Category: Palestine 2003-05

Marwan Barghouthi as the Palestinians’ Mandela? It has always been
a possibility. And it is one that, despite the Fateh Revolutionary
Council’s recent decision to back Abu Mazen as the movement’s candidate in
the upcoming PA elections, is still being actively considered by many
in the upper echelons of Fateh.

I imagine that in the first instance that would be “Mandela, the representative
of all the nationalist prisoners, whose release becomes an international
cause célèbre“, rather than “Mandela, the wily political
prisoner who manages to negotiate a far-reaching political deal with his
captors, while always keeping within the discipline of his movement”… Though
that other step may come later, God willing.

Except for this: remember just how many years Mandela had to be in jail (28),
before he reached his deal with De Klerk… By that standard, it would
be another 23 years or so till the Palestinians and Israelis reached their
deal. A depressing thought, altogether.

Anyway, this prospect of Fateh launching a broad campaign to focus on “Free
Barghouthi”, echoing the “Free Mandela” movement in which so many of us participated
back in the 1970s and 1980s, is just one of the things I learned about by
reading this
article, from Saida Hamad in East Jerusalem, in the online version of
Hayat today. I even, as an exercize in my Arabic-language reading
skills, wrote out a complete translation of the piece in English…

(Why is this happening? We were planning to be on our way to Teheran
today. But the Iranian visas didn’t come through until just after the
departure of the flight we were supposed to be leaving Beirut on. There’s
a possibility we can get another flight, Tuesday. Meantime, I don’t
want to be sitting here in our apartment in Beirut twiddling my thumbs…)

So anyway, the four most interesting things in Hamad’s piece were these:

1. The info about the possible “Free Barghouthi” campaign. As you
   can see from the translation I provided, the “old guard” guys in Fateh reportedly
   promised this to Marwan as part of the quid pro quo they offered
   him in return for him agreeing not only not stand against Abu Mazen in the
   January elections, but also (gulp), actually to support him… The other
   parts of the quid pro quo were: (a ) A commitment to hold the 16th
   meeting of Fateh’s policymaking General Conference no later than August,
   so that both the Central Committee and (I assume) the Revolutionary Council
   can be renewed there through democratic means… (In contrast to much past
   practice.) Plus (b) the possibility that in connection with the “Free
   Barghouthi” campaign, Abu Mazen would name Marwan as his “Vice Presidential”
   candidate in the PA election…So far, it looks as though Marwan drove a
   pretty hard bargain…

Continue reading “Palestinian elections-2”

Election plans for both Palestine and Iraq are in the news. In Iraq, they are being planned with a view to the possible withdrawal of the occupation forces– certainly, a total withdrawal is what the vast majority of Iraqis want to see ensue after them.
In Palestine, it is less clear what will ensue from the elections scheduled for January 9. Clearly, the consensus among Palestinians for a total withdrawal of the forces occupying their country is even stronger than the consensus among Iraqis in that regard. But the Israelis are not about to simply do that, election or no election.
Here, by the way, is the column I had in Monday’s CSM on the Palestinian election issue. I argue there that the “diaspora” Palestinians– that is, those millions of Palestinian refugees whom Israel still prevents from returning even to the area of the future Palestinian state– should be represented in the upcoming elections…
I have to say that, regrettably, it ain’t going to happen. Well, not this time, anyway.
Many, many contacts are going on now in preparation for the Palestinian elections, which are solely for the position of ‘chairman’ (or ‘president’) of the Oslo-decreed ‘Palestinian authority’. Which doesn’t actually have much, if any, real authority. But will be heading the negotiations with the Israelis from here on out.
Each of the major Palestinian groups/blocs will be presenting its candidate, and several ‘independents’ have announced their candidacy too. There’s a possibility that Fateh will nominate Marwan Barghouthi, who’s in jail in Israel serving five life terms. He could then become a Mandela-like icon figure. Interesting…

Update: They ended up choosing Abu Mazen… However, Marwan’s cousin Dr Mustapha Barghouthi is mentioned as a possibility for the “leftist” candidate…

Continue reading “Election news- Palestine”

Some thoughts from Beirut about the post-Arafat period (RIP):
(1) We’ve been having amazing, wall-to-wall coverage of the Arafat events on the BBC’s Middle East feed. Riveting stuff, and very well anchored from Ramallah by Lyse Doucet. I can’t imagine anyone in US television who could do half as good a job: well-informed, balanced, capable, great stamina…
The vignette that really caught my eye happened at around 3 this afternoon, local time, after the helicopters bringing YA’s mortal remains and the entourage back to Ramallah landed in the teeming-full Muqataa. The waiting Palestinians–nearly all of whom in that place were male– all surged forward and surrounded the choppers. Saeb Eraqat, the shaved-head, rather self-important guy who’s been in charge of “Negotiations Policy” for a while, tried with some colleagues to let down the chopper door that has the stairway in it so they could all get out. The crowd would not move back to let the stairway down.
He stood there for some 20-30 minutes making big gestures and evidently loud appeals to people to back off… But no-one responded to him, at all. All the PA humpty-humps were kept virtual prisoners in the chopper for all that time.
(2) I wonder if that signifies something bigger? I know that many Palestinians, inside and outside the homeland, lost patience with the “negotiation” team a long time ago. Also, with the “negotiations”…
So many talking heads– people, I should add, who often know diddly-squat about Palestinian politics– have been saying things like, “Well, after the death of Arafat there’s a window of opportunity, and a new generation of more moderate leaders can come forward…”
Boy, that’s a tired old tune. We certainly heard it back in 2000 when Hafez al-Asad died…. That his son Bashar, the present Preisdent, was a “new generation” guy, which in the eyes of many westerners equates with being either extremely pro-western or completelyt warm and fuzzy on negotiations and ready to give away the store in them…
They were wrong about Bashar, and I dare say they will most likely be wrong about whoever it is that– eventually–takes over from Arafat.

Continue reading “Thoughts after Arafat”

Here’s how my Arafat obit-column in today’s CSM came out.

We awoke today to the BBC presenting breaking news of Arafat’s death. I now have to crash-edit an obit-style column on him that I drafted ten days ago. It’s more an evaluation of him as a person/leader than a piece about the politics: what comes next, etc.
Tough piece to write because I feel so much of the disappointment, anger, etc towards him that many of my Palestinian friends (and some Israeli friends) feel… (See this JWN post.)
And yet he did play an important role, historically. That is undeniable. Plus, it’s not appropriate to speak too harshly of the recently departed.
I reckon that some similarly complex mixture of feelings and assessments may explain why the reaction to the news of his failing over the past couple of weeks, coming from Palestinians inside and outside the homeland, has been notably muted. That, and the very unseemly public set-to between Suha and the old guys.
Oh yes, and let’s not forget that the Palestinian “leadership” still doesn’t have any real strategy for success beyond the essentially defensive strategy of avoiding internal breakdown. Though avoiding that is extremely important, I know.
Best of luck to them all.
Gotta go.
Update 11 a.m. Beirut/Ramallah time:
Was just watching Al-Jazeera. Saw Salim al-Zaanoun announcing that Abu Mazen’s been named head of the PLO Executive Committee. At the same time a crawl at the bottom saying that Fateh’s Central Committee has named Farouq Qaddumi as its head. Interesting.
Then, over to the BBC: reporters on the streets of Ramallah where a quiet though fairly sparse-looking group of Palestinians had started to gather. This seems like interesting evidence of the remoteness of the old guys inside the Muqataa from the actual Palestinian people all around them… That they didn’t even have people outside the Muqataa organizing anything?
Reportedly, more activity in the Ain al-Helwa refugee camp in south Lebanon, which has long been a hotbed for a fairly radical form of pro-Fateh activism.

I “knew” in some abstract sense that conditions in the
Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon have become really terrible since 1982,
and are now easily the worst of those in any Palestinian refugee camps anywhere.
Worse, even, than most of the camps in Gaza, many Palestinian friends
had told me.

But on this visit to Beirut I wanted to see the situation in Shatila camp,
where I worked briefly as a volunteer English-language teacher back in 1974,
for myself.

Continue reading “Back to Shatila, part 2”

In the summer of 1974, shortly after I arrived in Beirut
to make my way as a journalist, I started volunteering to teach English
in Shatila, one of a number of refugee camps around Beirut that gave shelter to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war in Israel/Palestine.

Eight years later, the name “Shatila” was to become inscribed on the conscience of the world, after the Israeli-orchestrated massacre there that left hundreds– quite possibly as many as 2,000–of the camp’s civilian population dead.

But those days were still far in the future when I first walked along the broad, but chaotic and filthy thoroughfare that led to the heart of the refugee camp in 1974.

Continue reading “Back to Shatila, part 1”

I am really delighted with the news from Gaza (as reported by the BBC) that,

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are pressing for a more broad-based national leadership in which they would have a say…

And also, that,

A Hamas spokesman said after the meeting that Mr Qurei [Abu Alaa] had accepted the idea in principle and that there would be more talks on how to implement this.

(The Beeb’s Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston did, however, caveat that by noting that Qurei himself was “more vague on the issue”.)
The prospect of Hamas and IJ joining a broad-based leadership would certainly help to stabilize the situation inside Palestine during the present transition, because:

(1) Between them these two Islamic groups form such a large proportion of the community that keeping them out of its ruling councils– as has been Arafat’s insistence up until now— has been a recipe for political paralysis, a breakdown of internal trust, and considerable factionalism, and
(2) These two groups have considerably more internal discipline and dedication than the secular-nationalist groups, led by Arafat’s own Fateh, that have monopolized PA/PLO decision-making until now.

(For more background on this, you might want to read the piece I had in Boston Review on Gaza, a few months ago.)
Beyond the immediate transitional arrangement of some kind of joint PLO/PA/Hamas/IJ ruling council the only plausible way to reconstitute any kind of a more lasting Palestinian leadership that can actually save Israelis and Palestinians from an escalating disaster at this point is to hold nationwide Palestinian elections in which all these different groups participate/compete.
Dr. Mustapha Barghouthi, the head of the Palestinian National Initiative has been at the forefront of the call for Palestinian national elections. He has argued that elections are, “a vital precondition for peace”. He notes too that

[F]reedom of movement is needed to ensure these elections may take place.
… these elections will not take place unless the international community provides an international presence to ensure an easing of the political and territorial conditions that make elections impossible.

I would certainly second Barghouthi’s appeal for elections. But I would go further than he seems to, and argue that the next elections for a Palestinian leadership should be designed to include the Palestinian people of the diaspora, not merely those living in the occupied territories…

Continue reading “Palestinian prospects”

I was just watching the BBC… they’re awaiting some important news from the French hospital re the Old Man… What I did see, however, was a tiny video clip, unremarked by their correspondent, that showed my old bud David Pearce, once a UPI journo and now the US Consul-General in Jerusalem, leaving the Muqataa in Ramallah.
US officials have been forbidden from meeting the Palestinian leadership for a while now, in line with Sharon’s attempt to boycott Arafat completely.
Seeing David at the Muqataa like that just reminded me of the kinds of much-needed contacts that will become possible after the Old Man’s passing…
Arafat’s physical passing, taken along with Tony Blair’s very well-timed intervention urging Bush to move fast back into Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, means that some interesting things could indeed happen on the peace front in the next few weeks. (See previous post.)
It is quite possible that the main thing David Pearce was talking about at the Muqataa was plans for a (future) funeral. Where will Arafat be buried? Which world leaders will want to attend, and which will be allowed to attend?
How about the Arab leaders, in that regard?
All fascinating questions. Plus, Islamic burial norms mean the burial should occur within 24 hours of the announcement of death. So maybe the “coma” will have to last a little longer while they iron all these details out?
Sorry to be so grisly about all this. Of course, I still wish him and his family all comfort through this passage.
… BBC still not showing anything from Percy Hospital. H’mmm.

Things have gotten fairly busy for me here in Beirut. One project I’ve been pursuing a little is on the whole concept of “unilateral” withdrawals, such as Sharon currently espouses for Gaza. The Israelis undertook an earlier such withdrawal, back in May 2000, from the occupied zone they’d held inside South Lebanon since 1978. And that withdrawal brought a good measure of stability to the border between the two states.
But Gaza is different from South Lebanon in at least two key respects. So why is Sharon so intent on making the withdrawal from Gaza unilateral, I wonder?? Especially since keeping it unilateral will without a doubt mean it’s a very ragged withdrawal under fire.
The withdrawal from South Lebanon was different from the one Sharon’s envisaging for Gaza in these vital ways:
(1) There was a government in Lebanon that was ready and eager to reassert as much control as possible over south Lebanon after the Israeli withdrawal, and
(2) The population of the occupied zone here, though it had risen strongly against Israel’s continued occupation, nevertheless has its roots and family landholdings here. So these people so could be expected to consider the reclamation of those lands after the withdrawal a real gain that should not easily be put in jeopardy thereafter by, for example, continuing to lob missiles over the Israeli border.
Neither of these factors applies in Gaza. There is no government there… and Sharon’s stress on not negotiating the withdrawal with any Palestinian party means that it would be almost impossible for the PA or any other governing body to take root there, post the withdrawal.
And neither does most of the population of Gaza have any longheld family landholdings or other vested interests in the Strip. Eighty percent of the people in Gaza are refugees from 1948, from inside Israel. Israel has completely refused to listen to their claims for return or compensation. And most of them only have mean hovels to eke out a living in, in the sprawling refugee camps of Gaza. They have almost nothing left to lose, and their longstanding claims against Israel are still outstanding. Why should they be content weith “merely” reclaiming a small degree more control over their very unsatisfactory current living environment?
And actually, the degree of control they gain will not be large. Sharon is insisting on retaining control over all the entry and exit points around Gaza, and over the air-space; he also insists on retaining the right to re-enter any point of Gaza he wants, post the so-called “withdrawal”… So what kind of self-government does that allow the Palestinians of Gaza? Far, far less than the Black South Africans got in their Bantustans… and nobody anywhere else in the world (except Israel and South Africa) expected them to be able to live with that.
Indeed, that form of apartheid was deemed by the UN to be a “crime against humanity”.
So why, I ask again, is Sharon so intent on making his planned withdrawal from Gaza “unilateral”?
I think I have one part of the answer…

Continue reading “On unilateral withdrawal”