My letter to USA Today 1-5-2024 RE 50-year friendship offers a close look at caring dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

 RE 50-year friendship offers a close look at caring dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/05/cross-cultural-friendship-survives-israeli-palestinian-conflict/72087017007/

Dear Editor,

I very much enjoyed reading about Anan Ameri and Dick Soble's 50 year long respectful relationship in Violet Ikonomova's  1-5-2024 article "50-year friendship offers a close look at caring dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian conflict"

This long lasting friendship and dialogue between a Jewish American and a Palestinian American has been facilitated by a common language and America's current legal framework of full and equal rights for all people, regardless of supposed race or religion.

76 years ago, following the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was born "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."

60 years ago America's Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. This is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of our collective civil rights movement.

Forging peace, specifically a just and lasting peace for as many people as possible, regardless of supposed race or religion, is both a noble and a necessary goal, for everyone's sake:  Religion should be a personal, private choice, not a state funded project.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

American Homemaker & Poet

 

 NOTES

50-year friendship offers a close look at caring dialogue on Israeli-Palestinian conflict USA Today 1-5-2023

My letter to the New Yorker RE Mosab Abu Toha's A Palestinian Poet’s Perilous Journey Out of Gaza

Ibtisam Barakat: A Palestinian Whose Childhood Was Destroyed by War Pleads for Peace- Never letting children endure war again is the “never again” that might actually heal our wounded humanity.

But where should people go... 

Shereen Audi "I really wanted to spread some hope and positivity and give that feeling to the world and to everyone who needs it... all I wish for Palestine and for our world is peace and light.."

Ottoman Era Palestine circa 1890's... Palestinian fishermen in Tiberias (Tabriya) 

May the new year bring a free Palestine. Jordanian artist: اسامه حجاج-Osama Hajjaj Instagram: osamahajjaj

Israel eases up on bombing parts of Gaza, but only as famine and disease take their hold. 

I hear reports and see TV commercials showing that Anti-Semitism and other forms of racist hate is increasing. We need to stop that trend

Together, we have the power to shift the narrative on Palestine and build a future of collective liberation- Visualizing Palestine NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

Homeless in my homeland by Hanin A. Elholy

Almost all the universities in Gaza destroyed or damaged. A huge amount of students and academic staff killed.

Mosab Abu Toha · Heartbreaking to learn that Ammar Ghraiba, a young motion graphic designer and an aspiring filmmaker, got killed today. Our journalists, poets, and filmmakers are killed. But the story, the poem, and the film continue.

Like Palestinians in the rest of east Jerusalem, most Armenians do not hold Israeli citizenship but only residency...

The Jewish settlers 'living the American dream' in the West Bank

Powerful Bansky

Powerful Bansky

"NEVER AGAIN!" Husam Zomlot (Palestinian Ambassador to the UK) speaks at House of Commons at the Voices For Peace campaign.

Please stop putting Israeli interests before American interests and ideals -letters I sent to my Senators regarding BDS

United Nations Dove of Peace, presented by Pope John Paul II, on the occasion of his visit to the United Nations, 2 October 1979

Dear Senator Toomey

Please stop putting Israeli interests before American interests.... Go visit Israel as often as you like- on your own dime, please.

Go idolize and worship what ever you want to idolize and worship in Israel, but please do not force all Americans to fund and applaud your personal religious preferences and investments.

Violence is very very wrong.  BDS is a NONVIOLENT movement and American leaders seeking to make BDS illegal only make matters worse here, there and everywhere...  If America only allowed Christians full freedom and rights here in America, and if America had an official religion and religious scholars funded by taxpayers I would hope that people would be able to boycott that blatant injustice and discrimination.

Substitute the word "Israel" for "America" in the following sentence to better understand the situation:  It does not mean destroying America, it means making America more just and fair for all people, regardless of religion.

Thank you for your time & trouble

&

Dear Senator Casey


Please stop putting Israeli interests before American interests.  BDS is a nonviolent movement and American leaders seeking to make BDS illegal only make matters worse here, there and everywhere...  If America only allowed Christians full freedom and rights here in America, and if America had an official religion and religious scholars funded by taxpayers I would hope that people would be able to boycott that blatant injustice and discrimination.

Substitute the word "Israel" for "America" in the following sentence to better understand the situation:  It does not mean destroying America, it means making America more just and fair for all people, regardless of religion.

Thank you for your time & trouble

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

My letter to the NYTimes RE Israeli Defense Minister Compares Beloved Palestinian Poet [Mahmoud Darwish] to Hitler & For Palestinians, Raising Arabian Horses Is ‘the Hobby of the Poor’

Mohammad al-Eisawi, 39, and his son Majd, 5, atop an Arabian horse named Furys near Issawiya. Photo Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

Israeli Defense Minister Compares Beloved Palestinian Poet [Mahmoud Darwish] to Hitler
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/world/middleeast/avigdor-lieberman-compares-mahmoud-darwish-to-hitler.html?_r=0
&
For Palestinians, Raising Arabian Horses Is ‘the Hobby of the Poor’ By JAMES GLANZ and RAMI NAZZAL JULY 13, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/world/middleeast/for-palestinians-raising-arabian-horses-is-the-hobby-of-the-poor.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&pgtype=imageslideshow&module=RelatedArticleList&region=CaptionArea&version=SlideCard-1

Dear Editor,

Regarding "Israeli Defense Minister Compares Beloved Palestinian Poet to Hitler" & "For Palestinians, Raising Arabian Horses Is ‘the Hobby of the Poor’ "

"The poem is always incomplete, the butterflies make it whole."  To A Young Poet - Poem by Mahmoud Darwish

The beloved Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, wrote many different things- and many different things have been written about him.  Friday 7 June 2002, The Guardian published a fascinating article on Darwish by Maya Jaggi : Poet of the Arab world. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jun/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview19 "Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down... I always humanise the other. I even humanised the Israeli soldier," which he [Darwish] did in poems such as "A Soldier Who Dreams of White Lilies", written just after the 1967 war. Many Arabs criticised the poem, but he says: "I will continue to humanise even the enemy... The first teacher who taught me Hebrew was a Jew. The first love affair in my life was with a Jewish girl. The first judge who sent me to prison was a Jewish woman. So from the beginning, I didn't see Jews as devils or angels but as human beings." Several poems are to Jewish lovers. "These poems take the side of love not war"

Taking the side of love not war, I won't tweet or blog my outrage that the "Israeli Defense Minister Compares Beloved Palestinian Poet [Mahmoud Darwish] to Hitler". No need to add into the click bait hate mongering found on every side- everywhere... on every topic. Yes we need to know the facts, but in hoping for peace and an end to the very real plight and suffering of the Palestinians (and Israelis) I'd rather notice and reinforce the magic of "Raising Arabian Horses" which has the capacity to coax us all into "the same arenas, where the conflict briefly melts away and everyone admires the horses"

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

New York Times July 2016: For Palestinians, Raising Arabian Horses Is ‘the Hobby of the Poor’

Fares Salim, 22, with a white mare out of her stall at a stable above the Garden of Gethsemane in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Tur, with a view of Jerusalem’s Old City and the golden Dome of the Rock.

Photo Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

"Palestinians and Israelis in the business say Arabian horses have another effect that is almost magical: They coax Israelis and Palestinians into the same arenas, where the conflict briefly melts away and everyone admires the horses as they strut, dance, gallop and compete for trophies."

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine (& America ...etc...)]

 For Palestinians, Raising Arabian Horses Is ‘the Hobby of the Poor’

By JAMES GLANZ and RAMI NAZZAL JULY 13, 2016

 

"The position of the United States with respect to our long expressed hope, the Republicans and the Democrats alike (and) many presidents of the last 50 years or more, has always been for peace and President Obama remains committed to a two-state solution," Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a press conference at an economic conference, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Saturday, March 14, 2015. Kerry said he hopes Israel elects a government that can address the country's domestic needs and also "meets the hope for peace." Kerry said whatever decision Israeli voters make in the election Tuesday, he hopes there will be the chance to move forward on peace efforts afterward. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell)

US President Barack Obama (centre) looks on as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) shakes hands with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas before a 2009 meeting in New York (AFP Photo/Jim Watson)

On Friday, Kerry held talks on the peace process with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

The four discussed creating an environment to "push forward the peace process to reach a comprehensive and just peace in the region," Sisi's office said after they met.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-committed-two-state-solution-israel-palestinians-095413959.html

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Obama 'committed' to two-state solution for Israel, Palestinians

Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt) (AFP) - US President Barack Obama is "committed" to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians, Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday on the stalled Middle East peace process....READ MORE

President Barack Obama's address to the United Nations General Assembly (transcript)

President Barack Obama's address to the United Nations General Assembly (transcript)

"...America is not the same as it was 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or
even a decade ago. Because we fight for our ideals, and are willing to
criticize ourselves when we fall short. Because we hold our leaders
accountable, and insist on a free press and independent judiciary. 
Because we address our differences in the open space of democracy – with
respect for the rule of law; with a place for people of every race and
religion; and with an unyielding belief in the ability of individual men
and women to change their communities and countries for the better.

After nearly six years as President, I believe that this promise can
help light the world. Because I’ve seen a longing for positive change –
for peace and freedom and opportunity – in the eyes of young people I’ve
met around the globe. They remind me that no matter who you are, or
where you come from, or what you look like, or what God you pray to, or
who you love, there is something fundamental that we all share. Eleanor
Roosevelt, a champion of the UN and America’s role in it, once asked,
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places,”
she said, “close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be
seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual
person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends;
the factory, farm or office where he works.”

The people of the world look to us, here, to be as decent, as dignified,
and as courageous as they are in their daily lives. And at this
crossroads, I can promise you that the United States of America will not
be distracted or deterred from what must be done. We are heirs to a
proud legacy of freedom, and we are prepared to do what is necessary to
secure that legacy for generations to come. Join us in this common
mission, for today’s children and tomorrow’s."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/barack-obama-un-general-assembly-transcript-111288_Page2.html#ixzz3EFtyrcwe

Middle East Peace

EYE on PALESTINE

EYE on PALESTINE

 Palestine News & Information Agency - WAFA

Most Viewed Photo 2014/5/25 President Mahmoud Abbas receives Pope Francis "The Pontiff" upon his arrival to West Bank city of Bethlehem. Photo by Thaer Ghanayem.

Natural scenes from Jordan Valley. Photo by Tamer Bana/WAFA.

Palestine

2014/2/10 A flower seller in Ramallah. Photo by Mohammed Farraj/WAFA.

Fishing boats at the Gaza port. Photo By:Hateem Mousa/WAFA.

Hebron -Palestine‘s nature. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

Hebron -Palestine‘s nature. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

Hebron -Palestine‘s nature. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

Hebron- Anchusa azurea ‘Dropmore’ blooms from spring to early fall. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

Hebron - Craft of colorful sand drawing. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

Hebron - Craft of colorful sand drawing. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

Hebron - Craft of colorful sand drawing. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

Hebron - Craft of colorful sand drawing. Photo by Samar Badir/WAFA.

old ways- new brooms

Turtles

Hebron’s mountain plains. Photo by Hossam Abu Allan/WAFA.

Hebron’s mountain plains. Photo by Hossam Abu Allan/WAFA.

Evening view of Jerusalem. Photo by Afif Amira/WAFA.

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King hails outgoing UNRWA chief in Jordan

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http://www.petra.gov.jo/Public_News/Nws_NewsDetails.aspx?Site_Id=1&lang=2&NewsID=149171&CatID=13&Type=Home&GType=1

Amman, Apr 27 (Petra) –– His Majesty King Abdullah II on Sunday received United Nation Relief and Works Agency UNRWA Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi, whose four-year term has ended.

During the meeting, held at Husseiniyeh Palace, the King said he appreciated the remarkable efforts and contributions Grandi had made during his tenure as UNRWA commissioner-general in Jordan, noting the agency's key role in providing assistance and relief for refugees.

His Majesty said that Jordan, stemming from its role and message, is committed to supporting UNRWA, "in a manner to enable it to carry out its responsibility and pursue humanitarian services to Palestinian refugees".

During the meeting, attended by foreign minister Nasser Judeh, Grandi lauded Jordan for its relentless efforts to perpetuate coordination and cooperation with UNRWA and the other agencies on its territory assisting refugees.

He also praised the King's efforts to bring about Middle East peace and security and his wisdom and rational approach in dealing with regional issues.

//Petra//SS
27/4/2014 - 06:11:48 PM 

Globalizing Martin Luther King, Jr.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism [bigotry*] and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jerusalem dawn

***

*synonym (according to our thesaurus)
noun
'harsh' may be used as synonym for 'oppressive': alternate, substitute, alternative, equivalent, euphemism.

*sectarian (according to our thesaurus)
adjective
years of sectarian violence: factional, separatist, partisan, parti pris; doctrinaire, dogmatic, extreme, fanatical, rigid, inflexible, bigoted, hidebound, narrow-minded.

*racism (according to our thesaurus)
noun
Aborigines are the main victims of racism in Australia: racial discrimination, racialism, racial prejudice, xenophobia, chauvinism, bigotry.

Hussein Ibish: Muslim Brotherhood’s fiasco in Egypt will change future of Islamism

Egyptian hieroglyphs

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/brotherhoods-fiasco-in-egypt-will-change-future-of-islamism#full

Brotherhood’s fiasco in Egypt will change future of Islamism

By Hussein Ibish

With the removal of the Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, the future of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamism in general, is undoubtedly at a turning point. The question is typically being cast as a binary: is this “the beginning of the end” or “the end of the beginning” for the Islamist movement? Even if, in the final analysis, this proves a misleading question, it nonetheless articulates a precise and instructive framework for what is at stake.

Many observers have no doubt that this is the beginning of the end of the Islamist movement, at least as it has been traditionally structured and as a dominant ideology in the Arab states. According to these observers, if the oldest Muslim Brotherhood party cannot maintain popular legitimacy in Egypt after only one year in office, then the ideology itself simply isn’t a practicable model for governance anywhere.

Sunni Islamists will invariably fail in power because Islam is a religion and not an actual political ideology. Islamism doesn’t have the intellectual heft, breadth or depth to suggest any answers to most policy questions. It essentially boils down to a set of religiously conservative social attitudes. It only takes a short while in office to reveal that.

Moreover, the very qualities that made the Brotherhood so effective as an opposition group – secrecy, discipline, streamlined hierarchy and a paranoid suspicion of all outsiders – proved crippling in office... READ MORE

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John Kerry makes unscheduled shawarma sandwich stop in West Bank ...Kerry is urging an economic package to boost the Palestinian economy. Perhaps as a signal of his commitment, he insisted on paying for his food.

John Kerry shows delight at his shawarma sandwich in Ramallah. Photograph: Fadi Arouri /Xinhua

US secretary of state darted into fast-food restaurant Samer's in Ramallah for a shawarma sandwich and [knafeh] dessert

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/23/john-kerry-west-bank-shawarma 

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“Were you really shot in a fight over water?” He winces out his answer: “It wasn’t about politics. It wasn’t about the Muslim Brotherhood. It was about water.”

"The great American environmentalist Dana Meadows, when asked if it was too late to do anything about climate change, used to say, “We have exactly enough time — starting now.” The Arab world has exactly enough time — starting now. If people do not stop fighting with each other over dead ideologies and sectarian differences and focus instead on overcoming their deficits of knowledge, freedom and women’s empowerment — as the U.N. Arab Human Development Report urged — there is no hope. As Qaid suggested, in Yemen those old ideologies are luxuries now. It is just about water." Postcard From Yemen By Thomas L. Friedman May 7, 2013

"Resuscitating the peace process"...excellent cartoon from the Baltimore Sun

"Resuscitating the peace process"
March 25, 2013
KAL/Baltimore Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/ 

***

ATFP - The American Task Force on Palestine

Amid the social and political transformations reshaping the Middle East, can King Abdullah II, the region's most pro-American Arab leader, liberalize Jordan, modernize its economy, and save his kingdom from capture by Islamist radicals?

King Abdullah II of Jordan

April 2013

Monarch in the Middle

 by Jeffrey Goldberg

It is still, on occasion, good to be the king.

It is not necessarily good to be the king of a Middle Eastern country that is bereft of oil; nor is it necessarily so wonderful to be the king during the turmoil and uncertainty of the Arab Spring. It is certainly not good to be the king when the mystique that once enveloped your throne is evaporating.
But when a squadron of Black Hawk helicopters is reserved for your use, and when you are the type of king who finds release from the pressures of monarchy by piloting those Black Hawks up and down the length of your sand-covered kingdom—then it is still good to be the king.

One morning last fall, Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, the fourth Hashemite king of Jordan, rolled up to a helipad situated close to the royal office complex in Al Hummar, on the western edge of the capital, Amman. He stepped out of an armored Mercedes—he drove himself, and drove fast, like he was being chased—and hustled to one of his Black Hawks. The king, who as a young prince served as a commander in the Royal Jordanian special forces, climbed into the pilot’s seat, talked for a moment with his co‑pilot, a trusted member of the Royal Squadron, and lifted off, pointing us in the direction of the rough, unhappy city of Karak, about 80 miles to the south. A second Black Hawk, filled with bodyguards, lifted off a moment later.

The king was flying himself to Karak, which is one of the poorer cities in a distressingly poor country, to have lunch with the leaders of Jordan’s largest tribes, which form the spine of Jordan’s military and political elite. More than half of all Jordanians are of Palestinian origin, with roots on the West Bank of the Jordan River, but the tribal leaders are from the East Bank, and the Hashemite kings have depended on East Bankers to defend the throne since the Hashemites first came to what was then called Transjordan from Mecca almost 100 years ago. This relationship has a coldly transactional quality: in exchange for their support of the royal court, the leaders of the eastern tribes expect the Hashemites to protect their privileges, and to limit the power of the Palestinians. When the Hashemites appear insufficiently attentive, problems inevitably follow.

Earlier that day, in his private office in Al Hummar, which overlooks the wealthy neighborhoods of West Amman, the king had explained to me the reason for the trip to Karak: he was trying, in advance of parliamentary elections in January, to instruct these tribal leaders on the importance of representative democracy. He wanted, he said, to see Jordanians build political parties that would not simply function as patronage mills but would advance ideas from across a broad ideological spectrum, and thus establish for Jordan a mature political culture. He said he would like to see Palestinians more proportionately represented in parliament. And he would like to do all this, he explained, without allowing the Muslim Brotherhood—a “Masonic cult” (as he describes it) that today controls the most formidable political organization in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front—to hijack the cause of democratic reform in the name of Islam. In other words, the king wants to bring political reform to Jordan, and to cede some of his power to the people...READ MORE

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New US Secretary of State Kerry calls Palestine's President Abbas

US Secretary of State Kerry

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http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=561788

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Newly-confirmed US Secretary of State John Kerry called President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, official Palestinian Authority media reported.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told Wafa news agency that the leaders discussed holding a meeting soon on the peace process with Israel.

Kerry said the US is aware of Palestine's financial crisis, and is committed to supporting peace negotiations, according to Abu Rudeineh.

The five-term US senator from Massachusetts was easily confirmed as Secretary of State by the US Senate on Tuesday. Days earlier, he said that he hoped for to renew Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

US-brokered peace talks broke down in 2010 amid mutual acrimony.

Since then Israel has accelerated construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land the Palestinians want for a future state - and the Palestinians have taken steps to gain greater recognition at the United Nations and its agencies.

Hagel's Rough Hearing... "117 times, Israel was mentioned by questioners. And yet I didn't hear anything about widows and orphans and what we're going to do about returning veterans without jobs and post-traumatic stress."

PBS COVERS IT ALL....

HERE

Politics

Political Wrap With Shields and Brooks

 MARK SHIELDS: "117 times, Israel was mentioned by questioners. And yet I didn't hear anything about widows and orphans and what we're going to do about returning veterans without jobs and post-traumatic stress."


& THERE

 PBS Newshour: Middle East

Peace Processed: Israelis and Palestinians Further Apart Than Ever: In dozens of conversations with Warner over the last two weeks, Israelis and Palestinians -- from people on the street, to deep-thinkers who have spent a lifetime trying to bridge the divide between these two people -- said that both sides were further apart in every way, socially, economically and politically, than ever.

Protesters in the West Bank. Photos by P.J. Tobia/NewsHour.

Growing Divide Over Mideast Peace Prospect 

Growing Disillusionment Among Israelis, Palestinians About Peace Prospects

 *****

PBS NewsHour Support From 

Viewers Like You

PBS’ mission is to create content that educates, informs and inspires. To do this, PBS offers programming that expands the minds of children, documentaries that open up new worlds, non-commercialized news programs that keep citizens informed on world events and cultures and programs that expose America to the worlds of music, theater, dance and art.

A Serious Look at Fayyad.... (& Palestine)

by Hussein Ibish Dec 31, 2012

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/31/a-serious-look-at-fayyad.html

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad (R) tastes olive-based products during the annual Olive Harvest Festival in the Palestinian West Bank town of Bethlehem on November 3, 2012. (Musa Al-Shaer / AFP / Getty Images)

I like and respect Geoffrey Aronson, and his bimonthly Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories, published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace, has long been a must-read for those tracking the settlement project. I was all the more taken aback, therefore, by his recent critique of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Aronson’s criticisms are riddled with inaccuracies, loaded with emotive and hostile phraseology, and, most importantly, offer no alternatives.

Aronson’s basic argument is self-refuting. He tries to paint Fayyad as a non-threatening lapdog of the occupation whose project has only served Israeli and American interests. He simultaneously suggests, though, that many pro-occupation Israelis have come to view his institution-building program as a threat, causing them to label Fayyad "an obstacle to peace."

But from the outset, Fayyad's policies have been the greatest possible threat to all those, on both sides, who do not want a two-state solution based on a compromise. This is because his program actually worked successfully to start to create the infrastructure of an independent Palestinian state. Greater Israel advocates have therefore always looked at him with deep suspicion, as have Hamas and one-state advocates. Hostility towards Fayyad by extremists is nothing new.

Aronson claims "Fayyad has evidently despaired of his failed state-building strategy." There is no evidence of that at all. Fayyad has been the first to label recent events, which have tended to undermine moderates and boost extremists, particularly Hamas, as, in his words, "doctrinal defeats.” But what has halted Fayyad's project in its tracks is the double whammy, following Palestinian diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations, of the withholding of Palestinian tax revenue by Israel and the steep reduction in aid from the West.

Fayyad, in fact, is not despairing but, as usual, looking for solutions: bank loans and other temporary financial solutions; ways of restoring aid from the West or increasing that from the Arab world; and trying to build a reliable and regular system for the transfer of Palestinian revenues by Israel under the terms of the Paris Protocol. Aronson, meanwhile, mistakenly accepts Israel's claims that many outstanding Palestinian debts to Israel are governmental, when in fact they are owed by privately-held companies.

Aronson makes the bizarre claim that Fayyad was "catapulted" into senior Palestinian leadership ranks by George W. Bush, personally. And he backs this up with the ridiculous assertion that, because Fayyad studied at the University of Texas, “When Bush looked him in the eye he saw a Texan.” This is a baseless argument desperately looking for nonexistent evidence. It's a barometer of how seriously the whole article should be taken. In fact Fayyad was appointed Finance Minister personally by President Yasser Arafat in 2002, following his service as the IMF representative to the PA from 1996 to 2001. What's more, Fayyad also served as Finance Minister in the Palestinian unity government, that included Hamas, from March to June 2007.

Yet Aronson claims that in 2002, Bush set then-Prime Minister (now-President) Mahmoud Abbas and Fayyad up as “America’s Palestine tag team” in order to marginalize Yasser Arafat's power. This is entirely fictional, and borders on calumny. In fact Fayyad worked well with Arafat, while Abbas ended up resigning as Prime Minister and only returned to power after Arafat's death. Aronson’s account of this whole period—and Fayyad's roles within Palestinian politics and his relationship with the United States—is conspiratorial, misinformed, misleading and flat-out wrong....READ MORE