Category: Palestine 2006

I had a coffee today with an old friend of our family who is a Palestinian who was born and grew up in one of the great cities of the West Bank, graduating high school there in the early 1950s… That was shortly after the Jordanian King annexed the (previously Palestinian) West Bank to the East Bank land of (Trans-)Jordan that had been allocated to the Hashemites in the great post-WW1 carve up of the Arab-populated Near East.
In those post-annexation days, the official ideology was that “West Bankers” and “East Bankers” had all alike come together within the single happy family of “Jordan”.
Our friend had some politically colorful years in his young manhood there. But by the mid-1960s he’d decided to throw his lot in with the monarchy… and he stuck to that position, through Jordan’s “loss” of the West Bank to Israel in 1967 and even through the brief but lethal civil war that broke out in Jordan in September 1970, after King Hussein decided to expel the Palestinian guerrilla groups that were starting to sink some serious roots inside his kingdom. (Especially near the Jordan River.)
As he told me today, his judgment at the time was that “It would be far easier for us Palestinians to take our Palestinian state from Jordan than directly from Israel. So let Jordan get the land away from Israel and then we can discuss its future with Jordan.” Not a crazy judgment– but diametrically opposed to the tactics being pursued by Fateh and its allies at the time.
So he rose impressively high in the King’s service. But as he told me today, “About 20 or more years ago, the King started blocking Palestinians systematically out from access to the kingdom’s pathways of advancement.” Jordan is a very state-centered country, one in which the main way in which young men can get jobs or technical training or access to edication is through either the army or one of the other branches of the state…
So at that point (and I should check with him again, exactly when he thinks that started happening), he said that these pathways started being blocked to the Palestnians– who nowadays make up around 65% of the national population. “We have now had a complete social restratification here,” he said.

The Palestinians in Jordan used to be the ones who had a good education, good skills, ran the companies, had access to capital. And the Jordanians were poor. Now, apart from a few very rich Palestinians who just look out for themselves, the opposite is true. It’s the Jordanians who have the state jobs, the education, the social status, all of that. And it’s the Palestinians who are poor. And the thing is, the Palestinians here don’t protest!

He had an explanation for that, too, saying the regime seemed to have done an excellent job of “divide and rule” among the Palestinians. “There is not one Palestinian community here; there are five,” he said.

The first are the ones like me: people who came to the capital for jobs and advancement between 1950 and 1967. The second are the ones who’d fled here as refugees in 1948… The third group are the ones who came as refugees during and after the 1967 war– and even that group is divided into two: those who have rights to jobs and benefits, who have a yellow ID card, and those who don’t, who have a green card. The fourth group is the Palestinians from Gaza who ended up here. nd the fifth are the Palestinians from the Gulf– mainly Kuwait– who fled here during and after the Gulf War of 1991.
Some of those Gulf Palestinians had money and resources– but what they totally lacked was any concept of acting like a citizen– in terms of participating in the work of professional unions, or lobbying for their rights, or joining any political organizations… All they had was the concept of being ‘residents’, that they had learned from being in the gulf. I can tell you– I was there for a while, too. I know what it’s like. Every year you’re terrified that your residency rights will be revoked, and it just gnaws and gnaws at you, and you’ll do anything to please the boss just so you can get your renewal.
And they brought that mentality here, to Jordan. Even though they have Jordanian nationality and can’t be thrown out of here the way they were from the Gulf, they still think like that…

He noted that among the “Jordanians” (East Bankers), the regime has also played a clever game of divide and rule– but in this case, doing so among the reported 1,100 clans and tribes that make up the country.

Besides, the ‘Jordanians’ have a fear of losing what they have now, in terms of access to resources. So of course they don’t want to see a democratic opening here, because then they would have to share more equally with the Palestinians.
And the Palestinians here have a fear of losing more than what they’ve already lost. So that’s why you don’t see them protest more, why you don’t see them doing any political organizing.
But on both sides, what the regime is able to play on, is a fear of loss…

Along the way there, I should note, the late King Hussein also made a significant change in the way he looked at the West Bank– the territory that had been annexed back in 1949 by his grandfather. Forty years later, in 1989, Hussein publicly divested himself of any claim to rule the West Bank, to represent its people, or to take responsibility for its fate. He did that in response to the “Declaration of (Palestinian) Independence” that Yasser Arafat had promulgated in late 1988. In 1993, when Arafat and the Israelis negotiated the Oslo Interim Accord, the Palestinian residents of both the West Bank and Gaza were given Palestinian ID cards and Palestinian passports. The Jordanian passports that West Bank-resident Palestinians had previously held were all taken away from them… So I think it really does matter some whether Hussein started his “Jordanianization” program of the army and the civil service before or after that point.
One other thing I noted about our conversation. Completely gone from our friend’s conversation was any use of the once-common terms “West Bankers and “East Bankers”, to denote those two different subsets of the Jordanian citizenry. Now, it was all “Palestinians” and “Jordanians” that he talked about… Implying, of course, that the people here of West Bank origin aren’t really considered to be “Jordanian” at all. Complex things going on…
Anyway, I didn’t have too much time to ask him about the party-political status of the Palestinians here. He did say he thought Fateh was a completely spent force… but I wish I’d probed him more on what he thinks of Hamas’s political organizing efforts here right now.
(I see that yesterday, a Jordanian government spokesman claimed that the security services recently intercepted a shipment of arms of explosives that, he claimed, Hamas was trying to smuggle into Jordan… and because of that, the kingdm has canceled a visit by Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar that was planned for today. This looks like a pathetic pretext– used, presumably, to hide the fact of the regime’s having caved in to US pressure on the matter, as Egypt also did, last Friday. The English-language carried the arms-smuggling allegations as its big lead story– sending a clear message of “We’ve complied!” to the Americans, no doubt. But the picture of the arms they claimed to have intercepted was truly pathetic: two semi-automatic rifles, one aged machine gun, about 60 bullets, and two of what looked like mortar rounds. Hamas, not surprisingly, denied the allegation.)

The Israeli government has decided it will try to take away from the four elected Hamas lawmakers who are residents of Jerusalem the ID cards that allow them to live in the city of their foreparents.
Political revocation of people’s rights to reside in their ancestral cities… Does this not a strike a chord of memory with many Jews? Where might it end?
Israel claims the step is “in response to” the ghastly terror attack that on Monday killed nine people in downtown Tel Aviv. The Israeli government makes no claim that the four legislators are in any way criminally linked to the perpetrators of the terror attack, which was claimed by the Islamic Jihad organization. But Hamas had failed to denounce the attack, arguing that it constituted “legitimate self-defense.”
I happen to strongly disagree with the Hamas leaders’ argument on that score. But still, it seems to me that for the Israeli government to turn round and, in effect, expel these elected Hamas lawmakers from their home city simply because their party has failed to jump through a rhetorical hoop established by the Israeli government is a quite unjustifiable action… There are fears, too, that it could be the lip of a much larger-scale “slippery slope” of anti-Palestinian ethnic cleansing from Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Justice Minister has said he will appeal against the Israeli ruling to the International Court of Justice. I’m not sure whether (a) the PA has standing as a plaintiff at the ICJ, which only hears cases brought by established governments, and (b) whether this is the kind of case–involving, as it does, individuals, albeit lawmakers– that the ICJ would hear anyway?
First, anyway, the threatened MPs will be appealing to the Israeli Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, I see from HaAretz that four Palestinian-Israeli Members of the Israeli Knesset went to visit three of the threatened Hamas lawmakers today, in a show of solidarity.

A great Amira Hass piece on April 12 reminds us of some of the realities of the stifling and anti-humane interaction between Israelis and Palestinians inside the West Bank.
Remembering of course that things are now noticeably different from the way they are in Gaza. In the West Bank, the Israeli military and “Border Police” people are still intimately entwined with the lives and movements of the Palestinians– even in the areas in the north from which four (or was it six?) “Illegal outposts” were removed. Whereas in Gaza, there is no ground presence of either Israeli troops or Israeli settlers. But that has given the IOF much greater latitude to treat the whole Strip as a free-fire zone, if they choose.
So the nature of the interactions in the two territories have now become different…
Hass’s piece is titled The uber-wardens, and it details many of the forest of restrictions placed on the West Bank’s 2.4 million Palestinians as they try to pursue the errands and chores of everyday life.
We actually did a lot in Chapters 2-4 of our 2004 Quaker book on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, to describe these restrictions, and the role that their always unpredictable and often capricious nature plays in making the pursuit of an “ordinary life”, including the simple ability to plan one’s activities for the days or hours ahead, impossible for Palestinians.
Hass concludes by writing about the Israeli military-government bureaucrats who design the many prohibitions places on the Palestinian residents of the West Bank that,

They continue to invent prohibitions because there is no one raising a voice against it. And they are responsible for not only seriously disrupting the lives of Palestinians, but also implanting the jailor mentality in thousands of Israeli young people, soldiers, clerks and policemen – an intoxicating mentality of those who treat those weaker than they with impunity.

But read her whole article there…

I can’t finish this string of posts without urging you to go read Laila el-Haddad’s extremely moving description of how life feels in Gaza under Israeli bombardment. And then, from today, she had this description of the famioly of the 9-year-old girl killed yesterday, Hadil Ghabin, dealing with their shock (and with the grievous wounding of several other kids from the family, including 10-year-old Ahmed Ghabin who was blinded in the attack.)
Just so we can see some figures on what’s been happening, AP reporter Amy Teibel wrote today from Jerusalem:

Since the beginning of the month, Israel has retaliated against an estimated 32 rockets that landed in its territory with 16 airstrikes and about 2,200 artillery rounds, the military said. Since Friday, 17 Palestinians, including 13 militants, have died in the offensive. There have been no Israeli casualties from the rocket fire.

Which side’s action came “as a retaliation for” the other’s is of course, as always, a heavily politicized judgment. But the importabnt thing is for both sides to end the violence, rather than for either of them to engage in any escalation of it.
So which side do we think has been acting in a more esclataory way? The one that in this period launched sixteen airstrikes and 2,200 artillery rounds and killed 17 people– or the one that launched an estimated 32 [very primitive] rockets and inflicted zero casualties?
Teibel actually tells us that,

The military intensified its offensive against Palestinian rocket fire after the Islamic militant group Hamas took charge of the Palestinian Authority two weeks ago.
In a major policy shift, it has begun allowing guns to fire close enough to hit populated areas. That change claimed the life of Hadil Ghaben, 8, on Monday, after two shells blew huge holes in a concrete block house in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. The girl’s mother and seven siblings were hurt in the attack.

The Palestinian observer delegation at the UN has meanwhile asked the UN Security Council “to take urgent action to stop what it called an escalating military campaign by Israeli forces.” He delivered a letter to this effect to the Council’s current president, Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya.

So Palestinian FM Mahmoud Zahhar has sent an intriguing letter to UN chief Kofi Annan. In the portions of the text seen by the AFP reporter, Zahhar assures Annan that,

“We are looking for freedom and independence side by side with our neighbours and we are ready for serious discussions with the quartet… We look forward to living in peace and security, as all countries in the world, and that our people enjoy freedom and independence side-by-side with all our neighbours in this holy place.”

Note that he does not say that the PA government is ready for any kind of discussions with Israel.
The letter does mention the two-state solution that is favored by the international community, including the Quartet of the US, UN, EU, and Russia. But it does not express any actual attitude toward the concept, either for or against. It merely notes that, “Israeli procedures in the occupied territories will put an end to all hopes to reach a final settlement based on the two-state solution.”
Of course, if the Hamas-led government is really prepared to live, “in peace and security… side-by-side with all our neighbours”, you would think that should include Israel. But he’s not spelling it out.
Soon, anyway, Zahhar will be off to visit China.
China’s representative to the Palestinians, Yang Wei Guo, reportedly

said that China respects the “democratic” choice of the Palestinians, referring to Hamas’ election victory two months ago.
“We discussed the joint relations and the bilateral projects and we hope to continue and strengthen the cooperation and friendship in the future,” he said. “China was and will continue to support the Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle to restore their national rights.”

Read Laila el-Haddad’s account of how Israeli F-16s today bombed President Mahmoud Abbas’s presidential compound near the area of downtown Gaza where she and her family live:

Israeli fighter jets have been roaring forbodingly, and with great intensity, over Gaza’s skies all morning. So we figured it was only a matter of time before an aerial attack ensued. Predictably, we soon heard two consecutive powerful explosions that rocked the city-again we wondered, sonic boom or bomb attack? Since we could hear the jets roaring beforehand we could only assume it was a real attack.
The local radio stations and Palestine TV confirmed this: Mahmud Abbas’s presidential compound was under attack. Israeli F-16s bombarded Abbas’s helicopter launchpad/runway which is located near his office in the presidential compound in Gaza City, and another location in northern Gaza that security forces use to train.
Hospitals reported two injuries.
So the question becomes, why would they attack the presidential compound? Most certainly, there are no Qassam rockets being launched from there…

Further north, nearer the area from which renegade Palestinian factions intermittently launch extremely primitive Qassam rockets into Israel, a 42-year-old Palestinian man was killed by the Israeli assault as he stood in a field. And seven Palestinians, including a 6-month-old baby were injured– two of them reportedly in a critical condition.
That AFP report cited there continues:

[President] Abbas condemned the air strike and called on the international community to intervene to stop the violence, in a statement issued by his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
“Continued arbitrary shelling in Gaza is an unjustified escalation,” he later told reporters.
“They (Israel) are trying to complicate the life of Palestinians and finish destroying Palestinian institutions after destroying so many in previous years.
“I address myself to Arab countries, the UN, Russia and the European Union to explain that these acts complicate the lives of Palestinians and have serious repercussions on the humanitarian, social and economic situation.”
An Israeli military spokeswoman said a wave of air strikes was ordered after Palestinian militants fired four rockets that exploded near Israeli communities without causing damage or casualties.
“We attacked an open area that it is unpopulated inside Gaza City. There was no intention of attacking the building that is near it,” she told AFP.
“We wanted to pass a message. We want to make it understood that Israel and the IDF (army) will not tolerate the firing of Qassam rockets,” she added.
Israeli strikes have repeatedly failed to put a halt to the rocket attacks, with the armed wing of the ultra-radical Islamic Jihad claiming to have fired five rockets towards the southern town of Ashkelon on Tuesday. The army could confirm four rockets had been fired without causing injuries or damage.

I can certainly tell you, from my recent trip to Gaza, that the presidential compound is surrounded by residential buildings. Dropping bombs on it from F-16s certainly provides no indication at all that the IAF exercized the “due diligence” required of it under international humanitarian law, that in its military operations it limit itself to striking only legitimate military targets while also taking active steps to avoid civilian casualties.
Anyway, I urge you all to read the rest of Laila’s post about life in Gaza, too.

An interesting recent survey of opinion among (camp-residing) Palestinian refugees in Lebanon found that,

Hamas leads the Palestinian polls with 48 percent, followed by Fatah with 24 percent and the Popular Front ranking third with 12 percent. More than 83 percent of the Palestinians support Hamas’ stance of not recognizing Israel, and about 86 percent support maintaining martyrdom operations within 1948 lines.

(I note that Hamas, like the central leadership of Fateh– though not the militant Fateh offshoots– until now remains committed to the self-restraining tahdi’eh agreement concluded in March 2005, under which signatories unilaterally suspended their operations inside the 1948 line.)
The pollsters found more support for the PFLP in the north, and more for Hamas in the south.

I am not close enough to Gaza to be able to say anything definitive about the clashes that have occurred there the past couple of days. Yesterday, Abu Yousef Abu Quka, described as a senior commander in the Popular Resistance Committees, was killed in a car bomb; and after that there were some related clashes that have so far killed three people and wounded 36.
I find it interesting and significant that it is Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh who has been speaking out about the need to end the clashes and, as this AP report says, to have the

security forces … try to “pull our civilian gunmen off the streets,” though he did not specify which armed men or elaborate on a plan.

It is still not entriely clear to me which of the five main PA security forces will be reporting to Haniyeh’s Interior Minister, Saed Siyam, and which to President Mahmoud Abbas. But it’s notable that Abbas has so far not been quoted as saying anything public about these intra-Palestinian clashes or the need to contain and end them.
This seems like an early security challenge for the new Hamas-led government. What role have the various Fateh security bosses been playing in provoking them, I wonder? And how many of them will be prepared to cooperate with Hamas in ending the internal fighting?
Maybe this is the ‘Altalena’ for the new government. But the out-of-control gunmen they need to contain come from a number of different factions and sides, many of them affiliated with Fateh.
(When I interviewed FM Mahmoud Zahhar on March 6, he expressed confidence that most of the Fateh-affiliated people in the various PA structures would work honestly to continue to help the PA project succeed under its new management. I guess that we will now see whether that is indeed the case.)

This from AP:

Hamas formally took power Wednesday, with the Palestinian president swearing in a 24-member Cabinet that includes 14 ministers who served time in Israeli prisons.
The ceremony, which came just a day after Israel’s national election, ended a two-month transition period of ambiguity since Hamas’ election victory in January.
With a Hamas government installed, the lines of confrontation with Israel were clearly drawn. Hamas insists it will not soften its violent ideology toward the Jewish state.
Israel’s presumed prime minister-designate, Ehud Olmert, has countered that if Hamas will not bend, he will set the borders of a Palestinian state by himself and keep large areas of the West Bank.
With Hamas at the helm, the Palestinian Authority also faces a crippling international economic boycott.
“With Hamas taking over now, you can’t have business as usual,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said…

In the slideshow that AP has of current and recent news photos from the region, there are images of massive and very peaceful Hamas demonstrations greeting the government’s swearing-in, in Gaza. (Of course, some of the ministers had to be sworn in in Ramallah, since Israel won’t allow even parliamentarians and PA government ministers of whom it disapproves to travel between the two portions of the OPTs.)
There were also images of Ismail Haniyeh and his Gaza-bound governmental colleagues all standing together outside the parliament building there, holding up their index fingers. It was an obvious visual reference to the images of people in Iraq and Palestine holding up ink-stained fingers after they participated in their recent, respective elections.
So, now we have a government responsible to a duly elected parliament installed in occupied Palestine. We don’t yet have one in Iraq. But what will happen to the plans the Palestinian government has to build a better life for their people?
Let’s see.

I am getting increasingly fed-up with the way so much of the western MSM continues mindlessly to echo the refrain that the Hamas people are “militants”. You almost always see the word “militant” attached to the name “Hamas” once or many times in any news report…
But the militants in the Palestinians arena these days are not Hamas people. Hamas has not undertaken any militant action at all against Israel (or anyone else) since the end of Setember 2005. And that brief single episode in September was the result of a ghastly, if perhaps understandable, mistake on its behalf. Prior to that, Hamas had maintained the discipline of the tahdi’eh (“calming”) quite fully since the end of last March. And once the Hamas leaders recognized their mistake in September, they immediately reinstituted the discipline of the tahdi’eh.
The “militants” these days in Palestine are people affiliated with Fateh, not with Hamas.
Hamas is politically hardline, yes. But it is not now actively “militant.” Writers and editors make a serious mistake– whether wilfully, or through inattention– if they fail to recognize the difference. We should give credit where credit is due to Hamas, for having shown so much discipline and self-restraint with respect to the tahdi’eh, which it has stuck to, remember, in the face of numerous continuing acts of anti-Palestinian violence committed by Israel over the past year.