Obama Silent On Palestinian Authority Incitement And Racism

[Published 7 July 2010]


President Obama missed a wonderful opportunity to reprimand Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief Negotiator - Saeb Erekat - for his hate-filled and racist remarks made at a meeting held by the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York just ten days ago in the presence of Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor.

That opportunity was afforded President Obama at a joint press conference he held with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the conclusion of their meeting in the White House on 5 July.

President Obama’s failure to do so was even more apparent as he told the gathered press corps:

“I think it’s very important that the Palestinians not look for excuses for incitement, that they are not engaging in provocative language; that at the international level, they are maintaining a constructive tone, as opposed to looking for opportunities to embarrass Israel.”

Mr Erekat’s remarks were racist, highly provocative and amounted to incitement on a level never heard from so senior a member of the PA before. Maybe this is what triggered President Obama’s warning. However without any direct - and public - Presidential rebuke or reprimand - the President’s call amounted to nothing more than hot air devoid of any context which led to it being made.

Addressing the IPI meeting Mr Erekat had this to say:

“There are roads today in the West Bank that we cannot use as Palestinians — only Israelis can use. And look — such diseases as racism and bigotry, once it inflicts underneath our skin, we have tended to justify it, sometimes [indiscernible], sometimes economically, sometimes psychologically, and sometimes even sexually. Today Israel is justifying this apartheid regime in the West Bank by security terms – that’s racism"

.“

Absent was any comment or acknowledgment by Mr Erekat that there are other roads in the West Bank that are closed to Jews.

Describing Israel’s concerns as “security pretexts” and translating those genuinely held concerns into policies promoting apartheid and racism indicates that Mr Erekat’s position as Senior Negotiator for the PA has been seriously compromised.

In answering questions Mr Erekat affirmed his earlier inflammatory comments - stating

“And I’m sorry that term, racist policies, angered some here. I don’t know what to call it. I don’t know what’s the definition for it. I said that in Tel Aviv University. I said it’s shameless.It is shameless. It is shameless, in 2010, there are roads in the West Bank Christians and Muslims cannot use under security pretexts. Never in the darkest hours of South Africa’s apartheid were blacks prevented to use roads. You’re angry? Do something about it! Ignoring facts don’t mean they don’t exist. 42 years after a corrupt occupation, yes, it’s developing. It’s developing towards an apartheid system,”

These comments brought the following response from Mr Meridor:

“It’s quite strange to hear of apartheid from people who says everybody has a right to build in the West Bank provided he’s not Jewish. This is okay. Everybody can build in Jerusalem if it’s not Jewish. This is okay. To say that people cannot live in a certain place because they are Jews is fine. So to speak of apartheid is really, it’s very popular in some circles, but it’s somewhat strange.”

No doubt Mr Erekat is experiencing a deep sense of frustration as the last seven years of negotiations with which he has been intimately associated have gone nowhere. Frustration leads to resentment but any diplomat worth his political salt must learn to curb his tongue and refrain from public statements that undermine the very essence of continued negotiations.

Mr Erekat’s remarks clearly fell within the parameters of President Obama’s warning.

In failing to directly and openly reprimand Mr Erekat for his statements, President Obama has indicated by his silence that Mr Erekat has carte blanche - so far as America is concerned - to engage in the use of similar language in the course of the future conduct of any negotiations between Israel and the PA.

President Obama’s deafening silence was matched by IPI Chairman Terje Rod-Larsen who compounded and condoned Mr Erekat’s inflammatory language when summing up:

“Yet we’ve had here at the International Peace Institute two of the people who are leaders at the very front line of this conflict arguing their case passionately, persuasively, honestly, and I’d say courageously, and I was also just about to say, and with restraint and very well mannered.”

Any balanced assessment of Mr Erekat’s outrageous behaviour would conclude otherwise.

Israel will scarcely be able to complain about the future use of such language by any PA officials unless it takes a stand now and calls for the removal of Mr Erekat as chief negotiator.

Charges of racism and apartheid against Israel by PA officials need to be stamped out once and for all.

Mr Netanyahu told President Obama:

“I think there are solutions that we can adopt. But in order to proceed to the solutions, we need to begin negotiations in order to end them. We’ve begun proximity talks. I think it’s high time to begin direct talks. I think with the help of President Obama, President Abbas and myself should engage in direct talks to reach a political settlement of peace,coupled with security and prosperity.”

Given the expressed views of Mr Erekat - he should not be included in any such direct talks.

As a negotiator Mr Erekat has been a total failure in his ability to come to a concluded agreement with Israel. That the PA continue to use his services is obviously a matter for the PA alone to decide.

However in view of Mr Erekat’s intemperate statements - it is time for Israel to insist on Mr Erekat’s exclusion from the resumption of any direct talks as a condition of Israel’s future participation.

Israel’s sense of national pride and its national interest demands it takes such a stance. Accusations of racism and apartheid by top PA officials should not be condoned by Israel under any circumstances.

Mr Erekat has dug his own grave. In doing so - he may just have managed to secure peace for himself enabling him to live out his remaining years in his home town - Jericho - rather than the international arena.

Goodbye Palestinian Authority - Welcome Jordan

[Published 30 June 2010]


The Palestinian Authority (PA) is likely to be wound up at the end of the year according to PA Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat - if no agreement is reached with Israel on the so called “two-state solution” - the creation of a new Arab state between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Mr Erekat made the threat at a meeting in New York on 25 June hosted by the International Peace Institute (IPI) - which also featured Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister - Dan Meridor.

Mr Erekat warned that if by the end of this year there was no two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian Authority then Israel will “sweat.”

He explained that the Palestinian Authority was founded to establish the institutions for a Palestinian state, not to keep Israel as a source of authority forever.

“If Israel insists on maintaining control the Palestinian Authority cannot stand - it’s irrelevant,”

Mr Erekat’s statement was a direct rebuff to Mr Meridor who had earlier stated:

“I hope that if we can’t get a full agreement on the outstanding issues regarding Jerusalem, refugees, final borders and security, we will not let negotiations collapse but alongside that build up from what we have now - a good economic growth - over 8% growth last year in the West Bank and I hope more this year - and an absence of terror - into more steps towards a Palestinian State."”

The New York meeting added a new dimension to the past direct negotiations and the current proximity negotiations that one might call “in your face public negotiations” - when two of the most senior politicians from either side of the conflict traded blows for two hours.

The gaps between them were wide and obviously unbridgeable by next December - especially given the fractured relations between Hamas and the PA and the division of the West Bank and Gaza into two separately governed areas.

Mr Meridor claimed that the PA had had 288 meetings with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert following the Annapolis Conference in November 2007 and that no response had been received to the offer made to the PA by Israel.

Brandishing two maps Mr Erekat angrily responded that Israel’s offer of a land swap of 6.5% of the West Bank in exchange for an equal area from Israel’s sovereign territory had been met by a counter offer by the PA of a land swap equal to 1.9% on 30 July 2008.

Absent was any mention of their hopelessly polarised views on Jerusalem, refugees and water or what was going to happen to 500000 Jews who had been living in the West Bank for the last four decades.

IPI President - Terje Rod Larsen - who chaired the meeting - is a veteran of past negotiations between Israel and the PA that have failed to achieve the two state solution more than 17 years after the fanfare which greeted its introduction and projected conclusion by May 1999 following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Mr Larsen came to wide international prominence as a key figure in the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords that created the PA. In 1993, he was appointed Ambassador and Special Adviser for the Middle East Peace process to the Norwegian Foreign Minister, and the following year, he became the United Nations Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories at the rank of Under-Secretary-General. He served as the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority from 1999 to 2004.

His understanding of the hopelessness of ever reaching a two state solution was apparent in his remarks to both Mr Erekat and Mr Meridor - when he said that this New York meeting between them had come at a crucial time in the Middle East process and continued:

“Nearly two decades have passed and we are in dire need of new hope and new energy and creative solutions in order for negotiations to move forward.”

Mr Erekat’s lack of any creative solutions became apparent when he told the meeting:

“Israel has three options - a two-state solution, a single state including Jews and Palestinians, or a continuation of Israel’s racism and apartheid system in the West Bank where Arabs and Christians can’t use roads reserved only for Israelis.”

Notably missing was a fourth option - that Jordan and Israel negotiate to divide sovereignty of the West Bank between their respective States.

If the PA implodes the Jordanian option will become the only option that can have any possible chance of ending the current impasse.

Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994 that deals with settling all the contentious issues mentioned by Mr Meridor - but which the PA seems unable to contemplate or accept.

Reunification of the major Arab populated areas of the West Bank with Jordan - as existed between 1948-1967 - will transform the lives of the West Bank Arab population. They will use roads reserved only for Arabs and Christians - not Jews. They will have their dignity restored to that existing at 4 June 1967 - again becoming citizens of an exclusively Arab country - no longer under or subject to Israeli occupation.

Certainly any such negotiations between Jordan and Israel will not usher in any final end to the ongoing conflict between the Arabs and the Jews. But their successful conclusion will end the current plight of the West Bank Arabs who remain stateless and separated from their Arab brothers across the Jordan River.

Under such a solution no resident of the West Bank - be he Jew or Arab - would have to leave his home or business.

Hopefully the PA will indeed dissolve itself in December - which could open the way to Jordan becoming Israel’s negotiating partner on the future of the West Bank.

The Six Day War in 1967 between Jordan and Israel originated the problems that have befallen the Arab population of the West Bank since then. It would indeed be real justice if those two former combatants - now at peace with each other - were to became part of the solution in 2011.

Organizations such as the IPI do have a role to play in seeing Israel and Jordan come together to solve the problems of the West Bank.

Bringing Mr Erekat and Mr Meridor to the public stage may have been the catalyst towards bringing this creative solution a little nearer to fruition.

Mr Larsen may well have - unwittingly - achieved the beginning of the real breakthrough in the 130 years old conflict between Jews and Arabs that has managed to elude him for so many years.