The State of the Jews

The PA last week shut down the West Bank’s only Christian television broadcaster, according to AsiaNews.

The Palestinian National Authority has shut down Al-Mahed “Nativity” TV for operating without a licence. Samir Qumsieh, owner and general manager of the Christian broadcaster, slammed the decision. After 14 years on the air and despite a long list of “thank you letters” by grateful viewers, Palestinian police raided the broadcaster’s offices yesterday at 2 pm. Waving an order by the Interior Ministry, they put the station off the air.

Contacted by AsiaNews, Mr Qumsieh said he was baffled by the order, which for him was “unjustified”.

According to unconfirmed reports that reached AsiaNews, the closure appears to be financially motivated. Palestinian authorities demanded money, a “licence” that was not paid.

In a letter addressed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Mr Qumsieh slammed the unjustified closure of the Christian TV station because of the “lack of a licence”.

Hat tip: Elan Miller.

It’s no secret Ha’aretz represents the left-wing fringe in Israeli politics, with columnists who openly question Jewish statehood and a reflexive assumption of Israeli responsibility for anything that goes wrong in the region.

Still, even for Ha’aretz, this is crazy. In an editorial titled: “Netanyahu, the US has given you a second chance. Use it.” the paper tries to argue that (a) the Americans are offering a “second chance” that, presumably, may not return, (b) “the US had demanded that Netanyahu … agree to deliberations on all the core issues,” and (c) that “Netanyahu will commit a grave error if he is tempted to continue the damaging clash with Obama, and if he uses the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), to enlist the president’s political enemies to advance the positions of the Israeli right wing.”

The degree of disinformation contained in this piece is staggering, and begs the question: Are Ha’aretz’s savvy editors so disconnected from reality, or are they knowingly lying to advance their politics?

This is worth following. Could an affluent, Western Palestinian Diaspora be part of the solution?

Here’s an attempt to create some kind of ‘Palestinian Agency’:

The state of Palestine does not exist; the courts are still not working, local government has numerous problems, not to mention health care, education and infrastructure. Representatives of Palestinian communities abroad have come to Bethlehem to kick off the independent “Palestine Network.”

“Welcome to your second home,” announces Ramzi Khoury, executive director of the Palestine Network. “You are representatives from 23 countries who have chosen to be engaged in building this Palestinian state and not just talking about it. This is a do tank, rather than a talk tank. This is not a political club.”

…

“If you want to build a democratic state, you need to tackle all the sectors of that state,” Khoury says. “So doctors need to come down here and revamp our health system, engineers need to come here and help us build, lawyers and judges need to come and help us create an independent judiciary and a state of law, and we need educators.”

The Palestine Network is not just another charity or source of funding. The Palestinians have many economic backers. In 2008, global financial aid to the Palestinian Authority exceeded $2 billion, including about $526 million from Arab countries, $651m. from the European Union, $300m. from the US and about $238m. from the World Bank, according to the Arab League’s 2009 economic report.

The founding conference, sponsored by the governments of Germany and Belgium, was held in the opulent Convention Center on the outskirts of Bethlehem, hub of Palestinian culture and tourism.

The network’s goal is to use expertise from Palestine’s diaspora communities to develop the local economy, judiciary, education and health infrastructures in what will be the future state.

Why do the Palestinian Baruch Goldsteins rule the Palestinian public square? What possible conclusions are we supposed to draw from the decision to name a Ramallah square after Dalal Mughrabi, “who led the worst terror attack in Israel’s history when she and other terrorists hijacked a bus and murdered 37 civilians in 1978″?

And why is Ramallah doing it on the anniversary of the attack?! I know this blog has a handful of readers in Arab lands. Anyone care to explain?

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Not only does [the Ramallah municipality] still intend to name the square after the terrorist, but the date chosen for the inaugural ceremony is this Thursday, March 11, the 32nd anniversary of the terror attack.

…

Headline: “Preparations for inauguration of Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square complete”
“The El-Bireh Municipality has completed construction work at the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square in the Um Al-Sharait region, and has commenced preparations for its inauguration this Thursday, the anniversary of Mughrabi’s Martyrdom. The mayor, Jamal Al-Tawil, said that… this year the municipality will celebrate the inauguration of the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square in order to commemorate her memory and her sacrifice as a Palestinian woman who resisted the occupation. City Council member Aida Abu-Ubeid said that the square is considered a symbol of the sacrifice of the Palestinian woman. She also noted that flowers and trees will be planted there, and that a picture of the Shahida Dalal Mughrabi will be placed at the center of the square.”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 7, 2010]

There has been no public comment from the Obama administration about the PA’s honoring of the terrorist.

As many have noted following Binyamin Netanyahu’s June speech at Bar Ilan University, it’s not a crazy demand on the part of the Israelis that the new state of Palestine be disarmed. Besides the traumatic experience of the Gaza withdrawal, where land vacated by Israel quickly became the launching pad for incessant attacks on Sderot, there is actual precedent for disarmament in the international arena – both Costa Rica and Iceland have no militaries, and it has served them well.

Now, Costa Rica’s president Oscar Arias, a Nobel peace laureate and supporter of Palestinian independence, agrees.

In an interview with the Israeli news website YNet over the weekend (The English article is here, but the Hebrew one has the full quote I translated below), he says:

“In my conversations with the Palestinians, I’m trying to suggest a crazy idea – get rid of your army. In practical terms, this isn’t really a crazy idea, because we did it 61 years ago, and we have only benefited from it. In my opinion, a small state, a poor state like Palestine doesn’t need an army. Clearly not everyone will agree with me, but it takes a bit of courage to make such a decision and I hope the Palestinian Authority will have the courage to take this step.”

YNet’s Netanel Shlomovich adds:

The Costa Rican president’s position [on disarmament] will likely make the Netanyahu government happy, but not on all issues. During Arias’ term, Costa Rica established diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority and even recognized a Palestinian state. Yet President Arias doesn’t understand why these actions constitute a controversial decision.

“Over a hundred nations have recognized a Palestinian state. This was the vision of the United Nations from the partition agreement of 1947 that called for the establishment of two states. Very few people will disagree with the idea of two states,” [Arias said].

Am I the only pessimist left standing on this business of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood?

The Atlantic Wire, the blog section of the Atlantic magazine, juxtaposes my view on this with three other commentators extolling the idea. For the record, I wrote that unilateral statehood would give the Palestinians nothing while freeing Israel’s right-wing government from its standing obligations.

The other commentators, on the other hand, didn’t even try to deal with the question in strategic terms.

Yossi Sarid, as is his wont, is hopeful and optimistic to the point of irrelevance: “When he declares independence, Abbas should call upon the Jews living in the state of Palestine to preserve the peace and to do their part in building up the new country as full and equal citizens, enjoying fair representation in all of its institutions.”

Juan Cole is inexplicably paranoid: “Since the Netanyahu government is about the least likely government to negotiate a Palestinian state within 1967 borders you could imagine, the Palestinians are giving up any hopes that talks will lead anywhere. Moreover, since Netanyahu has secret plans to thousands of further Israeli houses on Palestinian land in the next few years, time is short.”

This is just plain weird. First of all, Netanyahu doesn’t need “secret plans.” There are perfectly non-secret construction plans available for public viewing in the Housing and Construction Ministry. Second, the non-negotiable Palestinian demands aren’t just about borders, but also about refugees, Jerusalem and other issues. Third, on Cole’s doubts about Netanyahu’s intentions, he would do well to remember that both Sinai and Gaza – two withdrawals that included dismantling settlements and resettling thousands of Jews – were carried out by right-wing governments.

Finally, Chris Hedges seals the debate by comparing Palestine to all sorts of non-comparable places: “It worked in Kosovo. It worked in Georgia. And it will work in Palestine.”

But it didn’t work in Chechnya or Kurdistan, and worked only partially in Scotland and the Basque country – because these are all completely different situations.

Consider: Unlike in Kosovo, Israelis have been willing to withdraw from Palestine for over a decade (according to Tel Aviv University’s annual Peace Index). Unlike in either Georgia or Kosovo, Palestine has Hamas waiting in the wings to take over. Unlike in either Georgia or Kosovo, Israel is neither Russian nor Serbian in its intentions or in its political capacity for brutality.

Besides, supporting unilateral independence implies a trust in the current Palestinian leadership to get it right – to build institutions, to construct a national economy. Does Hedges trust them to do this?

The occupation is bad, undemocratic and temporary – even according to Israel’s own laws. But should the PA, which has suffered for almost two decades mainly from its own corrupt and incompetent leadership, unceremoniously jettison the entire Oslo process in the hope that more UN pressure will give them independence and prosperity? Will the need to negotiate over Jerusalem, refugees and borders disappear because Cuba, Sweden and Russia recognize Ramallah and Nablus as a “state” rather than an autonomous “authority?”