We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com
Abbas Pumps New Life Into Hamas: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, Apr 30, 2014— These are wonderful days for the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas.
Running Away from Statehood, Again: Efraim Karsh, Middle East Forum, Apr. 28, 2014 — The "historic" agreement of last week between The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas, to form a united government casts a serious doubt not only on the Palestinian leadership's commitment to a two-state solution, but also on its interest in the attaining of statehood at all.
After EU Audit, Corruption Could Become an Expensive Problem for Ramallah: Cnaan Liphshiz, Jewish Press, May 8, 2014 — When Israeli police found thousands of contraband cell phones in the car of senior Palestinian Authority official Rawhi Fattouh, he was promptly removed from office — for about two months.
The Real Palestinian Refugee Crisis: Asaf Romirowsky, The Tower, May, 2014— Perhaps the most insurmountable and explosive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the so-called “right of return”—the demand that millions of Palestinians must be allowed to “return” to the State of Israel under any peace agreement.
Hamas-Fatah Unity Government to be Announced by End of Month: Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, May 12, 2014
Fatah and Hamas Reconciliation: Rushing to Judgment: Alon Ben-Meir, Huffington Post, May 1, 2014
Palestinian Authority: Combatants Against Peace: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, May 12, 2014
The Misleading Nakba Narrative: Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, May 8, 2014
Palestinian Unity Deal Creates a Stir in Middle East: Nicholas Casey, Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2014
The Myth of the Moderate Hamas: Dore Gold, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Apr. 27, 2014
ABBAS PUMPS NEW LIFE INTO HAMAS
Khaled Abu Toameh
Gatestone Institute, Apr. 30, 2014
These are wonderful days for the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas. Just when everyone thought that Hamas — an officially designated terrorist group and an offshoot of Muslim Brotherhood — was on its way to vanish as a result of Egypt's tough measures, Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas stepped in to save the movement by inviting its leaders to join a Palestinian unity government. Abbas's recent decision to sign a "reconciliation" agreement with Hamas is the best gift that the Islamist movement could have dreamed of receiving. Even if Abbas is not serious about the "reconciliation," his deal with the movement's leaders in the Gaza Strip has injected new blood into Hamas.
Hamas is now talking about running in the next Palestinian parliamentary elections and is even hoping to use the "reconciliation" accord as a vehicle for restoring its relations with Egypt. Buoyed by Abbas's deal, Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh phoned former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and invited him to serve as a monitor in the election. Carter and hundreds of international monitors supervised the last parliamentary election in 2006, which resulted in a Hamas victory. Hamas, of course, is confident that it would score another victory in any upcoming vote.
Until recently, Hamas was concerned only about one thing: how to remain in power despite Egypt's unprecedented measures against the movement and its leaders. These measures include the destruction of hundreds of smuggling tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt during the past few months — a move that created a severe economic and humanitarian crisis for the Palestinians living under Hamas's rule. Moreover, Egypt's massive crackdown on Hamas-affiliated terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula in particular, and the outlawing of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood organization in general, have dealt Hamas a severe blow. Ever since the removal of President Mohamed Morsi from power, the Egyptian authorities have been working hard to delegitimize Hamas and undermine its grip on the Gaza Strip. The Egyptians even went as far as also declaring Hamas a terrorist organization, holding it responsible for a series of terrorist attacks in Egypt over the past few months. Even some of Hamas's top leaders have admitted that the Egyptian measures caused their movement huge damage. Last month, Hamas denounced the Egyptian measures as a "war crime."
Egypt's war on Hamas has now suffered a major setback as a result of Abbas's sudden decision to mend fences with the movement. The Egyptian authorities worked hard to delegitimize Hamas in the hope of ending its control over the Gaza Strip. But Abbas's move has legitimized Hamas, paving the way for the movement's return to center stage. Hamas is not the only party that stands to benefit from Abbas's gesture. The Muslim Brotherhood organization, which had also been dealt severe blows in the aftermath of the removal of Morsi from power, also stands to benefit from the "reconciliation" pact. Abbas's alliance with Hamas is likely to put him on a course of collision with the Egyptian government, which regards Hamas as a threat to Egypt's national security.
If Abbas has decided that Hamas is a legitimate partner and is worthy of joining his government and the PLO, why shouldn't the Muslim Brotherhood also demand equal treatment from the Egyptian authorities? And why shouldn't other branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world demand that they be treated the same way as Hamas? Abbas's rapprochement with Hamas can only embolden Muslim fundamentalists and undermine moderate secular forces throughout the Arab world. But Abbas has not only emboldened Hamas. He and the Palestinian Authority have now assumed the role of Hamas advocates in a bid to whitewash the movement in the eyes of the rest of the world. Chief PLO Negotiator Saeb Erekat this week went as far as arguing that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. "We might agree or differ with Hamas," Erekat said. "But Hamas is not a terrorist organization. The occupation, according to international law, is the worst form of terrorism."
Abbas's "reconciliation" accord with Hamas is most probably aimed at exerting pressure on Israel to make far-reaching concessions at the negotiating table. But Abbas's move will soon prove to be counterproductive. Hamas's goal is to seize control over the Palestinian Authority and replace Israel with an Islamic empire. Abbas is deceiving himself and others when he says that a unity government with Hamas would recognize Israel and renounce violence. Hamas has already made it clear that the deal with Abbas does not mean that it would change its ideology or renounce terrorism.
RUNNING AWAY FROM STATEHOOD, AGAIN
Efraim Karsh
Middle East Forum, Apr. 28, 2014
The "historic" agreement of last week between The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas, to form a united government casts a serious doubt not only on the Palestinian leadership's commitment to a two-state solution, but also on its interest in the attaining of statehood at all. Not that this should have come as a surprise to anyone. For nearly a century, Palestinian leaders never have missed an opportunity to impede the development of Palestinian civil society and the attainment of Palestinian statehood.
Had the Jerusalem mufti Hajj Amin Husseini, who led the Palestinian Arabs from the early 1920s to the late 1940s, chosen to lead his constituents to peace and reconciliation with their Jewish neighbors, the Palestinians would have had their independent state over a substantial part of mandate Palestine by 1948, and would have been spared the traumatic experience of dispersal and exile. Had Yasser Arafat, who dominated Palestinian politics from the mid-1960s to his death in November 2004, set the PLO from the start on the path to peace and reconciliation instead of turning it into one of the most murderous and kleptocratic terrorist organizations in modern times, a Palestinian state could have been established on numerous occasions: In the late 1960s or the early 1970s; in 1979, as a corollary to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty; in May 1999, as part of the Oslo process; or more recently at the Camp David summit of July 2000. Had Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded Arafat as PLO chairman and PA president, abandoned his predecessors' rejectionist path, a Palestinian state could have been established after the Annapolis summit of November 2007, or in June 2009, during President Obama's first term when Benjamin Netanyahu broke with the longstanding Likud precept by publicly accepting the two-state solution and agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
But why should the Palestinians engage in the daunting tasks of nation-building and state creation if they can have their hapless constituents run around in circles for nearly a century while they bask in international sympathy and enrich themselves from the proceeds of their self-inflicted plight? The Palestinian leadership in Mandate Palestine (1920-48) had no qualms about inciting its constituents against Zionism and the Jews while lining its own pockets from the fruits of Jewish development and land purchases. So too, the cynical and self-seeking PLO "revolutionaries" have used the billions of dollars donated by the Arab oil states and the international community to lead a luxurious lifestyle in sumptuous hotels and villas, globe-trotting in grand style, acquiring properties, and making financial investments worldwide – while millions of ordinary Palestinians scramble for a livelihood, many of them in squalid and overcrowded refugee camps.
This process reached its peak following the September 1993 signing of the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (DOP, or Oslo I) and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. For all his rhetoric about Palestinian independence, Arafat had never been as interested in the attainment of statehood as he was in the violence attached to its pursuit. In the late 1970s, he told his close friend and collaborator, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, that the Palestinians lacked the tradition, unity, and discipline to become a formal state, and that a Palestinian state would be a failure from the first day. Once given control of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza as per the Oslo accords, Arafat made this bleak prognosis a self-fulfilling prophecy, establishing a repressive and corrupt regime in the worst tradition of Arab dictatorships. The rule of the gun prevailed, and huge sums of money donated by the international community for the benefit of the civilian Palestinian population were diverted to funding racist incitement, buying weaponry, and filling secret bank accounts.
Not only has Abbas done nothing to clean up the Palestinian Authorities' (PA) act, but he seems to have followed in his predecessor's kleptocratic footsteps, reportedly siphoning at least $100 million to private accounts abroad and making his sons at the PA's expense. In the words of Fahmi Shabaneh, former head of the Anti-Corruption Department in the PA's General Intelligence Service: "In his pre-election platform, President Abbas promised to end financial corruption and implement major reforms, but he hasn't done much since then. Unfortunately, Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the thieves and officials who were involved in theft of public funds and who became icons of financial corruption. … Some of the most senior Palestinian officials didn't have even $3,000 in their pocket when they arrived [after the signing of the Oslo accords]. Yet we discovered that some of them had tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in their bank accounts. …"
The attainment of statehood would have shattered the paradise established on the backs of the long suffering public in the West Bank and Gaza. It would have transformed the Palestinians in one fell swoop from the world's ultimate victim, into an ordinary (and most likely failing) nation-state, thus terminating decades of unprecedented international indulgence. It would have also driven the final nail into the PLO's false pretense of being "the sole representative of the Palestinian people" (already dealt a devastating blow by Hamas's 2006 electoral rout) and would have forced any governing authority to abide, for the first time in Palestinian history, by the principles of accountability and transparency. Small wonder, therefore, that whenever confronted with an international or Israeli offer of statehood, Palestinian leaders will never take "yes" for an answer.
AFTER EU AUDIT, CORRUPTION COULD BECOME
AN EXPENSIVE PROBLEM FOR RAMALLAH
Cnaan Liphshiz
JTA, May 8, 2014
When Israeli police found thousands of contraband cell phones in the car of senior Palestinian Authority official Rawhi Fattouh, he was promptly removed from office — for about two months. A consultant to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Fattouh was reinstated in May 2008 after his driver, a state employee, confessed to the smuggling, which Israeli border police discovered when searching Fattouh’s car at a border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank. The scandal drew international media attention, but by 2011, the case had been closed. Palestinian prosecutor Ahmed al-Moghani said his office had no information implicating Fattouh.
Still, critics say, the scandal and others like it are part of a lingering corruption problem that has plagued the Palestinian Authority since it was formed under Yasser Arafat following the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Long ignored internationally in favor of more urgent business, the problem is now prompting an unprecedented degree of scrutiny from the European Union, the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority. Since 1994, $7.7 billion in EU funds have been transferred to Ramallah. In December, the European Court of Auditors reported that the Palestinians had been using European money for years to pay Gaza workers, some of whom had not actually worked in seven years. Palestinian Labor Minister Ahmed Majdalani defended the payments, saying the employees had families to support and couldn’t just be cut off, but the European Parliament took a less sanguine view.
Last month, it adopted a nonbinding resolution saying that payroll problems raise concerns about money laundering and terrorist financing. It noted the Palestinian Authority’s controversial salary payments to the families of terrorists serving time in Israeli jails. In an unprecedented move, the parliament also called for future EU funding to be conditioned on Palestinian compliance with reform recommendations. “Until now, EU aid was unconditional,” said Guy Bechor, an Israeli expert on the Arab world and a former lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “Now, for the first time, we are seeing serious moves for conditionality and transparency.”
Some analysts connect Europe’s sudden vigilance to anger over the recent collapse of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The EU’s ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, warned in January there would be “a price to pay” by both sides if the talks failed. Others trace it to frustration over Ramallah’s spending habits and a general donor fatigue in Europe, where high unemployment rates and sluggish economic growth have led to belt-tightening across the continent. “How can the European Union preserve its credibility back home when it pays salaries to people who don’t work, while millions of European citizens are unemployed?” Michael Theurer, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on April 9. In his op-ed, Theurer linked the Palestinian Authority’s accountability problems to success of Hamas, the governing power in Gaza regarded as a terrorist group by the United States and Europe. “The more the Palestinian Authority is perceived as corrupt by the Palestinian people, the greater their support will be for Hamas,” he wrote. “Thus, to promote peace and stability, Brussels must help the Palestinian Authority build strong and transparent institutions.”
The reference to Hamas touches on yet another potential complication for EU funding. Last month, Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. An EU-funded Palestinian government with Hamas aboard “would not only mean EU funds for terrorists but would conflict with the two-state solution, which is the very declared goal of the funding in the first place,” said Arie Zuckerman of the European Jewish Congress. EU officials have said they would consider a Palestinian unity government legitimate if Hamas accepts the principles underlying the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, including recognizing Israel and committing to nonviolence. The Palestine Liberation Organization has said that any interim Palestinian government formed from the reconciliation process would not include Hamas or Fatah ministers but would rather be composed of officials who are independent of the two factions.
Some reports have suggested there are murmurings within the European Union about cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority. If true, that threat may be directed as much at Israel as at the Palestinians, according to Oded Eran, a former Israeli ambassador to the European Union and now a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. “The prospect of cutting aid to Ramallah has served as a veiled threat to Israel,” Eran said, “because they assume that doing so would place that financial burden on Israel.”
THE REAL PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CRISIS
Asaf Romirowsky
The Tower, May, 2014
Perhaps the most insurmountable and explosive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the so-called “right of return”—the demand that millions of Palestinians must be allowed to “return” to the State of Israel under any peace agreement. While Israel has made clear that it cannot agree to this, since it would effectively destroy Israel as a Jewish state, the Palestinians have steadfastly refused to compromise on the issue. This has made the “right of return” the primary obstacle to any peace agreement. Despite the latest round of peace talks, there is little sign that the Palestinians are willing to change their stance. Indeed, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has unequivocally stated, “Let me put it simply: the right of return is a personal decision. What does this mean? That neither the PA, nor the state, nor the PLO, nor Abu Mazen [Abbas’ nom de guerre], nor any Palestinian or Arab leader has the right to deprive someone from his right to return.” Abbas is by no means alone in this. In fact, whenever it appears that Abbas might waver, the reaction tends to be swift and ferocious.
At one point, for example, Ali Huwaidi, director of the Palestinian Organization for the Right of Return (“Thabit”) in Beirut, lashed out at Abbas, saying, “Regardless of Abbas’ statements, the right of return is guaranteed, individually and collectively, through UN resolutions. The refugees will not give up their right no matter where they are living today. Abbas is worried about flooding Israel with five million refugees while Israel has brought one million people from the former Soviet Union and no one complained about this. Our refugees will not accept any alternative to their right to return to their homeland and we do not care what Abbas’ position is.” But how many actual refugees are there? Surely over the years, many of those displaced have passed away, and such status does not normally transfer from generation to generation.
The issue is so emotive because, in many ways, Palestinian identity itself is embodied in the collective belief in a “right of return” to “Palestine.” Along with the belief that resistance to Israel is permanent and holy, Palestinian identity is largely based on the idea that the Palestinians are, individually and communally, refugees; that they have been made so by Israel; and that the United Nations should support these refugees until they can return to what is now Israel.
This belief is passionately safeguarded by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The organization was established in 1949 following the failure of the Arab war against Israel’s independence, and its original mandate was to provide services to the approximately 650,000 Arabs displaced by the conflict. Today, it is essentially a massive social welfare system serving millions of Palestinians, primarily in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. At the same time, its activities go well beyond simple humanitarianism. It plays a distinctly political role in Palestinian society, working to further the cause of Palestinian nationalism through politicized education, activism, anti-Israel propaganda, and other activities.
In effect, UNRWA has come to depend on the refugee problem itself. While the refugees benefit from its services, the organization benefits even more from the refugees. They are, of course, the organization’s raison d’être. UNRWA has no incentive whatsoever to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem, since doing so would render it obsolete. As a result, the agency not only perpetuates the refugee problem, but has, in many ways, exacerbated it. In doing so, it has made Israeli-Palestinian peace all but impossible.
UNRWA’s role in perpetuating and even expanding the refugee problem is a complex one; but, more than anything else, it is the result of the agency’s own definition of a Palestinian refugee—which is unique in world history. The standard definition of a refugee, which applies in every case except that of the Palestinians, includes only those actually displaced in any given conflict. UNRWA has defined a Palestinian refugee as anyone whose “normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” But it has also continually expanded this definition, now stating “the children or grandchildren of such refugees are eligible for agency assistance if they are (a) registered with UNRWA, (b) living in the area of UNRWA’s operations, and (c) in need.”
As a result, the number of official Palestinian refugees—according to UNRWA— has expanded almost to the point of absurdity. The best estimates are that perhaps 650,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1948-1949; but UNRWA now defines virtually every Palestinian born since that time as a refugee. That number now reaches well into the millions. This is quite simply unprecedented. In no other case has refugee status been expanded to include subsequent generations over a period of decades…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link –Ed.]
Hamas-Fatah Unity Government to be Announced by End of Month: Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, May 12, 2014—The new PA unity government will be announced before the end of May, Palestinian sources said on Monday.
Fatah and Hamas Reconciliation: Rushing to Judgment: Alon Ben-Meir, Huffington Post, May 1, 2014— Characterizing the Fatah-Hamas unity, or rather reconciliation, agreement as helpful or harmful to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is premature at best.
Palestinian Authority: Combatants Against Peace: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, May 12, 2014—Palestinian peace activists have come under fire for attending a Memorial Day Ceremony in Tel Aviv for Palestinian and Israeli victims of violence. The ceremony was attended by some 2700 people.
The Misleading Nakba Narrative: Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, May 8, 2014—In recent years the international community has come to accept the Palestinians’ Nakba narrative in which Israel’s birth is treated as a “disaster” and indisputable proof of the need to pressure Israel.
Palestinian Unity Deal Creates a Stir in Middle East: Nicholas Casey, Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2014—Four weeks ago Munib al Masri, a Palestinian billionaire, set off quietly for the Gaza Strip to meet Ismail Haniyeh, the Islamist leader of Hamas, to propose a deal to end seven years of rivalry with the Palestine Liberation Organization and form a joint government.
The Myth of the Moderate Hamas: Dore Gold, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Apr. 27, 2014— Every time the profile of Hamas rises as a result of some development in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, there is an effort undertaken to repackage Hamas as a moderate organization.
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