Rice Hears
From Palestinians
Forbes Magazine
Matthew Swibel,
10.17.07,
10:42 AM ET
Bethlehem, West Bank -
On
a stop in Bethlehem Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met for
an hour with Palestinian business leaders, who share with her a dislike for
Hamas rule and a belief that economic revitalization of Palestinian areas is
crucial to establishing peace.
An economic research expert shared his own polling data with Rice, showing the majority of Palestinians support a two-state, peaceful resolution with Israel. The business leaders also reaffirmed their support for the government of Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"We believe if we fail, we will not be the only losers," Gaza economy expert Samir Hazboun, one of nine individuals present at the meeting with Rice, said in an interview after the session. "Americans will lose. Israelis will lose. The radicals will prevail."
The Israeli construction of a security barrier through the West Bank has contributed to a dramatic decline of tourism to Bethlehem, although the sector has begun to recover, with the number of tourists tripling in the past year, Hazboun told Forbes. But it is still well below 2000 levels. The Intercontinental hotel, where Rice held meetings, was 20% occupied, up from an average of just 5% last year.
Secretary Rice in the Church of Nativity (St
Catherine's side) with Khouloud Daibes, PA minister of tourism, and Costa Neno,
Bethlehem guide (father of Yvonne Neno-Ulrich our treasurer) and Chuch
dignitaries.
Hazboun, who also chairs the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, told Rice about plans to open 18 new shops that will require hiring dozens of new workers.
Rice and President Bush see job growth in the private sector as providing a crucial alternative to participation in extremist groups. Currently, Palestinian unemployment is estimated to be as high as 65%.
The business leaders meeting with Rice included Nassar Nassar, winner of the 2005 Investor of the Year award winner given by Jordanian King Abdullah; Zahi Khouri, chairman of the National Beverage Company, a Coca-Cola franchiser; and Dr. Hasan Abu Libdeh, chairman of the Palestinian Securities Exchange.
"The Israeli business community is looking at peace as a way forward more than their own government [is]," Nassar told Forbes. He said the group specially addressed with Rice the lack of freedom of movement in the West Bank as a deterrent to investment. In 2006, the Palestinian territories received just $38 million in direct foreign investment. By contrast, more than $14 billion flowed into Israel.
Carrying momentum from an Egyptian endorsement of the peace process on Tuesday, Rice began her day with a visit to the Church of the Nativity, called the birthplace of Jesus. "Being here at the birthplace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has been a very special and moving experience," Rice, the daughter and granddaughter of Presbyterian ministers, said after the tour. "It is also, I think, a personal reminder that the prince of peace is still with us."
She struck a realistic tone in her closed-door meeting, referring to a planned U.S.-hosted Middle East peace summit as a winter conference, said one participant in the meeting. Rice previously has referred to a fall date for the much anticipated meeting.
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Forbes Magazine
Commentary on the Peace Process
Jordan Times
Sunday November 11, 2007
by Hasan Abu Ni'mah
Last week, the board of the United Nations Foundation (UNF) met in Amman. Ted Turner, chairman of the group, extended an invitation to a small group of Jordanian personalities to share with the UNF board the challenges and opportunities facing the region. I had the privilege of being amongst them.
The limited time - less than 90 minutes - did not permit much interaction among the relatively large number of participants, hosts and Jordanians. It only offered few minutes to each to comment briefly on one single subject. Anticipating that, I had prepared written remarks of which a copy was presented to the board members. Here are my remarks:
1. The primary challenge facing the Middle Eastern region is the absence of any hope that there will be progress in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict in the foreseeable future. Ominous as it may sound, unfortunately, the region will have to live with the stalemate quite endlessly.
The so-called peace process has faltered due mainly to Israel’s avowed unwillingness to reach any meaningful settlement with the Palestinians and probably others. This is bound to maintain, and perhaps increase, the current complications, including instability, frequent eruptions of violence, possible wars and continued depletion of resources and potential.
It is hard to imagine genuine democratization, reform, social and economic progress in the absence of normal political conditions.
2. There is a combination of reasons on why there will be no progress towards peace. Amongst the most important are:
- Israel, which holds the initiative firmly in its hands, has been openly opposed to any settlement which requires ending the occupation of West Bank and Jerusalem or to abiding by international law and agreements.
Due to its deep involvement in a messed up and quite counterproductive war on terror, with the Iraqi quagmire as its most burdensome entanglement, and because of the power of the Israel lobby, as detailed in the report, and later the book, of professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Washington has been, and will for long be, in no position to pressure Israel into acting differently.
- Under the current international climate, the United Nations had been sidelined and not allowed to act. Accepting to reduce its position as the sole world organisation in charge of world peace and security to a mere and meagre fourth member in the Middle East Quartet was undermining as well as demeaning. By doing so, the UN has set a very unusual precedent where the whole reduced itself to become part of the part. That helped create the unreal impression that it was involved, when it has all along been known that Israel was always opposed to any UN involvement in the Middle East conflict, except in the very few cases when such involvement was deemed temporarily useful.
The UN did not convincingly insist upon acting in accordance with its mandate or its Charter. Actually, it did not have the power to do so and does not have such power now. It simply succumbed to intimidation and, as a result, annulled its role in an historic conflict steadily proving to be most dangerous to world peace and security.
- A credible collective Arab position, even a voice, has been absent for years. There is no denying that a unified Arab political strategy to deal with the conflict has been lacking. Neither the “slogan” of “peace as the Arab strategic choice” since the early 1990s nor the Arab Peace Initiative launched at the Arab Beirut summit in 2002 and relaunched earlier this year has been taken seriously. No attempt was made on the part of the Arab League to pursue the initiative, which had also failed to unite the Arab states on any one strategy; they continued to act individually, often indifferently and quite out of any effective coordination. That has tempted Israel not to give any weight, even consideration, to the Arab League’s declared positions or those of its individual members.
- The EU has simply trailed behind the US, formalising that state of affairs by doing what the UN did: accepting a minor role as a member of the Quartet. There has been no attempt on the part of the EU to formulate a fair, effective and independent policy towards the conflict.
European generous economic and financial support for the Palestinian Authority after the Oslo arrangements yielded the opposite effect. Partly, EU aid financed corruption, with hundreds of millions of dollars, as the Palestinian Legislative Council’s Investigation Committee had found out, went unaccounted for, rather than being used for the intended Palestinian institution building.
The other adverse result was that pouring EU money without an agenda for ending the occupation relieved Israel of much of its financial obligations as an occupying power, using its savings to build more settlements and more for Jews-only bypass roads, and for consolidating its occupation rather than ending it. There are no convincing signs that Europe is currently playing any actively constructive role vis-à-vis the conflict.
- The Palestinian political scene is rapidly descending into fragmentation and total ineffectiveness. Last year’s elections, which were strongly demanded by the so-called international community, failed to produce the “desired results”, sweeping Hamas to the top. Those who were persistently calling for democratisation and reform turned, as a result, victims of their own tactics. The results of the Palestinian elections, which were internationally monitored and approved as fair and correct, were shunned and disclaimed under all kind of pretexts. This did not only harm the Palestinians, but it further exposed international hypocrisy and double standards.
The Palestinian democratic experiment is now totally destroyed, with all international support lining behind Mahmoud Abbas and his “emergency”, unelected government; with the elected Palestinian parliament crippled; and with the elected government dismissed, besieged and boycotted in Gaza. In the case of those who “believed” that distancing themselves from Hamas while rallying support for Abbas and his Fateh party would pave the way for peace, all they need is to watch the preparations for the autumn Annapolis peace summit, and later watch the results.
None of the lessons of the past have been learned. Attempts continue to end the conflict by annihilating the rights of the weaker side and depleting its energy to claim such rights, rather than restoring any measure of justice. This has been intensifying the pain and widening the rift between the West and the Arab/Islamic worlds. This has offered a great service to terrorists, providing them with endless numbers of easy recruits.
Religion was dragged into this mess but did not create it. It is not in reforming or understanding religion that the solutions lie; they are entirely entrenched under deep layers of accumulating injustice. Neither will destroying Hamas, Hizbollah or, for that matter, any other group labeled as terrorist simply for opposing Israeli aggression bring the region any closer to peace. Terrorism is unquestionably an evil which we all should join efforts to eradicate, but we should, at the same time, stop compounding injustice, feeding desperation and pushing more people to the terrorists.
- Other than the wretched political factors, there are the economic factors, the worsening living conditions in some parts of the region while wealth is accumulating beyond belief in others. While writing these remarks I heard the alarming news of soaring oil prices to a record $93 a barrel. God knows what this figure will become in the coming days or months.
I am particularly thinking of my country and how we will be able to cope. His Majesty the King intervened personally to overrule a government decision, few months ago, to raise oil product prices to avert a possible crisis. But that was only a postponement, because there is no way that the government can afford to cover the soaring oil bill at existing costs. That was when the barrel was just over $70. It will be impossible for a country like Jordan to be able to maintain its unique stability if the prices continue to rise, and they will - all prices go up with the oil price.
If the rich countries in the region continue to build their huge wealth and spend lavishly without minding the misery digging in elsewhere in the region, we will all end up paying the price. It is time that all the countries and peoples of the region, particularly the rich, start thinking of the region as one; as one ship which will sink once desperation drives anyone on board to dig a hole in his part.
3. All the above still excludes the possibility or further aggravation in case Iran is bombed, or another Israeli military adventure such as the last summer’s against Lebanon is approved. There is hardly any difference between the belligerent rhetoric we hear now against Iran and the one which prevailed against Iraq in preparation for a war now recognised as naked, unnecessary aggression.
Even the Israeli foreign minister admitted that the “Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel. She also criticised the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, accusing him of seeking popular support by playing on people’s worst fears. (Haaretz, October 25, 2007).
Another military adventure against Iran will destroy what is left standing in the region and will send powerful shockwaves around the globe. This is an impending danger and a huge challenge which should be confronted. There is hope, though, that some sense may still prevent the disaster. But in the lawlessness of the day, no disaster can be ruled out. The UN has been badly disabled.
4. Evidently, therefore, it is highly unlikely that the political climate will change, and obviously there is no point in waiting for change for some time to come. Indeed, most likely for a long time. What may be urgently needed is to alleviate the mounting suffering; literally to use dressings and tranquillisers until the time comes for more radical action.
I had argued persistently against limiting the handling of the historic Arab-Israeli conflict to the complications and symptoms. But that was when there was a choice, and many opted for remaining on the surface to avoid the thornier alternative of addressing the root causes. Many did not want to touch any sensitive nerve that could provoke Israeli anger. The choice now is almost non-existent.
The road to meaningful action is blocked by the absence of any political will to challenge Israeli defiance. It is painful to admit that only symptomatic treatment is possible at the time; alleviating the suffering and probably arresting the deterioration, until the international climate permits serious peacemaking effort. There should be urgent action to prevent existing and upcoming crises resulting from a widening gap between the rich and the poor, countries and individuals.
I would conclude by stressing that there is no alternative to UN action but returning the entire Middle East conflict file to the UN and the Security Council, but this sounds highly unrealistic, knowing the constraints and the uneven prevailing circumstances.
That also means reconstructing the UN role, a hope too remote and highly unrealistic.
7 November 2007
