Mona Eltahawy’s speech signals shift in mainstream discourse that Zionists don’t want

Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy’s speech at the J Street conference was more than just another good speech–it’s a further indication of the shift in discourse on the Middle East following the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and around the region.  Slowly but surely, alternative narratives about the Middle East and Israel/Palestine, voiced by Arabs, are making a dent on how Americans think about the region.

Eltahawy didn’t mince words in speaking to the liberal Zionist lobby group, and she received a standing ovation.  She called the 2008-09 assault on Gaza a “massacre” and told the audience that Arab “hatred for Israel… will not end until you lift the siege on Gaza and treat Palestinians with freedom and dignity.”  It’s a message that, coming from a woman who has become one of the corporate media’s go-to people on the Middle East, is significant, and not something you would hear at some of the other J Street panels (Nachman Shai of Kadima said that Israel won’t lift the siege until Gilad Shalit is freed).

Eltahawy’s star speech at the conference is part of what is shattering the Zionist narrative on Israel/Palestine, and they’re not liking it one bit.

Ron Radosh at the neoconservative Pajamas Media goes after Eltahawy here. And Ben Sales, writing for the Jewish student magazine New Voices, derides the response Eltahawy got by saying the J Street crowd was “clapping for hate.”

Eltahawy’s speech is concerning to Radosh and others because it exposes Israel as what it is:  a state that is in deep trouble, a state that is an occupier state, a state that committed war crimes in Gaza.  Indeed, as Phil Weiss put it, “the Egyptian revolution is coming–to the USA.”  And Eltahawy is one of the leaders.

Neocon fantasy: Palestine has nothing to do with Arab uprisings

As mass uprisings in Arab states continue, the Israeli government and its neoconservative supporters in the U.S. have tried to convince the world that Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians has nothing to do with the revolts.  While it would be disingenuous to claim that Palestine drives the revolts, it’s equally disingenuous to claim that Palestine doesn’t factor at all in to the uprisings, or that Palestine is not a chief concern for Arabs all over.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman made the claim today.  Speaking at a press conference in Brussels, Lieberman said:  “The Israel-Palestinian conflict is not the main issue, not the main problem…I don’t see linkage between Israel-Palestine and unrest in Egypt, Bahrain or Egypt and Libya.”

Lieberman joins the likes of Jeffrey Goldberg, Jennifer Rubin and others in making that claim.  Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy also makes the case:

With the world focused on the political earthquake reverberating from Egypt and Tunisia to Libya, Yemen, and even to Iran, it is only fitting that the UN Security Council is scheduled to meet tomorrow to discuss a topic that appears in virtually none of the protest banners waving over Middle East capitals — Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank. In light of current events, the mere convening of a Security Council meeting on this topic underscores the psychological, let alone geographic, distance between Turtle Bay and the Middle East.

The facts, though, don’t fit that narrative.  Egypt’s uprising is the obvious case to examine, given its major role in Israel/Palestine.

The roots of the Egyptian uprising can be found, in part, in the activism that arose in Egypt during the Second Intifada in Palestine, according to Egyptian blogger and activist Hossam el-Hamalawy.  And during the Egyptian revolution, the fact of Hosni Mubarak’s collaboration with Israel was blasted by activists.  Defaced pictures of Mubarak, with a Star of David around his head, emerged.  Signs and chants urging Mubarak to “go to Tel Aviv” where “they like him” were seen and heard.  Last Friday, millions of Egyptians chanted, “To Jerusalem we are heading, Martyrs in the millions.”  To top it all off, activists in both Gaza and Egypt are organizing for a joint march to the Rafah border to call for an end to the blockade.

The relevance of Palestine to the uprisings in Yemen, Bahrain and Libya are harder to measure.  Still, popular sentiment in these countries is squarely against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.  Polling data on the Middle East confirms this.

Yousef Munayyer of the Palestine Center makes the case that Palestine matters deeply in an intriguing article that concludes that “there is no issue which has the resonance or the potential to create uproar across Arab borders at the same time as the Palestine issue”:

So, perhaps it doesn’t matter that Tunisia isn’t Egypt, or Yemen, or Bahrain. They are, after all, all Arab. And, something in that common denominator was significant enough to tie very different states together, even in their responses to domestic opposition over time. What could that possibly be?

Michael Hudson, in a seminal book on Arab politics which discusses the question of regime legitimacy may lend us a clue. He writes that “the single most delegitimizing factor” for some Arab regimes “has been their consistent failure to match words with deeds on the Palestine issue.”

It has long been known that opposition groups in Arab states have often criticized their regimes for the inability to deliver on the pan-Arab cause of Palestine. This criticism takes different forms and sometimes targets regimes for their direct cooperation with Israel or for their cooperation with Israel’s biggest ally, the United States.

So it should come as no surprise that protestors in Cairo were chanting “La li Mubarak La li Suleiman hadol ‘omala il Amrikaan” (No to Mubarak and No to Suleiman, these are traitors for the Americans) or “Al Quds Raheen, Shuhada bil Malayeen” (To Jerusalem we will go, Martyrs in the Millions). See the video here. In turn, regimes have also tightened security and targeted opposition preemptively when the Israel-Palestine conflict incurs extraordinarily violent episodes.

This is not to say that Palestine is the only pan-Arab issue – certainly there is great angst about the American-led war and the ongoing occupation of Iraq – but Iraq is often viewed through a sectarian lens in the Arab world, whereas Arabs across borders, regardless of sect or background, feel a national and emotional commitment to Palestine…

Certainly, I would not go so far as to say that the revolution in Tunisia or Egypt or the uprisings taking place across the Arab world were immediate reactions to anything going on in Palestine. Each of these different revolutions had their ignition moments. Rather, Palestine is a central Arab issue often adopted by opposition groups across the Arab world, whether for self-interested or altruistic purposes, and has been for the better part of a century. The dynamics between states and opposition groups over time, which often ebbed and flowed in response to the dynamics in Palestine, played a significant role in revealing the true nature of regimes as police states, ultimately turning the people against them.

Israel and its neoconservative friends don’t want to hear this.  Erasing the Palestine question out of the picture deflects attention away from Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine.  But it seems that, to understand the Arab uprisings, one must also understand the staying power of the Palestinian question.

‘The Palestine Cables’: Bahraini elites want to reach out to Israel, but the people don’t

This is the latest installment of my column on WikiLeaks and Israel/Palestine at Mondoweiss.  You can read all the installments here.

The revolt rocking the Gulf state of Bahrain continues, as protesters occupy the Pearl roundabout area, demanding that King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa step down.  One of the root causes driving the crisis in Bahrain is the existence of a “king who shows diminishing care for relations with his Shi’i subjects,” as Michele Dunne of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote.  And while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from a root cause of the unrest in Bahrain and other Arab countries, popular sentiment on Israel is one more example of the disconnect between Bahraini and other U.S.-backed Arab elites and their people, and this disconnect is at the core of the uprisings’ demands for democracy and freedom.

State Department cables on Bahrain released by WikiLeaks reveal the depth of that disconnect in Bahrain.

Israeli-Bahraini relations can’t be described as close, but recent outreach efforts to Israel by the ruling family have turned heads in that country.  In a July 2009 Op-Ed published in the Washington Post, the crown prince of Bahrain called for dialogue between Israelis and Arabs.  After the piece was published, according to a August 2009 cable from the embassy in Bahrain’s capital city, the prince urged U.S. officials  “to think about ‘a peace dividend’ for those countries, like Bahrain, that were willing to take risks for peace. He specifically mentioned that Bahrain would welcome increased trade and investment from the United States.”

But the people of Bahrain reacted strongly against the move.  A July 2009 cable states that because of Israeli “settlements, arrests, attacks against civilian populations,” public opinion in Bahrain thought that it was “unacceptable” to “reach out to Israel.”  This sentiment was expressed in “both Sunni and Shia blogs,” with one blogger publishing “photos from Gaza of dead and maimed Palestinian children” in response.  (The cable also reports that one blog posting stated, “as long as normalization is with the people of Israel and not the political leadership (of Israel), it is acceptable.”)

Bahrain’s foreign minister came in for similar criticism in his country in the wake of a 2007 meeting with Tzipi Livni, then Israel’s foreign minister, as a WikiLeaks cable shows.  The cable also reports that Bahrain’s foreign minister told an American Jewish Committee delegation of the need to “shore up President Abbas against the challenge presented by Hamas,” and called for Palestinian refugees to give up their right of return.

Will Mideast revolts force U.S. to talk to Islamists?

Since at least the Clinton administration, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has propped up dictatorial regimes that were favorable to U.S. and Israeli interests while refusing to engage with the forces of political Islam.  Could the current wave of uprisings shaking the Middle East and North Africa force the U.S. to deal with Islamist movements that are integral parts of these societies?  That’s what journalist and author Mark Perry argued in a recent Palestine Center panel discussion–a development that would have far-reaching implications for Palestine, among other countries.

Upcoming elections in Egypt could be the first major test for the Obama administration on whether the U.S. will respect the democratic will of Egyptians, regardless of whether the Muslim Brotherhood makes electoral gains.

The Muslim Brotherhood, while promising to not field any presidential candidates for elections scheduled for later this year, is certainly angling to be a part of a new Egyptian government.

The Obama administration has sent mixed signals on their stance on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ominously warned against Egyptians allowing their revolution to be “hijacked,” a veiled reference to the Muslim Brotherhood.  But President Obama, in a speech given after Hosni Mubarak stepped down, said that “all” Egyptian voices must be brought “to the table.”  In an interview with Fox News‘ Bill O’Reilly, Obama said that he thinks “that the Muslim Brotherhood is one faction in Egypt. They don’t have majority support in Egypt but they are well organized and there are strains of their ideology that are anti U.S., there is no doubt about it.”

This is what Perry, the author of Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage with its Enemies, said on the subject:

We’re going to have to deal with the governments that emerge from what I think is an unstoppable revolution across the region, and that means talking to political Islam.  We’re not going to be able to not talk to Hamas after we talk to the Muslim Brotherhood and we’re going to have to talk to them.  So, once we start down that road, of recognizing the political currents and movements that matter in the region, everything else will follow.

Still, it’s clear the pro-Israel lobby, and the American right, will continue to line up against talking to any Islamist movement.

‘Progressive Zionist’ group in U.S. calls for settlement boycott

The liberal Zionist organization Meretz USA is calling on American Jews and Israelis to boycott West Bank settlements.

While distancing itself from the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, the statement represents a significant stand among left-leaning American Zionist groups who profess their belief in the two-state solution.

Even more significant is the fact that Meretz USA is closely linked with J Street, the liberal group that has taken great pains to distance itself from the BDS movement.  Meretz USA was a partner in J Street’s first annual conference, and the Union of Progressive Zionists, which Meretz USA helped to found, was “reorganized” as J Street U, the group’s college wing.

J Street’s official position on a boycott of settlements is more nuanced than their total rejection of the Palestinian-led BDS movement, but the organization has refused to come out in support of a settlement boycott.

The February 15 statement from Meretz USA, titled “Buy Israel–Don’t Buy Settlements (They’re not the Same)” reads:

We believe it is of great importance to actively oppose the policies of Occupation and settlement while at the same time struggling to defend Israel against those seeking its destruction.  Consequently we:

• Support the actions of Israeli performers, directors and writers who refuse to participate in performances held in Ariel or any other settlement beyond the Green Line.

• Support the actions of Israeli university professors who refuse to teach at or have professional ties with institutions of higher education in Ariel or any other settlement beyond the Green Line.

• Believe that American Jews, in order to express their support for the brave Israeli citizens refusing to cooperate with settlement policy, should refuse to purchase any goods or services, including tourism services, made in or by the settlements.

• Believe that American Jews should express their support for Israel’s continued existence within the Green Line by purchasing Israeli goods and services that are made within the Green Line.

• Disagree with calls to boycott, divest from or sanction Israel proper (within the Green Line), which we believe are misguided and ineffective.  Such a broad set of actions amounts to a blunt punishment of all Israelis, rather than a targeted approach that focuses on the issue of settlements and Occupation, and is incapable of bringing those polices to an end.

• Denounce the use of BDS whenever employed as a tactic to bring an end to the State of Israel.

 

‘Israeli filter’ colors U.S. response to Egyptian revolution

Hosni Mubarak’s former regime got many things wrong, but Egyptian officials sure knew how to accurately read at least some parts of U.S. foreign policy.  A State Department cable written in December 2007 recently released by WikiLeaks describes how the Egyptian government believed that “their discussions with the United States” passed “through a perceived ‘Israeli filter.’”  It’s fair to assume that Egypt was referring to how, as Helena Cobban writes in Salon, “pro-Israeli groups and individuals in Congress and the rest of the American political elite” have enormous influence on how Washington conducts foreign policy.

The pro-Israel apparatus’ influence, which has created a powerful “Israeli filter” that affects the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, was fully on display during the Obama administration’s noticeably confused and flat-footed response to the anti-Mubarak popular uprising.

Immediately after the beginning of the uprising, President “Obama began placing calls to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel,” according to the New York Times. Netanyahu “feared regional instability” and “urged the United States to stick with Mr. Mubarak.”

The administration itself was split over what do to about Mubarak.  The faction of the administration that favored having Omar Suleiman–the former Egyptian VP who was also Israel’s favorite– lead a “transition” included Dennis Ross, a core pillar of the Israel lobby inside the administration.  The Los Angeles Times explained:

The other camp includes Dennis Ross, a former Middle East peace negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Ross, who has strong ties to Israel, is the author of a 2007 book that advised against treating the Muslim Brotherhood as a potential partner in Egypt’s political future, noting the group’s refusal to renounce violence “as a tool of other Islamists.”

Apart from managing the crisis, the White House is consulting with outside interest groups and foreign governments to ensure that its message is getting through.

National Security Council member Daniel Shapiro has sought to reassure pro-Israel groups that the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s political negotiations would not undermine the country’s peace treaty with Israel, according to people who have talked with him. Shapiro, who led outreach to Jewish voters in Obama’s presidential campaign, has tended to the president’s relations with Israel and other regional partners, as well as with Jewish leaders in the U.S.

While the Egyptian protesters forced Mubarak out, as well as ending any possibility that Suleiman would be the new dictator, the U.S. remains deeply concerned with how the revolution will affect Israel and its peace treaty with Egypt.  Following Mubarak’s resignation, the White House insisted that “it’s important that the next government of Egypt recognize the accords that have been signed with Israel.”

 

The Palestine Cables: Egyptian VP Suleiman, Israel’s favorite, wants ‘Gaza to go ‘hungry’ but not ‘starve”

This is the latest installment of my column on WikiLeaks and Israel/Palestine at Mondoweiss.  You can read all the installments here.

The Israeli establishment is pleased to see that Omar Suleiman, the former head of Egypt’s intelligence services who was recently appointed to be Egypt’s first vice president, is angling to continue the Mubarak regime.  As reports circulate that Hosni Mubarak may step down tonight, examining Suleiman, Mubarak’s presumed successor, seems all the more important.  State Department cables released by WikiLeaks show that Suleiman directs Egypt’s policies on Israel/Palestine, policies that are in line with Israeli goals:   weakening Hamas, continuing the blockade of Gaza and halting Iranian influence.

In fact, Israel has explicitly voiced that Suleiman–spelled “Soliman” in the diplomatic cables–is their favored choice to assume the helm of the Egyptian presidency once Mubarak is gone.  An August 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv reads:

[Arab Affairs Adviser David] Hacham was full of praise for Soliman, however, and noted that a “hot line” set up between the MOD and Egyptian General Intelligence Service is now in daily use…Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim President if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated. (Note: We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman.)

Egypt has been Israel’s chief partner in the devastating blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has caused Gaza’s economy to be on the “brink of collapse,” as a UN spokesman put it yesterday.  Suleiman is quoted in a December 2007 cable as wanting the blockade to cause “Gaza to go ‘hungry’ but not ‘starve.’”  80 percent of the people of Gaza rely on UN aid to survive.

The leaked “Palestine Papers” published by Al Jazeera provide more details on  Suleiman and Egypt’s complicity in the siege.  As Abdullah Al-Arian, writing in Al Jazeera, notes:

Throughout the documents, Suleiman in particular is singled out as the point person whom Israeli and American officials could count on to execute their agenda of dividing the Palestinian factions or pressing the PA for greater concessions…

In early 2007, as the siege on Gaza had crippling consequences on the lives of Palestinians, negotiators complained that Egyptian leaders were duplicitous, speaking publicly in support of allowing goods into Gaza, but in reality, “it remains blocked on the ground …. This is a general problem with the Egyptians”.

An internal report from April 2007 confirms these suspicions. The Agreement on Movement and Access states: “Although there has been political agreement by Omar Suleiman and President Mubarak on allowing exports through, this agreement has never been translated into operational reality.”

Suleiman, and the Mubarak regime, have also been intent on weakening Hamas in the wake of the party being democratically elected in the 2006 Palestinian elections.  The Dec. 2007 cable reports:

In their moments of greatest frustration, Tantawi and Soliman each have claimed that the IDF would be “welcome” to re-invade Philadelphi…Mubarak and his security chiefs viscerally want Hamas “to fail.”

A separate April 2009 cable reports:

On reconciliation, Soliman explained, the ultimate goal was to return the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, as “Gaza in the hands of radicals will never be calm.”

Suleiman’s viewpoint on Iran also lines up with Israeli goals.  An October 2007 cable reports that “Omar Soliman takes an especially hard line on Tehran and frequently refers to the Iranians as ‘devils.’”

The Bush-Obama line on Palestine: forget ’67

The election of President Barack Obama brought great hope that his administration could be the one to bring about a settlement to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  But Obama has largely followed the Bush administration’s pro-Israel slant.  New documents released by WikiLeaks and Al Jazeera shed further light on the continuation of the Bush administration’s disastrous policy on Israel/Palestine.

As part of its ongoing release of secret State Department cables, WikiLeaks yesterday released documents concerning Brazil.  One 2005 document, written from the U.S. embassy in Brazil, centers on a first-time gathering in Brazil between Arab and South American leaders.  The U.S. was worried about language concerning Israel/Palestine in the final document that came out of the summit:

Despite repeated Brazilian promises over many months that the Summit Declaration would not contain language inimical to Middle East peace efforts, the final text contains problematic paragraphs that existed in earlier declaration drafts. In addition to the demand that Israel withdraw to its June 4, 1967 frontiers, the declaration also calls on Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice July 2004 decision on dismantling the security wall.

The reference to the 1967 borders and the International Court of Justice decision as “problematic” is unsurprising, given that the Bush administration showed the utmost contempt for international law.  This cable further confirms the Bush administration’s double-dealings when it came to the borders of a future Palestinian state:  while the Bush administration backed the 2003 Road Map that called for a halt to Israeli settlement building, a secret letter to the Israeli government contradicts that plan:

In a key sentence in Bush’s 2004 letter, the president stated, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”

Contempt for international law, and support for Israel’s insistence that negotiations not be based on the 1967 borders, has continued into the Obama administration.  Despite President Obama’s pledge in 2009 to push for a “viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967,” documents published by Al Jazeera as part of the “Palestine Papers” tell a different story.  Ali Abunimah, writing in Al Jazeera, analyzes:

The next day [after Obama's 2009 UN speech] during a meeting at the US Mission to the United Nations in New York, Erekat refused an American request to adopt Obama’s speech as the terms of reference for negotiations. Erekat asked Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Hale why the Obama administration would not explicitly state that the intended outcome of negotiations would be a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with a third party security role and a staged Israeli withdrawal. Hale responded, “You ask why? How would it help you if we state something so specific and then not be able to deliver?” according to Palestinian minutes of the meeting.

At the same meeting, which Mitchell himself later joined, Erekat challenged the US envoy on how Obama could publicly endorse Israel as a “Jewish state” but not commit to the 1967 borders. Mitchell, according to the minutes, told Erekat “You can’t negotiate detailed ToRs [terms of reference for the negotiations]” so the Palestinians might as well be “positive” and proceed directly to negotiations. Erekat viewed Mitchell’s position as a US abandonment of the Road Map.

On 2 October 2009 Mitchell met with Erekat at the State Department and again attempted to persuade the Palestinian team to return to negotiations. Despite Erekat’s entreaties that the US should stand by its earlier positions, Mitchell responded, “If you think Obama will force the option you’ve described, you are seriously misreading him. I am begging you to take this opportunity.”

Erekat replied, according to the minutes, “All I ask is to say two states on 67 border with agreed modifications. This protects me against Israeli greed and land grab – it allows Israel to keep some realities on the ground” (a reference to Palestinian willingness to allow Israel to annex some West Bank settlements as part of minor land swaps). Erekat argued that this position had been explicitly endorsed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice under the Bush administration.

“Again I tell you that President Obama does not accept prior decisions by Bush. Don’t use this because it can hurt you. Countries are bound by agreements – not discussions or statements,” Mitchell reportedly said.

The US envoy was firm that if the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not agree to language in the terms of reference the US would not try to force it. Yet Mitchell continued to pressure the Palestinian side to adopt formulas the Palestinians feared would give Israel leeway to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank without providing any compensation.

At a critical 21 October 2009 meeting, Mitchell read out proposed language for terms of reference:

“The US believes that through good faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that achieves both the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state encompassing all the territory occupied in 1967 or its equivalent in value, and the Israeli goal of secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meets Israeli security requirements.”

Erekat’s response was blunt: “So no Road Map?” The implication of the words “or equivalent in value” is that the US would only commit to Palestinians receiving a specific amount of territory — 6258 square kilometers, or the equivalent area of the West Bank and Gaza Strip — but not to any specific borders.

Only serious dissent on the Palestinian street will change the game: Former PLO negotiator Diana Buttu on the ‘Palestine Papers’ and the Egyptian uprising

This interview was originally published in Mondoweiss.

The publication of nearly 1,700 leaked files by Al Jazeera on negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority has been largely overshadowed by the uprising in Egypt. But that doesn’t mean they don’t matter for the future of Israel/Palestine.

I recently caught up with Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Negotiations Support Unit, a team that is mentioned throughout the “Palestine Papers” and where it is suspected the leak came from. Buttu discussed the meaning of the “Palestine Papers,” what they say about the “peace process,” and the current Egyptian uprising and what it may mean on the Palestinian street.

Alex Kane: Could you talk about your overall take on the leaked documents that have been published by Al Jazeera?

Diana Buttu: Having now gone through a lot of the documents—of course, not all of the documents, but many of them—the overall impression that I’m left with is that of a very powerful party, which is Israel, trying to continue their control and authority over a very weak party being the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). But the story doesn’t just stop there.

I think that it’s become, at least clear to me and perhaps to others, that this mantra we’ve been hearing for many, many years—that we all know what a solution is going to look like, we all know what a settlement is going to look like—is actually not the case, particularly when you read the transcripts of the Israeli officials. That’s one major thing that I come away with.

The second major conclusion that I walk away with is that of a PLO leadership stubbornly sticking to one strategy, and only one strategy: negotiations, and only negotiations, despite the fact that there are so many other options out there. It’s as though they’ve cornered themselves by demanding negotiations, and then when they actually happen, they didn’t have any other strategy to get out of negotiations in the event that Israel was going to be stubborn.

AK: What would you say these revelations mean for the entire “peace process”?

DB: I don’t think there really is a “peace process.” There’s been a lot of process, but not a whole lot of peace, and I just don’t think that things are going to change. It hasn’t changed over the course of the past 17 years. I don’t think this is going to make the United States wake up, and it’s certainly not going to make the Israelis wake up, and in fact I don’t think the PLO will wake up, unless there’s some very serious dissent, and I just don’t see that happening right now, even though diaspora Palestinians are quite upset about what’s going on. But we haven’t seen that translate into anything on the streets of Palestine. I don’t think this is going to change anything in the “peace process.” They’re going to continue doing this over and over again because this is the way they’ve done it for the past 17 years, and unless there is a sea change of opinion that makes the PLO stand up and take notice or makes any of the other parties stand up and take notice, I’m afraid that it’s just going to be the same old, same old.

AK: Given that there’s been a muted reaction on the Palestinian street at the same time that there’s an uprising going on in Egypt, do you see any possible connection between these events in the future?

DB: Right now I don’t see that there’s going to be a connection. It’s important to step back: part of the reason why we’re seeing a muted reaction in Palestine is because of the way the documents were presented. Whether you believe the documents or you don’t believe the documents—and I have no reason to question the documents, particularly after members of the PLO have come out and verified the authenticity of the documents—the main problem is that they were presented in somewhat of a sensationalist way.

One example that I can give is that Al Jazeera tied the assassination of al-Madhoun, who is a member of Fatah, of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, to the Palestinian Authority (PA), and they tried to claim that because the Israelis made a request for this man to be assassinated, that somehow the PA acquiesced or condoned his killing. That’s a bit of a stretch. There is a lot of security cooperation that takes place between the PA and Israel—and it’s outrageous, it includes torture and mass arrest—but there was really no proof to bring it to the level that the PA was actually collaborating with Israel over this man’s killing.

And so, in the way that the documents were presented, the debate in Palestine now has not turned into a debate over the main issues, which are accountability, transparency, red lines, whether we should believe in this negotiations process, and whether the PLO has adopted alternative strategies. None of that is going to take place because instead the debate is currently over whether Al Jazeera crossed the line. And until we see something different, where it’s not a question of shooting the messenger, but we have the message that’s presented in a coherent way without the sensationalism, then I don’t think we’re going to have any real debate any time soon, unfortunately.

AK: Would you say that there’s been a marked shift in the negotiating posture of Palestinians since you last were part of a team involved in negotiations, is that shift represented in the “Palestine Papers,” and lastly, if so, what does that shift represent?

DB: Yes, there’s definitely a shift, and the reason why there was a shift is twofold. One is that the second intifada took place, and the PLO was suddenly stuck. Rather than capitalizing on the intifada, and the people power that it brought them, they ended up somehow being apologetic for the intifada and therefore backtracked on some positions. What were the positions they backtracked from? At the time that I was there, there was still a claim for the right of return.

It’s interesting, if you look at the documents from roughly 2000-2004, the positions that are taken are actually quite principled in some instances. For example, there is a demand for the right of return. There is the notion that all of the settlements are illegal. There is then a little bit of a backtrack by saying “land swaps,” but on a one-to-one basis. And so you see this kind of principled position, but then there’s a backtracking, and one of the reasons was the intifada and the complete failure on the part of the PA to use the intifada to their advantage, to actually harness popular support and alter their negotiating position.

The second reason, and I think this is the much more dangerous reason, is that during the period that I was there and a little bit after, you saw initiative after initiative come forward, and all of these initiatives, while never accepted by the PLO directly, were tacitly accepted by the PLO. For example, the Geneva Initiative was something that was never adopted by the PLO, and yet, you see a couple of things that are interesting. The first is those commercials you saw with Erekat and others in which they come forward and say “I need a partner”—those were all sponsored by the Geneva Initiative. And if you see, for example, the statements that American officials have come forward and said, they’ve all been saying the same thing, which is that “this reflects what happened during the negotiations.” But it didn’t. It reflects what happened after the negotiations fell apart. It was their own initiatives that they were putting forward—the Nusseibeh-Ayalon initiative, the Geneva Initiative—and this is where it becomes dangerous, because the Americans and others seem to assume that silence equals acquiescence. And unfortunately, the PLO falls into the trap of de facto acquiescing to these initiatives, when they align themselves with these things, such as they did with the various commercials, and when they don’t come out and completely reject them. I think this is why we’re now seeing a shift. While there were principled positions, if you believe in a two-state solution, the PLO has consistently undermined its own position because they didn’t really know how to deal with the intifada and because they never really objected to these major initiatives that were put on the table.

AK: And lastly: I know that you don’t think the papers will have a huge impact on the ground, but with the combination of what the “Palestine Papers” revealed and the unrest and uprising in Egypt, do you think that any of this popular anger in Egypt might be translated onto the street in Palestine and directed at either the PA or Israel?

DB: Optimism is one thing, but if I’m to speculate, I think the answer is going to be no. And I think it’s important to keep in mind that what’s going on in Egypt is a little bit different than what’s happening in Palestine, and there’s a lot of issues mitigating against another uprising.

The first is that the government of Salam Fayyad has tried to do a good job, using donor funds, to create a middle-class, and to give credit, and all of these sorts of things, and they’ve largely managed to silence a lot of dissent.

The second major factor is that there is a very repressive police regime that is now in place. It hasn’t been in place for as long as the Mubarak regime was in place, but nonetheless this is something new for Palestinians.

A third factor is that people aren’t really examining the merits of the papers, but rather in the way they were presented.

And the fourth thing is that the Palestinian street is already very divided, and if there’s one message that people are calling for, it’s that of national unity. And I think that people fear that going against the authority will somehow serve to undermine any attempts at national unity, even though there really are none right now. There also may be a fear factor of not wanting Hamas to take over.

It’s not ripe in the same way that Egypt was ripe. Again, not to say that it won’t happen. I just don’t think it’s going to happen in the short term.

‘The Palestine Cables’: Al Jazeera is viewed in White House for Egypt coverage, but U.S. complained about its 08-09 Gaza coverage

This is the sixth installment of my column on WikiLeaks and Israel/Palestine at Mondoweiss.  You can read all the installments here.

The Al Jazeera news network is not well liked by many governments.  It has the bravest, most consistent and unyielding reports from the front lines of Middle East turmoil, as the uprising in Egypt has shown.  Al Jazeera journalists have been among the victims of the Mubarak regime’s brutal crackdown on the media today in Egypt, events that the U.S. State Department have expressed concern about.

Despite the fact that the Obama administration has been watching Al Jazeera to get the latest out of Egypt, the U.S. has a tortured history with Al Jazeera, as Jeremy Scahill of the Nation points out:  bombing its offices in Afghanistan, shelling a hotel in Iraq and killing the network’s Iraq correspondent and holding a network employee in Guantanamo Bay for seven years.  Recent WikiLeaks cables obtained by Counterpunch add more to the U.S.-Al Jazeera story.

According to a January 31 story authored by Kathleen Christison, the U.S. government, in the wake of the 2008-09 Israeli assault on Gaza, held a meeting with Al Jazeera to complain about its coverage of the assault:

CounterPunch can show, through a Wikileaks-released cable from the U.S. embassy in Doha, Qatar, where al-Jazeera is based, that U.S. officials were still ragging the network in February 2009 in the wake of Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza, because, alone of news networks the world over, al-Jazeera had actually shown what was happening on the ground to Gazan civilians besieged by an unrelenting Israeli air, artillery, and ground attack…

According to the cable from Doha, on February 10, 2009, three weeks after the Gaza assault ended, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Lebaron arranged a meeting with al-Jazeera’s director general, Wadah Khanfar, to express concern that the network’s reporting from Gaza was harming the U.S. image “in the Arab street.” Lebaron’s contorted reasoning went as follows: al-Jazeera’s coverage “took viewers’ emotions and then raised them to a higher level through its coverage…”

Lebaron simply did not like the fact that al-Jazeera had shown what was happening in Gaza. With jaw-dropping illogic, he complained that al-Jazeera provided no balance in its reporting because on one side it showed Israeli talking heads, while “on the other side of the scale, you are broadcasting graphic images of dead children and urban damage from modern warfare.”