13-Sep-18: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?

The Oslo Accords are signed at the White House exactly 25 years ago today, on September 13, 1993 | Shimon Peres, Israel's foreign minister, signs  as Israel's prime minister Yitzhak Rabin; President Bill Clinton and the PLO's Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas look on. [Image Credit: J David AKE/AFP]

One of the most interesting things we do here is look at what the Palestinian Arabs think. As we explained in our most recent attempt to do this ["16-Jul-18: What do the Palestinian Arabs want? What do they believe? What do they think?"], looking at accurate, well-collected and intelligently analyzed opinion poll data is

invariably more valuable by far than media guesses about what the Palestinian Arabs think and want. Claims are made freely and often about Palestinian Arab aspirations. Very often, though, the data tell a story that's at total variance from what's being claimed about them... [source] 

Bluntly, much of what the mainstream media claim about Palestinian Arab public opinion is just plain wrong. We make that statement on the basis of carefully reviewing the work of a Palestinian Arab organization called The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR). It's headed by a respected professional, Dr. Khalil Shikaki. We have no personal connection with him or his work. His reputation for objectivity is why we pay attention. Here are some of our previous analyses:

• 10-Dec-14: What else do Palestinian Arabs want, beyond the 80% who say killing of ordinary Israelis is a good thing?
• 22-Sep-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 03-Nov-15: What do they mean when the Palestinian Arabs say they oppose terror?
• 14-Dec-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 16-May-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 26-Sep-17: What do the Palestinian Arabs think now?
• 16-Jul-18: What do the Palestinian Arabs want? What do they believe? What do they think?
• (Click here for the full list.)

Here are some insights we found PSR Public Opinion Poll Number 69, published yesterday (Wednesday September 12, 2018). It's based on survey data collected face-to-face in the previous week from a total sample size of 1,270 Palestinian Arab adults.

Political leaders?

From our perspective and with Arab-on-Israeli terrorism very much on our minds, the most clear-cut insights have to do with Mahmoud Abbas, the fading president-for-life of the Palestinian Authority:

• More than six out of ten Palestinian Arabs want him to resign. This is very slightly higher than the last poll showed. Broken down, the rejection stands at 52% in the West Bank; 78% in the Gaza Strip.
• An overwhelming majority disagree with his most important domestic policies. Overall about half of the Palestinian Arabs now see Abbas' PA as a burden rather than an asset.
• So where do they want power to reside? Well, fully two-thirds are against his decision (incapable at this stage of being implemented) to disarm the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
• Furthermore, most reject his demand that Hamas hand control over the Gaza Strip to the so-called reconciliation government controlled by his PA. 
• Related to this, most Palestinian Arabs say they support Hamas’ efforts to reach a long-term Tahdia agreement with Israel even if the reconciliation government cannot be created. (Tahdia or Tahdiya is an Arabic word that is usually translated cease-fire or calming-down. It does not mean truce or peace.)
• These data points show that Hamas gets more overall trust and backing now than Abbas and his Fatah/PA/PLO factions. But both get less support than they had when the last survey was published three months ago.
• In party-political terms, if elections (which were last held since 2006) took place for the Palestinian Legislative Council and its 132 seats, 27% say they would support Hamas (down on the summer poll results); 36% would vote for Fatah (also down on the summer results); all the other parties combined would get 10%. The 28% who say they are undecided would be more numerous than Hamas' voters. By comparison, Hamas defeated the long-dominant Fatah in those 2006 elections, ending up with 76 seats out of the 132. Chaos ensued, followed, in June 2007, by the eruption of open fighting between the armed forces of Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The winners of the blood-bath (the physical one, not the electoral one) were Hamas who have held on tightly to control until today. No parliamentary elections have happened in the ensuing 12 years, and none are realistically in prospect.
• But leaving aside the factions and focusing on the personalities, the picture gets confusing. If a two-horse election race had been held last week: 
• If it were Mahmoud Abbas up against Ismail Haniyeh (of Hamas), Abbas wins 47% to 45%. 
• If instead of Abbas, the Fatah candidate were the imprisoned murderer Marwan Barghouti, he would steamroller Haniyeh by the substantial margin of 58% against 37%.

The role of the United States?

It's no secret that the Palestinian Arab leadership is having a hard time with the Trump Administration. How have such moves by the US as ending most of its cash aid to the PA, cancelling its contributions to UNRWA, moving its Tel Aviv embassy to Jerusalem affected Palestinian Arab opinion?

• An overwhelming 90% now view the US as biased towards Israel.
• Half want their leaders to absolutely reject what the pollsters call the US “Deal of the Century” - the terms of which no one has actually seen yet - because "it will certainly be bad for Palestinians"
• Moreover, most oppose the resumption of any dialogue with the US.
• Most also are against going back to negotiations with Israel. 

How bad are things?

The poll looks at how ordinary people feell about the overall condition of where they live. The results are bleak. What proportion think their conditions are "positive"?

• In the Gaza Strip, a whopping 5%
• In the West Bank, just 19%.
• Overall, 77% worry that reductions in foreign aid from the US and others will generate more unemployment growth, more poverty and still further deterioration in daily living conditions.
• Who's to blame for all this awfulness? 43% say it's the PA and its head, Mahmoud Abbas - and note that Gazans are twice as likely to say this as West Bankers. 24% blame Hamas. 8% say it's Egypt that caused the problems. 17% say it's "others". 
• Presumably making matters even worse, 59% of Palestinian Arabs - not surprisingly, given the nature of the two regimes in question - say they cannot criticize the Palestinian Authority (except to the pollsters) without fear. And 77% say there is corruption in the PA's organs 
• A third of all Palestinian Arabs say they want to emigrate if they can. This trend is much stronger in Gaza (about 50%) than in the West Bank (22%). 

Violence?

• Two-thirds - and this holds equally true in Gaza and in the West Bank - favour allowing the "armed battalions", meaning terrorist factions and their weapons, where they currently are.
• 68% support (and 25% oppose) the PA decision to cease security coordination with Israel. At the same time, 69% think the Palestinian Arab leadership will never actually implement that decision.

Peace?

Has life gotten better or worse since the Oslo Accords were signed between Arafat's PA and the government of Israel in 1993? And how will peace look when it arrives?

• 73% say "conditions today are worse" than before Oslo.
• 36% blame this on Israel for "refusing to end its occupation"
• 35% say its the failure of the "international community" to press Israel harder
• 65% believe the Oslo Accords "damaged the national interest".
• Support for the two-state solution has risen slightly compared with three months ago: 47%.
• When asked to choose among (a) the two-state solution, (b) the one-state solution and (c) any other third solution, the two-state solution wins with 53%.
• At the same time, 56% say the two-state solution is no longer practical because of Israeli settlement. 
• Do they agree that the chances for the creation of a Palestinian Arab state side-by-side with the State of Israel in the next five years are slim or nonexistent? Yes, say 72% of Palestinian Arabs.
• And for 30%, the preferred next stage entails waging armed struggle against "the Israeli occupation”. 39% say "negotiation is the most effective means of establishing a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel".
• Don't expect or look for coherence or consistency.
• 80% think the Arab world doesn't see Palestine as "its primary cause", which sounds right to us.
• Depressingly, 57% "believe that Israel’s long-term aspiration is to expand the state of Israel to stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and to expel the Palestinian population". 

The biggest challenge?

What do Palestinian Arabs see as the most serious problem facing their society today? They're facing in numerous different directions.

• 27% say poverty and unemployment 
• 25% say the "occupation" and "settlement" activities (they mean by Israel)
• 22% say corruption in Palestinian Arab public institutions
• 20% say the "siege" (they mean by Israel) of the Gaza Strip
• 3% say the absence of national unity.

All in all, it's hard not to feel a sense of despair when confronted with views like those on which the PSR reports each 90 days. So much effort, so much news-reporting, so much foreign aid, so much waste... so little of anything constructive to show for it - except that a plurality of them now agrees that it's poverty that tops their list of challenges. 

But they're hopelessly divided on that too. 

And catastrophically ill-served by venal political operatives and self-serving insiders who have never shown the smallest interest or ability in addressing that vital issue among the many on their people's agenda.

This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("Co myślą palestyńscy Arabowie?") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.

15-Dec-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think now?

As Abbas starts the thirteenth year of his four-year
term as president, nearly two-thirds of all Palestinian Arabs say
it's time for him to go home [Image Source]

We're keenly interested in knowing what the Palestinian Arabs think.

If you rely on newspapers or pay attention to electronic media coverage of their attitudes and expectations, you are likely to be getting someone's wishful projections rather than data-based analysis. The difference between the two is vast and unbridgeable.

So what is reality when we're discussing people's attitudes?

In the case of the Palestinian Arabs, we think it's what they tell serious polling organizations that are themselves Palestinian Arab. That's why we have published several posts here in the past couple of years that are based on the published findings of the pre-eminent Palestinian Arab opinion polling organization, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research or PSR [website] headed by a respected figure, Prof. Khalil Shikaki.

Not for the first time, we say that understanding the feelings, expectations and aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs is fundamental to having a sense of what's ahead. If you agree, you might want to review one or two (or all) of these earlier posts of ours:

• 18-Oct-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think and feel now?
• 15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 16-May-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 14-Dec-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 03-Nov-15: What do they mean when the Palestinian Arabs say they oppose terror?
• 22-Sep-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 10-Dec-14: What else do Palestinian Arabs want, beyond the 80% who say killing of ordinary Israelis is a good thing?

Let's now look at the latest PSR poll which was announced via a press release [here] two days ago.

The parts that get the greatest prominence concern the political leadership of the Palestinian Authority and the outcome of the Fatah movement's recent Seventh Convention. Both of those matters provide an opportunity for the people polled to express broad and growing unhappiness with the performance of Mahmoud Abbas. In the previous poll three months ago, 61% said they wanted him to resign as president. That urgent Palestinian Arab dissatisfaction has now risen to 64%. This has vast implications for how and with whom and along what lines a living relationship can be negotiated by Israelis with the side he ostensibly leads.

The last time Palestinian Arabs were given the chance to vote for a president was in January 2005 when Abbas won; he has held tenaciously on to power ever since. The only previous presidential election, dominated by Yasser Arafat, was in 1996.

Frankly, we're much less interested in those issues and far more in what's revealed about Palestinian Arab thinking on violence and terrorism. Here's what we see, adopting verbatim (for the most part) the language of the PSR press release:

• "A majority in favor of armed attacks and a return to armed intifada." 
• "The overwhelming majority of the public sees nothing but incitement against Arabs in Netanyahu’s claim that some of the recent fires in Israel were initiated by Palestinians." 
• "An increase in the percentage of those who favor the abandonment of the Oslo agreement." 
• "Almost a consensus among the public that the decision by the Israeli government to ban the use of loudspeakers in the mosques’ call for prayer is tantamount to declaring war against Islam."

A few more insights into the mindset of the neighbours with whom we are engaged in a generations-long conflict:

• Asked about "the most effective means of building a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel", 37% vote for "armed action". Three months ago, that had the support of slightly fewer Palestinian Arabs - just 34%. 
• "62% support non-violent popular resistance, 53% support a return to an armed intifada..." [How to reconcile those two points? We won't try.] Three months ago, support for a return to an armed intifada stood at 48%..." 
• What do they not want president-elect Donald Trump to do when he takes office in January? According to 53% of them, he should keep out of the "peace" process. 
• About the PA leadership decision to send fire fighting vehicles and men to combat the recent wildfires in Israel, 50% say it was the wrong thing to do; they should not have been sent. And if their own houses or lands would have been destroyed? That wasn't asked, but we did notice that twice as many Arabs from the West Bank were in favour of Palestinian Arabs joining in the fire-fighting Arab compared with Gazan Arabs. (The fires did not threaten Gaza.) 
• "An overwhelming majority (87%) believes that the Israeli government decision to legislate a law that would ban the use of loudspeakers when calling for prayer at mosques is an indication of a war against Islam waged by the government while only 9% believe that the Israeli government is simply trying to protect the Israeli public." The pollsters evidently failed to check whether the respondents knew anything about similar measures adopted in other places. For instance the use of loudspeakers by mosques is (according to Wikipedia) banned outright in Mumbai, India; Lagos, Nigeria; certain cities in Michigan; and in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Limitation on calls of prayers by muezzins exist in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Austria, Norway and Belgium. 
• Only 32% think the two-state solution to the Palestinian Arab versus Israel conflict is "viable". In our October 2016 blog post on the previous PSR poll, 49% of Palestinian Arabs supported it, while among Israelis - via an unrelated poll we quoted then - 59% supported a two-state solution. 
• 54% of Palestinian Arabs say they believe that "Israel’s long term aspiration is to annex the lands occupied in 1967 and expel their population". 
• Roughly the same number, 52%, believe Israel intends to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and replace them with a Jewish temple (that proportion is essentially unchanged from three months ago).

There's not much here that's uplifting or forward-looking. 

But that's how it is with public opinion polls. You can ignore them, you can be angered by them, you can adopt them for the purpose of crafting new strategies. What you can't do is deny their meaning just because you find the conclusions unpalatable.

18-Oct-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think and feel now?

A Palestinian Arab leader [Image Source]

There are people who try to understand the Palestinian Arabs by watching CNN or reading the New York Times. For us, it makes far more sense to reach for Palestinian Arab sources and work from there.

Once again, we're looking in this post at what the Palestinian Arabs think, based on what they tell the pre-eminent Palestinian Arab opinion polling organization, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research [website] headed by a respected figure, Prof. Khalil Shikaki.

In a report published three weeks ago, PSR reported these findings (the wording is ours - the PSR's published summary, a 21-page document, is here):

• Some trends that are mentioned in the last PSR report ninety days earlier (reported in our post: "15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?") have gotten stronger. For instance, Palestinian Arab opinion is slightly less inclined to back armed action; the so-called French Initiative is slightly more popular; and the feeling that Mahmoud Abbas - the "moderate" head of the Palestinian Authority - should stop being president one way or another has gotten stronger. 
• Ismail Haniyeh, the likely Hamas candidate for president, would defeat Abbas if an election had been held in September. 
• But Marwan Barghouti, a convicted multiple murderer who, before being arrested, tried (in open court) and imprisoned by the Israelis more than a decade ago, was the commander of the Tanzim armed wing of Fatah, would defeat Haniyeh. All those lives murdered by him and his men speak loudly in Palestinian Arab society: in blunt terms, they're a political asset. And don't overlook that Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1984, thinks Jew-killing Barghouti ought to have been given this year's Nobel Peace Prize ["25-Jul-16: More on Tutu, Barghouti, terror, peace and prizes"]. We're fairly sure Barghouti is much more popular than Tutu among the Palestinian Arabs, but in politics, every source of electoral support counts.
• Palestinian Arab support for what the poll calls "an armed intifada" is currently high, as it has been for a long time. Three months ago, it stood at 54%. In this latest poll, it's down all the way to 48% - which still means every second Palestinian Arab favours the continuation of a shooting/stabbing/ramming campaign against Israeli civilians. Think about that for a moment, and consider what it means for those of us who come into contact with them every day.
• While it gets their support (55%), the Palestinian Arab public is "highly pessimistic" that the French Initiative has any chance of succeeding.  
• A Palestinian Authority court recently ordered the postponement of local elections. But if they had been held in late September, the Pal Arab public was certain Hamas would win in the Gaza Strip. They expect Fatah - the party headed by Abbas - to take the West Bank. (Clarification: Presidential and parliamentary elections have not been held anywhere in the two Palestinian Arab statelets for more than a decade. They are not likely to happen soon. The elections in this note are for local representatives. Abbas' four year term as president which started on January 9, 2005, is likely to keep going for the rest of his life. The Fatah–Hamas Gaza Agreement of April 2014 provided for presidential and parliamentary elections by no later than October 2014. It's questionable whether many thought it was going to happen at that time and no such elections are currently in view.) 
• This past summer saw numerous news reports of water shortages in Palestinian Arab cities and towns. Parts of the activist news reporting media knew whom to blame [for instance "Israel: Water as a tool to dominate Palestinians", Aljazeera, June 23, 2016], because there's rarely any downside in their circles to pointing the finger at Israel. The Israeli view is, not surprisingly, a little different ["Israel blames Palestinians for West Bank water shortage", Jerusalem Post, June 26, 2016]. So what are the Arab consumers of scarce water thinking and whom are they blaming? PSR found that 45% of Palestinian Arabs pin the responsibility for a shortage of water on Israel but a larger percentage (49%) says the Palestinian Arab side is to blame. (When did you last read or hear that in the mainstream news?) 
• The Palestinian Arab public are concerned about what the PSR terms "internal security breakdowns" and connects those with three main factors, all of them Arab: The PA security services' "weak and inconsistent performance"; a "weak" justice system, including the courts; and "a surge in family and societal conflicts". It's an issue that is rarely discussed in the world's media.
• There is very little faith among Palestinian Arabs in their own government. Indication: how many of them believe the PA suffers from corruption? 79%.
• There is even less faith in the freedom of the news reporting media. On the Fatah/PA side, only 16% of respondents feel there is press freedom. In Gaza where Hamas rules the roost, faith in freedom of the local press is even lower: just 14%.
• A two-state solution to the Palestinian Arab versus Israel conflict has the support of just 49% of Palestinian Arabs. A different poll conducted in August 2016 found that 59% of Israelis supported a two-state solution - and an additional 26% would agree if a peace agreement were to be made not only with the Palestinian Arabs but with the other hostile Arab states.
• There's strong support (55%) among Palestinian Arabs for abandoning the Oslo Accords of 1993-1995. (That requires a separate post of its own.)
• Concerning the Temple Mount, on which UNESCO is going to be voting again today, more than half of all Palestinian Arabs believe (and this is a direct quote from the PSR report) that of "the long-term aspirations or plans of the Israeli government for al Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem", the one considered most likely by most respondents by far is "Destroy Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock Mosques and build a synagogue in their place". That's the view of 52% of all Palestinian Arabs. And while it's a view that only 33% of Gazans hold, in the Abbas-controlled West Bank, 62% believe it to be true.

If all of this were not sufficiently dis-spiriting (and let's be frank - it really is and it mostly has been for at least five generations now), consider what the people on the far side of the fence want to happen after a State of Palestine has been established and after all (repeat: all) the "issues in dispute" (that's a quote) are resolved. 

Will there then be mutual recognition of Israel as the state of "the Jewish people" and Palestine as the state of "the Palestinian people" (those are the terms the poll report uses)?

The answer of 59% of West Bank Palestinian Arabs is "no". And that's what the Arabs of the Gaza Strip also say: 63% of them. 

We're for peaceful relations. And like most of the Israelis that we know, we're open to talk about compromise and to bargain in good faith. But what are people who hold views like ours to do once we internalize the Arab opinion reflected in that last statistic? It's also impossible to ignore the daily incitement to yet more hatred, bigotry, violence and conflict emanating from elite circles in the two Palestinian Arab statelets (the schools, the mosques, the political corridors) that certainly makes the situation steadily worse.

Postscript:

We're convinced that understanding the feelings, expectations and aspirations of the Palestinian Arabs is fundamental to comprehending them and to having a sense of what's ahead. If you agree, you might want to review these earlier posts:

• 15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 16-May-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 14-Dec-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 03-Nov-15: What do they mean when the Palestinian Arabs say they oppose terror?
• 22-Sep-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 10-Dec-14: What else do Palestinian Arabs want, beyond the 80% who say killing of ordinary Israelis is a good thing?

10-Nov-12: Diplomacy, resistance and bringing the Oslo accords to an end

Abbas Zaki speaking candidly on Al Jazeera's
Arabic edition September 23, 2011 [Video Source]

If you are interested in seeing the generations-long conflict between Jews and Arabs over the territory of Israel, Palestine and Jordan move towards a peaceful solution, you might find the developments of this past week a touch depressing.

Palestinian Authority officials went public this week with declarations that they plan to seek non-member statehood status at the United Nations over the objections of American, European, and Israeli diplomats. Khaled Abu Toameh writing in the Jerusalem Post [here] quotes Palestinian Authority officials saying the PA will ask for a UN vote soon, possibly on November 15 or 29.



Abbas Zaki (that's him over on the right), who at an earlier stage earned his living as the Palestine Liberation Organization's man in Lebanon and today serves on Fatah's central committee, is quoted this week in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Araby newspaper saying

"Once we become a recognized state, we will go to all UN agencies to force the international community to take legal action against Israel..." 

What does he mean?

Abu Toameh explains that the move "violates decades of Palestinian commitments to pursuing peace with Israel from within a bilateral framework". He quotes Zaki saying the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel

"will cease to exist the day after the UN votes in favor of upgrading the status of a Palestinian state to non-member... November 15 marks the anniversary of the declaration of a Palestinian state in Algeria in 1988. November 29 marks "International Day for Solidarity with the Palestinians..." Zaki said that once the status of a Palestinian state is upgraded, the Palestinians would be able to pursue Israel for "war crimes" in the International Criminal Court."

Leaving the fighting words aside, there are other voices among the Palestinian Arabs who understand the downside. A TIP analysis published Friday says 

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is known to be against the move, and was even rumored to have resigned in protest of the pursuit. Fayyad is said to be concerned that Palestinian unilateralism will trigger withdrawals of American and Israeli financial support, causing severe economic contractions in the West Bank.

Financial support is one thing. But we think there's another that is more important. TIP says the PA's muscle-flexing (our expression, not theirs) raises doubts about the credibility of

repeated assertions by Palestinian leaders that their unilateral U.N. campaign is designed to enhance rather than damage peace talks. Zaki's words will more specifically reinforce concerns that Palestinians intend to use unilateral statehood a pretext for abandoning the Israeli-Arab peace process, risking widespread regional destabilization, and as a mechanism for waging diplomatic warfare against Israel, potentially politicizing and undermining international law... PLO Executive Committee member Saleh Ra'fat warned that Israeli diplomatic retaliation would permit Palestinians to "escalate popular resistance," rhetoric considered by analysts to be a euphemism for terrorism against Israel.

You might want to review some background ["Violence for adults"], courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch, about what the PA and its leadership mean when they talk about "resistance". It throws some light on what some Israelis mean when they say, with no small justification, that there is no partner on the Palestinian Arab side, for peace.

This seal is attached to the
PA's letter this week to UN States
[the letter in PDF form is here]

The PA has circulated a letter, still unpublished [you can see it online here as a PDF - hat tip to CHA and Inner City Press; and here as text], drafted by the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the UN. It describes Palestine's non-member statehood status move and outlines the delegation's requirements. It starts with a long list of formalistic platitudes, like 

"stressing the importance of maintaining and strengthening international peace founded upon freedom, equality, justice and respect for fundamental human rights... Affirming the right of all States in the region to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders (etc)"

Resistance is not mentioned in their draft proposal. But it's worth noting that the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations (which issued the letter to the UN) used to be called something else [source]: the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO.

Also recall what the same Abbas Zaki said when he last made minor headlines in the global media a year ago. Here's an excerpt from his interview with Al-Jazeera, aired on September 23, 2011 [the video with English subtitles courtesy of MEMI is here]

The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go. If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end... Who is nervous, upset, and angry now? Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama... All those scumbags. Why even get into this? We should be happy to see Israel upset... If one says that one wants to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.  I want the resolutions that everybody agrees upon. 

Do you imagine the member states of the United Nations might care to see Zaki's commentary before making a decision on a PLO upgrade?

And if, against all the odds, they saw it, do you think it would change their view? Sadly, the outcome of multi-lateral debates criticizing Israel have been predictable for decades. Recall the wry insight of a past Israeli foreign minister and ambassador to the UN, Abba Eban, who said [source] with only a small degree of humour:

"If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."

23-Apr-12: Does a people really get the leadership it deserves? Ask the Palestinian ruling class as they make their way to Israeli medical centers

Dr Sababa, medical clown extraordinaire,
at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center

Khaled Abu Toameh, the pre-eminent Israeli Arab journalist, has a record of fearless exposure of the hypocrisy and cynical abuse of Arab political leadership against their fellow citizens. A year ago, in "Where Is the Outcry Against Arab Apartheid?" he wrote with passion about

an 11-year-old Palestinian boy [who] died this week at the entrance to a Lebanese hospital after doctors refused to help him because his family could not afford to pay for medical treatment. The tragic case of Taha highlights the plight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in impoverished refugee camps in Lebanon and who are the victims of an Apartheid system that denies them access to work, education and medical care... Can anyone imagine what would have happened if an Israeli hospital had abandoned a boy to die in its parking lot because his father did not have $1,500 to pay for his treatment? The UN Security Council would hold an emergency session and Israel would be strongly condemned and held responsible for the death of the boy. All this is happening at a time when tens of thousands of Palestinian patients continue to benefit from treatments in Israeli hospitals."

As a family who, for various understandable reasons, spend much more than most people in Israel's pediatric hospital wards, we can testify [see "4-Mar-12: Dealing (or not) with the problems of a sick society", for instance] to the truth of this reality. It's astonishing to us that so little journalistic attention is paid to the experience of Arab families who turn for medical treatment to Israeli hospitals. Read the online journal Arabs Today to learn about Israel's leading role in the professionalization of medical clowning. Ask why the wonderful Dr Sababa, whom we know personally from his great work at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center, speaks a reasonable Arabic, as do most if not all of his Shaare Zedek clown colleagues. A pity the hordes of political journalists who cover this region consistently fail to pick up on this story, or the story behind the story (why do Israeli medical clowns find it so important to learn to speak Arabic?)

Today, writing for the Gatestone Institute, Abu Toameh returns to his theme and asks:

"If the Palestinian leaders do not want their citizens to seek medical aid in Israel, why don't they and their family members also boycott Israeli hospitals? Why do Palestinian leaders keep knocking on Israel's door for help in various fields?"

He characterizes what this 'leadership' is actually doing as "radicalizing Palestinians and eventually dragging them toward another confrontation with Israel".

On the same day that two Palestinian officials met in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority issued an order banning Palestinians from making direct contact with Israeli authorities in the West Bank... The ban, which was issued by the Palestinian governor of Bethlehem, prohibits Palestinians from directly seeking the services of the Israeli District Coordination Committee [DCO]. Established under the terms of the Oslo Accords, the DCO's main mission is to provide various services to Palestinians, especially those who seek to enter Israel for medical treatment and work. Over the past two decades, tens of thousands of Palestinians have sought the services of the DCO also to facilitate travel arrangements and overcome bureaucratic hurdles. But now the Palestinian Authority government has decided to put an end to this phenomenon. Palestinians have warned that anyone who violates the latest ban would be punished...  If the Palestinian government does not want Palestinians to work in the settlements, why hasn't it provided them with alternative jobs or financial compensation?"

His analysis is here.

UPDATE Monday 5 pm: The Palestinian president is a leader in the efforts to break off communications and other dealings with the Israelis. But it appears he's also a leader in breaking off communications with his own prime minister. The idea that politics are advanced by refusing to speak with the party with whom you have a difference of views fits kindergarten squabbles (are you listening, Emma Thompson?) a good deal better than it does the world of grown-up disagreements on political or religious grounds. But what would we know?