear that without security, there can be no diplomatic progress. No Israeli leader can reach a peace deal without being able to demonstrate to his or her own public that the Palestinians have both the will and the capacity to maintain security. This has become a more pressing political issue in Israel after the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip and the ensuing violence. If progress is to be made towards peace, Palestinian security capacity must be strengthened.

However, security is not only a short-term political convenience. It is an essential structural component of building a stable Palestinian state. As the Hamas takeover of Gaza—and indeed as Hizbullah's behavior in Lebanon—clearly demonstrates, a government that has no monopoly on the use of force will always be weak and unstable. Therefore, progress must be made in increasing the capacity of Palestinian security forces through recruitment, training and equipment. In addition, efforts must focus on creating a security sector that is well organized, with a clear mission and—most importantly—with a clear, rational chain of command that ultimately rests with civilian authorities. The doctrine of the security sector has to be clearly articulated in the framework of state-building and responsiveness to the rule of law, rather than along partisan lines. This need for comprehensive security sector reform may be one of the most salient lessons from the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007.

The US has made valuable contributions in the field of security in recent years. The efforts of Generals Jones and Dayton have been essential in bringing about security progress. However, there is significant room for improvement.

Great systemic progress has been made in upgrading PA security capacity, but less methodical efforts have been made in reviving Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation. While this task is admittedly more difficult after years of active conflict, it is nonetheless essential. The US should play a clearly defined role that is accepted by both parties to gradually bring security cooperation to the levels that existed prior to 2000. Some significant successes, especially in Jenin, have been realized and they must be nurtured and expanded.

Similarly, while advances have been made in systematically upgrading and reforming the PA’s law and order operational capacities, very little has been done in the intelligence and counterterrorism spheres. This was partly due to domestic Palestinian complications, but also partly due to the absence of a US security mission that is mandated to develop and reform these agencies in a methodical and transparent fashion. Whether the mandate of the US Security Coordinator is expanded to include these spheres, or a new mission is designed instead, such a process is necessary if the Palestinians are to resume effective security control over their areas of responsibility.

Organizationally, the US security architecture on the ground should be redesigned to create clearly identifiable missions and mandates that cover the areas of expanding and refining Palestinian operational law and order capacity, developing and reforming intelligence and counterterrorism capacity, and re-establishing Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation. There are a number of models that can be employed to achieve such a structure, but it would have to be supported with the necessary resources. Recent shifts in Congressional attitudes regarding funding these efforts are extremely promising and should be capitalized on without delay. For such a structure to succeed it must have unequivocal support from the various branches of government in Washington.

Settlement Freeze

The issue of freezing Israeli settlement growth has been a matter of contention since the beginning of the peace process in the early 1990s. Arguably, the failure to address settlement expansion was a fatal flaw in, and one of the central reasons for the erosion of, the Oslo process. While a settlement freeze has traditionally been a US demand, there have so far been few concerted efforts to give it a significant place in the US diplomatic agenda.

Settlement expansion presents real, on the ground complications for reaching and implementing a future peace deal. Since 2000, at least four new official settlements have been established, bringing the total to no less than 121 in the West Bank. In the same period, the number of settlers in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) has increased from 190,000 to 286,000. This vastly complicates the implementation of any future peace deal. If this rate continues, settlement evacuation, which is central to the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state, might soon move from the realm of the difficult to that of the impossible.

Settlement activity also presents a fundamental and immediate political problem for the Palestinians. It is difficult to convince Palestinian public opinion that Israel is serious about peace when settlements—which are seen as a means for confiscating Palestinian land, imposing facts on the ground, and creating a permanent, irreversible occupation—continue to grow at ever-increasing rates. In Palestinian eyes, Israeli action on a settlement freeze remains the central test of the real intentions of Israeli governments, a test that has so far been consistently failed. In the same way that Israelis view security as a central component for progress in the negotiations, Palestinians regard a settlement freeze as an essential component—a sine qua non—for progress. Conversely, failure to prevent settlement expansion remains the most potent argument of rejectionist groups. Because of the topographical, structural, and political obstacles they place in the path of peace, Americans and Israelis committed to peace should similarly recognize the urgency of a settlement freeze.

In addition to the strategic significance of such a freeze, it also corresponds to an immediate and potentially decisive political need. Since tangible progress on permanent status negotiations is unlikely in the short term, the Palestinian leadership needs to be able to point to substantive diplomatic progress beyond issues regarding the quality of daily life. Such a step would go a long way towards enhancing the credibility of the process among Palestinians and creating an environment in which the PA can continue to exercise its governmental responsibilities on the ground with legitimacy. It is telling that the Palestinian Prime Minister, who has so far shied away from dealing with peace process issues in favor of focusing on developing and reforming the various functions of the PA, has recently been uncharacteristically vocal about settlement growth.

Imposing a settlement freeze would present significant political difficulties to any Israeli leader who undertakes it, but external steps can be taken to help. A strong US public stance on the issue would help create political cover for a willing Israeli Prime Minister, who could argue that such a decision is necessary so as not to endanger US-Israel relations, or it could help convince a more hesitant one. Similarly, such a freeze could be linked to the triggering of diplomatic steps by Arab countries towards normalization with the Israel in the context of the API, thus giving political incentives and credit to any Israeli leader who institutes such a policy.

While a settlement freeze is imperative to a successful Palestinian-Israeli peace process, it should not be subject to bilateral Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. This would turn it into another intractable negotiation that becomes bogged down in all sorts of extraneous issues, demands and expectations, and probably thwart the initiative. Instead, the freeze should be secured through formal or informal Israeli understandings with the US or the Quartet.

The Arab Peace Initiative

The API has been on the table for a number of years now. And while there is near unanimity on its importance and value, very little has been done to operationalize it and turn it from a positive statement into a functioning and politically and diplomatically significant tool.

The premise of the API is a simple one: normalization and security guarantees for Israel in exchange for ending the occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands. This premise could begin to be operationalized in practice through reciprocal movement in both directions simultaneously. Rather than viewing normalization as an all-or-nothing proposition, it should be reconceived as a series of quid-pro-quo steps by the Arab world in response to benchmarks of progress in the peace process. A settlement freeze, for example, should trigger certain, pre-defined, normalization steps by Arab countries. The US can work with like-minded Arab states to develop such a formula, and to ensure an Israeli buy-in.

A series of interlocking and reinforcing security guarantees could also serve as a vehicle for initiating a much-needed regional strategic dialogue. In particular, new regional threats from a hegemonic Iran, an unstable (and already nuclear) Pakistan, terrorism and religious extremism represent common threats to Israel and to moderate Arab regimes, and some may require a coordinated response. While a direct Arab-Israeli dialogue on these matters is premature, the US can help both sides develop a better understanding of each other’s needs and concerns. Developing such a comprehensive regional understanding can go a long towards responding to certain strategic Israeli security concerns that cannot be dealt with in separate, bilateral Arab-Israeli negotiating tracks.

Conclusion

The new Administration is finding itself forced to deal with Palestinian-Israeli conflict from its inception. As it strives to contain the fallout from the recent conflict in Gaza, the US should not lose sight of the big picture. A robust restatement of US commitment to a two-state solution, demonstrated through a reinvigorated peace process—in which permanent status negotiations continue to follow their natural pace parallel to improvements on the ground in terms of the economy and security—still represents the only possible path for achieving a permanent end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. For such a process to be credible, it must be supported by a settlement freeze and by inclusion of the Arab world in the peace process through the API.

Failure to achieve progress in the peace process will have far-reaching implications. It will strengthen extremist groups, as well as Iran, initially in Palestine but also farther afield in the region, potentially even destabilizing pro-American regimes in the region. Success, on the other hand, will deprive extremists of a potent rhetorical tool through which to claim nationalist credentials and mobilize popular support, improve the US image in the region, and revalidate and rebuild the credibility of moderates who have chosen to pursue the path of a negotiated settlement rather than conflict and confrontation.

STATUS OF JERUSALEM

BY DAOUD KUTTAB

The Jordan Times(www.jordantimes.com)

July 23, 2009

The standoff between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government remind many of a similar standoff between the US and Israel in the 90s when Bill Clinton was president. At the time Netanyahu insisted on Israel’s right to build Har Homa settlement on the Palestinian Jabal Abu Ghneim on the edge of Bethlehem. Today, Har Homa is a thriving settlement with thousands of Jewish Israelis residing in the complex built on expropriated Palestinian land. While the US president seems determined to stop the Israelis from their illegal activities, many are worried that the issue might be pushed aside or resolved as part of a larger agreement.

Jerusalem remains as the single biggest obstacle in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Palestinians consider the eastern sector as the future capital of an independent Palestinian state, while the Israelis insist that the entire city remains as their capital.

Israel’s unilateral decision to annex occupied east Jerusalem has not been recognized by any country in the world, including the United States. UN Security Council Resolution 478 states that “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and, in particular, the recent ‘Basic Law’ on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.”

A deeper look at the status of the city and its people reveals that since 1967 Israel has been carrying out a systemic campaign to “Judaize” the city and to ethnically cleanse it of as many of its Arab residents as possible.

The 250,000 Palestinian Arabs living in the city are residents, not citizens of Israel. Any long absence from the city can easily be argued as reason to deny Palestinian Jerusalemites reentry. In 2007, I spent a year as a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University only to return to an order denying me social security benefits, a prelude to withdrawing my Jerusalem residency. The Israelis are arguing that the even though I was born and have lived and worked in Jerusalem most of my life, the centre of my life has to continuously be in Jerusalem or I will lose my rights. According to statistics gathered by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, over 8,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites have lost their residency. In 2006 alone, 1,360 Palestinians from Jerusalem had their residency ID cards revoked.

On the housing issue for Palestinians, Israel has made it near impossible for Arabs to build in Jerusalem creating a catch 22. Palestinians can’t get a building license without a zoning plan and no zoning plans are issued by the controlling Israelis. Some risk it and build a house on their own land. Once a house is built and discovered, demolition orders are issued. Palestinians have to destroy their own homes, or else they will have to pay for the Israeli bulldozers that knock down their homes. Between 2004 and 2008, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions documented orders against 3,753 homes in East Jerusalem. The same committee, whose director Jeff Halper just won the 2009 Kant World Citizen Prize, estimates that 24,145 houses have been demolished in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since 1967. Since the beginning of this year, house demolitions have greatly increased in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians are also exposed to an unfair tax system (e.g., arnona tax), which requires them to pay the same rates as their Israeli counterparts whose per capita income is approximately eight times higher.

Education is another area that faces continuous discrimination, with the city’s Arab schools much more inferior to the Israeli ones. According to a report by the Knesset Centre for Research and Information, there was a shortage of 1,354 classrooms in East Jerusalem in the 2005-06 school year. That shortage continues despite a slight improvement since that report was made public.

Linda Breyer, an Israeli lawyer and founder of St. Yves, a Catholic human rights and legal resource centre, has stated that “these policies are derived from a quota drawn up soon after 1967, designed to ensure ongoing Jewish domination of the city; the municipality and the Israeli state are secretly committed to preserving a ratio of 72 percent Jewish to 28 percent Arab population.” No credible Israeli statement has denied this fact.

While international law and continued one-sided Israeli policies are reason enough to demand that Israel stop its settlement activities in East Jerusalem, a much more practical reason exists. For decades the issue of peace between Israel and Palestinians has run into two major obstacles: the right of return and the status of Jerusalem. While Palestinian negotiators are said to have shown flexibility in the execution of Palestinian refugees’ right to return, Israel has totally refused any compromise on its sovereignty in both sectors of Jerusalem. With over 200,000 Jewish settlers living in areas occupied in 1967 the idea of re-dividing Jerusalem is quite difficult and impractical. Palestinian leaders have not publicly called for a re-division of the city.

The best option to deal with Jerusalem was presented by former US president Bill Clinton and has received positive responses from both parties. Without dividing the city, the Clinton parameters call for Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to be under Palestinian sovereignty, and Jewish ones to be under Israeli sovereignty.

By allowing an American Jewish millionaire, Irvin Moscovich, to construct buildings exclusively for Jews in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarah, the Israelis are destroying the tiny sliver of hope of an accepted compromise regarding Jerusalem.

PART III: WHY THE URGENT NEED FOR PALESTINE, FOR PEACE

EDUCATING THE GAP

BY ZIAD ASALI

Keynote Speech to Arab American Student Organizations, given as part of a “Night of Arab-American Culture, Identity, and Solidarity” at Columbia University

April 20, 2007

Iam intrigued by the title of tonight’s presentation, “Educating the Gap.” What gap are we talking about? The gap between Arabs and America? Between Moslems and America? Between Arab-Americans and America? Between Arabs and Jews? Muslims and Christians? Palestinians and Israelis? Or is it the one between Arabs and Arabs? Jews and Jews? Palestinians and Palestinians? The possibilities are endless. The gap is wide between ourselves and others, but who are we and who are the others? And how do we begin to answer such questions? Edward Said frequently wrote about the imperative to create an inventory of the traces that different identity markers and cultural influences have had in our lives. Similarly, in his book, The Murderous Identities, the Lebanese-French writer, Amin Maalouf, rejected the need to choose between his French and Lebanese identities, asserting that he is both and more. He wrote: “Can anyone in the United States even today assess his place in society without reference to his earlier connection, whether they are African, Hispanic, Irish, Jewish, Italian, Polish or other?” Or “Arab” I might add.

Maalouf continues: “A person’s identity is not an assemblage of separate affiliations, nor a kind of loose patchwork; it is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.” To this I might add, as I paraphrase Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, “we are large, we contain multitudes.”

Identity is not solely defined by the attribute imposed upon us usually at birth and by which others define us, social categories such as race, ethnicity, religion or language. It also is defined by the choices you make, the will you exercise, and the self-knowledge and knowledge of others that define you and redefine you in your life’s journey. Being an American, whether a hyphenated or non-hyphenated American, allows you to avoid false choices that others impose on you. You are not either an American or an Arab; you are both and more. As Americans, and by your own free will and engagement, you care entitled to nothing less than the full rights, privileges and obligations of any American. You are not obligated to yield to anybody as you engage in shaping debate and participating in the full range of human activities that the system allows and makes available for the taking. Those who have yielded are responsible for the marginalization they have self-imposed on themselves.

The event tonight is about education. Much criticism can be leveled at the educational system in the United States except that it blocks the individual from getting education—even the best education in the world if he or she earns that privilege by talent, hard work and commitment. Education has been, and continues to be, the most predictable vehicle for personal success and contribution to a full and meaningful life. It is necessary but insufficient for great achievement. What you have in common, as Arab student organizations—whether you are Arabs in America, Arab-Americans, or Americans of Arab heritage—is a unique opportunity to educate Americans of all walks of life, including yourselves, about the need to “educate the gaps,” resolve conflicts and deepen your own understanding of what it will take to build a better future.

You have to grapple with and confront the legacies you have inherited at birth: a glorious but remote past of cutting-edge Arabic civilization and Islamic culture, which was followed by a decline and degradation for centuries that culminated in a century of defeat and humiliation centering on the Palestine question and the Arab/Israeli conflict. Your own image cannot exist in a pristine environment free of the influence, on others and even on yourselves, of the images of belligerence, backwardness and fanaticism co-existing with indulgence and corruption that dominate cultural representations of Arabs and the Middle East in the United States and the West.

There are many devices people can use to deal with these negative images, ranging from escape and complete denial that may lead you to shed all the traces of the “hyphen” that connects you with the Arab world, to delving into Islamic fundamentalism and confronting America with its garb and its fury. There is of course another choice, both more American and more dignified, which is to define the central problem at work and do all that is in your power to resolve it.

We, at the American Task Force on Palestine have set out, with our meager resources and unshakeable commitment, to do just that. We believe, as do many others, that the central conflict of our time, both regionally and globally, is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Its resolution will not solve all the dismal realities and numerous conflicts that abound in the Middle East, but will remove what is by far the biggest single obstacle to rational debate and actions that can lead to improvement in all other areas. Our challenge is to define the parameters of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, to understand its history and its nature, figure out an arrangement that would end it, educate our government and fellow citizens at all levels available to us, and use all our resources to bring about a peace that transcends mere process and, at long last, ends the occupation and ends the conflict.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is defined by two wars that, like bookends of a shelf, teach the lesson that there is no military solution. In 1948, the Arab armies failed to put an end to the Zionist plan to establish a Jewish homeland by force and Israel, as we know it was born. The second is 1967, where Israeli armies occupied the rest of Palestine and started the longest military occupation in recent history. That military victory has failed to translate into a political one—Arab Palestinians preferred life under occupation and resistance to exile. Steadfastness, resilience, injured pride, and the refusal to abandon their quest for independence and freedom for all time contributed to making this choice. The result of these two wars is what we have now: two peoples, occupier and occupied, living on the land in a fatal embrace.

This conflict is about two issues, real estate and dignity, and we have to make progress on resolving it on both tracks in tandem. The more we see of humiliation as a policy or of grabbing the land upon which the state of Palestine will be borne, the farther we will be from achieving the lasting formula for peace, a historic compromise where Palestine lives alongside Israel with security for all. Failure to achieve a two-state solution will lead to an open-ended struggle to build an equitable and viable bi-national state or a single, unified state, with no realistic prospect of success and with no end in sight. This process could, and perhaps would, lead to further radicalization across the Arab and Islamic worlds, and degenerate to a holy war that brooks no winner.

The parties to the conflict have changed over the past several decades. The clearly defined conflict that erupted in the war of 1948 was one between Palestinians and Arabs, and Jews and Israelis. It was primitive, tribal, ethnic and religious. Following 1967 however, it has been transformed into a conflict between those who have accepted the outcome in 1948 and its consequences and those who do not. Each group has Palestinians, Israelis, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Westerns, including American supporters and advocates. It is now essentially a conflict between those who support two states and those who do not—no matter what their allegiance, analyses, motivations, and abilities are. It is now a struggle for statehood before it is too late for a viable state, a struggle to end the occupation while there is still a chance to do that. Let those who oppose it answer for the ills that this failure will visit upon this young century and its inhabitants.

Once we are engaged in advocating for a Palestinian state and educating Americans about it, we can clearly see the power that we can derive from being American citizens fighting to define and defend our national interest. We can just as clearly see the self-imposed marginalization that Arab-American and American-Muslim organizations in the past subjected themselves to. Middle Eastern party affiliations imported into the American context—whether Fatah, Arab Nationalist, Popular Front, Muslim Brotherhood or others—were not only destined to fail but to also to complicate the march for Palestinian statehood and freedom. Adopting an overly belligerent stance towards ongoing U.S. policy can be and is readily used to define one as anti-American and opposed to the American system. This is just as damaging and ineffective as abject submission and obsequiousness to a policy that fails to deliver a state of Palestine.

Once the decision is made to impact opinion making in the U.S. in support of a two-state solution, the first order of business is to articulate the national interest of our country in establishing such a state. The arguments have to be made based on national security, combating terrorism, moral imperatives and values, as well as the economic impact of a moderate and peaceful Middle East.

Grand national objectives in the United States are almost always defined by coalitions of disparate groups working to achieve one objective that they share in common. Strange bedfellows have worked together to achieve success for NAFTA, the civil rights struggle, the fight against tobacco and many others. For Arab and Muslim Americans to proceed as if they could successfully advocate for a two-state solution by working mainly with disenfranchised and marginal groups would require a time frame that will far exceed the window of opportunity open for Palestinian statehood.

The ingredients needed to establish this coalition are three:

·      Credibility of the advocates. This can be achieved by a consistent message, articulated clearly, in all languages both privately and publicly.

·      Delivering a receivable message. This is based on a shared definition of the national interest and must be articulated with dignity, passion and the sincere intentions at a time of grave national concern and aroused passions.

·      Identifying partners in two national coalitions. This requires a future driven a by cool-headed assessment of all the forces across the national spectrum that support that two state solution. 70 percent of the American people and 70 percent of Jewish Americans are in support of this solution. Failing to identify Jewish Americans, organized or otherwise, as partners and potential partners is political malpractice.

The zero-sum game pitting Arabs against Jews is a recipe for continual conflict. This conflict can be either a win-win or a lose-lose proposition. Subgroups, ranging from bleeding-heart peacemakers to chauvinists and worse in both camps have to be recruited in this inchoate coalition to separate the Palestinian and the Israelis each in their separate states. Anti-Semitism, Anti-Arabism, and Anti-Islamism, in all forms covert or overt, applied by a sledgehammer or a wink, have to be shunned like the plague by members of this coalition. We should not ask enemies and previous enemies to love or like each other, but we do ask them to work together for their own interest, that of their country and their ancestral homeland. Other groups, whether liberal or conservative, ethnic or racial, privileged or deprived have to be called upon to belong and do their share in support of the coalition. It is a coalition that redefines and defends the true national interest.

Grievances are easy to recall and recount. Focusing on achieving objectives is hard. It is harder still when you depart beyond the political parameters emotionally carved out by the family, the peer group and consensus of your establishment. But it is making links with like-minded people outside your race, nationality, ethnic group and religion that will give you the power to carve out a better future. It is your future that is at stake and not that of your parents. Our generation has failed to cope with the challenge and the challenge is now yours. Be creative, honest and brave. You do not have to endure, as we have, the unjust criticism for working within the system. You will be proven right.

Later on this evening, you will hear a political statement, a sophisticated statement from the members of the comedy group the “Axis of Evil.” Working squarely within the system, they hold a mirror to America and to Arab and Muslim America. They poke fun as they pierce through ignorance and racism to reveal the truth. Between the most serious political discussions and a comedy routine lies a spectrum for you to work and to succeed. The challenge is yours.

SENSE, NONSENSE, AND STRATEGY IN THE NEW PALESTINIAN POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

BY HUSSEIN IBISH

ATFP Issue Paper

September 6, 2007

The catastrophic division that has recently developed in Palestine, with the national leadership split between two fiefdoms and in a state of open conflict, has left Palestinians and their allies around the world dismayed, and struggling to reformulate a viable strategy for ending the occupation. As people search for guidance and try to make sense of a shocking turn of events, misleading and overwrought polemics have become more prevalent than sober analysis.

In the United States, a small but vocal and influential group of left-wing commentators, taking their lead from others in the Middle East, has reacted by defending the conduct of Hamas and heaping vitriol on Fatah and the PLO. Of course the Muslim religious right has its direct supporters, although in the United States for legal and other reasons straightforward identification with Hamas tends to be more subterranean and muted than overt. As a result, this small faction of leftist writers, who cannot in any sense be accused of being Islamists themselves, has emerged as the principal public defenders of Hamas’ actions and its struggle to seize power in Palestine. However sincere or well-intentioned, this rhetoric could have a decidedly negative influence and, if taken seriously by enough people, might significantly undermine efforts to help to end the occupation.

One cannot simply support any and every party or organization just because they are Palestinians, even though this is the understandable instinct of a great many friends of Palestine. Instincts, however genuine, are no substitute for an informed and effective political strategy designed to achieve specific goals—in this case, to end the occupation. To work effectively towards ending the occupation, there is no need for supporters of Palestine to become partisans of Fatah, defenders of all of their actions and methods, or fans of their personalities. However, important choices need to be made and there are serious consequences to all of our words and deeds. The stakes could hardly be higher.

Four vital questions need to be addressed. What explains the counter-intuitive phenomenon of Arabs nominally on the left coming to the defense of the Muslim far-right? What exactly have these left-wing sympathizers with the far-right been saying in recent months? What actually happened in Gaza and the West Bank? And, most importantly, what should friends of Palestine in the United States do now?

1: Why do some on the Arab left support the Muslim far-right?

This is certainly not the first time in history that elements of the left have come around the back end of the political circle into an open embrace of the far-right—an embrace, one should note, that is almost never returned except through a kiss of death. In the Middle Eastern context, consider what happened to the leftist groups that promoted the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, who was seemingly a model of “pluralism and democracy” until he consolidated his power and began executing his former allies. The case of Khomeini and Iran also reminds us that no less than Michel Foucault, one of the most brilliant and influential intellectuals of the second half of the 20^th century, could be seduced by the appeal of radical politics of this kind (see, for example, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism by Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, University Of Chicago Press, 2005). Foucualt’s misguided support for the Iranian revolution still stands as an outstanding example of how badly mistaken even the most perceptive and keen minds—let alone lesser ones—can become when emotion clouds judgment and human values are discarded in favor of the thrall of extreme.

In this case, left-wing enthusiasm for the far-right Hamas is symptomatic of a wider and troubling phenomenon in Arab political culture. The left-wing movements and governments that dominated much of the Arab scene from at least the 1940s to the late 1970s have generally fallen into serious disrepair, in some cases all but vanishing, or at least becoming of marginal relevance. No Arab government today has a legitimately leftist look or feel about it. Certainly the main opposition movements and parties in every Arab society now are Islamist of one stripe or another. This has been increasingly true for more than two decades.

So, in as much as it does still exist, the Arab left unfortunately is neither the government nor the opposition, but rather a bit player with limited popular support, consisting mainly of handfuls of journalists, intellectuals, and lonely reformers (the last often languishing in prisons). In this wilderness, some of the Arab left has allowed itself to be lured into an ideologically compromised position, and drawn into false binaries that lead to an otherwise inexplicable alignment with reactionary theocratic forces. Of course, there are still many pockets and centers of bona fide leftist thinking and values in the Arab world, and it is in these remaining enclaves of secularism and liberalism that much of the hope for the future of the region resides.

But the fact is that far too much of the Arab left has abandoned, or had stripped away from it, most of its traditional values. These missing elements include class analysis and a materialist program for social change, secularism and iconoclasm, feminism and the cause of women’s rights, internationalism and other key aspects of its erstwhile political agenda. The only aspect of its traditional program that seems to have survived the implosion of the Arab left movement intact is the impulse of ethno-centric Arab nationalism, suspicion of the West, and hatred of Israel.

As a consequence, some of the Arab left now finds itself reading politics mainly through a lens of an ethnic, at times almost tribal, nationalism. But the mantle of oppositional and revolutionary nationalism is now worn almost exclusively by Islamist groups, though their rhetoric usually mixes religious categories and formulations with nationalistic ones. The Islamists claim to resist the West, a hostile imperial order and subservient regional governments, and use analogous language to denounce the same conditions, policies, and alliances that provoke nationalist outrage on the left.

Moreover, many Islamist opposition groups conduct themselves strategically in the image-ideal of left parties, while the Arab left itself does not. This involves constituting the main opposition to governments and the main revolutionary movements in all Arab societies, providing direct services to the people, rhetorical populism, extensive use of violence for revolutionary purposes, organizing both in open political party structures and underground cells, and above all nationalist goals and rhetoric, especially opposition to Israel, the United States and the West, and the regional order in the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, since it is a regional network of aligned parties with a clear and consistent ideology, closely resembles a Leninist revolutionary movement in purely formal terms, although not at all in ideological content. These and other factors have lured some on the Arab left to adopt a stance not only in support of theocratic and reactionary forces but also to develop an attitude of admiration, at times even envy, towards them.

Thus Islamist positions on national and international issues can appear not only acceptable but even appealing to some on the Arab and Arab-American left. What gets lost or ignored in the process is the reactionary, repressive, and theocratic agenda of these far right-wing religious movements and their clearly stated political and social policies. The case of Hamas, which is in effect the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, is perhaps the most striking recent example in which some leftist commentators have rushed to lionize such a movement, champion its attempts to seize power, and denounce its rivals in the strongest imaginable terms, all in apparent total indifference to its actual policies and goals.

2. What have these commentators been saying and why are they wrong?

Perhaps the most strident Arab-American voice of this kind has been Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad. Similar sentiments have been expressed by two noted left-of-center bloggers, As'ad AbuKhalil of California State University, Stanislaus, who runs the aptly named Angry Arab blog, and Ali Abunimah (a former co-author of mine) as well as some other writers on his Electronic Intifada web site.

In two well-circulated articles in the Egyptian English-language newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly, Massad drew an extended analogy that compared Hamas to the deposed and murdered Chilean leftist President Salvador Allende, and Fatah to the fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet—oblivious to the absurdity of comparing an overtly theocratic and reactionary movement to a progressive one. When someone comes to the point of looking at Khaled Mishaal and seeing Salvador Allende, their moral and political compass may be so badly broken that there is little hope of them ever finding their way back.

Pushing a similar analogy, Abunimah has repeatedly compared Fatah and the PLO to the Nicaraguan contras, as if these groups were simply the fabrications of US intelligence services for the purpose of overthrowing a revolutionary government, arguing, “This is a repeat strategy of the contras. These are Palestinian contras.”

Rather than seeing the obvious faults on both sides, these writers have placed one hundred percent of the blame for the conflict between Hamas and Fatah on the latter, heaping the most damning criticisms on the secular nationalists while praising the Islamists at almost every turn and attempting to paint them as a temperate and moderate organization. All three insist that the division is not between secularists and Islamists, but rather between a gang of traitors versus the defenders of Palestine. As Abunimah put it, “the split among Palestinians today is not between Hamas and Fatah, nor between ‘extremist’ or ‘moderate,’ or ‘Islamist’ or ‘secular,’ but between the minority who have cast their lot in with the enemy as collaborators on the one hand, and those who uphold the right and duty to resist on the other.”

Writing in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, now the Arabic-language home of choice for such sentiments, Massad declared, “the supporters of Hamas, whether believers or atheists or secularists or Islamists, are the supporters of the real Palestinian democracy because Hamas’s struggle is a struggle against dictatorial traitors (under the legal definition of treason)” [translations from Mideastwire.com]. To deal with the crisis in Palestinian politics, Massad’s agenda boils down simply to accusations, accusations, and more accusations: “The only antidote to these forces of true darkness is to continue to support and mobilize for Palestinian democracy and to expose the anti-democracy coup leaders and their apologist intellectuals for what they are: collaborators with the enemy.”

Massad passionately defended Hamas’ extremely violent takeover of Gaza, claiming that Fatah had “pushed it into a corner in the hope of slaughtering all its leadership in Gaza” and that, therefore, Hamas “could not but defend itself against their final onslaught.” Fatah is painted as simply an agent of Israel and the United States. Massad refers to what he calls the “Fatah leadership's complete collaboration and subservience to Israeli interests,” and “Palestinian collaborators with the enemy: the Fatah leadership abetted by the United States,” who supposedly have an “overall strategy to destroy Palestinian democracy.” In May 2006, AbuKhalil urged Hamas to “to pre-empt their enemies if they want to rule,” anticipating the bloody scenes in Gaza a year later. For his part, Abunimah has gone so far as to accuse Fatah of waging a “war against the Palestinian people.”

Massad uses a rather shop-worn technique in his Al-Ahram articles bashing Fatah and the PLO by selecting a derogatory phrase and repeating it endlessly. In the first piece in which he introduced his Hamas=Allende equation, Massad used variations on the phrase “Fatah thugs” at least seven times. In the second, he included variations of “Fatah putschists” (a phrase presumably chosen to make them sound like Nazis) no less than 13 times, with four references to “coup plotters” thrown in for good measure.

While every effort is made to paint Fatah and the Palestinian secular nationalists in the worst possible light, Hamas is presented as the champion of democracy and a model of moderation and flexibility. Massad really seems convinced that Hamas—whose stated goal is the establishment of a theocratic Islamic state—is committed to genuine pluralistic democracy because it defends its position on the basis of a 44 percent win in one parliamentary election. In another Al-Akhbar article, Massad sarcastically contrasted “the dictatorial light of Fatah against the democratic darkness of Hamas.”

Massad takes every opportunity to create the impression that Hamas and democracy are organically linked, calling them variously “the Palestinian democratic government” and “the democratically elected Hamas,” as if Mahmoud Abbas did not win a Presidential election by 63 percent of the vote, and every opinion poll did not continue to give some edge or other to Fatah in Palestinian popular support. And as if Hamas were really committed to pluralism and democracy as a long-term vision for the state they seek to establish.

A further irony is that some of these same writers cast serious doubts on the importance and validity of Palestinian elections when Fatah—and not Hamas—emerged victorious.

When it was obvious that Abbas was about to be elected Palestinian president in January 2005, Abunimah’s web site published an article arguing that “the elections are a liability for the Palestinians” and another quite rightly pointing out that “Palestine can never experience true democracy while it remains under occupation.” Abunimah himself argued that, “the Israeli occupation makes democracy impossible.” After the election, numerous articles on the site charged “fraud” and various other condemnations of the process, which was run by the same commission that oversaw the subsequent sacrosanct parliamentary elections won by Hamas.

Then, in February 2005, Abunimah’s site published an article titled, “The False Promise of Western Democracy,” which claimed that the election of Abbas “added to a growing worldwide skepticism about Western notions of democracy (i.e., institutionalized suffrage, parliamentary procedures, etc.)” The article argued that, “the value of Western democracy is questionable for the Palestinian people” and condemned the international community for “an invasive imposition of democratic practices” on the Palestinians. There were no articles to this effect on the Electronic Intifada web site following the Hamas parliamentary victory in 2006.

Not only does this rhetoric cast Hamas as the last, best hope for Palestinian democracy, its supposed moderation, pluralism, pragmatism, and flexibility—all features glaringly absent from its actual policies and conduct—are celebrated as well. Abunimah thinks “Hamas leaders have made exemplary statements in favor of pluralism, genuine democracy, and the rule of law” and that “from the moment it won the elections Hamas had tried to be pragmatic and flexible.” He argues that, “Hamas has continued to react to Abbas' escalating war with equanimity.” Massad claims that the scenes of looting and violence in Gaza were much more contained than in the West Bank, a patently untrue assertion, and that in contrast to Fatah, “Hamas brought looting and disorder by some of its members under control within days.” In the build-up to the conflict, he praised Hamas as “wisely adamant that it will respond by force only when Fatah launches an all-out war,” and as ready to “defend the rights of the Palestinians to resist the Israeli occupation.”

Abunimah recently opined that, “We know what Hamas is against, but no one is clear what it is for.” In fact, Hamas has been very clear and consistent in what it stands for, both rigidly and inflexibly. This has been one of its principal sources of appeal in contrast to the flexibility and ambiguity that Fatah and PLO leaders needed to cultivate given that they were serious about trying to negotiate a deal with Israel that required room to maneuver. Hamas has been unequivocal since its founding in stating plainly that its aim is to establish an Islamic state, along the lines generally outlined by the Muslim Brotherhood movement, from the river to the sea, that is in all of mandatory Palestine. What happens to the Jews, Christians, and atheists under such circumstances is not clear, but they will at best have to submit to living in an “Islamic society,” whatever that might mean in practice. Following the bloody expulsion of Fatah from Gaza, Hamas fighters in many instances removed the Palestinian flags from atop government and other buildings and instead hoisted the “Islamic” green party banner of Hamas, a dramatic demonstration that the priorities of some Hamas leaders and members emphasize its religious ideology and the regional agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood movement over Palestinian national identity and goals.

Hamas also seeks, perhaps even as a primary aim, to “Islamize” Palestinian Muslim society along ultraconservative and salafist Brotherhood lines. As a small reminder to some of its Arab-American admirers about what this religious-right social agenda means, let us recall that the Hamas government’s foreign minister, Mahmoud Zahar, told an astonished Wolf Blitzer of CNN in his first post-election interview that an “Islamic” society in Palestine was needed because a “secular system allows homosexuality, allows corruption, allows the spread of the loss of natural immunity, like AIDS. We are here living under Islamic control.” In 2005, the same gentleman condemned dancing between men and women, and castigated “homosexuals and lesbians, a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick.” Meanwhile, Hamas’ education minister banned a book of folkloric tales because of its “immoral” references to romance.

This crystal-clear but extreme agenda may well have been a net plus to Hamas when it stood in opposition and in contrast to the governing Fatah and the PLO. But after the election victory in 2006, these policies meant that the new Palestinian government was unable to deal not only with the West but also with most of the Arab states. Hamas was urged to moderate its policies on three crucial fronts: to formally renounce deliberate attacks against civilians, to agree (as all other governments must) to abide by the treaty obligations undertaken by its predecessors, and to state a willingness to negotiate an end to the occupation based on mutual recognition with Israel in accordance with international law and a mountain of UN Security Council resolutions beginning with Resolution 242. Hamas adamantly refused to take any such steps, preferring to stick with its well-established positions (i.e., “what it is for”) and remain the not-ready-for-prime-time government. The people of Palestine, especially in Gaza, are continuing to pay the price.

Certainly some Hamas leaders made conciliatory or positive statements from time to time, but these were almost always immediately contradicted by other party leaders, and no formal policy changes have been enacted since the election. The result was that Palestinians were left for more than a year with a government incapable of forming essential diplomatic relations with much-needed allies or conducting a viable strategy for liberation. Ultimately, it strongly contributed to the current disastrous political sundering.

The explanation these commentators offer for Fatah’s policies and its opposition to Hamas is not the need for a workable strategy to end the occupation or an honest difference of political and ideological opinion, but willful wickedness and a lust for power and money at the expense of the Palestinian people. Singled out for especial condemnation has been the beloved Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who has had the temerity to remain a secular nationalist and opponent of Hamas and Islamist groups in general. Massad frankly accuses Darwish of being a prostitute: “Perhaps Mahmoud Darwish's recent poem in support of the coup published on the front page of the Saudi newspaper Al-Hayat, can be explained by the monthly checks he receives from the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority, and he is not alone.” In Al-Akhbar, Massad elaborated on this theme, claiming “Those secularists who support dictators and colonizers are mainly interested in living the good life provided to them by the treason of Fatah and its corruption and its theft of the money of the Palestinian people to pamper its leaders and intellectuals.” So, not only Darwish, but all those who support the secular leadership as opposed to Hamas do so only for the crudest forms of personal gain.

AbuKhalil too has accused Darwish of political prostitution in the harshest terms. He claims that Darwish supports Fatah because the “Oslo regime gave him a nice house in Ramallah,” and that “the position of Mahmud Darwish on Oslo became more clear when Arafat bought him an old house in Ramallah, and increased his generosity to him.” AbuKhalil blogged that, “I expect him [Darwish] to declare [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert the ‘knight of Zionism’ any day now,” and that his recent poetry reading in Haifa was properly translated, “I want Nobel. Please give me Nobel. I really want Nobel. Please give it to me NOW. If you give me Nobel, I will keep repeating that Arabs are in love with Israeli nuclear weapons.”

Darwish, it need hardly be added, has devoted his life to the Palestinian cause. He has provided its main voice in the arena of international arts and letters, acting as both its conscience and articulate consciousness. His writing enjoys a deserved and unequalled respect among the Palestinians and other Arabs. He has embodied an attachment to the land, and a will to resist occupation while voluntarily returning to Ramallah to live under its rigors. He could easily be living in the comfort and security of New York or California if he so chose.

These hyperbolic, hyper-personalized, and low-blow attacks on Darwish typify the style and substance of the approach to Palestinian politics that has been developed by the leftist and secular defenders of Hamas. It is all about condemning other Palestinians, Arabs, and their supporters in the harshest imaginable terms as traitors, quislings, collaborators, and prostitutes. It is worth noting that in some contexts these accusations could well constitute an incitement to violence. After all, what is typically done to traitors and collaborators, especially those who are condemned not just rhetorically but, as Massad put it, “under the legal definition of treason?” One has to wonder what these commentators think all of this can possibly accomplish.

3. If this narrative is badly flawed, what actually happened in Gaza and the West Bank?

In order to evaluate the realities facing Palestinians and their allies, it is first necessary to outline what has and what has not actually taken place. The fairy-tale narrative outlined above by the leftist admirers of Hamas—which amounts to a contest between the children of light versus the forces of darkness—is not to be taken seriously. But how then to view the most radical split in the Palestinian political scene in many decades, in order to formulate an appropriate response?

First and foremost, it needs to be understood that no one has launched a “coup” against Palestinian democracy, even though that is precisely what both sides accuse each other of. What has happened is that each party won a democratic election, both about as free and fair as could be hoped for under conditions of occupation and other obvious constraints. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas won the presidential election in January 2005 with about 63 percent of the vote, although Hamas did not field a candidate because they were certain of defeat. A year later in January 2006, Hamas candidates won 44 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections giving the group an outright majority and the power to appoint a cabinet. The result was a divided government much like that in the present United States, with one party in charge of the executive and the other in charge of the legislature (although the role of these branches differs in the two systems).

The problems that led to the violent explosion in Gaza in June 2007, are rooted in both ideology and practical considerations. It was always going to be difficult for a government split between secular nationalists on the one hand and Islamists on the other to form a functioning working relationship given the vast chasm separating them with regard to strategies for liberation, the nature of the Palestinian state, and relations with Israel and other regional powers. These divisions made it all but impossible to achieve any sort of consensus on the most important national issues facing the Palestinian people.

Because Hamas rejects of all of the agreements made by previous Palestinian governments and categorically refuses any possibility of ever recognizing Israel, it has placed itself completely at odds with the decades-long strategy pursued by the PLO of seeking to end the occupation through a negotiated agreement. Moreover, Hamas’ refusal to renounce attacks against Israeli civilians and other policies objectionable to the international community meant that both Hamas and Fatah elements of the new government were effectively boycotted by the rest of the world. Hamas leaders had promised the Palestinians before, during, and after the election that Arab states would make up for any shortfall in funding if the West turned off the taps in the event of a Hamas victory in the 2006 elections. This proved to be an illusion as few Arab governments were eager to fund a party that rejects completely the Arab League peace initiative and dismisses every element of international law on the conflict meticulously assembled over the past four decades. They were also understandably reluctant to give money to the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood movement that in effect seeks to overthrow or replace most of them. For months the Arabs and others waited for signs of a moderation of Hamas’ radical policies, all in vain.

Meanwhile, Fatah was reeling from its defeat and found its diplomatic options severely curtailed under the new conditions. Tensions quickly grew into armed confrontations sparked by both sides on different occasions. A Saudi effort at mediation in the early months of 2007 bought a few more precious months of calm, but with Hamas the dominant power in Gaza and Fatah still far stronger in the West Bank, a violent confrontation leading to the current split was probably unavoidable. The idea, as presented by Massad and friends, that Hamas was simply trying to govern as best it could while Fatah plotted to launch a war to exterminate it on behalf of Israel is simply laughable. In fact both parties sought to use all means to undermine each other and when push came inevitably to shove, each used force to drive as much of the other’s influence out of their respective fiefdoms as possible.

The process started with Hamas driving Fatah out of Gaza in June, killing some of its captured fighters and ransacking offices and homes, including that of Abu Jihad’s widow. They also made a great show of stomping on portraits of Yasir Arafat. Fatah responded in kind, although to a lesser degree, in the West Bank, ransacking Hamas offices and arresting and brutalizing its cadres. The two sides accused each other of the worst offenses they could think of, with Hamas leaders denouncing Fatah as traitors and collaborators in language very similar to that cited above, and Abbas and others accusing Hamas of being terrorists and murderers.

In other words, looking at the course of events and seeing clean hands is simply delusional. Both parties behaved badly, and put their own interests ahead of that of the national movement. The only real winners so far are the Israeli right-wing who wish to avoid any moves towards ending the occupation. Therefore, empty chatter about a “coup” by one side against the other or against democracy, or a war by some Palestinians against the Palestinian people, is little more than low-grade partisan propaganda masquerading as analysis. Anyone who cannot recognize the glaring faults on both sides of this debacle is not to be taken seriously.

There is no doubt that the tremendous failings of Fatah as a party and a national leadership contributed heavily to Hamas’ victory in 2006. Fatah long since became a hotbed of corruption and mismanagement. Years of cronyism under Arafat and the systematic pilfering of funds that ought to have benefited the public have yet to be seriously addressed by Fatah’s party leadership, the laudable efforts of Salam Fayyad in this regard notwithstanding.

Moreover, Fatah had come to lack what Hamas had developed in the period leading up to the elections: party discipline and unity. While Hamas spent the months before the election reaching out to potential allies and sympathizers beyond the party rolls for support and even as candidates, Fatah was sinking quickly into a morass of petty personal domains of influence and corrosive rivalries. It would not be an overstatement to say that in the run-up to the 2006 vote, Hamas unified itself and reached beyond its membership while Fatah imploded and was actually expelling people from the party. Fatah was, and is, in desperate need of internal reform and radical restructuring, or it needs to be replaced by an alternative secular nationalist party.

Mahmoud Abbas has demonstrated an unshakable dedication to the goal of establishing a viable and independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, a principled position that has required both personal and political courage. However, he has proven an uninspiring leader. He lacks the charisma that many politicians rely upon, and is not an emotive speaker. Because his fundamental impulse is always to negotiate the resolution of any conflict— whether with Israel, Hamas, or within Fatah itself—he has missed important political opportunities. And ever since he was elected president, Abbas has been systematically undercut by Israel, which rendered him largely ineffective by blocking any improvement in the lives of ordinary Palestinians and refusing, up till the current round of serious talks, to reopen fully-fledged negotiations designed to end the occupation.

This lack of results, above all in making progress towards statehood and liberation, seriously damaged the electoral prospects of Fatah in 2006. Abbas ran in 2005 on a platform that explicitly rejected the disastrous militarization of the intifada and called for an end to the conflict through a negotiated end to the occupation. For more than a year, he and Fatah were in uncontested power with that mandate. Israel and the United States gave the Palestinians little reason to hope, during this period, that this approach was likely to yield results any time in the foreseeable future. Therefore, Hamas benefited not just from the votes of its actual supporters, but also from various forms of protest vote, including good governance and anti-corruption sentiments, and frustration with the lack of Israeli willingness to negotiate with Abbas.

However, it would be a serious misreading of the results to conclude that the 2006 election victory of Hamas was a mandate for its policies with regard to Israel. Every single opinion poll and survey conducted after the election showed that a sizeable majority of Palestinians still supported a two-state arrangement with Israel and wanted Hamas as well as Fatah to negotiate. Indeed, it seems plausible to speculate that, as with many run-away protest votes, a decent number of Palestinians voted for Hamas candidates in 2006 without suspecting that they would be contributing to an overall parliamentary majority for the Islamists. In any event, even Hamas seemed surprised by the result.

Whether or not Hamas was in fact surprised by their victory, they most certainly were unprepared for government. As noted above, their policies, which were plainly forged to facilitate their role as an opposition party, proved completely unworkable as a platform for a government dependent on external support for the means of daily living, let alone the need for vital international diplomatic support. In particular, the failure of Hamas to renounce terrorism and commit to a policy of not deliberately attacking Israeli civilians ensured that most of the world would decline to deal with a cabinet led by such an organization. Hamas’ refusal to moderate its core policies given the realities of governmental responsibility, more than any other factor, made the clash with Fatah almost inevitable.

Although the intra-Palestinian conflict is rooted to a very large extent in internal Palestinian politics, it has also been strongly affected by regional factors and outside influences playing on both sides. A major consequence of the fiasco in Iraq has been the division of almost all of the Middle East into two competing camps, one led by the United States, the other by Iran. The Iraqi misadventure and other policies of the Bush Administration have inadvertently resulted in an enormous strengthening of the Iranian hand in the region. To be sure Iran had its allies before the invasion of Iraq, but four years ago there was hardly an ascendant pro-Iranian block challenging the regional order. Now, there is. The upshot is that everywhere in the Arab world where there are weak central governments whose writ does not run very far, proxy conflicts have emerged between those aligned with either camp. This is true in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. It is also clearly at work in the conflict between Hamas and Fatah.

The left-wing admirers of Hamas, on the one hand, have described these events as an American conspiracy against Palestine (which they have dubbed “the Bush Doctrine,” giving the Administration both too much credit and blame simultaneously), and noted Western and even some tepid Israeli support for Fatah in its confrontation with Hamas. On the other hand, the Bush Administration, much of the American media, supporters of Israel, and others were quick to label the Hamas takeover of Gaza an Iranian-inspired and funded plot. In fact both sides receive support from interested external parties who are seeking advantage in this contest. Hamas receives an undisclosed amount of money from Iran, but the amount plainly runs at least into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The exact extent of this support is unknown because Hamas finances lack transparency and are totally hidden from public knowledge. Now that Fatah governs the West Bank alone, it is once again receiving aid from the West and the Arab world, and Israel is releasing frozen Palestinian tax funds to it as well. Both groups can and do accuse each other of acting as proxies for external powers. This is obviously an exaggeration since internal Palestinian dynamics have largely driven the conflict. However, to ignore the regional context in which it is being shaped or to see the hands only of one set of external actors and not the other would be extremely foolish.

The Palestinian public has had the good sense to blame both sides for the disastrous split in the national leadership. Majorities in every poll not only blame both, they urge reconciliation and continue to support an end to the conflict based on a negotiated agreement for two states. They also continue to give an edge to Fatah over Hamas, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the poll and the specific candidates, and rate the performance of the new Fayyad government in the West Bank somewhat more highly than the Hanniyeh government in Gaza. A majority is also in favor of new elections in the near future, although this presently seems out of the question. The Palestinian people seem to understand clearly that the big winners in this scenario are the right-wingers in Israel, and indeed Iran as well, but certainly not the Palestinians themselves or either of their main political factions for that matter.

4. What should supporters of Palestine in the United States do now?

Palestinians and their allies are confronting a new and unexpected challenge to ending the occupation and creating a unified state that is democratic, pluralistic, and tolerant as well as fully sovereign. This time the obstacles are internal: the growing power of Hamas, which is not committed to such principles, and the division that has ripped the national leadership into two effectively warring camps. This split has given an undeserved and unfortunate modicum of validity to Israel’s traditionally absurd argument that it does not know with which Palestinians to negotiate. Meanwhile, the long-standing external obstacles to Palestinian independence—Israeli intransigence and the occupation itself, American domestic political forces, European neglect, Arab weakness and disunity, Iranian opportunism, etc.—remain as firmly in place as ever. How then to proceed, especially for those of us living and working in the United States?

The first step should be to recognize that the end of the occupation must be the main aim of words and deeds. This ought to be the firm, unwavering focus of advocacy in behalf of Palestine for about 5 million reasons, since each and every individual Palestinian suffering under this subjugation constitutes a reason to focus on ending it. The only serious prospect of ending the conflict and gaining independence for the Palestinian people lies through the path of a negotiated end to the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state. This is not a perfect or ideal solution. Few political constructs ever are. But, if properly crafted, such an agreement could and would end both the conflict and the occupation.

We must also agree that the conditions and circumstances of the people of Gaza in particular are totally unacceptable from a purely humanitarian viewpoint. Gaza is more a giant prison than ever, and its dependence on outside support for such basics as water, electricity, and food—especially on Israel, which is still legally and effectively the occupying power in Gaza—is being exploited to pressure Hamas, including, unfortunately, by the Fatah leadership in the West Bank. Hamas too has strongly contributed in many ways to crisis, most recently by moving to shut down health clinics run by Fatah supporters and funded from the West Bank. Hamas is beginning to discover, it would seem, that governing the “Islamic Emirate of Gaza” or however they wish to view their fiefdom, is not as simple a matter as it may have seemed from opposition benches, especially for a party that refuses to speak with Israel and vice-versa. However, the people of Gaza should not be punished in this manner and every lawful effort to support humanitarian work to aid them should be undertaken.

Beyond humanitarian initiatives, a new and serious political strategy needs to be adopted. The bitter experience of many decades of advocacy, organizing, and political action in the United States has demonstrated that traditional approaches simply have not worked in shifting the perceptions of most Americans or government policy. The split in the Palestinian movement has made those traditional approaches even less likely to yield results. Accusations, condemnations, boycotts of other Palestinians and other self-defeating and wholly negative approaches can be dispensed with at the outset.

Instead what is required is an approach based on political realities and a clear sense of both the goals of activism and how words and deeds will promote those aims. For too long, Arab-Americans and others laboring in support of Palestine have proceeded without a strategy that recognizes what will and will not function politically. For example, relying on moral arguments or invoking international law was never likely to cut much ice with most other Americans, especially when the competing approach has been to present Israel as a vital strategic asset to the United States, first during the Cold War and now in the “war on terror.” Moreover, an approach that simply condemns Israel and the United States, now lamentably extended to include and even focus on other Palestinians and Arabs, is trapped in the limitations of its own negativity. By offering nothing of positive value, it functions as a terribly weak argument for ending the occupation. Any successful approach must, perforce, emphasize why it is in everyone’s interests to bring the conflict to an end, and the benefits to the United States, and indeed Israel, of freedom for the Palestinian people.

Therefore, while recognizing the faults on both sides and continuing to urge reconciliation among Palestinian factions, Arab-Americans and their supporters need to make some vital choices about what they support in Palestine. Supporting Hamas means, in effect, embracing their stated aims, if not all of their methods. No one can honestly claim to be unsure of what its agenda for Palestine really is, since Hamas has clearly expressed and unwaveringly pursued it since the organization’s founding.

Hamas’ main aim, as noted above, is the establishment of an “Islamic” state in all of mandatory Palestine along ultra-conservative Muslim Brotherhood lines. Every serious critique of Zionism has noted the moral and ethical inadmissibility of enforcing a “Jewish” state in this same area, given that at least half of the population between the river and the sea is Muslim and Christian. How does the aim of establishing a so-called “Islamic” state in the same area have any greater validity than the enforcement of a Jewish one, unless one buys into absurd notions of religious or ethnic supremacy? In addition, the social agenda envisioned for such a society appears to be oppressive and deeply restrictive. Those liberals and leftists presently inclined to be sympathetic to Hamas need to step back and ask themselves: are we really laboring to support the creation of another theocracy in the Middle East? Would we want to live in such a society? Is that what liberation looks like?

As for the preferred methods of Hamas, suffice it to say that the suicide bombing campaigns it has led have done more than anything else to harm the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the world, unify Israelis, and give them a false sense that the occupation is some kind of self-defensive necessity. That is a gift that no occupier should ever be granted. This is not to mention the corrosive effect that the ideology and rhetoric of “martyrdom” has had on Palestinian society. There are and have to be limitations on what is acceptable in the pursuit of freedom, and some actions are immoral enough never to be justifiable no matter the cause and no matter the savagery engaged in by the other side.

Finally, Hamas, due to its alliances and regional orientation, is importing undue Iranian influence into the Palestinian political scene. One of the major achievements of the Arafat era was wresting control of the Palestinian agenda away from the Arab states and ensuring that it was determined by the Palestinians themselves. It would be both a tragedy and a farce to see undue Arab influence dispensed with, only for Palestine to become a card in the hands of Iranian foreign policy. To be sure, Fatah receives support from Arab states and even the West. But the risks and costs of this aid pale in comparison to an open alignment and more with the present regime in Tehran.

Fatah also has serious problems, not only with corruption and cronyism, but also incompetence at various levels, rampant disunity, and a history of poor management of Palestinian diplomacy. It also is obviously no model of democracy. Autocratic tendencies that were pronounced under Arafat have continued to the present day, most notably in an ill-advised effort to craft a law that would prevent parties that do not accept Palestinian treaty obligations—that is to say, Hamas—from participating in elections. No responsible government can dismiss the solemn undertakings of its predecessors as Hamas does, but trying to use this responsibility as a pretext for barring the election of one’s rivals is no way to address the problem.

For all of its undoubted faults, Fatah’s approach at least offers the possibility of a negotiated agreement with Israel and the development of a secular state which, if not necessarily fully democratic at the outset, would be hardly as repressive as a theocracy. And it is in the possibility of an agreement to end the occupation that realistic hope for the future of Palestine lies. The real alternative is not some utopian reconciliation and post-nationalist bliss, but rather unending conflict and untold suffering.

Of course, there is a school of thought that does not wish to see a negotiated settlement with Israel, but seeks rather to dispense with Palestine altogether and replace the Israeli state and the Occupied Territories with a single entity—neither Israel nor Palestine—that would transcend nationalist identities. How this would work in practice has yet to be seriously defined in any programmatic sense. No significant political party or movement among either Israelis or Palestinians has embraced the idea, and in spite of the claims of its proponents, it does not seem to have any serious constituency on the ground. Some advocates of the “one-state-solution” have become de facto partisans of Hamas in the present intra-Palestinian conflict, apparently attracted by the party’s opposition to a negotiated end to the conflict and its maximalist positions. However, Hamas’ aim of establishing an “Islamic” state from the river to the sea is, if anything, the very antithesis of the one-state concept, certainly further from its ethos than a two-state arrangement. In fact, it seems the mirror-image of the “greater Israel” agenda of the settler movement.

In Palestinian and pro-Palestinian discourse the factor of power is rarely acknowledged or dealt with seriously. But political realities are shaped by power, which manifests itself in many forms. The continued presence of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and their refusal to submit to Israeli domination itself is a form of power, one that has stymied Israeli ambitions to control and colonize the whole area in peace and quiet. It has led many, if not most, serious Israelis to conclude that the occupation is not tenable in the long run.

However, the overall power equation places serious constraints on Palestinian ambitions too. Palestinians are not going to be able to liberate themselves through armed struggle. Israel is not going to be driven out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Palestinian fighters. It is as simple as that. Therefore, in order to achieve an end to the occupation, Palestinians must come to an agreement with Israel, just as in order to have peace and security Israel must make a deal with the Palestinians. There is no military solution to this conflict for either side.

Moreover, the power equation demonstrates the Palestinians’ urgent need for international support if they are to realize their national and human rights, first of all from the other Arabs, and then the international community at large, most crucially the United States. The Palestinians cannot achieve their aims without international backing that applies pressure on Israel to come to reasonable terms and which provides the context and the support that a workable agreement and a fledgling state would obviously require. This is why Hamas’ policies that thumbed their nose at the rest of the world, including the Arabs, and rejected international law outright were so damaging to the Palestinian cause. The edifice of international law on the question of Palestine that makes it clear that the occupation is illegal and must end was painstakingly pieced together over many decades beginning with UN Security Council Resolution 242 in 1967. This body of international law is a major asset for Palestinians and a serious problem for the Israeli occupation. Tossing it aside for narrow political advantage or for the sake of an extreme and unrealistic ideology would be an unforgivable error.

Building this indispensable international backing for an end to the occupation must be a principal focus of any serious support for Palestine, above all in the United States. The single greatest tool for this the Palestinian and Arab Americans have at their disposal is their legal status in the United States. Citizenship provides the opportunity to participate in the political process and, given the requisite time, effort, and investment, help to influence the national conversation and eventually the policies of the United States—which just so happens to be the most influential external player in the conflict and the region as a whole. Therefore, the primary task is to engage the political system nationally and the policy conversation as it actually takes place in Washington.

Friends of Palestine in the United States must be clear about the principles that inform their activism. If people are genuinely in sympathy with the aims and methods of Hamas, then that is one thing. But those of us who seek first to end the occupation and then support the development of a democratic and pluralistic Palestinian state have to hold firm to those commitments. This means at the very least not defending those whose stated policies and concrete actions run strictly counter to those aims. It is not necessary to support any particular entity to promote these principles, and it is hardly our role as Americans to carry water for any leadership outside of our own country. But support for those principles must translate into sober judgments about what and who is most likely to promote them, and words and deeds should follow these considerations. Dismissing those who hold firm to these important values and goals as “diplomatic fronts” or “Washington lobbies” for narrow Palestinian political factions, or, most preposterously, as “neoconservatives,” is beneath contempt. To be principled to is be honorable and sincere, even if possibly mistaken.

To be effective requires the development and promotion of a receivable message that can function politically in the United States about the benefits to America and the world of ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state. Such a message could emphasize the benefits to US policy goals in the region generally, reducing the appeal of anti-American extremism in the region, enhancing the US role as a responsible world leader, the promotion of American values such as independence and citizenship, and economic benefits to the region and the United States. It could also point out that ending the occupation would complicate efforts by destabilizing powers in the region, most notably Iran, to exploit the issue for its own purposes. The overall message should be that ending the occupation is a vital strategic interest of the United States.

In addition to developing more effective advocacy, friends of Palestine need to help build a serious national and international coalition to end the occupation. The Arab League peace initiative, for example, provides a significant platform to build upon, as it offers Israelis the potential of achieving what they say they have always wanted. Just as Palestinians and Israelis need to come to terms with each other in order to realize their rights and security, and to ensure a decent future for both peoples, supporters of Palestine in the United States will have to develop a functioning working relationship with a wide variety of organizations that support an end to the occupation and the conflict.

The motivations for such support are irrelevant, as are differences on other issues. Policy changes in a system as complex as the American one require broad-based, single-issue alliances between factions who agree on little, or even nothing, else. Supporters of Palestine and Israel in our country have glared and shouted at each other for many decades for very understandable reasons. However, since Israelis and Palestinians need to come to reasonable terms in the interests of both peoples, Jewish and Arab Americans who are serious about peace also need to develop, insofar as possible, functional working relationships.

I do not mean here simply Jewish and pro-Israel groups that oppose the occupation on moral grounds, but those that wish to end it for practical and selfish reasons as well. We are never going to convince each other to abandon the narratives that inform our support for Israel and Palestine, respectively. But since, for different reasons, Israelis and Palestinians finally find themselves needing the same thing—an end to the conflict based on an end to the occupation—Arab and Jewish Americans ought and need to be able to build a working alliance to support that aim. Israel has every reason, purely in its own manifest self-interest, to come to reasonable terms with the Palestinians, and its American supporters have every reason to encourage it to do so, even though not everyone has fully comprehended this yet. Many others would want to be involved too, as the whole project would emphasize the benefits of an end to the occupation for US foreign policy and the world at large.

Indeed, almost all parties—Palestinian, Israeli, Arab, European, Asian, and, of course, American—need this conflict to be resolved, and the formula of two states living side-by-side in peace is the only viable means of doing so. Only forces radically and violently opposed to the regional and world order, or extremist groups on both sides and their allies who consciously prefer unending war over painful compromise, actively reject it. Until now those extremist minorities have managed to exercise a veto over the will of the majorities and the needs of all of these parties. This veto must be revoked. If we say we want the same thing, we should at least try to call each other’s bluff and test the waters rather than concluding from the outset that it is inconceivable that self-interest might actually bring friends of Palestine and Israel to the same place at the same time, with the real potential of mutual benefit.

This new approach to pro-Palestinian advocacy and activism has been developed over the past few years at the American Task Force on Palestine by its president, Ziad Asali, and others, this author among them. Certainly Palestinian Americans and their allies have to recognize that their traditional approaches have failed. They must also see the poverty and pointlessness of a purely negative agenda of accusations, condemnations, and criticism without positive content of any kind. Internal backbiting and mutual recriminations rationalized as “exposing the traitors and collaborators” is not a strategy for anything constructive. The keys are to take much better advantage of our status as Americans, develop new and effective forms of advocacy, and forge the alliances that can actually achieve results. To be successful in promoting Palestinian human and national rights requires the development of a positive agenda that emphasizes what is good for everyone, including Americans and Israelis, about ending the occupation, which must be the single, overriding aim of any serious political activity on behalf of Palestine and the Palestinian people.

BOLSTERING PALESTINIAN MODERATES

BY ZIAD ASALI AND GHAITH AL-OMARI

The Washington Times (www.washingtontimes.com/)

February 11, 2008

The recent breach of the Gaza-Egypt border was an avoidable setback to the newly revived Palestinian-Israeli peace process. It has shown what happens when grand political commitments—made by Israeli, U.S., and Arab leaders—fail to translate into concrete policies, structures, and behavior. Had the situation been addressed in a timely fashion, control of the Gaza crossings to Egypt and Israel could have been a major political gain for the moderate government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Instead, Hamas used the delay in resolving the matter to create new facts on the ground to its benefit.

After Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza in June, Israel imposed a tight closure on Gaza, whereby people and goods were not allowed to enter or go out. Mr. Fayyad has long been proposing that Israel allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to assume responsibility over the crossing points from Gaza to Egypt and Israel.

In addition to alleviating the humanitarian situation in Gaza and ensuring that the civilian population is not punished, this would have put Hamas on the defensive: It would have been faced with the choice of either accepting PA control of the borders (and by implication ceding a good measure of power in Gaza), or rejecting it, in which case the borders will remain closed and Hamas would pay a political price as it becomes seen by the international community as being responsible for the continuation of the Gaza closure.

Rather than expeditiously responding to this request and seizing the opportunity, the Israeli authorities went into default mode, subjecting it for months to endless negotiations and interminable examination and re-examination. Hamas, for its part, bided its time, and, riding the wave of public protests in the wake of the Israeli decision to cut fuel supplies to Gaza, caused the breach in the border. Hamas was quick to claim—as it did in the aftermath of the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005—that the negotiations espoused by the moderates do not pay and that violence is the only way to achieve results.

The first lesson to be learned concerns Israel: New times require new action. Israeli behavior vis-à-vis the PA is still governed by the paradigm, mentality, and protocols developed since the beginning of the Intifada to deal with a state of active conflict with the PA. The only consideration in dealing with the Palestinian side is security in the narrowest, most technical sense, even if this ends up being prohibitive to the implementation of Palestinian plans and proposals.

This approach is inappropriate during a peace process and fails to take note of three major recent developments. First is the election of Mahmoud Abbas as president and the subsequent appointment of Salam Fayyad as prime minister. Both leaders have longstanding peace credentials and a commitment and track record on good governance and security. Second is the ascendance of Hamas and its subsequent takeover of the Gaza Strip. Third is the launching of the Annapolis process which is intended to recreate the spirit of partnership and resolve both long-term peace issues along with the more immediate issues of security and rebuilding the PA.

These events have brought into sharp focus the two alternative paths that the Palestinian polity may take: either violence and fundamentalism as advocated by Hamas or security and peace as presented by the Abbas-Fayyad team. The result is highly contingent on the moderates’ ability to deliver in terms of concrete improvements in Palestinians’ daily lives and in the larger peace process.

While the commitment of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to the peace process is not in doubt, it is obvious that this commitment has yet to lead to a new approach to the PA in practice. Mr. Fayyad continues to be nickel and dimed, whether regarding the proposed assumption of responsibility over the Gaza crossings or generally the gradual assumption of a degree of security control over the West Bank. In the meantime, as the PA struggles to meet the minutiae of Israeli security demands, Hamas continues to enjoy—and politically benefit from—the flexibility afforded by not being bound by any agreements or bilateral obligations.

Israel needs to develop a new paradigm based on partnership with the PA. The success of the Abbas-Fayyad government is in the interest of both the Palestinians and the Israelis, and a new approach is needed to ensure that this partnership thrives. New considerations must be factored in when making decisions regarding the PA. One is the extent to which such decisions will enable the PA to deliver to its own public and by implication gain strength and to which extent it would enable Hamas to reassert its central message that diplomacy is futile.

The first test will come soon when the issue of the crossings is raised again. Public statements made by Israeli officials indicate that Israel is willing to give the PA control over the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, but not the crossings between Gaza and Israel. Such a decision would allow Hamas to claim credit for the reopening of the Rafah crossing and would accrue minimal—if any—political benefits to the Palestinian leadership. Instead, Israel must allow the PA to assume responsibility over all of the Gaza crossings, and in doing so enable it to deliver services to the civilian population and weaken Hamas’ grip over Gaza.

There are also lessons to be drawn by the Arab governments. Prior to the border breach, Egypt tried a policy regarding Hamas that employed both pressure and incentives, but the implementation of the pressure element was often lax. Instead of taking note and working with Egypt to stabilize the border, Hamas acted in its narrow self-interest and left

Egypt to pay the political, diplomatic, and security price. Egypt seems to have initiated a much tougher policy in the last few days. The conflict between the PA and Hamas is a zero-sum one, in which other actors involved in Palestinian affairs must take a side. Failure to act against Hamas translates into implicit support for it. A Hamas victory will have direct implications for many Arab regimes. Hamas is an extension of the larger Muslim Brotherhood movement whose aim is to assume—not share—power throughout the Arab world. Islamic parties throughout the Arab world will be keeping a close watch on the outcome of the politics in Palestine, and would be greatly emboldened by a Hamas victory. Any Arab government that thinks that it can appease Hamas or manage it will discover the cost the hard way, as Egypt did.

The U.S. administration should also examine its approach to the conflict. The commitment of both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is beyond question, and indeed the re-launching of the peace process would not have been possible without their efforts. Both realize that Palestinian-Israeli peace will go a long way toward achieving U.S. national security interests in the region.

This commitment, however, has yet to manifest itself in the form of a solid, coherent diplomatic infrastructure on the ground. Disparate pieces of such an architecture exist in the form of three U.S. generals, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s mission, and the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership for economic aid. But they still lack a unifying structure.

Until the United States offers not only general guidance but also process management, the Palestinians and the Israelis (each of whom is operating within a complex domestic political environment and in the midst of an active conflict) will more likely fall back on their default negative dynamic.

The political will that exists in Washington now needs to lay down a track on the ground that leads to a Palestinian state and end this conflict.

WHY PEACE NOW

BY REEMA I. ALI

The Middle East Times(www.metimes.com/)

January 2, 2009

Whether the United States continues to advocate the preemptive war doctrine or becomes a “green” and “soft” superpower, and whatever maps the new administration looks at, the central apparent issue that cannot be and should not be ignored is the stability of the Middle East and the impact this has on U.S. strategic national interests.

Key to the stability of the region is the resolution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict through the implementation of a two-state solution along the lines of international consensus of the pre-1967 borders.

The conflict is a distraction to winning the war on terrorism and diverts valuable economic resources from global development and the quest for dependable and renewable energy supplies in the 21st century.

The current economic conditions alone require the United States to seriously address its national interest issues. To achieve its national interests in the area America must address the single cause that is shared by Arabs and Muslims.

It has always been clear to those who are familiar with the inner circles of this region’s politics that the solution of the conflict is known. It is the 1967 borders, give or take. It is also widely stated that the parties to the conflict lack the courage or the conviction to implement the solution. All peace initiatives have centered on the “give or take” part of the sentence causing the conflict to be dubbed an unsolvable quagmire when in fact the true quagmire and nightmare is to leave the conflict unresolved.

The starting point to the solution of this conflict is to remove all settlements, which are no more than occupation units, and the encroachment of the so-called “fence”—a Berlin-like wall—on Palestinian lands.

By all accounts the vast majority of the Palestinian people are law-abiding citizens who face daily humiliation and degradation at Israeli checkpoints. The Palestinian people and their economy are suffocating because of the ring roads that choke their towns to service the illegal occupation units (settlements) that do not serve the state of Israel and are not on Israeli land.

If Israel is true to peace it must depart from the doctrine of “the devil in the details” and remove all settlements from the West Bank.

To date Israel has “debated” peace with the Palestinians as a part time hobby and erected new settlements on a full-time basis. If the United States is to regain its position as a relevant friend of the region it must insist on the permanent removal of settlements as a matter of policy. The settlements do not enhance Israel's security or its economy; they simply destroy the Palestinian economy and feed their anger. The settlements have impeded the Palestinian Authority's efforts to form effective government institutions and have created an insurmountable obstacle to the revival of the economy in the West Bank.

By subsidizing the existence of these settlements all Israeli governments have thus far invested huge resources to create entities that destroy every confidence building measure with the Palestinians. This single point will restore confidence in the peace process by correcting the ugly misrepresentation of the Israeli society by belligerent settlers thus making peace an achievable goal.

Demolishing the aspirations of the Palestinian people of statehood and national dignity is not an attainable objective through any means, least of which is force. Israel’s experimentation and quest for finding an alternative to the Palestine Liberation Organization has failed and will continue to fail. This conflict cannot be resolved by force and cannot be resolved through forcing the Palestinians to give further compromises. Their compromise has already been given. It is the 1967 borders.

Neither the United States’ nor Israel’s national interests will be served by choking the Palestinians to poverty through the lack of a peaceful solution. The Palestinian people will not evaporate. This problem will not go away and cannot be shelved for time to solve it. It is likely to fester and come back to haunt everyone. Those who advocate that the conflict is not ripe for solution do not have their finger on the region's pulse and certainly do not have the region’s, America's or Israel's interests at heart.

Politicians from both sides must be honest and rise above their internal politicking through a referendum of their own people on the single issue of whether or not they want to live in peace with their neighbors along the lines of the international consensus.

Both nations are the dependants of outside economies. The United States is the greatest contributor to the Israeli economy and the Palestinians are dependent on Arab and foreign support. These resources cannot continue to be spent in vain. Nor should they continue to be left to the whims of extremists on both sides. The centrality of the conflict to the strategic interest of global stability dictates that it cannot be left hostage to a cycle of national elections and fragile coalition governments. The stability of the region, a U.S. strategic interest, is contingent upon the peaceful resolution of the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

IT’S NOW OR NOTHING FOR PALESTINE PEACE

BY ZIAD ASALI

The Daily Star(www.dailystar.com.lb)

March 24, 2009

The recent Israeli attack on Gaza made little strategic difference, leaving Hamas still in charge of the strip, diminished militarily but arguably strengthened politically. Israel's use of disproportionate military force yielded political and public relations setbacks, with the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit still in captivity and occasional rockets still being fired from Gaza.

A politically weakened Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to be in charge of the West Bank, and the independent government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has resigned. There is no sign that the misery of the people of Gaza will be relieved, or that serious reconstruction will begin anytime soon. The territory's crossings are closed and the siege continues.

The PA, despite years of diplomacy, has yet to secure any meaningful concessions from Israel, which is veering to the political right—away from accommodation. Hamas offers only bloody resistance that appeals to the Palestinian and Arab sense of dignity, while also piling up a record of deaths, injuries and destruction.

Israeli leaders cannot find the minimal political courage needed to halt the settlement expansion that undercuts their stated age-old goal of securing a Jewish state. Despite strenuous Egyptian and Arab efforts, direct negotiations between the Palestinian factions to establish a national-unity government, as well as indirect ones between Hamas and Israel on prisoners and crossings, have yielded no agreements.

The prospects of a negotiated agreement over a new Palestinian unity government are minimal, the optimistic rhetoric notwithstanding. It flies in the face of Palestinian and regional power realities and ideological divides. This impasse cannot even be resolved by force because both the PA and Hamas are entrenched in their separate geographic areas.

The rest of the world—including the Arabs, Muslims, Israel and the West—cannot resolve this impasse. It is up to the Palestinian people to do so by an act of choice. The world can help by seeing to it that the Palestinians have an opportunity to exercise that choice by holding open, fair and transparent elections.

Of five Palestinian negotiations committees designed to discuss the outstanding issues between the PA and Hamas in Cairo, the only one that seemed to reach an agreement was the committee on elections, which recommended a vote in January 2010. Nothing could be more appropriate, or legitimate, than having the Palestinian people cast their ballots, with their eyes wide open, to make their choices and live with the results. The world now seems to have a Palestinian target date and a mechanism for elections.

Protracted Palestinian negotiations to square the political circle must not be allowed to delay dealing with the reality of irreconcilable factional differences. Barring another Israeli attack, for the remainder of this year, Hamas will in all likelihood maintain its hold over Gaza while the PA will be in charge of the West Bank. Decisions dealing with these realities have to be taken without delay. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should proceed forthwith to form a new PA government acceptable to the international community.

Even if the present reality precludes the PA government's ability to govern Gaza, the PA should not abandon its mandate but pursue its private aid program of reconstruction as it works diligently to lift the siege on Gaza. The new PA government must continue building on the solid foundation laid down by the Fayyad government to erect the infrastructure of the future Palestinian state. It should work diligently and methodically to hold elections on time and prevent others from derailing it.

The de facto Hamas government in Gaza will have to deal with all internal, regional and international political and economic realities and demands. It has to bear the consequences of its decisions and actions, knowing that the Palestinian people will vote come January and that elections cannot be avoided or postponed.

Through the policies that it pursues in the occupied West Bank, Israel will have a powerful role in determining who will govern its future neighbor, the state of Palestine. It has to decide, and to demonstrate, whether it can work with a Palestinian partner in order to bring the conflict to an end. It can, of course, opt to block the emergence of this Palestinian state and allow those who prefer to continue the conflict indefinitely to prevail.

GAZA: A CHANCE TO REAFFIRM THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION

BY ZIAD ASALI

The Daily Star(www.dailystar.com.lb/)

January 12, 2009

The renewed violence between Israel and Hamas, in which 1.5 million innocent Palestinians are caught, is yet another demonstration that there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel will not be able to secure its future, normalize its relations with the region and live in peace without an agreement with the Palestinians. Palestinians will not achieve liberation and independence without an agreement with Israel.

The conundrum is that Palestinians and Israelis cannot on their own completely bridge the gaps separating them. To reach an agreement they need outside intervention, which can only come from the United States.

Beyond the violence, there is a critical problem that renders the status quo unmanageable: the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, which erodes the physical possibility of a two-state solution. Settlement expansion threatens the meaningfulness of future negotiations about the establishment of a Palestinian state and poisons the political atmosphere. It creates political problems in Israel by empowering a passionate and belligerent constituency opposed to territorial compromise. The leadership of the Palestinian Authority, and that in the Arab world, is largely defenseless against the accusation that they have failed to deliver as long as settlements grow.

Along with securing a lasting cease-fire in Gaza, freezing the settlements will be the main issue the incoming Obama administration must deal with in its early days. There is an urgent need to buy time to prepare the political groundwork for a successful round of negotiations, bolster moderates on both sides, establish an effective framework, and perform the other necessary tasks that would have to precede an agreement, without continuing to lose ground and credibility.

The reality is that no Israeli government has been able to enact a comprehensive settlement freeze, even during the Oslo period, nor is one likely to soon do so on its own and survive. Israeli leaders need help, even though peace is in Israel’s interest. Only the American president can give the vital and necessary political cover to an Israeli prime minister and Cabinet for this step to be adopted. This cannot take the form of pressure, but should instead reflect strategic understandings and interests.

Along with the US, the Arab states have an important role to play. While expanding the dialogue and even negotiations at the appropriate level with all parties, Washington needs to work on a strategic partnership with responsible Arab leaders committed to ending the conflict. Israel's freeze of settlement activity needs to be coupled with significant incentives provided by the Arab world. These could take the form of public movement toward operationalizing the Arab Peace Initiative that could serve as a reasonable quid pro quo for Israel's settlement freeze.

Many political issues in the Middle East are interconnected. A comprehensive regional strategy is needed in which the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is prioritized. Even though resolving the conflict will not solve all other regional problems, it would be uniquely helpful across the board. Acknowledging that no other achievable goal in the Middle East would bring as many benefits to the US, we must abandon any thoughts about managing the conflict and proceed with a serious strategy to resolve it.

Palestine is the ultimate political symbol in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Whoever is perceived as the authentic champion of that cause gains enormous, possibly unassailable, credibility. Ceding the Palestinian issue to religious extremists would likely pave the way for an unstoppable wave of revolts, even revolutions. The forces aligned with Iran could not wish for a more powerful weapon in their campaign to destabilize the Arab regimes and the Arab state system.

The United States, Israel and the Arabs have much to fear from such a scenario, and all need to move quickly to defuse this ticking bomb. The strategic partnership must move public perceptions from a zero-sum game to a win-win scenario through a conflict-ending agreement.

Equally, and urgently, closer attention needs to be paid to damage inflicted on moderate and realistic policies, and their advocates, by a toxic public discourse being peddled in the Arabic-language media that puts pragmatism and realism on the defensive. It should be clearly grasped that the appeal of the radical religious forces is the sense of injured dignity that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims intensely feel. Military defeats, daily humiliation, and gruesome images and accounts of suffering under the occupation enhance rather than weaken their appeal.

Improvement of the quality of life for Palestinians requires the further development of the Palestinian security system based on a nation-building doctrine rather than on one perceived as enforcing the Israeli occupation; based also on improving access and mobility; and based on economic improvements and institutional development, including good governance. The Bush administration has launched initiatives on some of these fronts since the Annapolis conference; they have begun to bear fruit and need to be expanded.

Criticism notwithstanding, Annapolis has yielded several positive trends that must continue: It reaffirmed the global commitment to a two-state solution. It launched several channels of formal and serious negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, dealing with all outstanding issues. It was followed by the indispensible, and the unquestionably successful, rebuilding of the Palestinian security system. It placed a premium on Palestinian economic development, even if it came up short on delivering sustainable vehicles for development. And it identified good governance as a major objective, though the instruments designed to achieve this goal have fallen far short and need to be reassessed.

The twin policy of isolating Hamas and empowering moderates has meant very little to the Palestinian people. While the quality of life plummeted in Gaza under Hamas, the anticipated improvement in the quality of life for the Palestinians of the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem has simply failed to materialize. Failure to rectify that now would be political malpractice.

The two-state solution, as Winston Churchill once said about democracy, is the worst solution except for all the others. And, to make matters worse, it has an expiry date. The future of Palestinians and Israelis, even their survival, is at stake. The current crisis in the Middle East offers the opportunity to resolve the Palestinian-Israel conflict and to transform the political landscape, not just in the Middle East, but across the world.

GOOD LUCK GEORGE MITCHELL—YOU WILL NEED IT

BY REEMA I. ALI

Middle East Times (www.metimes.com/)

February 9, 2009

It appears that George Mitchell, who has everyone’s respect, has been dealt in the Middle East conflict as good a hand as US President Barack Obama has in the US economic crisis. The stakes are high, yet the players would like to continue the game in the good old ways. Just as the president would need all the brain power to assist him in negotiating the tough turns so does Mitchell.

Through the Gaza war, Israel has succeeded in creating a feeling of desperation among Palestinians of all colors and walks of life. All Palestinians feel angry, hopeless, and without leadership. For Israel the good news is that the Palestinians are without leadership who in their eyes truly represents their national aspirations. For reasonable Israeli strategic thinkers, this should be viewed as the bad news as well.

For decades Israel has systematically discredited all those who negotiated with it by pursuing policies of territorial expansion and systematic humiliation of the Palestinians. All Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas can show to his people is that Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, likes to hug him on camera. This warm and conciliatory personal approach to Abbas without being backed by any measures that translate into a dignified existence for the Palestinian people makes the hug the bear kind.

Abbas and company were not allowed to deliver to the Palestinian people any of their inalienable rights. Fatah’s leadership is seen as a police force whose purpose is to subdue revolt and for this they are rewarded by Israel through the facilitation of their corrupt practices and their monopolies over various staples.

Hamas—by many accounts an Israeli creation—is now caged in Gaza along with a million and a half Palestinians who are told by Israel in every manner and in no unclear terms that there is no way out except one way and that is out. They are also told by Hamas that the only way to live in dignity is to die in dignity.

The neighboring Arab regimes that remained, despite it all, faithful to the peace accords signed with Israel are left speechless in the face of opposition in their countries who point out the daily and unrelenting episodes of injustice, inhumane, and belligerent treatment by Israel of the Palestinians.

If Israel wants to live peacefully in the region, it must invest in the future of the region in a very different manner than it has done thus far.

Israel should decide if a stable Middle East is in its national interest. It must start the necessary internal debate of whether or not it wants a peaceful resolution of its conflict with the Palestinians. This should replace the current Israeli debate of whether or not the war on Gaza ended prematurely. No war will resolve this conflict. Every war will end prematurely for both parties.

For all intents and purposes it appears that the United States has already concluded that it is in the US national interest to have a stable Middle East, which cannot be achieved without the peaceful resolution of this conflict and the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

The test is nothing short of what Obama so rightly pointed out. It is the future of the Palestinian and Israeli children and their right to live in dignity and security in the pursuit of happiness.

By all accounts the Palestinians will in 10 years outnumber the Israelis. The question the Israelis should answer internally is: Are they looking for a maimed desperate neighboring population good for garbage collection or a self-respecting neighbor ready to partner with them for the betterment of human kind?

This is not utopian talk. Those who were born on the day of the first intifada are now 20 years old. This generation has not seen the dividends of peace.

While greed can be to a certain extent a motivator, the overkill would back-fire sooner than later. Creating and maintaining ghettos in Gaza and the West bank is such overkill.

As for the Palestinians the time is now for national discipline and for the utilization of all national resources to achieve unity. Dignity requires discipline not slogans and the solicitation of sympathy.

The Palestinians should move away from the archaic factions that did not serve them well in the past. These factions have ranged from the corrupt to the irresponsible to the kingmakers. None of their leadership behaved in a statesman-like manner commensurate with the aspirations of their people.

There should be one national flag to which every Palestinian holds allegiance if the world is to recognize them as such. The Palestinians have in their midst a great wealth of capable people who could form a national unity government that would be transparent and uphold the rule of law. A government that would through its actions instill the principle that there can be an honorable peace.

It must be clear by now to everyone concerned that until freedom is achieved the democratic concepts of political parties and elections do not make any sense. The choice can never be free before then.

This is the only bright way forward.

U.S. STANDS TO LOSE IF PEACE PROCESS STALLS

BY GEORGE S. HISHMEH

Gulf News(www.gulfnews.com/)

August 5, 2009

Barack Obama is in a bit of a bind. Unlike any of his predecessors, this American president chose, admirably, to attempt to tackle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict shortly after taking office, realizing that this long-festering issue has seriously damaged the US image in the Middle East.

His first step, his choice of former Senate leader George J. Mitchell as his special envoy to manage the peace negotiations, was widely hailed as Mitchell played a key role in settling the Irish conflict.

But Obama’s bad luck was the surprise selection a few weeks later of Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel's prime minister, who in turn formed an ultra-right but shaky Israeli Cabinet that included colonists from the Occupied Territories. So when Obama attempted to strike a balance in his Middle East policy, he urged Israel to freeze all colony activity in the West Bank, including “natural growth”—an Israeli term for extending the borders of these colonies, illegal under international law.

Several months have been wasted waiting for Israeli compliance. Netanyahu, who has lately been described (by Uri Avnery) as the “King of Spin,” keeps coming up with irrational excuses in the hope that he can wiggle out of a tight spot. Meanwhile, very few Israelis, regardless of their political affiliation, have called for the country to comply with international law.

A recent New York Times article referred to Israel's oppression of Palestinians while reporting on the discovery in Israel of a late-Roman-era mosaic floor in Lod—or Lydda, as Arabs called the town. Its 75,000 residents are now mostly Jewish, with Arabs making up around a quarter of the population. The city, which is close to Tel Aviv, was conquered by Israeli forces in July 1948.

The paper had this to say: “Most of the Arab residents were expelled—on the personal orders of David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the new state of Israel—according to some historical accounts—and turned into refugees. At least 250 men, women and children were killed in the fighting; more died of exhaustion and dehydration on the march east (to the West Bank) in the summer heat.”

The latest Israeli spin is that Obama should talk to them, as he did to the Arab and Muslim world in Cairo, or the Europeans and Russians when he travelled there. A prominent Israeli editor, Aluf Benn of Haaretz, often described as a liberal paper, contributed to the same argument in a lengthy op-ed published in The New York Times on July 28, concluding that the “Israelis find themselves increasingly suspicious of Mr. Obama.” All this because Israelis see his stance as “political arm-twisting meant to please the Arab street at Israel's expense” and not, as they ought to, as a call for compliance with international law, under which occupiers cannot colonize occupied land.

Even The Washington Post protested last week that “one of the more striking results of the Obama administration's first six months is that only one country has worse relations with the United States than it did in January: Israel.” It went on to describe Obama's position as an “absolutist demand.”

As the confrontation between the Obama administration and Israel and its American supporters was heating up, Israeli police last weekend evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in Occupied East Jerusalem, allowing new Jewish families to take their place. The Israeli action was condemned by many countries, as well as the United Nations and the U.S. State Department. About 270,000 Palestinians now live in Occupied East Jerusalem, or 35 per cent of the city's total population of 760,000.

The Arab states’ offer to recognize Israel, which has been on the table for seven years, is dependent on its withdrawal from all the Palestinian areas that were occupied during the 1967 war. “Incrementation and the step-by-step approach has not, and we believe will not, achieve peace,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal said last week, standing alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department. “Temporary security and confidence-building measures will also not bring peace.”

Obama is now reportedly willing to explain in coming weeks his plans for a comprehensive settlement in interviews on Arab and Israeli television—a commendable step. It is hoped that the American president will take into consideration all past UN resolutions as well as the provisions of international law that allow for all Palestinians to return to their homeland or receive compensation for their losses.

All concerned will pay a severe price should a sovereign Palestinian state prove unattainable. Saeed Naffaa, a Palestinian Arab member of the Knesset, reminded a Washington audience recently that the Israelis “should know that the key to the solution cannot be forever in the hands of the US if they continue to repudiate every initiative and proposal for a just solution.” “The outcomes of the [Israeli] war on Lebanon in 2006 and the war against Gaza [last January] show that these did not contribute one bit to Israel's security, and the key [to a solution] began to move out of the hands of the US.”

CREATE A REAL AMERICAN COALITION ON MIDDLE EAST PEACE

BY HUSSEIN IBISH

Ibishblogwww.ibishblog.com/

June 23, 2009

For years now, my colleagues and I at the American Task Force on Palestine have argued that advocates of a two-state resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict need to form a real, functioning national coalition in the United States to support this goal. President Barack Obama has put a great deal of his political credibility and capital on the line in pursuit of negotiated resolution, forcefully articulating what all parties must do to build momentum toward this goal. The most interested parties outside of the region, specifically Jewish-American friends of Israel and Arab-American supporters of Palestine, have been alienated by decades of mistrust. However, to fully live up to this historic opportunity, these two communities need to do everything possible to work toward this common objective.

Historically, most American Jews and Arabs have largely seen each other through the distorted lens of a zero-sum perspective, assuming that what is good for Israel is necessarily bad for the Palestinians and vice versa. If this was ever true, it isn't now. It may seem counterintuitive, but Israelis and Palestinians have the same need: a workable peace agreement based on two states. It follows that their supporters in the US should be able to unite under a common cause in pursuing this goal.

Obama has stated that Palestinians need to improve security measures and combat incitement; that Israel must end settlements and avoid measures that preclude Palestinian statehood; and that the Arab states need to become more involved in the peace process. A commitment to these principles is needed on all sides. Supporters of Israel may reiterate what is required of the Palestinians and the Arabs, but they cannot remain silent about Israel's commitments. Supporters of Palestine may insist that Israel live up to its obligations under the “road map,” but they cannot ignore Palestinian responsibilities. Those with influence over Arab governments should be pressing them to do everything they can to support Obama's initiative and seize this historic opportunity.

Jewish and Arab Americans cannot allow their past differences and historical competition to impede what has become a common imperative. Long-standing prejudices and misperceptions must be jettisoned if we are to play the role required of us. No other groups in the U.S. have deeper ties, more connections, or a more sophisticated understanding of the history and perceptions that motivate both parties to the conflict than Jewish- and Arab-Americans. We cannot leave this to the government alone.

The history of rivalry and alienation between Jewish- and Arab-American communities has left deep scars, but must be moved beyond. Sincere, responsible people in both communities can demonstrate their constructive intentions by combating their peers who would continue to advocate rejectionism, violence, occupation, and conflict.

Many Jewish-Americans remain suspicious that the support of Arabs and Arab-Americans for a peace agreement based on two states is merely the first step in a “plan of phases,” intended ultimately to lead to Israel’s destruction. Equally there are many Arab-Americans who have yet to be convinced that Israelis and their supporters who say they favor peace negotiations are not simply trying to buy time to build more settlements and consolidate the occupation so that no Palestinian state will ever be possible. Mutual distrust masks that most people in both communities are articulating the same goal. They are certain of their own sincerity, but extremely dubious of the intentions of those on the other side. Rather than assuming at the outset that the other party is playing a game of deception, it would make more sense to test the waters and see if it is not possible that, because Israelis and Palestinians have similar needs, their friends in the US can sincerely work together in that direction.

It is necessary, of course, to gauge each other’s sincerity, but this can only be done through active engagement and a sustained effort to forge a serious alliance based on common interests. But, it is neither necessary nor helpful to try to analyze opposing motivations, or insist that competing narratives become harmonized. It should be understood from the outset that, just as Israelis and Palestinians require the same peace agreement each for their own purpose, their friends and supporters in the US will have very differing motivations for joining a national coalition in support of a two-state agreement. A great virtue of a two-state resolution is that it does not require that Israelis and Palestinians reconcile their narratives. Each can live in its own state, with internal minority groups, and forge its future according to its own understandings and imperatives.

Since Obama called for more concrete measures to achieve peace, we should not only be increasing our efforts at outreach and dialogue. Responsible organizations and individuals should develop joint statements and efforts in pursuit of peace to support the president’s initiatives. It is time for mainstream and politically significant Arab- and Jewish-Americans to think about articulating a formal statement of principles that can give shape to an effective national coalition for a two-state agreement in the Middle East. Religious and other peace-oriented organizations and corporate entities with a stake in Middle East peace should be included in these efforts from the earliest opportunity.

The urgency and intensity of Obama’s political and diplomatic emphasis on building momentum toward peace brings an extraordinary, possibly unique, perhaps even final opportunity for Jewish- and Arab-Americans who both say they want Middle East peace based on a two-state solution to begin seriously working together to achieve this result. The president is doing his part. It is now up to all of us who agree with him to do ours.

IF YOU BUILD IT, THE STATE WILL COME

BY ZIAD ASALI

The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk/)

September 4, 2009

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's blueprintfor what he has called "de facto Palestinian statehood" offers a new and important element to the quest for peace in the Middle East.

Peace between Israeland the Palestinians hinges on recognition and security for Israel and freedom and independence for a Palestinian state. Fayyad's model emphasizes the importance of the reality of the Palestinian state as a functioning entity, irrespective of international recognition and grand diplomatic gestures. By doing so, Fayyad challenges the sole reliance on political and rhetorical tools of diplomacy and international recognition, the traditional path through which Palestinians have sought statehood.

Salam Fayyad is saying that if Palestinians build governing and civil society institutions, Palestinecan become a state in reality, whether negotiations are moving forward or not. Palestine will be a faitaccompli, rather than a distant aspiration. If you build it, the state will come.

The plan is a call to action for Palestinians to establish “strong state institutions capable of providing, equitably and effectively, for the needs of our citizens, despite the occupation,” and “to establish a de facto state apparatus within the next two years.” The 38-page document lays out the generalized blueprint for the Palestinian Authority to begin to transform itself into a functioning, responsive, and responsible government as if the Palestinians had independence, and in preparation for independence.

Fayyad is calculating that Palestinian governance, reform and development will have a transformative effect on the people and their daily life in the occupied territories, create an atmosphere of hope and belief in a better future, as it creates a new practical reality, which neither Israel nor the international community will be able to ignore. The truth is that decades of occupation, violence, and mismanagement have seriously degraded Palestinian governance and civil society institutions.

Some critics in Palestinian societyhave complained that building state institutions in spite of the occupation amounts to a form of surrender that “beautifies” the occupation. On the contrary, Fayyad's approach would be the most serious possible challenge to occupation because it would demonstrate that Palestinians cannot only govern themselves, but that they are governing themselves. Independence then becomes strictly a diplomatic formality that recognizes the practical reality that has arisen due to proactive and constructive Palestinian institutional development.

The prime minister’s plan priorities concrete, practical steps the Palestinians can take towards independence on their own and with regional and international support. Fayyad has described a two-year timeframe for the initial implementation of his de facto statehood plan, consistent with President Obama’s stated intention of achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

The U.S., the international community, the Arab states, and Israel would do well to enthusiastically embrace Fayyad’s program, since it is the most clearly articulated and practicable alternative to the allure of violent armed resistance. Moreover, all parties that profess to be supportive of Palestinian statehood have a vested interest in creating the infrastructure of a viable state.

It is instructive to note which parties have already publicly expressed opposition to the program: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, some elements within Fatah, and Israel's rightwing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

Palestinian rejectionists can be relied upon to dismiss any notion of constructive, proactive state-building projects, since their domestic political fortunes rely on anger and violence rather than purposively working towards independence. Some other Palestinians have accused Fayyad of exceeding his authority, but in fact he has translated the policy of President Mahmoud Abbas into a comprehensive, sophisticated operational program that offers good governance, accountability, and transparency.

Israeli opposition to this unilateral Palestinian program, as articulated by Avigdor Lieberman, will be harder to maintain since Fayyad is presenting both a challenge and an opportunity to Israel.

The Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government have accepted, publicly and formally, the goal of establishing a Palestinian state. His government has expressed a keen interest in Palestinian economic and institutional development. By proposing precisely economic and institutional development with an eye towards independence, Fayyad is bypassing Israeli objections by Palestinians taking proactive measures, and also creating a practical test of Israeli intentions and sincerity. As Fayyad puts it, this is a good unilateral action.

In a recent Cif article, Petra Marquardt-Bigman points out that individuals ranging from Lieberman to the Middle East experts Hussein Agha and Robert Malley have seriously questioned whether a two-state agreement is achievable. However, neither these people nor anyone else has put forward a practicable, conflict-ending alternative. In fact, the real alternative is further conflict, occupation, and violence. Moreover, a two-state peace agreement is at the core of the broad foreign policy objectives of the Obama administration that has made it a national security priority with a time-horizon for its realization.

All serious parties have long since concluded that a Palestinian state is essential to any viable Middle East peace agreement. Fayyad has laid out a constructive, proactive program, entirely consistent with Palestinian, U.S., and Israeli pronouncements, to build the infrastructure and institutions of that state. Everyone has a stake in helping to make it work.

ENEMIES NO MORE: THE POWER OF SUSTAINED DIALOGUE

BY SALIBA SARSAR

Common Ground News(www.commongroundnews.org)

May 5, 2009

AMuslim American woman, standing next to her new American Zionist friend, lit a candle on April 20—the day before Holocaust Remembrance Day—in honor of those who perished during the Holocaust.

The flame was placed at the centre of an image of the Earth printed on cloth, as Jews, Muslims, Druze, and others from Israel, Canada, and the U.S. intently watched the flame flickering in the dark.

The 33 people were participants in a three-day conference, “Sustained Dialogue Groups in Dialogue,” held at Monmouth University in New Jersey from 19 to 21 April. The meeting enabled representatives of local Muslim-Jewish dialogue groups across the country to meet one another and share lessons learned and best practices, as well as discuss common principles and ways to network. Sustained dialogue is significant because it focuses on transforming relationships over the long term.

Tears welled in the participants’ eyes as the Muslim American woman read aloud:

I vow never to forget the lives of the Jewish men, women and children who are symbolized by this flame. They were tortured and brutalized by human beings who acted like beasts; their lives were taken in cruelty…. May we recall not only the terror of their deaths, but also the splendor of their lives.

This simple but profound act not only commemorated the past but also shattered stereotypes and refocused thought and action on understanding and forgiveness, passion and compassion, trust and coexistence.

Two conferees—one Arab American, one Jewish American—were members of Zeitouna (Arabic for “olive tree”), a sustained dialogue group comprised of Arab and Jewish women in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They explained how they refused to be enemies, and how, through personal transformation, education of others and expansion of political discourse, they support a sustainable future for Palestine and Israel.

Prior to joining Zeitouna, these two participants lived on opposite sides of the ideological and socio-political divides—one being a child survivor of the Holocaust and the other a Palestinian refugee. Their commitment to social justice and peace activism helped them overcome ignorance about, and fear of, each other.

Members of dialogue groups begin their journeys where they live and work—in their own communities. Through deep conversations, social gatherings and cultural activities, they dispel phobias about “the other”, thus reducing enmity and promoting expanded understanding of reality. Although some of them are far away from Israel and Palestine, their influence cannot be underestimated as they educate the general public, advocate for a relationship-based policy that considers interests on both sides and contribute financially and otherwise to the well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians.

The commitment to dialogue and to this public peace process is also at the heart of the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo, California. “Sustained dialogue, with its deep listening to learn, is not a hobby but a way of life”, three of its co-founders explained at the conference. The perpetual face-to-face meeting, learning and initiating occurs between members of civil society outside of government, creating a grass-roots foundation for understanding.

Sixteen years and 205 meetings of engagement have taught them that dialogue is not about winning and losing, and that “an enemy is one whose story we have not heard.” By including all perspectives—not just some at the expense of others—they create trust, and then unprecedented learning, compassion and creativity to model a sustainable culture of peace.

As representatives of each of the 11 sustained dialogue groups presented their work at the Monmouth University conference, it became apparent that dialoguing is not easy. It can uncover liberation and empowerment, but conflicting narratives and emotional pain as well. Yet as an equalizer of power, the dialogue process finally restores symmetry to relationships and enables participants to highlight similarities.

The intent of dialogue is not to reach agreement. Through storytelling and retelling, and the sharing of feelings, dialoguers connect at the heart and then grow with “no walls, no checkpoints.” New realities emerge. This process “might be hurtful but not injurious,” a Palestinian American conferee stated in a dialogue session. A Jewish American conferee added, “You do not have to be wrong in order for me to be right!”

Our personal and collective responsibility is not to alter or compromise our identity in order to change our perspectives, but rather, as a Buddhist conferee believes, “to transcend our identity so that we can arrive at a common place with the other.”

Transcendence allows us to work through the paradox of despair on the ground and find hope in dialogue. Ultimately, we become advocates for many peoples—Arabs and Jews; Palestinians and Israelis; Jewish, Christian and Muslim—equally.

Peace building at the grassroots level is a strong complement to peacemaking at the political leadership level. After all, when a peace agreement is signed, it is the people who must live the peace…together.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

THE ARAB PEACE INITIATIVE

March 28, 2002

The Council of Arab States at the Summit Level at its 14th Ordinary Session,

Reaffirming the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo Extra-Ordinary Arab Summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and which would require a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli government,

Having listened to the statement made by his royal highness Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, crown prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in which his highness presented his initiative calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, reaffirmed by the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the land-for-peace principle, and Israel’s acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel,

Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.

2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:

I. Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II. Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

III. The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:

I. Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

II. Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.

5. Calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighborliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity.

6. Invites the international community and all countries and organizations to support this initiative.

7. Requests the chairman of the summit to form a special committee composed of some of its concerned member states and the secretary general of the League of Arab States to pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for this initiative at all levels, particularly from the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Muslim states and the European Union.

APPENDIX II

SUMMARY OF THE GENEVA ACCORD A MODEL ISRAELI PALESTINIAN PEACE AGREEMENT

www.geneva-accord.org/mainmenu/summary

October 12, 2003

Accord Principles

• End of conflict. End of all claims.
• Mutual recognition of Israeli and Palestinian right to two separate states.
• A final, agreed upon border.
• A comprehensive solution to the refugee problem.
• Large settlement blocks and most of the settlers are annexed to Israel, as part of a 1:1 land swap.
• Recognition of the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and recognition of the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.
• A demilitarized Palestinian state.
• A comprehensive and complete Palestinian commitment to fighting terrorism and incitement.
• An international verification group to oversee implementation.

Description

The Geneva Initiative is a model permanent status agreement between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine.

The accord presents a comprehensive and unequivocal solution to all issues vital to ensuring the end of the conflict. Adopting the agreement and implementing it would bring about a solution to the historical conflict, a new chapter in Israeli-Palestinian relations, and, most importantly, the realization of the national visions of both parties.

1. Mutual Recognition

As part of the accord, the Palestinians recognize the right of the Jewish people to their own state and recognize the State of Israel as their national home. Conversely, the Israelis recognize the Palestinian state as the national home of the Palestinian people.

2. Borders and Settlements

• The border marked on a detailed map is final and indisputable.
• According to the accord and maps, the extended borders of the State of Israel will include Jewish settlements currently beyond the Green Line, Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and territories with significance for security surrounding Ben Gurion International Airport. These territories will be annexed to Israel on agreement and will become inseparable from it.
• In return to the annexation of land beyond the 1967 border, Israel will hand over alternative land to the Palestinian, based on a 1:1 ratio. The lands annexed to the Palestinian State will be of equal quality and quantity.

3. Jerusalem

• The parties shall have their mutually recognized capitals in the areas of Jerusalem under their respective sovereignty.
• The Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem will be under Israeli sovereignty, and the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem will be under Palestinian sovereignty.
• The parties will commit to safeguarding the character, holiness, and freedom of worship in the city.
• The parties view the Old City as one whole enjoying a unique character. Movement within the Old City shall be free and unimpeded subject to the provisions of this article and rules and regulations pertaining to the various holy sites.
• There shall be no digging, excavation, or construction on al-Haram al-Sharif/the Temple Mount, unless approved by the two parties.
• A visible color-coding scheme shall be used in the Old City to denote the sovereign areas of the respective Parties.
• Palestinian Jerusalemites who currently are permanent residents of Israel shall lose this status upon the transfer of authority to Palestine of those areas in which they reside.

4. International Supervision

An Implementation and Verification Group (IVG) shall be established to facilitate, assist in, guarantee, monitor, and resolve disputes relating to the implementation of the agreement. As part of the IVG, a Multinational Force (MF) shall be established to provide security guarantees to the parties. To perform the functions specified in this agreement, the MF shall be deployed in the state of Palestine.

5. Refugees

The agreement provides for the permanent and complete resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem, under which refugees will be entitled to compensation for their refugee status and for loss of property, and will have the right to return to the State of Palestine. The refugees could also elect to remain in their present host countries, or relocate to third countries, among them Israel, at the sovereign discretion of third countries.

6. Security

Palestine and Israel shall each recognize and respect the other's right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from the threat or acts of war, terrorism, and violence. Both sides shall prevent the formation of irregular forces or armed bands, and combat terrorism and incitement. Palestine shall be a non-militarized state, with a strong security force.

APPENDIX III

A VISION FOR THE STATE OF PALESTINE: The Nature and Character of the State

Drafting Committee:

Reema Ali, Ziad Asali, Amjad Atallah,

Hussein Ibish, and Saliba Sarsar

ATFP statement first published in The New York Times February 3, 2006

Introduction

The core mission of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) is to promote the creation of Palestine to live alongside Israel in peace. ATFP believes that now is the time for proponents of the creation of a Palestinian state to articulate in detail their vision of the nature and character of that state. ATFP has drafted this document to outline its vision for Palestine, strongly feeling that independence from occupation is not an end in itself and that statehood should provide the means to truly liberate the Palestinian people and restore their national dignity. 

ATFP advocates the fulfillment of Palestinian national aspirations for a politically viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in Arab East Jerusalem. ATFP holds that this is the only workable option for ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. Palestine must be politically viable, in that it should fulfill the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinian people for independence and self-determination. Its creation must represent not simply peace as an absence of war, but an end to the conflict between Israel and other states and peoples in the Middle East. 

Palestine should also fulfill its promise of becoming a new democracy in the family of nations, indeed a model of democracy for other regional states, as well as a partner for peace to Israel and a friend of the US in the Middle East. It should provide the Palestinian people with a renewed sense of national dignity and national service, and the ability to participate in the full range of political processes at the domestic, regional, and international levels. 

Palestine should be pluralistic and democratic with equal rights, including equal opportunities, for all its citizens. It should enact and uphold laws that facilitate and regulate open trade and encourage global investment. ATFP strongly advocates that Palestine aspire to play a positive, stabilizing role in the region, and earnestly hopes that it will join the small group of states that deliberately choose the path of non-militarization. ATFP also urges that the values espoused in this vision should be at the core of the curriculum for educating future generations of Palestinians.

Territorial Boundaries, Jerusalem, and Refugees

The territorial boundaries of Palestine will be determined by negotiators representing the elected governments of Israel and the Palestinian people, respectively. It is not the role of an organization such as ATFP to draw lines on maps or dictate to national leaderships on matters to be determined through negotiation. However, ATFP supports the principle stated in the Roadmap of the Quartet and in several United Nations resolutions, of creating a state of Palestine alongside Israel by ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. ATFP supports the position articulated by US President George W. Bush in 2005 that any adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 must be mutually agreed upon.

Palestine must be a fully sovereign member state of the UN, with jurisdiction over the West Bank and Gaza Strip and its capital in Arab East Jerusalem. In order for Palestine to be acceptable to Palestinians, it must be contiguous within the West Bank. Clearly, a major transportation route for safe passage of people and goods between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is an essential requirement. A viable Palestine should have complete control over its territory, airspace, borders, territorial waters, electro-magnetic spectrum, and fresh water and other natural resources.

Jerusalem is a central part of the present and futures of both Palestinian and Israeli societies, and is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims around the world. For this reason, ATFP has long argued that there can be no monopoly of sovereignty in Jerusalem, which should remain shared and undivided. 

The viability of Palestine would be fatally undermined if Palestinian society were cut off from its social, cultural, religious, educational, and economic center in Arab East Jerusalem. Without a reasonable compromise on Jerusalem respecting the rights of both peoples and all three faiths, the national political conflict between Israel and the Palestinians over land and sovereignty could be increasingly supplanted by a religious conflict that will last for decades to come.

Arab East Jerusalem should serve as the capital of the independent state of Palestine while West Jerusalem would serve as the capital of Israel. ATFP advocates a united and shared city with an integrated municipality thus allowing it to function as a modern city, a political capital for both Palestine and Israel, and a spiritual capital for Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

Palestine should serve as a haven for Palestinian refugees from around the Middle East and the rest of the world. Negotiations between the elected leaderships of Israel and the Palestinian people will have to arrive at a mutually agreed solution for implementing the rights of the refugees for return and compensation, as outlined in UN Resolution 194. Whatever the outcome of these negotiations, Palestine should open its doors to refugees from around the region and stand prepared to provide various forms of vital assistance to Palestinians wherever they may be.

Character of Palestine

Pluralistic

The Palestinian people have emerged from their traumatic recent history as a distinct national community within the broader Arab cultural framework. They are united by their shared experience, largely defined in terms of the conflict with Israel, and other distinctly Palestinian sources of cultural and political identity. They are also united in their aspiration for an end to the occupation and the establishment of a state in Palestine that can realize their long-denied fundamental human and national rights.

However, within the context of that essential unity there lies a great diversity of affiliations and sub-national identities. Palestinians include a variety of religious orientations, including numerous Muslim and Christian denominations and sects.  Some Palestinians trace their family origins to many parts of the Arab and Mediterranean worlds, and beyond. Developing as they have from a place of migration, pilgrimage, warfare, and trade for millennia, Palestinians reflect a vast diversity of influences and ancestries. There also exists a wide spectrum of ideological, educational, and economic diversity among Palestinians, from the socialist left to the religious right. And, of course, Palestinian society also incorporates the universal national distinctions of regional differences, between urban and rural communities and among various social classes.

Palestine not only must accommodate these differences, it should embrace them. The formal structures of democracy, as many historical experiences have demonstrated, are not in and of themselves a guarantee of pluralism, in which all citizens have an equal opportunity to participate in the civil, political, cultural, and economic life of the society. Palestine should be built on a set of commitments to empowering all of its citizens and, from the outset, deliberately foster an ethos of inclusiveness and acceptance within the national community. Palestine should be a state for all its citizens, with citizenship being the only basis for inclusion in the national community.

Palestine should set a new standard in the Middle East wherein the state shows due regard for the rights of each and every individual, not just inasmuch as they participate in the collectivities of the Palestinian state and society, but also on the grounds of their inviolable rights as individual human beings. Its people will be among the major resources of Palestine. Palestine must base its future development on human capital and the careful cultivation of human resources. The positive experiences of certain post-colonial states in East Asia, which are relatively small and poor in natural resources but have emphasized education and citizen empowerment, could be seen as a developmental model for Palestine.

Pluralism—that accommodates the widest possible variety of choices for the Palestinian people and embraces cultural, economic, religious, social, and political differences—is an essential element in paving the way for Palestine to become a society based on the cultivation of its powerful latent human capital. In particular, the enhancement and protection of children’s and women’s rights are essential to this national strategy. The right of people to live their lives with a maximum of autonomy, freedom, and protection from discrimination is the sine qua non of genuine independence and true liberation. In this regard, the legal and constitutional commitments for the protection of individual, women's, and minority rights made by post-Apartheid South Africa should be carefully studied.

Faith and religion have played, and will continue to play, an invaluable defining role in the lives and culture of the people of Palestine. However, a pluralistic state in a heterogeneous society (and virtually all national societies are, in fact, heterogeneous) must be a secular state, in the sense that the government remains strictly neutral on matters of religion. The state may invoke or embody certain religious values, but it cannot interfere with the free exercise of religion, mandate a state religion to be followed by the public at large, or enact laws and restrictions favoring one creed or another. If the state adopts any of these practices, religious discrimination is inevitable. Such discrimination is antithetical to the principles of equality and social pluralism, especially where religious differences in a society are well established and obvious. The Middle East, including Israel and many Arab states, is a region rife with religious passions and governments that invoke and manipulate sectarian religious sentiments and prejudices. Palestine must not fall into this same pattern of religious privilege and discrimination. It must be a genuinely pluralistic state for all its citizens, which recognizes and celebrates their diversity while it treats them equally and with neutrality. This is only possible in a secular political system.

Democratic

Palestine, for reasons of its own internal stability and for the regional role it needs to play, should be a democratic state built on the foundations of pluralism. Its political structures will be based on a multiparty system without ideological disqualifiers, that regular elections ensure the consent of the governed, that there be an independent judiciary that applies the rule of law in an equitable and impartial manner, and that fundamental individual political rights such as freedom of expression and assembly are guaranteed. 

The credibility of the state as the embodiment of the national aspirations of the Palestinian people depends not only on the trappings of sovereignty, but also on the direct empowerment of ordinary Palestinians through the electoral and broader political process. Palestinians, whose cause is widely and passionately advocated around the world, will have a unique opportunity to build a genuinely democratic constitutional republic. They should avoid the common failings of parts of the Arab world as they strive to provide a model for others to emulate. Palestine must not be perceived as representing a single party dictatorship, an oligarchy of the wealthy, or a kleptocracy of the powerful. It must provide its citizens the political structures and institutions that afford them the necessary means to pursue political agendas, change, and reform.

For democracy to work in Palestine, all major factions, including opposition groups, will have to agree to play by the same rules and uphold the same law. This means no entity other than the state can legitimately employ force in Palestine, and that it will do so through national institutions that shall remain politically neutral and respect the peaceful transfer of power through fair and legitimate elections. It means that the state will have a strict monopoly on security forces and lawful arms subject to oversight by an independent court system and an elected legislature. It means that all parties are expected to commit not only to participating in, but also maintaining, the democratic structures of the state. The rule of law is critical in establishing a bulwark against any individuals or groups that would seek to reduce Palestinian democracy to its formal trappings by establishing what amounts to a single party system, or those who would seek victory in elections with the intention of ultimately limiting which individuals and groups can or cannot participate in future elections. Democratic constitutional structures should be protected from easy and swift change based on any single election result or the passions of a given moment.

The Palestinian people and their society are well-placed to establish a fully realized democratic political system in an independent state. The presidential and legislative elections in January 2005 and 2006 were successfully held in spite of the difficulties of life under military occupation and limited external support. Nonetheless, a competitive, multiparty campaign was conducted, and the elections were certified free and fair by all international observers. 

These elections were the result of decades of political developments among Palestinians, which have laid the groundwork for a culture of democracy. They strongly suggest that Palestinians have independently arrived at a political culture that embodies a nascent democracy, and that such elections could be repeated on a regular basis. It should be understood that such lofty goals will not be achievable instantaneously, but will require years of dedicated and delicate effort by Palestinians, their neighbors, and the international community to develop fully-realized democratic structures in Palestine. No state ever completely lives up to the goals it sets itself for justice, transparency, the rule of law, and other markers of democratic order. However democratic states establish institutions that remain loyal to, and continue to strive to accomplish, these goals.  Deficiencies and setbacks must not be allowed to undermine a broad commitment to democratic processes and goals if those principles are ever to be fully realized.

Palestinians have a promising start from which to develop politically, but a fully functional democracy in Palestine will require not only the realization of independence, but also significant support from the outside world. Governments, international institutions, and nongovernmental organizations from around the world can be of great help over time in assisting the Palestinian people and government to build a democratic political system. A democratic Palestine would not only be a partner in peace with Israel and a friend of the US, it would also be a model for other regional states to follow.

Non-militarized

The Palestinian people should strongly consider creating a non-militarized state. This means relying on a politically neutral National Guard for internal stability and law and order, and Border Guard for securing places of ingress and egress to the territory of the state, but not maintaining a standing army. Palestine is a small country that will be divided into two parts (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). It will not be able to prevail in armed conflict with any of its neighbors. 

Its internal stability can, and should only, be insured by a robust, politically neutral National Guard, which could provide all services needed by the Palestinian people in the event of their independence. The National Guard should, through its composition and demeanor, foster a valuable sense of dignity and national service. The immediate order of business in the independent state of Palestine must be social and economic development. Non-militarization would realize very substantial economic benefits and free resources for investment in education and other tools for the development of human capital, which should be the foremost priority. 

The bedrock for a secure Palestine should be a treaty of protection with NATO, compatible with membership in the Arab League, to ensure that the territorial integrity of the state is never violated by any party. In past negotiations, the Palestinians have suggested they would not object to such protection for Israel as well, to ensure that neither Palestine nor Israel would ever be subject to attacks, as well as to ensure that Israel would never be tempted to re-occupy Palestine. These international security guarantees would be the most fundamental step the international community could take to ensure peace and stability in the region and they should be codified in UN resolutions.

A Positive, Stabilizing Regional Player

As a complement to a policy of non-militarization, ATFP believes that Palestine should strive to serve as a positive, stabilizing actor in the region. The Palestinian people, having endured warfare, occupation, dispossession, and exile for most of the past century, have nothing to gain by becoming entangled in any conflicts they can possibly avoid. Palestine should embody a culture that rejects warfare as a means of resolving international disputes and promotes instead multilateralism and an adherence to international law. 

The Palestinian experience, more than most others, attests to the futility of attempts to settle differences between peoples through violence and to the urgent need to create a system of international legality that protects all people actively and impartially. A Palestinian state committed to peaceful coexistence, non-belligerence and military neutrality would have a powerful moral voice in promoting international legality and regional stability. 

Palestine can further contribute to regional stability by establishing and upholding policies and laws that facilitate and regulate open trade with all its neighbors, and encourage investment and partnership from around the globe.

ATFP offers this vision of the anticipated and promising state of Palestine as a lasting contribution to the Palestinian national debate, an outline of a state that can serve the fundamental needs of the Palestinian people and that would be a positive, stabilizing actor in the region and an important ethical presence in the family of nations.

APPENDIX IV

Keynote Address by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at ATFP’s Inaugural Gala, “Toward Peace and Security”

October 11, 2006

Thank you very much. Thank you. I would first like to thank Dr. Ziad Asali for that wonderful introduction. But more importantly, I would like to thank you for your leadership and for your commitment to this very important cause, and for your friendship and counsel over my time as Secretary of State. Thank you very much for all that you do.

Now, before I go any further, let me wish you all Ramadan Karim to those of you here tonight, and to the millions of Muslims in America and across the world, who are now celebrating the holy month of Ramadan.

I am honored that Senators Carl Levin and John Sununu are here joining us tonight, along with many members of the diplomatic corps. In particular, I would like to thank and welcome Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal for being here. And I know that you will make remarks later. Thank you very much.

Finally, let me congratulate the distinguished Palestinian-Americans whom we are honoring tonight: Governor John Sununu, a good and longtime friend; Mr. Jesse Aweida, and Professor Mujid Kazini. These three individuals remind us of the great contribution that Palestinian-Americans are making to our nation—adding not just to our country’s diversity, but to its character. I applaud the American Task Force on Palestine for highlighting the success of Palestinian-Americans, and for your continued support of all who work for peace in the Middle East.

Now, as I imagine most of you know, I traveled last week to the region. I consulted widely with our many friends and allies. And I am pleased to have this opportunity to share with you my sense of where we stand in the Middle East, particularly on the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

These are, without a doubt, difficult and challenging times. And I know that the past few months have been especially trying. In many places across the region—from Lebanon and Iraq, to the Palestinian territories and Israel—the images of violence, the stories of suffering, the deaths of innocent people are hard for all of us to bear. They're hard for me and I know that they are for you.

But let me also say that it is in times of testing that courage and perseverance are needed most by the people of the Middle East who deserve our support. It is my belief, and that of President Bush, that when we look at the recent actions of radicals in Hamas and Hezbollah, or at the violence of terrorists and militias in Iraq, or at the policies of governments like Syria or Iran, we are witnessing a campaign of extremism—not always commonly planned, but sharing a common purpose: to roll back the promise of a hopeful Middle East, where security, and freedom, and opportunity can expand.

If peace and dignity are to prevail in the region, then it is absolutely essential for leaders to be able to show, for moderate leaders to show, that their ideas, and their principles, and their vision for the future can offer a better alternative than violence and terrorism. That is why President Bush asked me to travel last week to the Middle East—to confer with moderate voices, with moderate Arab governments and with moderate leaders, to build a support for those people who are trying and who need our help more than ever now, leaders like Prime Minister Siniora in Lebanon, Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq, and most especially, of course, President Abbas in the Palestinian territories, from whom we have just heard.

Last month, in his speech to the UN General Assembly, President Bush reiterated his deep conviction that the Palestinian people deserve a better life—a life that is rooted in liberty and democracy, uncompromised by violence and terrorism, unburdened by corruption and misrule, and forever free of the daily humiliation of occupation. It is this belief that led President Bush, in June 2002, to become the first American president to make it a matter of policy that the creation of a Palestinian state, with territorial integrity, with viability, living side by side with Israel, in peace and security, would indeed strengthen peace and security, not just in the region but the peace and security of us all.

At that time, President Bush pledged that, as Palestinians stepped forward to build a peaceful, responsible state, they would find no greater partner in this endeavor than the United States. Today, we are endeavoring to keep our promise.

First, we want to help the Palestinians to lay the political foundations of a successful state. We supported the free and fair election in January 2005, in which millions of Palestinians elected Mahmoud Abbas as their president. In the days and months that have followed, we have worked to assist his government in the long and difficult process of building effective democratic institutions. When it was time for parliamentary elections earlier this year, we again supported the Palestinians’ right to choose their own leaders, and as you know, a plurality of voters cast their votes for Hamas.

At the time of the election, there were those who criticized our support for the election. And many still do. But I would ask everyone, “Is there a better way than to allow people to express their views, to have a role in choosing those who will govern them?” And now look at how things are changing. For decades, Hamas dwelled in the shadows, able to hijack the future of all Palestinians at will, without ever having to answer for its actions. Today, however, the Palestinian people and the international community can hold Hamas accountable. And Hamas now faces a hard choice that it has always sought to avoid: Either you are a peaceful political party, or a violent terrorist group—but you cannot be both.

All the members of the Quartet—the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia—are holding firm in our conviction that a Palestinian partner for peace needs to accept three principles: the disavowal of terror and violence, the recognition of Israel's right to exist, and the acceptance of all previous agreements between the parties, including the Roadmap, which is the only internationally agreed-upon framework to create a Palestinian state. At the same time, we fully support President Abbas, and the growing number of his fellow citizens, who are urging Hamas to put the interests of the Palestinian people ahead of their own rejectionist agenda.

Now, we in the international community recognize that the past several months have been really hard for the Palestinian people. We know that living conditions have deteriorated, and that many are in need of assistance.

So we are working to ensure that the Palestinian people receive the food, and the medicine, and the humanitarian relief that they so desperately need. That is why the United States recently increased our direct assistance to the Palestinians to $468 million a year, with much of that going to meet basic needs. We’ve also worked with our foreign partners to create a temporary mechanism to channel international donor assistance directly to the Palestinian people. We and our European allies are now expanding this mechanism into a new international assistance program to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable Palestinians.

Second, we want to help the Palestinian people to lay the economic foundations of a successful state. The Palestinians are some of the most talented, best educated, and hardest working people in the Middle East. What they need more than anything are opportunities to prosper. And last November, I personally worked with parties to create an opportunity—an Agreement on Movement and Access, to help the Palestinians travel more freely and transport their goods to market. It is important that we continue to work so that Palestinians and Israelis can implement this agreement.

Finally, we want to help the Palestinians establish the environment of security and the rule of law that a successful state requires. In his speech at the United Nations last month, President Bush specifically charged me with helping the Palestinians on this front, and that was one of the key purposes of my recent visit. Together with Lt. General Keith Dayton, who is leading our efforts to help the Palestinians reform their security services, I spoke with President Abbas about how we can help him stem the violence in the West Bank and Gaza. And we are working on a new initiative, along with our allies such as Egypt, Jordan, and the European Union.

I realize that the continuing problems of security are also a great challenge for many Palestinian-Americans living in Gaza and the West Bank—and for so many others, including many of you, who travel there often, who work for greater tolerance and understanding, and who invest your time, and your knowledge, and indeed your capital in the Palestinian territories. People like you have a vital role to play in the Middle East, and I will continue to do everything in my power to support your good work, and to ensure that all American travelers receive fair and equal treatment.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, our government cannot by itself meet the historic challenge that we now face in the Middle East. To empower moderate men and women in the Palestinian territories and across the region, to help them build lives of peace and dignity, we in government need the full support of private partners: our businesses, our universities, our non-governmental organizations, and our fellow citizens like you.

Recently, President Bush formed a partnership with leaders of four major American companies to support the government and people of Lebanon. A presidential delegation traveled to Beirut last month. And together, the State Department and America’s business community are now raising millions of dollars in new assistance and investment, which will help the Lebanese people rebuild their country and revitalize their economy.

This partnership can, and should, become a model for efforts to support the Palestinian people and the government of President Abbas. So let us mobilize the full energy of the Palestinian-American community. Let us find new and more determined ways to realize our shared vision of two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace and security. And let us focus our efforts to strengthen and support moderate men and women throughout the region, who simply long for peace, and development, and dignity.

I know that sometimes a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel must seem like a very distant dream. But I know too, as a student of international history, that there are so many things that once seemed impossible that, after they happened, simply seemed inevitable. I've read over the last summer the biographies of America's Founding Fathers. By all rights, America, the United States of America, should never have come into being. We should never have survived our civil war. I should never have grown up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama to become the Secretary of State of the United States of America.

And yet, time and time again, whether in Europe or in Asia or even in parts of Africa, states that no one thought would come into being, and certainly not peacefully and democratically, did. And then looking back on them, we wonder why did anyone ever doubt that it was possible.

I know the commitment of the Palestinian people to a better future. I know firsthand the commitment of President Abbas and moderate Palestinians to that future. And I know the commitment of the people in this room and of ATFP that one day indeed there will be a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel.

I can only tell you that I, too, have a personal commitment to that goal because I believe that there could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who have suffered too long, who have been humiliated too long, who have not reached their potential for too long, and who have so much to give to the international community and to all of us. I promise you my personal commitment to that goal.

Thank you very much.

APPENDIX V

Keynote Address by U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicolas Burns at ATFP’s Second Annual Gala “Choosing Peace, Embracing Hope”

October 17, 2007

Iwant to thank, Ziad Asali, and the American Task Force on Palestine for your leadership. Thank you for your support for our efforts to achieve a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians and to see the establishment, at long last, of an independent Palestinian State. You have truly been a voice for moderation and peace.

I am honored to be here with such a distinguished assemblage. I want to give special thanks to Senators Carl Levin, Chuck Hagel, and John Sununu and to all the members of the U.S. Congress that are here today. They play an essential role in our democracy and in our foreign policy. I am especially delighted to see so many members of our diplomatic core, especially those from the Middle East.

Most importantly, I wish to congratulate my former colleague Ambassador Ted Kattouf, Mr. Farouk Shami, and Dr. Theodore Baramki for their awards tonight. Your achievements in government, medicine, and commerce and industry are a reflection of the great contributions made by Palestinian-Americans to this country.

I am very honored to be here with you this evening. And I want you to know how much respect I have for the Palestinian-American community in America. My sister-in-law, Nayla Baha, is a Palestinian-American. Her story and that of her family is very representative of what all of your families have experience. Her mother and father fled Jaffa in May 1948, thinking they would return in a few days or weeks. But, instead, the cruel fate of history determined that they would be refugees for more than forty years. First in Libya, then in Beirut, then in Athens, and finally in America where they have found a home and where they are citizens. From my ties to Nayla’s family, I have learned that Palestinians, like all people, yearn for security and stability and freedom. I have learned that they have an extraordinary devotion to their families, and education, and most especially, to peace.

I saw that first hand twenty years ago when I lived in East Jerusalem. As a young Foreign Service Officer, I served at our Consulate General in Jerusalem. My job was to coordinate US economic and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people. Having lived and worked intimately with them, I know how hard working, dedicated, and committed Palestinians are to improving their communities and working to create a better future for their children. I’ve seen their passion, their talent, and their work-ethic first-hand. I have also seen and lived the real beauty of the West Bank olive groves and vineyards and of the historic cities that dot the landscape—Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Jericho, Ramallah, Bethlehem (which Secretary Rice visited today), and Hebron.

Secretary Rice has spent this week in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Bethlehem. President Bush and Secretary Rice have outlined a clear goal—a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. It’s reaching that goal that will take a lot of work. The situation last year seemed grim and progress towards peace seemed far in the distant future. The war in Lebanon had just ended and the Israeli government was focused on the implications of their confrontation with Hezbollah; Hamas’ ineffective governance was becoming more and more evident; and inter-Palestinian factional violence seemed almost a daily occurrence.

Before this same audience last year, Secretary Rice outlined our plans to begin laying the political and economic foundations of a successful Palestine. When most people saw closed doors, she saw opportunity and pushed forward. Because of the President’s and the Secretary’s personal engagement, much has change since the last American Task Force on Palestine dinner.

We now have a Palestinian government that, I believe, is a real partner for peace and truly has the interests of the Palestinian people in mind. I visited Ramallah in August to meet with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. He is an impressive man and very accomplished. In Ramallah, I saw the promise of self-government and a future state. And I also saw the obstacles of illegal outposts and roadblocks and the extraordinarily difficult conditions of life for average Palestinians.

The United States strongly supports President Abbas, Prime Minister Fayyad, and all those who have demonstrated their sincere desire for peace, reconciliation, and a bright future for Palestine.

On July 16, President Bush underscored his support of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad and reiterated his commitment to the Palestinian people and vision of a two-state solution and the creation of a Palestinian state. We view the creation of a Palestinian state to be not only in the interest of Palestinians, Israelis, and their neighbors, but also as a key American interest.

In order to achieve this goal, our priorities are three-fold: to support progress on political talks between President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert; to assist with Palestinian capacity and institution building; and to encourage tangible improvements on the ground.

Secretary Rice’s near-monthly travel to the region underscores our commitment to seeing progress on the bilateral discussions between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas, and her efforts have not been in vain. The two leaders have met five times since June, and recently formed teams to work on a joint statement that could lay the foundation for serious negotiations on difficult issues.

The international meeting the U.S. is hosting later this autumn in Annapolis, Maryland aims to support the political process and rally international support for the efforts of the Palestinians and Israelis, for which there is a good deal of momentum. President Bush has made this one of the highest priorities of his Administration. In a recent interview with Al Arabiya, President Bush said that this meeting will be serious and substantive; that the aim of this meeting is to advance the cause of the establishment of a Palestinian state. Secretary Rice, as we speak, is in Jerusalem. She spent nearly four days in the region—and that’s a long time in diplomatic terms, believe me.

The parties have their differences, of course, and we are supporting their efforts to address the concerns they have. Ultimately, however, we must take note of the fact that there has to be a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, beginning with the creation of an independent, viable Palestine. We are absolutely serious about moving this issue forward.

The framework for discussions at the Annapolis meeting will be consistent with the Roadmap, and based on the principle of land for peace, United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, and 1397, and the Arab League Peace Initiative. Key participants will be the Israelis and Palestinians, of course, but we also view the Quartet and the Arab League Follow-Up Committee as natural participants, as regional support is key to success and essential for a comprehensive Middle East peace. The presence of Arab diplomats and dignitaries here today underscores the regional commitment to peace. We view this meeting not as an end in and of itself, but rather the beginning of a process.

The planned international meeting will also aim to advance efforts of Tony Blair on Palestinian economic and institutional capacity building. For the past decade, Mr. Blair has been at the forefront of international efforts to promote peace and reconciliation around the world. He is a renowned statesman, respected, and listened to by the international community, and will bring tremendous dedication to the task of coordinating international efforts to help the Palestinians establish the institutions of a strong and lasting free society—including effective governing structures, a sound financial system, and the rule of law. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have welcomed his appointment.

The United States’ commitment to the Palestinian people remains strong. This year alone, we will provide $144 million in food assistance, education, health, and social services for Palestinians registered with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. We will provide $50 million in assistance for Palestinian basic human needs, democracy, and civil society, and private sector development through United States Agency for International Development—all of this is in addition to nearly $130 million in ongoing USAID programs.

On July 10, the President authorized the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to support a program that will help generate $228 million in lending to Palestinian small and medium enterprises. We are working with American business to set up partnerships in the Palestinian territories, because we know that a vibrant private sector is the key to a vibrant economy.

Also, as Walter Isaacson has mentioned, Secretary Rice is asking the American private sector to promote economic and business opportunities for Palestinians. This is one area in which the Palestinian- and Arab-American community can really make a difference.

Of course, we applaud Ziad for establishing the American Charities for Palestine. This initiative will harness and unleash the generosity of the Palestinian-American community to improve the lives of the Palestinian people. By channeling greatly needed assistance to promising projects in the West Bank, American Charities for Palestine will support important work already being done on the ground by the United States Agency for International Development and the State Department. I encourage each and every one of you here tonight to evaluate what you can do and how you can help.

Finally, we continue to encourage both Israel and the Palestinians to meet their obligations under the Roadmap. There is no alternative to progress on the ground. Israel should halt settlement expansion, remove unauthorized outposts, and reduce its footprint in the West Bank. I know the Israelis are serious about peace, but it is important that the Palestinian people know and see that as well.

The Palestinians have to seriously undertake reforms to show that they can govern themselves and to set up the necessary institutions of their future state. They have to work harder to combat terror and extremism in their communities to prove that a Palestinian state can thrive peacefully alongside its neighbors.

The past year in Palestinian and Israeli history has been a difficult one. As Secretary Rice said on her most recent trip to the region, “We’ve come quite a long way and we’ve got quite a long way to go—but we’re not going to tire until we have given it our last ounce of energy and my last moment in office.”

We all have a duty to help clarify the way forward and get involved. By supporting the reforms of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, we can all help show the world what a Palestinian state will look like and act like, showing that a Palestinian state can be a partner for peace and prosperity in the world.

And as Secretary Rice said this week, “the time for a Palestinian state is now.”

Before I leave you, I have a letter to read to you from President Bush:

“I send greetings to those gathered for the Second Annual Gala of the American Task Force on Palestine.

More than 5 years ago, I became the first American President to call for the creation of a Palestinian state. Since that time, my Administration has actively worked to advance the vision of two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace and security. We have intensified our financial, political, and diplomatic commitments to help strengthen the forces of moderation and peace among the Palestinian people. America will continue to work with President Abbas, Prime Minister Olmert, and the international community to further the goal of a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state.

I appreciate the American Task Force on Palestine and its members for your dedicated efforts to support peace in the Middle East. By working together, we can build a brighter future for the Palestinian people and a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren.

Laura and I send our best wishes.

George W. Bush.”

Thank you.

APPENDIX VI

Keynote Address by Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority Salam Fayyad at ATFP’s Third Annual Gala “The Courage to Persist, the Will to Build”

October 12, 2008

Ladies and gentlemen;

Your Excellencies.

It is really an honor for me to have the opportunity to address such an esteemed audience tonight.

Tonight’s event is neatly book-ended by a number of significant events in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last month, we markedfifteen years since the signing of the first in a series of interim agreements. Next month, of course, will mark one year since the renewal of peace negotiations at Annapolis. And, yet, regrettably, we continue to walk the bumpy road to peace that began in Madrid seventeen years ago this month.

A lot can be said, and has been said, about the ups and downs of this process. But, what we do know is that we all hoped that we would be a lot closer to peace by now. The Annapolis Conference embodied the hope that we would achieve a comprehensive peace agreement by year’s end. In the meantime, we, Palestinians, had expected an improved economic and security environment to underpin the political track.

Alas, few expectations have been met. Settlements pepper the West Bank and continue to grow. Every indicator of settlement activity—from public- and private-initiated construction, to tenders and building permits—shows that rather than stopping, settlement activity has in fact accelerated since Annapolis. … That’s right.Accelerated.

Similarly, restrictions on access and movement aretighter than they werebefore Annapolis. Compare 563 checkpoints and roadblocks before Annapolis to 630 today, not to mention the severe tightening of the siege on Gaza. And land confiscations, home demolitions, military incursions and raids all continued.

Needless to say, the quality of life for the average Palestinian has worsened. And if we are honest with ourselves, vague pronouncements that the current peace talks are “on-going” and “serious” mean little on the Palestinian street and, when all is told, are of little relevance to people who are living hand to mouth.

As devastating as these developments have been on Palestinians’ fabric of life, the combination of deteriorating conditions on the ground and the lack of a political horizon have had an even worse impact on the Palestinians’ state of mind, which had already been seriously deformed by the erosion in self-esteem, and self-assuredness, prompted by decades of Israeli occupation and oppression. We, Palestinians, have felt this erosion. Those old enough to remember the first Intifada felt it during the second Intifada. We felt the shame of it in June of last year. We felt it last month when twelve of our citizens, including a baby, were killed in Gaza.

I have always felt that an understanding of how this sad state of affairs came about was necessary to enable us to position ourselves on a path that could lead to freedom and independence. The truth is: the loss of self-esteem and assuredness had tended to elicit one of two seemingly diametrically opposed reactions among the Palestinian public, namely, defeatism and belligerence. The painful truth is that neither is constructive. You cannot end the occupation if you are dominated by a “can do nothing,” defeatist kind of attitude. Nor will belligerence get you there, with what may come with it by way of violence and isolationist tendencies.

When viewed this way, it becomes clear that the greatest obstacle that has prevented us, Palestinians, from achieving our national goals was not occupation per se or factionalism, not poverty or separation, but that deadly erosion of self-esteem and consequent loss of faith in our capacity to get things done.

If this analysis is correct, which I believe it is, it follows that to end the occupation, we, Palestinians, must first rid ourselves of what four decades of Israeli occupation have precipitated by way of fear, skepticism, cynicism, self-doubt, and, yes loss of self-esteem.

I believe we can—though I must confess I didn’t always. At one point, the erosion of our esteem seemed to have taken on a life of its own, propelled by its own momentum, becoming almost self-fulfilling … almost. However, I truly believe we can regain our sense of self-assuredness, once we, Palestinians, collectively embrace—consciously embrace—a paradigm that says that, along the way to freedom, defeatism must be defeated and belligerence must be set aside. To me, this is not only emancipation—it is deliverance.

Acting on this conviction, and from day one—a day of national tragedy of virtually unprecedented proportions—my government set out to put in place and set in motion mechanisms capable of getting us there. My motto was “building towards statehood despite the occupation”. This involved, in the first instance, building strong, effective institutions capable of delivering services to our people in an effective, expeditious and fair manner, all within the framework of good governance. The effort has already started to bear fruit. In the area of financial management, for example, I am proud to say that we now have a system that truly measures up to the highest international standards and practices. In addition to building up our credibility at home, this has won our government the international confidence necessary to secure much needed aid, including from the United States and the European Union.

Indeed, last March the U.S. Administration transferred US $150 million directly to the Palestinian Authority coffers. This transfer was the largest sum of assistance to be transferred to the PA in a single tranche by any donor for any purpose since the Authority’s inception. What is more, the Administration is about to transfer another US $150 million to us the same way. Surely this will be another strong message of support and desire to help, which I deeply cherish. What I cherish even more is the strong message of confidence in the integrity of our public finance system which this action by the Administration implies. For, as you know, however strong the desire to help is—and indeed it is—Congress would not authorize a transfer directly into our coffers, of this amount or indeed any amount, were it not for the integrity and the credibility which our financial system and management have come to enjoy.

This is but one example of the progress we have been able to achieve over the past year in building towards statehood. There are other important examples, especially in the sphere of security and law and order. Together, these efforts prompted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to speak of “an emerging sense of self-empowerment” among Palestinians.

I share his assessment. I have had the opportunity to visit most districts in the West Bank this past year—which I hope to be able replicate in Gaza—and everywhere I have been, I was greeted by a cautious, yet distinct glimmer of the self-respect, pride and resilience that makes me, despite all the obstacles we face, so very proud to be Palestinian.

It is there in the streets of Nablus and Jenin, where law and order and, thus, a modicum of normalcy have been restored. It was there in Manger Square in Bethlehem one starry night last May, when a thousand businessmen and dignitaries from all over Palestine and abroad, including Israel, dined together in the open air. It is there every Friday—andhas been for the past few years, and will continue to be there—in Bil’in, where villagers peacefully protest against the erection of a despicable wall that threatens their livelihood and, sometimes, their lives, thoughnever their spirit. It was there one sad day when Palestinians walked up a Ramallah hill to bury Palestine’s most highly revered literary icon (Mahmoud Darwish), conjuring up memories of the day our nation mourned the loss of our late President Yasir Arafat. It was there the day when a shipment of Palestinian pharmaceutical products, destined for the first time ever to Germany, made its way through the maze of economic restrictions in the West Bank, to meet the most exacting pharmaceutical standards in the world. And, yes, it was there the day Palestinians welcomed a boat-load of visitors off the shore of Gaza … And it isthere, every single day, that a Palestinian child goes to school, that a Palestinian farmer manages to work his/her land, that a Palestinian mother remains hopeful that her son will be released from Israeli prison, that a rural community begins to benefit from the implementation of one of literally hundreds of community projects being implemented throughout the country, that a Palestinian family chooses—finds a way—to remain on their land for another day.

We are approaching a critical mass of positive change—positive facts on the ground, as I like to call them, that are indicative of a most encouraging shift in the mindset of our people, away from doom and gloom towards a distinct sense of possibility and the promise of a better future.

When and where possible, with President Abbas’s guidance and support, our government tried to help generate opportunities and create conditions to make these things possible—and, in so doing, to nurture our people’s sense of dignity in themselves.This, more than anything, is what I think our job is about—as we say here tonight, “the courage to persist, the will to build”. And I am unequivocally committed to continuing to do that—now and even after I leave office.

Still,there is no dignity in what is happening to us now. And the same is true for the Israelis. There is nothing dignified in Israeli parents having to be afraid while their children are away at school. There is no dignity for the mother of the Israeli soldier who delayed a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint near Nablus, causing her to lose her unborn child. There is also nothing dignified about the world’s fifth largest army subjugating a people with no country and no army. There is nothing dignified in a country that prides itself on being a democracy when it allows itself to be held hostage by a group of extremist settlers who forcibly put their own interests ahead of the will of the majority.

Despite this—indeed, because of this—we, Palestinians, remain hopeful—resolute—to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict between us and Israelis based on a two-state model. Palestinians long to live in freedom like any other people. For, in freedom, there is dignity, as there is in freedom from fear.

In fact, we don’t just seek peace; we seek a meaningful and lasting peace with Israel. We seek strong ties with Israel. We seek strong economic ties between the independent states of Israel and Palestine. We seek warm relations with Israelis. We do not want to simply get to a point where we just accept each other—we want to have warm relations where we both recognize the mutual economic, intellectual, spiritual, and of course security benefits of living and working together. We do not want to erect walls; we want to build bridges.  We do not want to close Israelis out of our lives; we want to live with Israelis as our neighbors.

However, let it be known that Palestinians are not interested in just any state and not at any cost. It is not just Israel who has a constituency it has to worry about and serve. Let’s not forget the reasons why the results of Palestinian parliamentary elections were what they were in 2006. As one prominent Israeli advocate of peace put it, “There is no Palestinian partner for improving the quality of the occupation—there is only a Palestinian partner for ending the occupation.” When all is said and done, the Palestinian leadership will have to take any agreement it negotiates with Israel to its people.

People have an inherent sense of fairness by which they judge any settlement. And that inherent sense of fairness tells them that a peace agreement with Israel must yield a viable, contiguous, independent, potentially prosperous, sovereign Palestinian state on 22 percent of their historic homeland with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a solution to the refugee issue that honors the refugees and recognizes their legitimate rights and their suffering. That same inherent sense of fairness tells them that a rump state made up of disconnected Israeli throw-aways is not what they have waited so long or sacrificed so much for. It tells them that the great compromise they made back in 1988, when they relinquished claim to 78 percent of their historic homeland, should be acknowledged and respected by the other party.

Regrettably, the two-state solution is teetering under the weight of 170 settlements and almost half a million settlers. Time is running out on the two-state solution. With every brick that is laid in a settler house, with every road that is paved for settlers, with every concrete slab that is erected for the wall that snakes in and out of the West Bank, the bond that ties Israelis and Palestinians together, which originates in the fact that we must share the same piece of land, grows just a little bit tighter. That is the great irony of Israel’s settlement enterprise. Prime Minister Olmert recognized this. He said, “The day will come when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights.”

Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that, through negotiations, wecan reach a lasting peace between us on the basis of a two-state solution. For this process to be successful, however, we must, again, bring to it dignity and credibility. Oslo stalled because it quickly lost credibility—there was talk of peace while actions on the ground worked against peace. Annapolis risks being the same unless Israel reconciles its behavior on the ground with its stated intentions of peace and creating a viable and independent Palestinian state.

And so, if we are to get to where we want to be, we have to treat each other with dignity—lead with dignity. This means behaving like statesmen instead of politicians—thinking of the next generation, not the next elections.

For Palestinians, what this means is remaining steadfast not just to our principles for a solution, but to our commitment to non-violence and previous agreements. And we are resolute in this. Make no mistake about it. As I mentioned earlier, I view my role as Prime Minister as one of assisting our people, to the best of my ability, to live just a little bit better than the day before, and to stay on their land for another day … and another. But we do it—and will continue to do it—through constructive, non-violent means that honor our very noble cause.

For Israel, what this means is negotiating an agreement with us as equals, no more and no less. Not bullying Palestinians at the negotiating table with facts on the ground it only erected yesterday—or five years ago, or 10 years ago, or 35 years ago. Saying “no” to the settlers. Not abusing its stature as an occupying power to coerce, for example, by withholding much-needed tax dollars when it disagrees with our legitimate means of diplomatic protest. Not shutting away 1.5 million Palestinians from the world for the unacceptable actions of a few.

For the rest of the world, this means showing strength of leadership, and getting tough with transgressors of our commonly-held values, whether friend or foe. The world has been generous with us, backing our state-building efforts with robust financial investment. And it has been tough with us when it felt we strayed onto an undesirable path. We now need it to be equally demanding of our neighbor. We need the international community to hold Israel to its word when it says it desires the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. We need the world to take practical steps to keep the establishment of such a state possible. Wagging its finger at continued settlement activity is simply not enough.

With the help and encouragement of this US Administration, we are off to a good start. However, neither we nor the Israelis can afford to wait another four or eight years. We will desperately need theimmediate assistance and investment from the incoming administration if we are to make a success of the process begun at Annapolis.

This is where the Palestinian-American community can be of great service. To members of this community, let me first say that I am privileged to have lived long enough in this country to appreciate its beauty and understand why you think this nation of immigrants became so great. You are an enormous but enormously underutilized source of strength to the cause of a just and durable peace. We need to work together to create that other state which, one day, you may wish to call home. We are facing many domestic difficulties and challenges, especially those related to the current state of separation. Do not give up on us. We have proposed concrete ideas the adoption of which is capable of reuniting Gaza and the West Bank. These include the formation of a national consensus, non-factional government in the run-up to presidential and legislative elections, and the utilization of Arab security assistance for a transitional period to help with the rehabilitation of our security services and with the provision of law and order in Gaza until our services are rehabilitated. National dialogue on the key political issues can then proceed, but then against the backdrop of a reunified country, in the hope of sorting out our political differences or at least forging a national consensus on how to manage these differences in a civilized, orderly, and non-violent manner. Just as you were not indifferent to the less-than-perfect way in which the PNA managed the affairs of the Palestinian people after Oslo, you cannot, I would submit, be indifferent to the risk of our country—our state-in-the-making—sliding towards backwardness, isolation, repression of freedom, gender inequality, and cultural and religious intolerance. For those who may have crossed that bridge to nowhere, to nothingness, indeed, destructive nothingness, I respectfully ask that you to reconsider.

And so, my friends, we are at a crossroads. A lot is riding on the choices we all make. Outcomes are not ordained or inevitable. We must seek to draw the right lessons from our experiences of peace-making since Madrid. Now is not the time to ditch the solution concept which, with President Bush’s 2002 speech, became a matter of explicit international consensus, namely, the vision of two states living side by side in peace and security. For abandoning that concept would be another escape to destructive nothingness.

Instead, we should make adjustments. Since Oslo, the pendulum has swung too far away from what international law and justice prescribes, towards the diktat of practicality, towards what may be seen as acceptable to each of the parties to the conflict. This shift would not have been too problematic had it occurred in a context of parity of influence. However, with us, Palestinians, holding the shorter end of the stick, this disparity has necessarily meant an erosion in our position with each round of diplomacy that did not end with a solution. This structural defect has to be redressed. It is time for the pendulum to swing back in the direction of what international law and justice requires. Back in 1988, Palestinians made the historic and painful compromise that we felt was necessary to secure a solution to the conflict. As our Israeli neighbors think about what they consider to be painful compromises, it is my hope that they will devote equal time to reflecting on the promise that ending the occupation of all Arab territories holds: normalization not just with Arab countries, but with the 57 member states of the Islamic Conference who all endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative. That consideration will no doubt be aided by effective international engagement, with the U.S. leading the way in close partnership with the rest of the community of nations, especially the other members of the Quartet, as well as Arab countries. To me,this is the way forward.

APPENDIX VII

ON A NEW BEGINNING

Excerpt from the Address by US President Barack Obama

at Cairo University, Egypt, www.whitehouse.gov/

June 4, 2009

…[T]he Palestinian people—Muslims and Christians—have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations—large and small—that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

For decades then, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It’s easy to point fingers—for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel’s founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

That is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest. And that is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires. The obligations—the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them—and all of us—to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society. Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

And finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.

Too many tears have been shed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra…when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.

ABOUT THE…

AMERICAN TASK FORCE ON PALESTINE (ATFP)

The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, DC.

ATFP is dedicated to advocating that it is in the American national interest to promote an end to the conflict in the Middle East through a negotiated agreement that provides for two states—Israel and Palestine—living side by side in peace and security.

ATFP was established in 2003 to provide an independent voice for Palestinian-Americans and their supporters and to promote peace. AFTP’s Board of Directors is made up of a large group of noted Palestinian-Americans who agree with these principles.

ATFP is funded entirely by its Board of Directors and supporters. It has never received funding from any government or government agency. ATFP’s signed, audited financial statements are posted online on its web site.

ATFP works primarily in Washington, DC, and seeks to build strong working relationships with government departments and agencies, think tanks and NGOs, and the media. It has developed lines of communication with the US, Palestinian, Israeli, and Jordanian governments in order to pursue its policy advocacy goals.

ATFP has also engaged in humanitarian fundraising to support health and education causes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

ATFP is strictly opposed to all acts of violence against civilians no matter the cause and no matter who the victims or perpetrators may be. ATFP advocates the development of a Palestinian state that is democratic, pluralistic, non-militarized, and neutral in armed conflicts.

EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

SALIBA SARSAR, born and raised in Jerusalem, is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Task Force on Palestine. He is Professor of Political Science and Associate Vice President for Academic Program Initiatives at Monmouth University. He is the author, editor, and co-editor of several works on the Middle East, including (with Hussein Ibish) Principles and Pragmatism: Key Documents from the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP, 2006) and (with Drew Christiansen) Patriarch Michel Sabbah—Faithful Witness: On Reconciliation and Peace in the Holy Land(New City Press, 2009). He is active in Arab-Jewish Dialogue.

GHAITH AL-OMARI, former Foreign Policy Advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is Advocacy Director of the American Task Force on Palestine and Senior Research Fellow of the American Strategy Program of the New American Foundation.

REEMA I. ALIis a member of the Board of Directors of the American Task Force on Palestine. She formed the law firm of Ali & Partners in 1991 and currently runs its international practice, with a special focus on the Middle East, where she has practiced law for over two decades. 

ZIAD ASALI,born and raised in Jerusalem, is the President and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine. He is a sought-after voice on Middle East issues on Capitol Hill, where he has testified before both chambers of Congress. He has been featured in Al-Ahram Weekly, the Washington Times, and in the Forward, and has contributed and written for the Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, and The Daily Star, among others. He has provided commentary and interviews to both Arabic and Western media.

GEORGE S. HISHMEH, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Task Force on Palestine, was born in Nazareth, Palestine. He is a Washington-based columnist and writer for Gulf News, The Jordan Times, and The Daily Star, which is published jointly with The International Herald Tribune. He is also president of the Washington Association of Arab Journalists (WAAJ), a group that includes 50 journalists who cover most of the Arab media, print and electronic.

HUSSEIN IBISHis Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership. He has made thousands of radio and television appearances and has written for many newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune.  His most recent book is What is Wrong with the One-State Agenda?: Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009). His blog can be accessed at http://www.ibishblog.com/.

DAOUD KUTTAB, born and raised in Jerusalem, is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Task Force on Palestine. An award winning journalist and columnists, his articles have appeared in various media outlets, including The Jordan Times, Jerusalem Post, and the Gulf News. In 2007-08, he was the Ferris Journalism Professor at Princeton University. His blog can be accessed at http://www.daoudkuttab.com/.

HIYAM ZAKHARIA SARSAR, born and raised in Jerusalem, holds a Master of Science degree. She taught for nine years at the Ramallah Friends School and is now an Adjunct Professor at Monmouth University. She is active in Arab-Jewish Dialogue. 

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And so, if we are to get to where we want to be, we have to treat each other with dignity—lead with dignity. This means behaving like statesmen instead of politicians—thinking of the next generation, notthe next elections.

            Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

            ATFP’s Third Annual Gala, October 12, 2008

Too many tears have been shed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra…when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.

            U.S. President Barack Obama

Cairo University, June 5, 2009

The only viable resolution to this conflict is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states… The United States will not take any action which undermines Israel’s security. The Palestinians are entitled to a viable, geographically contiguous state that provides independence and dignity for their people.  We do not regard those two objectives as irreconcilable.

            U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell

June 16, 2009

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