Doc's Talk: PA Officials Flee Territories as Palestinian National Movement Falters

Friday, January 18, 2008

PA Officials Flee Territories as Palestinian National Movement Falters

Danny Rubinstein wrote a related article in Haaretz documenting the collapse of the Palestinian national movement, and the exodus of senior Palestinian officials to Egypt and Jordan.In the summer of 1971, Prof. Yehoshua Porat of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published his important book “The Emergence of the Arab- Palestinian National Movement, 1918-1929.” In a preface to the book, veteran teacher and researcher Gabriel Baer praised “the pioneering work in the field, in which the scientific approach has been neglected.” The best scholars associated with this research field, including Arabs, praised Porat’s work. Quite a number of Palestinians with an ability to be self-critical bitterly remarked that the best work on the early days of Palestinian nationalism was written by an Israeli scholar, of all people.

Although Porat’s book deals with the first decade of the British Mandate in the Land of Israel, it is based on a study conducted during the years following the Six-Day War, when Palestinian nationalism flourished anew, after the mortal blow it had sustained in 1948. But today, over 35 years after Porat’s book was first published, if a scholar were to express a desire to write a sequel to this work, he could give it the title: “The Withering and Decline of the Palestinian National Movement.”

It would not be a great exaggeration to state that the Palestinian national movement has almost ceased to exist in recent years. The government of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza is barely functioning. The PA’s establishment was supposed to mark the decisive stage in advancing Palestinian national aspirations, but its rule has failed abysmally. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) - Palestinians mockingly say among themselves - is no more than the president of the Muqata compound in Ramallah.
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The institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which presumed to represent the entire Palestinian nation, have in recent years become obsolete and unimportant. They do not include any representation for a national religious movement like Hamas (which holds that religion takes precedence nationality), although its supporters make up about one-third of the Palestinian public. The PLO Executive Committee (the organization’s executive arm) and its National Council (the PLO parliament, which never meets) represent several of the Palestinian leftist movements (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - PFLP, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - DFLP, etc.), which have long ceased to exist. This means that for quite some time now, the PLO has ceased to be a relevant body in Palestinian politics.

Deserting the PA

One of the most obvious signs that the ship of the Palestinian national project is sinking is the fact that many of its members are deserting. Nabil Sha’ath, a veteran PLO leader, who served as a minister in the Palestinian government after returning to the homeland with Arafat and settling in Gaza, has returned to his Cairo home and is spending his time running his successful businesses. Mohammed Dahlan and Hassan Asfour, who until recently served as powerful ministers and advisers in Gaza, now spend most of their time in Cairo, together with their families.

Officials in Ramallah estimate that about 50,000 West Bank residents have left in recent years. The vast majority of those leaving own houses and assets in Amman. These are senior and junior officers and officials who came to Ramallah and Nablus in order to work in the PA’s institutions. Now, when the PA is barely surviving, they are leaving. There is no money, wages are delayed, the offices are paralyzed. Every day there are shooting incidents and Israel Defense Forces raids. The economy has collapsed and their family members are frequently delayed at the checkpoints.

Recent visits to the homes of several ministers and senior officials living in Ramallah have shown that they live here only part of the time, alone. Their Ramallah apartment has gradually emptied out and their wifes and children have taken most of their personal belongings with them as they left the West Bank and moved, or returned, east of the Jordan River.

While it seems as though the Palestinian national project is finished, it cannot be said that the Palestinian problem has disappeared. It definitely exists. About 1.5 million Palestinians live in Gaza under conditions of poverty and siege. The West Bank is characterized by political, social and economic distress. There are still refugees and camps, and there is still a desire to remove what Palestinians consider to be an occupying and exploitive Israeli rule - whether directly or indirectly. But if the national movement - that is the PLO, Fatah and the PA - is bankrupt and incapable of solving these problems, the solution to them must be sought in other places.

The first such place that comes to mind is the Arab world. In recent years Arab countries have re-entered the Palestinian fray. For decades the various Arab states assumed key roles in Palestinian history. The peak occurred in 1948 - but even after the establishment of the State of Israel the Arabs continued to support the Palestinians. That was true until the 1973 Yom Kippur War and shortly thereafter, up until the PLO and Arafat showed up and threw out their Arab brothers. We are the ones with the problem and we are the only ones with the autonomy to make a decision - this was one of the most famous slogans of the PLO, which exploited the first intifada, signed the Oslo Accords and tried to reach an agreement with Israel independently.

The Arabs return

When these attempts failed, the Arab countries slowly came back into the picture. Since the Camp David summit seven years ago, it has become clear that the Palestinians cannot achieve an agreement with Israel by themselves. This is why all the Arab states, and first and foremost the Saudis, are invited to Annapolis, and not just the Palestinians, who failed.

The return of the Arab countries to the crux of the matter is reflected in the ongoings in the West Bank and Gaza. The Jordanian government, with Israel’s encouragement, has once again begun to demonstrate its presence in the West Bank, mainly in East Jerusalem. For many years Yasser Arafat and his followers tried to take over the senior positions in the Islamic institutions in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount. While they did meet with success in the past, recently PA and PLO supporters have been removed from all the key positions in Jerusalem. At present the mufti, the director of the Waqf (Muslim religious trust) and others in senior positions, are Jordanian loyalists only.

King Abdullah II and the leaders of the administration in Amman make a point of publicly declaring that they have no ambitions regarding the West Bank. That may be true, but there is no question that their interest in what is happening west of the Jordan is steadily increasing. Former Jordanian prime minister Abdul Salam Majali, Abdullah’s confidant, recently embarked on a very long visit to the West Bank. He met with public figures there and did not conceal Jordan’s plans to establish cooperation between the two banks.

There is no escaping such cooperation, which will have political implications as well. The higher the separation walls between Israel and the West Bank, the closer the ties between the West Bank and Jordan. This process is logical: If a resident of Nablus cannot go abroad via Ben-Gurion International Airport, he has no choice but to leave via Jordan. The same is true for Gaza, where Egypt is forced to become increasingly involved in what is happening in the Strip.

The vacuum left by the defeated and withering Palestinian national movement is being filled by the various Islamic groups. And I am not referring to Hamas, which is a national religious organization, as mentioned, but rather to movements whose values are far removed from nationalism. In Hebron and other West Bank cities, the power of the Liberation Party (Hizb al-Tahrir) has greatly increased of late. A British journalist who spoke to acquaintances in Hebron gained the impression that Hizb al-Tahrir has become the most popular party in the region. This is a veteran religious movement, which has been active in the West Bank since the days of Jordanian rule, and aims to restore the Islamic caliphate. It has undergone splits and struggles and some people even considered it a joke - but today they do not disparage it.

In Gaza, too, there are religious parties that are not nationalist in nature. Perhaps the substantial strengthening of the Islamic Movement in Israel - which focuses first and foremost on the Muslim religious issue rather than on the Palestinian national issue - is related to that.

The Green Line as a border and a capital in East Jerusalem - these are the “red lines” of the Palestinian nationalist movement. With all the changes this movement has undergone, there doesn’t seem to be the slightest possibility of reaching a compromise for a solution that grants even one millimeter less than that. If Israel doesn’t accept these conditions, the Palestinian national movement will be doomed to failure and will end up disappearing. Israel, on the other hand, will remain with the problem and will be forced to deal with a situation that undergoes slight changes every so often, but is looking increasingly difficult and ugly.

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
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Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk