The Challenge Of Palestinian State-Building – Khaled Abu Toameh

Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim who lives in Israel, is a veteran award-winning journalist who has been covering Palestinian affairs for nearly three decades. He studied at Hebrew University and began his career as a reporter by working for a PLO-affiliated newspaper in Jerusalem. On a visit to Sydney, Khaled Abu Toameh addressed The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 16 August 2011.

THE CHALLENGE OF PALESTINIAN STATE-BUILDING

KHALED ABU TOAMEH

As you heard correctly, my name is Khaled Abu Toameh. I’m an Arab Muslim living in Jerusalem. I also happen to be an Israeli citizen. In Israel I am called an Israeli-Arab or Arab-Israeli. The reason I’m an Israeli citizen is because my father belongs to the Arab community inside Israel, we’re talking here of nearly 1.5 million Arabs. On the other hand we are also called Palestinians because we see ourselves as part of the Palestinian people. In my case, my mother is a Palestinian from the West Bank. So if you’re confused, like most of us are over there, then you can just call me an Israeli Arab Muslim Palestinian.

I’ve been working as a journalist for the past 29 years, covering Palestinians affairs, or all that happens in the West Bank and in Gaza. My career as a journalist started when I was working for the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, many years ago, almost immediately after I finished high school in fact. I always wanted to be a journalist, and in those days Israel allowed the PLO to have newspapers in Jerusalem in spite of the two sides not recognising each other. Israel simply turned a blind eye.

I finished high school and walked into one of these PLO newspaper offices. They hired me first as a translator, then as a correspondent and finally as an editor. I worked there for almost seven years, during which time I went to university in Jerusalem. When I finished university I had to make a decision – do I go back and work for the PLO newspaper and do the same stuff, or do I become what I call “a real journalist”? It took me about seven seconds to make a decision. I went to work for the international media and later with the Israeli media.

When I say “work with the international media” what does that mean?  It means helping foreign journalists who came to Israel and wanted to go to the West Bank and Gaza. As a foreign correspondent, you can’t just wake up in the morning and drive into a Palestinian village or refugee camp on your own and say, “Good morning I’m a reporter from The Australian, I want to speak to HAMAS please” It doesn’t work like that.  A foreign correspondent in Israel is often accompanied by local people who help them.  They don’t know the language, they don’t know their way around and, most importantly, is not safe for a stranger to venture into a village or refugee camp and start asking questions that are considered very suspicious. So the foreign media relies on people like me. We’re called fixers, drivers, producers, translators, strangers, escort services, if you want, in the West Bank, and in Gaza.

In the course of this work with international media, I became a writer myself. I wrote on the Palestinians for numerous newspapers around the world: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal. I also became a TV producer, doing documentaries and other work on the Palestinians for a variety of global networks.

About 11 years ago, I was approached by The Jerusalem Post, a daily Israeli newspaper and they asked me if I could also join them and write for them on Palestinian affairs. Why?  Because 11 years before, in September 2000, the Second Intifada started, and the Second Uprising. Israeli journalists stopped travelling to the West Bank and Gaza of out fear. This fear was not unjustified. It had become very dangerous for Israelis to travel to the West Bank and Gaza.

So The Jerusalem Post came to me and said, “Khaled, you’re out there and apparently you know how to write in English. Why don’t you also write for us on what’s happening over there”. So I went to write for The Jerusalem Post, in addition to the work I still do with the international media.  This keeps me busy and has done so for the past 25 years, almost.

One of the first questions people sometimes ask me is, “What kind of story is this, it doesn’t make sense?” When I ask them why, they say, “Well, you started your career as a journalist working for the PLO and then you end up writing in a Jewish paper. When did you become pro-Israel?” My reply is simply to say excuse me folks I’m not pro-Israel, I’m not pro-Palestine, I’m not pro-America and I’m not pro-Russian. But as a journalist I am pro-facts and the truth. And, as a journalist, I have absolutely no problem working for any media outlet that is willing to provide me with a free platform and I don’t care if my editors are Jews, Christians or Muslims or even from the Hare Krishna movement.

It is sad and ironic that, as an Arab-Muslim living in Israel, I have to work in a Jewish paper to be able to practise some form of real journalism. And why is that?  It’s not because The Jerusalem Post pays me a salary that I’m saying this, but because we don’t have a free media in the Palestinian areas, not to mention the rest of the Arab world. We didn’t have a free media when I was working there in the 1970s and the 1980s. We didn’t get a free media when the PLO came there after the signing of the Oslo accords either, unfortunatel. And we still don’t have a free media under Fatah, HAMAS and Palestinians generally running the show.  Now, someone else asked me, “Okay but aren’t you seen as a traitor as you work for an Israeli publication?”  I said, “No.” So he asked me, “Why?”  I said, “Because we Arabs don’t want to boycott the Israeli media, there is no such thing as boycotting the Israeli media.”

For 14 years I also wrote in Hebrew for a Hebrew newspaper. Among the people I used to interview was Yasser Arafat, the founder of HAMAS, the leaders of HAMAS, the most wanted Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza.  I was never refused an interview by these people because I was from an Israeli publication.  In that sense, the Palestinians are clever. They know that if you want to relay a message to the Israeli public, the best way to do it is through the Israeli media.  But it’s not 100 per cent perfect or best in the world and I have some reservations about the Israeli media. But in that part of the world, in our neighbourhood, if you compare the Israeli media to the HAMAS media, or the Fatah media or Bashar al-Assad’s media, the Israeli media is much better. This is the reality over there.

There are many good Palestinian journalists, and we have many capable editors, professional people in the West Bank and Gaza. But you won’t find them in the Palestinian media. They all go out to work in other publications. You will find them in Al Jazeera, or with the foreign media, and you will also find them in the Israeli media.  Almost every Israeli media organisation has Arabs working for it. So this is, as I said, the reality that we live in.  The fact that we don’t have a free media in Palestine is in my view one of the outcomes of the Oslo accords. I am one of those who have been arguing for many years that things have been going in the wrong direction in that part of the world ever since peace started. We’ve even reached a point where many Jews and Arabs would tell you they miss the “good old days before peace”. That refers to the Oslo accords signed in 1993 between Israel and the PLO. The idea of the Oslo accords is good. The two-state solution is nice – if it can ever be implemented by the way.

Separation between Jews and Palestinians who don’t want to live together is also good.  There should be a divorce. If a husband and a wife can’t get along but they live in the same house, you need to find a way to divide the house or share the house between them. They don’t want to see each other. In the Middle East, separation is also a solution. Forget about peace, harmony and co-existence – it should be complete disengagement between these two communities.

It’s too late now to talk about peace and co-existence and harmony and working together and the New Middle East that Shimon Peres promised us. The ideas of the Oslo accords were nice, and I even supported the Oslo accords. I believe in a two-state solution and I believe that the Palestinians are entitled to their own state alongside Israel. I believe in Israel’s right to exist, and all these wonderful ideas.  My problem is not with the ideas of the Oslo accords; my problem is with the way the Oslo accords were implemented. The Oslo accords were based on the assumption in Israel, and in the West, that if you dump Yasser Arafat and the PLO in the West Bank and in Gaza and start pouring in billions of dollars without holding them accountable you will get peace.

But what if Yasser Arafat did not deliver? What if Yasser Arafat built a casino instead of a hospital? What if Yasser Arafat established 14 or 15 different security forces functioning more as militia. What if Yasser Arafat’s wife gets $100,000 a month to do her shopping in Paris. The response was – you Arabs don’t know anything about democracy and good government.

That’s what I was hearing from American and European diplomats when I was telling them the policy would lead to an Intifada, to violence and asking them why the west was supporting a corrupt regime? I would tell them it wasn’t working. They would reply, “What do you Arabs know about Democracy and good government? You deserve another dictatorship. Look at other Arab countries – why are you guys different?” I replied that Palestinians were different. They are the most educated in the Arab world. Palestinians do know about good government, and transparency and freedom of expression and democracy because, ironically, they have picked it up from Israel.

I’m not ashamed to say that we, as Arabs living over there, were exposed to many good things inside Israel. Forget about the conflict. In the good old days before peace, when it was one open country, any person in Gaza could wake up in the morning and get into his car, drive to any part of Israel and stay in any part of Israel and work in Israel. As such, we Arabs were exposed to many good things inside Israel.

Had you asked the majority of Palestinians back then, on the eve of the signing of the Oslo accords, what type of government they wanted, the overwhelming majority would have told you they wanted something more that looked like Israel. Because, as I said, their Israeli experience had many positives. We were even jealous of Israel; we wanted something like that. Unfortunately, the international community did not care what the Palestinians wanted; the international community only cared about what Yasser Arafat and several hundred people around him wanted. They brought Yasser Arafat over in 1994 and the show began. He established the Palestinian National Authority which was in fact a one man show called Yasser Arafat.

Yasser Arafat deprived his people of international aid. By doing so, he drove Palestinians into the open arms of HAMAS.  Many Palestinians woke up one morning and said, “To hell with this peace process. We don’t see the fruits of peace, where’s all the money going, how come it’s only Yasser Arafat, and several hundred people around him who are benefiting from this peace process?”  People got angry and bitter and frustrated. They lost faith in Yasser Arafat, they lost faith in the peace process and they were driven into the open arms of HAMAS. HAMAS sat there telling the Palestinians, “You see folks, we told you from day one, there’s no point in making peace; it’s all about corruption. Yasser Arafat stole your money.”

There are other reasons why Palestinians lost faith in the peace process.  I’m not exonerating Israel.  Israel sent the wrong messages to the Palestinians by continuing with the policy of expanding existing settlement, by continuing with security measures.  After Oslo, Israel helped bring the PLO back to the West Bank and Gaza. In the West Bank and Gaza, we got anarchy and lawlessness. Everyone was carrying a gun. Then Israel said it needed to defend its borders. Mafia and gangs by then roamed the Palestinian streets, and Yasser Arafat was not in full control. Israel’s response was to impose restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, confining them to their communities.

After the peace process, many Palestinians woke up to discover that they could no longer go to Israel or move around freely. Subjected to new restrictions, they now need permits wherever they go. This sends the wrong message to the Palestinians about the peace process, that this is not real peace. They thought peace meant open borders, to be able to work in Tel Aviv. HAMAS became so strong that when they challenged Yasser Arafat’s people in a free and democratic election, in 2006, they won. HAMAS won because they were clever and ran under the banner of change and reform. What has followed is very sad for the Palestinians who are paying a very heavy price.

Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO, lost to HAMAS but continued to say, “HAMAS, give it back!  Who are you to take it from us?” HAMAS replied, “No way, we won it in a free and democratic election. Jimmy Carter supervised it.”  If anyone is to blame for the HAMAS rise to power, it’s the Americans who first demanded a free and democratic election from the Palestinians and then allowed HAMAS to participate in that election unconditionally.

The US ignored warnings from Israel and the PLO.  Yet, ten years before that in 1996, HAMAS boycotted the same sort of election under the pretext that anyone who participates in western sponsored elections is an infidel because they are held under the umbrella of Oslo, which means two-state solution. HAMAS does not want a two-state solution

Ten years later, HAMAS participated in the same process. Yet no one came to HAMAS and said, “This is double talk, you hypocrites.” So they took advantage of the same Oslo accords that they don’t recognise to come to power. That was a mistake. The Americans should have backed them only with three conditions – that HAMAS recognise the peace process, renounce violence and recognise Israel’s right to exist.  It was only after HAMAS had won that the US demanded these conditions. They suddenly realised that HAMAS is a terrorist organisation. Since then, the PLO’s refusal to accept their defeat and HAMAS’ insistence on clinging to power has triggered a power struggle which has so far claimed the lives of over 2000 Palestinians. Thousands of others have been injured.

This power struggle reached its peak in 2007 when HAMAS kicked all PLO people out of Gaza.  I saw it. In less than a week, fewer than 10,000 HAMAS men defeated more than 40,000 US trained, European trained and funded policemen in Gaza. How did that happen? Very simple. The PLO did not fight. As soon as HAMAS started shooting they surrendered and ran away.

First they ran towards Egypt. And what did Hosni Mubarak do?  He sealed the borders and sent these people knocking on Israel’s door for hel. Israel did come to the rescue, and took the PLO people. But they dumped them in the West Bank and that was the end of that game.  If you look at the reality on the ground in the last four years with the Palestinian situation you will see only divisions and endless power struggles. In the end, we did get a two-state solution. The Palestinians now operate two states, one in Gaza and one in the West Bank. The one in Gaza is a radical Islamic entity run by HAMAS and funded by Iran, Syria, Islamic Jihad, Mother and Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Nastrollah – and a lot of “Allahs”.

It’s a fighting situation. As a Muslim, I don’t want to live there.  I’d rather stay with Israel where it’s much safer.  That is what we have down for Gaza, Israel and the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority is in power largely thanks to the presence of the Israeli defence force in the West Bank. If Israel carries out what the PLO is demanding, which is a withdrawal to the 1967 lines, then the PLO will collapse and HAMAS will take over the West Bank.  Tis is quite clear and the PLO operatives are not stupid; they know it. Why, you might wonder, is HAMAS still so popular?  This is because of the international sanctions against HAMAS that have rallied many Palestinians behind it. They have earned HAMAS a lot of sympathy. The attitude on the Palestinian street is, “Oh these poor HAMAS people. They won a free and democratic election and ever since they came to power no one has given them a chance. The whole world is against them, America, Israel, Europe the Arab countries and even the PLO.”

HAMAS is also popular because, in the aftermath of its defeat to HAMAS in the election that took place in 2006, the PLO has failed to reform. Since they lost the election, the PLO hasn’t removed one person from its list; the same guys are running the show pretending as if nothing happened and as if to say, “So what? We lost the election because we were corrupt, the people don’t trust us, we’ve lost our credibility, but so what? Condoleezza Rice told us to stay in power so we’ll just stay in power in the West Bank.”

The Palestinians are not stupid. If a free and democratic election were held tomorrow morning, the Palestinians would not vote for the same guys they voted out four years ago, or five years ago. If the PLO has not changed, not reformed and it’s the same faces, why should they? You cannot fool the Palestinians. That’s why it will be another vote of protest if HAMAS runs in the election, and HAMAS will take it as a vote of protest against the PLO.  The PLO in the West Bank is seen by many Palestinians as puppets in the hands of Israel, America, Europe, and as traitors, CIA agents. You hear all such chatter around the Arab communities. The PLO are in a very difficult situation. They have Israel to worry about, they have the Arab world that does not care about them, they have HAMAS on their backs, they even have internal problems. And they have the Palestinians barking at them and demanding what they can’t deliver.

The question we need to ask ourselves is how do we move forward with the peace process? And the answer is very simple. You cannot move forward with any peace process when the Palestinians are divided, and they’re not speaking with one voice, even fighting each other. How can you hope to establish a Palestinian state amid lawlessness and anarchy?

The radical want to destroy Israel, dismantle the Israeli state. This could be up to half the Palestinian people. The other camp is what PLO people call “the moderate camp” and I call the less radical camp. Their position is 100 per cent of 1967. And no further concessions. They say they have already made a concession by recognising Israel’s right to exist.  Under current circumstances, even if Israel wanted to go back to the 1967 borders, it’s almost impossible because of new facts on the ground. The 1967 lines – they’re not even borders – don’t exist. If you ask me now, as someone who travels in the West Bank almost every day, to show you where the 1967 lines are, I would have to take you to people’s bedrooms and kitchens and back yards and garages. Over the past 44 years, Jews and Arabs have built over these lines. They no longer exist. Going back to the 1967 lines would mean destroying hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian and Jewish homes. So Israel – even if it wanted – can’t go exactly back to the 1967 lines.

The PLO knows Israel is not going to give them 100 per cent. So they’re in trouble – why? Because they have been telling the Palestinians that anyone who offers one per cent less than 1967 to Israel is a traitor. The right of return is sacred. Jerusalem, it’s all ours.  I can understand the PLO when it says it will not go back to negotiations with Israel. If it goes back to negotiations with Israel, it might be asked to make some kind of compromise.

So the PLO’s decided to do something else. Instead of negotiating with Israel, they’ll negotiate with the international community about a Palestinian state, to internationalise the conflict and impose a solution on Israel. To get from the UN what Israel is not giving at the negotiating table.  Yasser Arafat went to Camp David. He was offered what he was offered, I don’t know exactly. The Israelis say 97 per cent. Palestinian officials admitted – at least to me and the media – that it was a generous offer. There was something good on the table.

When we asked Arafat after he returned to Ramallah what had happened and why he had refused the offer, he said it was not 100 per cent. To accept would have been to go down in history as a traitor. Arafat had also been telling the Palestinians there would be no concessions. It is the same now. You radicalise Palestinian society, and then when you go to negotiate with Israel, you’re afraid to make any concessions. The truth is that today there is no Palestinian leader who has a mandate to make any concessions to Israle. Whether it’s HAMAS or Fatah. Even the most moderate person does not have a mandate.

I want to ask Mahmoud Abas, the Palestinian President, the following questions: “Do you, sir, have a mandate to go to the UN in September and ask for a Palestinian State? Did you win the consensus of the Palestinians? How are you going to go to New York in September and ask for a Palestinian state when you can’t even visit your private house in Gaza, which has been occupied by HAMAS? How can you go to the UN in September, with talking to, or seeking the advice of, or consulting other Palestinians? Listen very carefully to what HAMAS is saying. HAMAS is saying this is a scam. This is a PR stunt on the part of Mahmoud Abas, we don’t accept it, we won’t recognise it. They’re opposed to it, not because they’re opposed to a Palestinian state, they’re opposed to it because they say you’re asking for a state only on 1967. What about 1948? It’s all ours.

And did Mahmoud Abas consult with the refugees abroad? They’re saying, “Hey what about our case? You’re going to the UN to ask for a state, but you’re not adding the right of return. We have a right of return to Israel.” So they’re also opposed to it. The Palestinian prime minister is opposed to it for other reasons, because he is afraid it will drag or result in American or European sanctions against the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority will go bankrupt. The PM is saying “Why should we risk our relations now the timing is bad.” Who gave you the right, they are saying, to damage relations between Palestinians and America who is now threatening to use the veto and to cut off financial aid? What about agreement among Palestinians?

All this will only deepen divisions among the Palestinians. Add to this the fact that it will also play into Israel’s hands. It will play into the hands of those who don’t want a Palestinian state and to those who don’t want the peace process to continue. If you listen very carefully to what Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebermann, he’s saying what the Palestinian Authority is planning to do is a unilateral move. And the Oslo accords specifically ban both sides from making unilateral moves.  What Mahmoud Abas is doing may mean the end of the peace process, the end of the Oslo accords. Israel then has the right to reciprocate with unilateral measures. These unilateral measures will be, as we all know by now, annexing parts of the West Bank Israel is interested in. And that is really bad for the peace process. It will plunge the area into chaos and anarchy.

The only way to achieve a Palestinian state – and there should be a Palestinian state – is by negotiating with Israel whether you like Israel or not. You have to discuss so many details with Israel. In the West Bank there are 200,000 Jews. Jews and Arabs share water, highways, and much more If you want to work out the specific details of the Palestinian state, you have to sit with Israel. It would be much better for Mahmoud Abas if he didn’t fall into the trap that he’s heading for.

The feeling in Ramallah is that Mahmoud Abas has climbed a very high tree. And now he’s searching for a way to come down. He wants to come down, but he wants to come down in an honourable way. He’s demanding two things right now. He’s saying okay Israel, freeze the settlement constructions. And I want a commitment that when the negotiations restart, they will be based on the 1967 lines. In the meantime, he’s not getting it. When he got a settlement freeze some 18 months ago, for ten months, he did not seize the opportunity. Why? Because the truth is the Palestinian government does not trust Netanyahu.

The truth is, the Palestinian Authority is not sure what they want. There’s no clear strategy. They are rushing towers. They’ve turned the whole issue of statehood into the major issue for Palestinians, the cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as though there is nothing else to worry about. It would be much better if they held elections first, held a referendum, and got their act together.  A state is not something that Ban Ki Moon or Tzipi Livni, or Barack Obama, should bestow on the Palestinians. A state is something that you work very hard to achieve. You establish proper institutions, you make yourselves. You earn the respect of the international community, you dismantle militias and gangs, you bring reform and democracy, you allow a free media in Palestine, you allow an open debate.

Then the world will come to you and acclaim your venture.