HJS Event: 'Israeli-Palestinian Relations' - 1-2pm, 8th December 2009 - Committee Room 6, House of Commons - Khaled Abu Toameh, Arab-Israeli journalist and documentary maker
By kind invitation of David Ruffley MP, Khaled Abu Toameh, the award-winning journalist and documentary maker, spoke about Israeli-Palestinian relations. As both an Arab and an Israeli, Mr Abu Toameh has consistently provided a considered analysis of these issues, making his thoughts all the more valuable on account of his proximity to the conflict's complicated realities. Mr Abu Toameh drew upon his extensive experience on the ground and as an analyst of the diplomatic field and offered an assessment of current realities and the likely road ahead. His unique vantage point gave his wide-ranging review of the situation added value, making it of interest to even the most well-versed analyst or policymaker interested in this seemingly intractable conflict. The event was held at the Houses of Parliament on 8 December 2009.
Below is a transcript of his remarks.
Our topic today is the relationships between the Israelis and the Palestinians and what is really happening over there. In order to understand what is happening today, I think it’s very important to look at what has been happening in the Palestinian territories over the past three or four years or, to be more specific, what has happened ever since we had the free and democratic elections in January 2006, which brought Hamas to power.
As you may remember, the Americans and the international community came to the Palestinians just before 2006 after the death of Yassir Arafat and demanded that Palestine have a free and democratic election. It was specifically the American administration—back then, that is—that insisted that the Palestinians have a free and democratic election. When this happened, the Fatah people went back to Condoleezza Rice and the rest of the Europeans and said, ‘It’s too risky to hold a free and democratic election now in Palestine. Hamas is running under the banner of change and reform, our people don’t trust us, we have been corrupt, we have a very bad reputation, and we might lose.’
But the Americans and the international community ignored these warnings from Fatah and they even allowed Hamas to participate in that vote. And the result, as we all know, was that Hamas did come to power. It was a vote of protest against Fatah and a vote against Yassir Arafat’s successors. Thus, what has been happening in the Palestinian areas since then is a power struggle between the guys who won the election and the guys who lost the election. The Fatah people have been saying, ‘Hey Hamas, who are you to take the government from us. Give it back—we’ve been in power for forty years,’ and Hamas has been saying, ‘No way, we are not stepping down. We had a free and democratic election. If you don’t believe us, ask Jimmy Carter—he supervised the elections.’
The Fatah people’s refusal to accept their defeat and Hamas’ insistence in clinging to power has triggered a power struggle that has now been raging for the past three or four years in the Palestinian areas. It has so far claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 Palestinians, while thousands of others have been injured in this power struggle between the guys who won the election and the guys who lost the election.
Now what is serious about this power struggle is not that Fatah and Hamas are killing each other, but that the international community (specifically the Americans) are continuing to meddle in Palestinian affairs by supporting the guys who lost the election in their attempts to bring down what many Palestinians see as a democratically-elected government. The Americans, after Hamas came to power, went to the Fatah people and, instead of insisting that they reform and draw conclusions from their defeat, the Americans and their allies told the Fatah people, ‘Folks, here are guns, here is money—go bring down this democratically-elected government of Hamas.’ And what was the result of this meddling in Palestinian affairs? It backfired; it made Hamas even more popular on the Palestinian streets and it gave Hamas a very good excuse not to implement anything for the Palestinians because it turned Hamas into victims of a US-led Zionist conspiracy.
Now, thanks to international meddling in Palestinian affairs, Hamas became so strong that in the summer of 2007 they managed to kick the Fatah people out of Gaza. Less than 10,000 Hamas men defeated more than 60,000 or 70,000 Fatah policemen, who were backed by the United States of America and the rest of the Europeans. How did they do it? This is a question that many people ask, but it’s very simple. The Fatah people simply surrendered. They went to Hamas and said, ‘No, please Hamas, here are all the guns that Condoleezza Rice gave us, all the money, all the security forces—here is the entire Gaza strip.’ And then they ran away. First they tried to run towards Egypt. But the Egyptians, the last thing they want is more Palestinians in Egypt, so they sealed the border, sending thousands of Fatah people away. And then Israel came to the rescue and saved thousands of Fatah people and their family members from being slaughtered by Hamas. Israel took them and dumped them in the West Bank, and that was the end of the game—that was the summer of 2007.
Now, I am one of those who think that the two state solution is a wonderful solution. I really believe in separation between Jews and Arabs, who don’t want to live together, and I believe in ending the occupation. But I think that in the end, we got a two state-solution—but it was the Palestinians who got two states: one in Gaza and one in the West Bank. The one in Gaza is a mini Islamic Republic, run by Hamas and funded by Ahmadinejad, Syria, Sudan, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, and, as some people would even tell you, Al Qaeda, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. However, I can tell you, as a Muslim, Gaza is the last place I would ever want to live, especially under such an Islamic entity.
On the other hand, in the West Bank we have a powerless, corrupt, secular regime of former Yassir Arafat cronies, who are sitting in Ramallah, pretending to be a president and a prime minister and a government. We have to correct this misconception, for these people are not really in control of the West Bank. Why? Because Israel is still there. Israel continues to control large parts of the West Bank, so reason number one why Fatah is not in control is because Israel is still there. Reason number two is because they don’t have much credibility left among the Palestinians. They have been kicked out of Gaza—not only by Hamas, but by Palestinians themselves, who chased them away with shoes. I draw parallels with the Romanian Revolution, because people were so fed up with Fatah—because of their corruption, because of their bad government, because of their abuse of human rights, and all these things that Yassir Arafat and his people were responsible for—that everyone joined Hamas and threw them out. And Fatah has not changed. Fatah has not even reformed in the aftermath of their defeat at the hands of Hamas in January 2006; they have been kicked out of Gaza; they have not drawn any conclusions from their defeat; they have not even come up with new candidates, and they have not replaced that party that ran in the election—not a single Fatah official paid the price of defeat at the hands of Hamas in January 2006.
Indeed, Mahmoud Abbas lives and works in Ramallah, but as someone who goes to Ramallah once or twice a week, I can tell you he doesn’t even have that much control, even in downtown Ramallah. Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah are in power in the West Bank thanks only to the presence of Israeli defence forces. If Israel redeploys or withdraws tomorrow morning in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas will collapse in ten minutes and Hamas will take over in eleven minutes. This is a sad reality. Or if you think of it another way, if Israel carries out what Mahmoud Abbas is demanding in public, which is a withdrawal from the Palestinian territories, after ten minutes Mahmoud Abbas will be dragged to a square in downtown Ramallah and hanged by many Palestinians as a traitor. It is Israel’s presence, ironically, that is preventing Hamas from taking over the West Bank and it is Israel’s presence in the West bank that is keeping Mahmoud Abbas in power.
We have to bear in mind that these two separate Palestinian entities, the one in Gaza and the one in the West Bank, are at war with each other. Had it not been for Israel’s presence in the middle, these two entities would be dispatching suicide bombers and missiles at each other. The degree of hatred is so strong; the hostilities between them is so strong, that sometimes you get the impression that they forgot who their common enemy is and instead are now thinking of each other as the enemy. Fatah sees Hamas as the real enemy, and Hamas sees Fatah as the real enemy. If you watch and follow the statements and allegations between them you will see that suddenly, it is the Fatah people (and not the Jews) who are the ‘sons of monkeys and pigs’, and it is the Hamas people who are ‘drinking the blood of Palestinian children.’ The fiery rhetoric and the things Fatah and Hamas used to say about the Jews in Israel, they are now using these words against each other. The situation is self-destructive; it’s very bad.
In light of these divisions in the war that has been raging among the Palestinians for the past three or four years, I have been asking myself for quite some time, is there any interest on the Palestinian side for any agreement—any agreement, not only a peace agreement, but any agreement at all? The answer today, unfortunately, is no. Hamas will not be a partner to any agreement, because if anyone thinks that Hamas will wake up one morning and tell the Palestinians, ‘Let’s sing the Israeli national anthem,’ they are crazy; that’s not going to happen. However, we have to give Hamas credit for being very honest and straight about their message—their message has been very consistent and very clear. The message is, ‘Folks, I don’t recognize Israel’s right to be over here, no one has the right to make anyone give up one inch of land, this is Muslim-owned land, I want to establish an Islamic state over here and if there are some Jews who would like to live here as a minority under such an Islamic state, they are welcome—otherwise get out of here, I’m going to kill you.’ That is Hamas’ message. Some think that this is not the case. But as someone who has been covering Palestinian affairs for nearly thirty years, I did not know that Hamas had become moderate and pragmatic and was on its way to recognizing Israel, until I visited Canada earlier this week, and in the hotel, I picked up a newspaper and there I read that Hamas was on its way to moderation and recognizing Israel and had become pragmatic, and for awhile, I thought I had missed the story because I was out of the country. So I took the newspaper back with me to Ramallah and I rushed to the home of a senior Hamas official, asking him, ‘What did you guys do in my absence—did you recognize Israel? Did you become much more moderate—what’s going on over here, how come I don’t know about this?’ He said, ‘Where did you get this idea?’ And I said, ‘Here’s a newspaper.’ And he said, ‘Even I didn’t know that we had changed.’
So we have to be very careful. Hamas is not a realistic partner for any peace agreement but we have to give them credit for being very honest about their message; they’re not being shy about it, and their message is very simple. There’s no need to interpret what they think and how they act. Fatah on the other hand, is not a realistic partner because they can’t deliver; they don’t have any credibility left in Palestine. Let’s assume that tomorrow morning, the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas (whose term in office expired in January of this year by the way, but who stayed because Condoleezza Rice told him to stay on) meet in Jerusalem and they sign a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. That’s very nice but excuse me, where is Mahmoud Abbas going to implement a peace agreement? For if Mahmoud Abbas shows his face in Gaza, he will be hanged by the Hamas at the border checkpoint, he will not even be allowed to come into Gaza alive. Additionally, ever since he was elected in January 2005, I have not seen Mahmoud Abbas in one village or refugee camp in the West Bank, which he supposedly controls. It is not the Israelis that ban him from entering a village or refugee camp, or because of the wall or the checkpoints. It is because he knows his standing among his own people. As I said before, Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t have real power, even in downtown Ramallah where he works and lives. If we hold a free and democratic election tomorrow morning in the West Bank, I am prepared to put my reputation on the line and tell you that Hamas will win again.
So where would Mahmoud Abbas be able to implement a peace agreement? In Tel Aviv, which doesn’t make any sense. Thus, the only way to go forward with this thing called the peace process is by going to the Palestinians and demanding that they get their act together before its too late. Today, there is no partner on the Palestinian side. Any agreement with Mahmoud Abbas would automatically be rejected by Hamas, and any agreement with Hamas—and it is significant to note that we can’t even reach agreement with Hamas—would automatically be rejected by Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas. I don’t see how we can move forward with this thing called the peace process while Fatah and Hamas are killing each other and Israel continues with everything its doing, which will make it even more difficult to negotiate in the future.
If I were the US administration, instead of chasing Benjamin Netanyahu and begging him to accept the two state solution, I would go to the Palestinians and say, ‘Look guys, you have to stop killing each other, why don’t you establish institutions in at least one government and go talk to the Jews before it’s too late.’ This is the only way we can move forward, for the divisions among the Palestinians play right into the hands of those who do not have goodwill for the Palestinians. Indeed, if I were Benjamin Netanyahu, I would stand up tomorrow morning and say, ‘Yes, I accept the two state solution, I love the Palestinians, but please, can you tell me who to give the state to? Shall I give it to Hamas or Fatah or anyone else, for this doesn’t make sense.’ Today, I’m less concerned about settlements or checkpoints or outposts—I’m more worried about what’s happening on the Palestinian side because I don’t see that these divisions are going to be solved in the future. I don’t see a solution. The Saudis tried, the Egyptians tried and it’s just not working.
I just have one question for the international community: why don’t you want to respect the will and the choice of the party and people? If the majority of Palestinians tell you willingly, ‘I want Hamas, I want to vote for Hamas,’ why are you trying to impose leaders on the Arabs? Why don’t you want to respect their choice, even if their choice is ‘bad’? They are telling you, ‘I want Hamas!’ So, sit on the side. It’s your right to punish Palestinians by imposing sanctions, it’s your right to tell the party you don’t like their leaders, but it’s not your right to meddle in Palestinian affairs, to try to bring down a government that is democratically elected, especially when you pushed the Palestinians to go and have a free and democratic election. Many Palestinians today are confused. First, you allow Hamas to participate in the elections—both the Americans and the Israelis allowed Hamas to participate in the election! Several Hamas candidates ran in Jerusalem under Israel, and Israel even opened the post offices so that people could vote in that election. The majority of Arabs voted for Hamas. Now I believe that the democratic choice of the people—if a majority of people want Hamas, it’s your right to say, ‘Folks, I’m not going to deal with you until you change, you just voted in a terrorist organisation.’ That’s fine, that’s your right, but don’t meddle in Palestinian affairs. Now will democracy have a moderating effect? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. To be honest, I don’t even really see much of a difference between Hamas and Fatah. As someone who speaks Arabic and who lives over there, what is the difference between the two, besides that Fatah is telling us what we want to hear in English. I’d rather deal with an enemy that is telling me the truth in all languages than with an enemy that tells me one thing in Arabic and another thing in English.
So who are the partners for the Palestinians? The partners on the Israeli side are not Netanyahu—it’s the Israeli and Jewish people. There’s a majority of Jews that accept the two state solution, there’s a majority of Jews who want to disengage from the Palestinians. I don’t know one Jewish mother who would want to send her son back to the streets of Ramallah and Gaza; I don’t know one Jew who wants to resume occupation; I don’t know one Jew who wants to run the health and education systems of the Palestinians today. According to all public opinion polls, the majority of Jews support the two state solution and want to disengage from the Palestinians, not because they love the Palestinians, but because they want to get rid of the Palestinians. And I agree; separation is good. They are my partners—the Jewish people, the Israeli voters—there is not one Jewish politician in the last five or six elections in Israel saying, ‘Vote for me, I want to re-occupy the West Bank and Gaza.’ So I don’t care who Netanyahu is and so on. We are all headed to separation; the debate today in Israel is not whether you are going to have a Palestinian state or not. The debate today is about how much Israel is going to give the Palestinians. It’s not about re-occupying the West Bank and Gaza. I know that Netanyahu is a hard-liner, as far as you’re concerned, but your partners in Israel are the people.
All in all, we should avoid unilateral measures over there, whether it’s Israel or the Palestinians, because they don’t really help. Why do we forget that the Palestinians already declared a state in 1988? So what? It’s a declaration on paper. And today, if you are going to support such a unilateral declaration, what does that mean? Israel is not going to wake up in the morning and say, ‘I love you, let’s give you a state.’ It doesn’t work like this, it will even play into the hands of some Israelis and it will backfire and put them in the corner. So these things don’t really help us over there; we should instead try to find common ground between the two parties and not support one or the other. So I don’t really see much of a change in the future; I think it will complicate matters. We would all love to see a two state solution, but I think it’s not practical, it can’t work. Still, we all have to say that, we all have to say we want a two state solution—if President Obama wants us to say so, we say so.
Now with regards to demonizing Israel and boycotting Israel, we have been hearing a lot about it. If that helps me, as an Arab living over there or if it helps the Palestinians, that’s nice. But so far I don’t see anything positive coming out of it. Instead of telling me how bad Israel is, why don’t you go over there and try to bring Jews and Arabs closer together? It’s much more important. Instead of organising Israel Apartheid Week, why don’t you come and teach Palestinian children about democracy and freedom? At the end of the day, Jews and Arabs are living there together, whether they like each other or not. And all this talk about boycotting Israel and Israel Apartheid Week at the Hamas university in Gaza, I haven’t seen that. Why do I get the impression that, when I come to Europe or when I go to universities in North America, people are much more anti-Israel than even Hamas? So let’s cool down, let’s calm down. If you want to hate Israel, that’s something else, but that doesn’t make you pro-Palestinian necessarily. I get the impression that many of these people who call themselves ‘pro-Palestinians’ are much more ‘anti-Israel.’ If you want to help, come teach Palestinian children about democracy, come teach Hamas to stop massive abuse of human rights, come and help Palestinian women—it’s much more important that sitting over here and telling me that Israel is an apartheid state. It doesn’t help me; I want to see progress on the Palestinian side. Those who are pro-Palestinian are those who are openly campaigning for reform and democracy in Palestine.
So what is to be done? As I said, the two state solution is not practical for many reasons. First, because I don’t think you can connect the West Bank with Gaza while Israel is in the middle. I don’t see how you can divide Jerusalem—Jerusalem is not London, it’s such a small city that Jews and Arabs live on top of each other and next to each other and across the street from each other—dividing it is just not practical.. The changes over the past seven or eight years make life much more complicated. So for all these reasons, I’m not optimistic about the establishment of a Palestinian state. I think we missed an opportunity after the signing of the Oslo Accords, because back then it was possible still. But today to talk about a Palestinian state is a joke. Now, what is a solution then? A one state solution is also not the solution, because a majority of Arabs and a majority of Jews don’t want it—the last thing they want is to bring three million Arabs into Israel; they already have 1.4 million Arabs there. Israel wants to be a Jewish state and the Palestinians in Gaza are not fighting for Israeli citizenship; Palestinians are fighting for separation. So, it’s a very messy situation over there; it’s very complicated and it’s a very small space—I don’t see how it’s going to work. In the meantime, because we can’t find a solution, let’s go to common management. Let’s improve the economy of the Palestinians, let’s help the Palestinians help themselves, with the hope that maybe one day a new generation of Palestinians will emerge that is much more moderate. But in the meantime, I am also pessimistic because of the excitement and the indoctrination we have on our side. I know this sounds like Jewish propaganda, but do not underestimate it. We have already raised an entire generation or two on vilification, on suicide bombers, on ‘death to Israel,’ ‘death to America,’ death to the crusaders, the infidels and everyone—it looks very bad. This also has to stop if we are to start moving forward.
In terms of the West and the international community, I think it’s too early to judge Obama—he inherited all the problems of the previous administration, such as allowing Hamas to participate in the elections, empowering Mahmoud Abbas and company. So let’s wait. Maybe something good will come out of it—but I am also more optimistic because ultimately it is out of the hands of the US administration. If the two sides can’t get together and do something, you can’t impose peace on people—it doesn’t work like that. You can’t put pressure on the Israelis; it’s nice that Obama forced Netanyahu to freeze settlement construction, but did you see one Palestinian take to the streets and dance, saying ‘Thank you Obama’? Again, pressure is not helping.
So how to progress forward? How can we hold free and democratic elections when Hamas controls Gaza and says they are not going to allow free and democratic elections, and Fatah is controlling the West Bank and clamping down on Hamas over there? Which Hamas people are going to challenge Fatah in the West Bank—they are all in prison or they are all afraid to speak out. We’ll have to live these separations and these divisions for quite some time. We missed an opportunity, because if you think of it, the Palestinians were the first in modern Arab history to bring down a government in a free and democratic election. It worked; the experience of democracy worked and it was good. Hamas would not have won that vote if it had not been a free and democratic election. It was a good democratic process; it showed that the Palestinians are capable of having a free and democratic election. But now, if you go to the Arab world and you ask any Arab, ‘What do you think of the US regime of exporting democracy,’ everyone will laugh at you, saying ‘Look what happened to the Palestinians. They had a free and democratic election and because they voted for Hamas, now they’re paying a high price.’ You’re sending the wrong message to the Arabs regarding free and democratic elections. Today, neither Mahmoud Abbas nor Hamas want elections—Mahmoud Abbas is in power, so why does he need elections and Hamas is in power, so why do they need elections? Under the current circumstances and the current divisions, I don’t see how you can hold a free and democratic election.
A lot of this situation is about ignorance. There is a conflict over there, with good guys and bad guys. The good guys are the oppressed Arabs, living under occupation and the bad guys are the Jews, with the guns and the bombs. But it’s much more complicated than that. But people don’t want to hear facts that change their perceptions. Let me give a small example: in 1997 and 1998, when I tried to warn my foreign colleagues about the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and that Arafat was stealing their money, some of my foreign colleagues asked me if I was on the payroll of the Jewish lobby. And I said, ‘Excuse me, where is this Jewish lobby? How much do they pay, I’ll just go and work for them—it’s probably much better than working as a journalist.’ These foreign journalists, some of whom are respected British and American journalists, refused to believe what the Palestinians themselves were saying about financial corruption, and they just wanted to talk about anti-Israel stories. Other journalists said that maybe the stories were true, but that they couldn’t report on them because they were scared to go back to Gaza and Ramallah. And I said, ‘Excuse me guys, if you are scared, what are you doing in the Middle East, in the middle of a conflict? Go back to your newspapers and report on the environment, if you are that scared.’ This is how it is sadly.
It’s true that there has been some sort of economic boom in the West Bank, but it’s misleading, we have to be very careful. What you see on the ground is a bit different than what you hear, for example, if you go to the refugee camps, you will see no change at all. I call them cosmetic changes. Some things have been happening, but these changes have also been as a result of the easing of Israeli restrictions, such as checkpoints. They have done this because there is increased quiet. This is how it is—Israel keeps easing restrictions and I wish it could be more. So I say, let’s stop all the violence and I’m sure it would improve. But those who think that this is an economic problem are wrong. A good economy has a short-term moderating effect on people, but in the long-term, this conflict is not an economic conflict. This conflict is a political, religious, national, and ideological conflict and it’s much deeper than people think.
I represent the mainstream of Israeli-Arabs. We, the Israeli-Arabs, should be acting as a bridge between our Jewish brothers and our Arab brothers and the West Bank and Gaza. That should be our role. And the majority of the Israeli-Arabs are just ordinary people who are happy to live inside Israel—we don’t want to leave Israel under any circumstances, we don’t even want to move to Palestine in the future. We may want to see a Palestinian state over there, but I want to stay inside Israel. We have a lot of problems with the Israeli establishment and Arab minority, but at the end of the day, if you ask me, I will tell you that I still prefer to live in Israel as a second-class citizen than as a first-class citizen in Cairo, Gaza, or Ramallah. The overwhelming majority of Israeli-Arabs would tell you the same thing; the ordinary people, if you ask them, will tell you the same things that I am saying. We want to see good government on the Palestinian side, we want to end this power struggle between Fatah and Hamas, we want to see peace between Israel and our Arab brothers in the West Bank and Gaza, and we want to stay inside Israel.