Tunisia Requests Arab League Meeting over Suspicions Arafat Murdered

Sign of the Times

The PA agreed on Wednesday to exhume Arafat's body after new allegations that he was poisoned with the radioactive element polonium-210 in 2004

Tunisia has called for Arab ministers to meet to discuss the death of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat after new suspicions that he was murdered, a senior official in the Arab League said on Thursday.

The Palestinian Authority agreed on Wednesday to exhume Arafat's body after new allegations that he was poisoned with the radioactive element polonium-210 in 2004, the same substance found to have killed a former Russian spy in London in 2006.

"The general secretariat received a request today from the Tunisian representative to convene a ministerial meeting to study the circumstances of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat," League Deputy Secretary-General Ahmed Ben Helli told a news conference.

Ben Helli said a request had been passed to Arab member states for a meeting and to determine how they wished to deal with the issue in coordination with the Palestinians.

A Swiss institute that examined clothing provided by Arafat's widow Suha as part of an Al Jazeera expose said it found "surprisingly" high levels of polonium-210, though symptoms described in the president's medical reports were not consistent with the radioactive agent.

The Palestinian administration said it would approve Suha Arafat's request to exhume Arafat's body from a limestone mausoleum in the West Bank city of Ramallah for an autopsy.

The calm may not last for ever

The Economist

Despite several years of peace and a rise in prosperity, frustration is bubbling up

FIVE years after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, dismissed an elected government run by the Islamists of Hamas and decided to rule instead by decree, the Palestinian Authority (PA) that oversees the West Bank is being dangerously challenged from within. In Nablus, the first city where Mr Abbas chose to fill the security vacuum with his American-trained national-security battalions, turf wars have recently erupted between rival commanders, puncturing four years of calm. The walls of Jacob’s Well, a local church, a theatre and the UN office all bear the scars of recent shooting sprees. “It’s hell,” says a social worker in Balata, the city’s largest refugee camp, which suffered grievously during two previous intifadas (uprisings), in 1987-93 and 2000-05. Now people are beginning gloomily to wonder whether there will be a third intifada, this time aimed at the PA as much as at the Israelis occupying the West Bank.

For the moment Mr Abbas has the upper hand. Dispatched from Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government, his presidential guards have detained dozens of rogue security officers, some of them very senior, in Nablus and in Jenin, a smaller Palestinian city half an hour’s drive to the north, where the governor recently died of a heart attack after machinegun fire raked his house. In Jenin triumphant officers loyal to Mr Abbas patrol the streets with M-16 rifles captured from their rivals.

The PA’s Western donors praise Mr Abbas for his readiness to rein in his own rogues. Israel’s generals, who give him a security umbrella, welcome the belated prevention of anarchy. And for the first time in months camp residents are enjoying their first nights of sleep unbroken by gunfire.

Moreover, Nablus people still appreciate the relative prosperity that has revived the city since the second intifada ended in around 2005. Hundreds of businessmen have returned since Israel pulled back from the roadblocks at the city gates. Some 700,000 Arab citizens of Israel came shopping last year in the elegant medieval quarter. The governor hopes foreign tourists will follow, with plans for a “nativity trail” from Nazareth to Bethlehem to make a detour via Nablus. A new hotel and museum are due to open this summer on the ruins of a medieval khan, al-Wikala, which Israeli tanks pummelled during the second intifada. Unemployment has halved, say PA officials. In more affluent districts, young women are discarding veils.

But the camp’s residents are deeply divided. Though many are grateful for the calm that Mr Abbas and his appointed prime minister, Salam Fayyad, have brought in the past few years, others resent the heavy-handed security of the PA regime. Imposing muqatas (fortresses) are rising in all the West Bank’s main cities. Many Palestinians find the PA’s co-operation with Israel galling. “We give them the names and they arrest them,” says an Israeli officer. Many Palestinians fear they are being condemned to indefinite occupation. At a recent funeral for three local fighters whose bodies Israel recently returned to their families, mourners chanted “Down with the PA! Down with Abbas!”

Most worrying for Mr Abbas was the fact that the ringleaders of the recent trouble hailed from his own Fatah party, which provides the bedrock of the PA’s security forces. PA officials fear that certain senior Fatah commanders who have fallen foul of Mr Abbas—in particular a former intelligence chief, Tawfiq Tirawi, and a prominent strongman, Muhammad Dahlan—are stoking the unrest in the hope of creating a security vacuum they could later fill. Hamas, which still controls the Gaza Strip but is heavily suppressed in the West Bank by both Israel and the PA, awaits the tardy coming of the Arab spring to Palestine. The Israelis may be content to see Mr Abbas tied up with recalcitrant Palestinians rather than tackling Israel on the world stage.

Nablus’s commercial regeneration cannot cure a gnawing national malaise. “There is no political horizon,” say disgruntled Palestinians. They increasingly question the point of the PA. It has failed to usher in a Palestinian state, and appears powerless to prevent Israeli military incursions or the relentless expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. “All the windows are closed, and the political elite has no keys to open them,” says Raid Nairat, an academic. The West Bank’s 30,000 security forces seem unkeen on a recent quest for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas that would force them to share power. Their recent round-up of 150 Hamas men helped dampen hopes of a deal.

A fiscal crisis is compounding the political one. On paper the PA expects a budget deficit of $1 billion, equivalent to 10% of GDP. But this may well double when arrears owed to private businesses are added. Unpaid for years, suppliers refuse government orders on credit, and are having to cut production and their workforces. Palestinian builders complain that ministries pay them only when they give bribes. “We won’t let our financial system go down with the PA,” says a Palestinian banker.
Donors, too, are tired. Cash from the Gulf has dwindled, partly because the United Arab Emirates, which used to send $200m a year, seems to have sided with Mr Dahlan. “The crash is coming,” says an official in Mr Fayyad’s office. “If we can’t pay salaries over Ramadan [the Muslim month of fasting which starts on July 20th], there will be a revolt.”

Few Palestinians call for a renewal of violence. But such talk is again in the air. In some West Bank towns Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extreme Islamist group, has been making headway. “A Muslim army should defend Muslims, not Jews,” says an angry Islamist, denouncing the PA’s security co-ordination with Jewish kuffar (unbelievers).

Hague: Palestinian Authority Has No Standing

Arutz Sheva
Gabe Kahn

The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court says the PA cannot file complaints against Israel because it is not a state.

Operation Cast Lead

The Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced Tuesday that he rejected a complaint filed by the PA against Israel for alleged war crimes during "Operation Cast Lead" in Gaza in 2009.

The prosecutor explained that only states can file a complaint with the International Criminal Court. "The Palestinian Authority is only an observer at the United Nations and not a member state.

The prosecutor's office noted that, for its purposes, the recognition of "Palestine" by 130 countries and several international organizations, including UN organizations, was immaterial.

The decision brings an end to a PA bid launched on 22 January 2009 to gain defacto recognition by the ICC by granting the Hague jurisdiction over “the territory of Palestine.”

The PA's declaration purported to invoke Article 12 (3) of the Rome Statute, which specifically enables "a state which is not a party to this Statute" to request that the ICC exercise its jurisdiction on an ad hoc basis with respect to an alleged crime in that state’s territory, or involving its nationals.

The Foreign Ministry responded to the decision, "Israel notes the decision of the Prosecutor International Criminal Court, that it does not have jurisdiction to hear complaints from the PA at this time."

"Israel made it clear from the beginning that the ICC had no jurisdiction to hear such complaints and welcomes the prosecutor’s decision to that effect,” it added.

ICC authority is derived from the Rome Statute. In 2002, both the United States and Israel, "unsigned" the Rome Statute, indicating that they no longer intend to become states parties and, as such, they have no legal obligations arising from their signature of the statute.

Israeli officials have stated they have "deep sympathy" with the goals of the ICC, but are concerned that political pressure on the Court would lead it to reinterpret international law or to "invent new crimes."

It cites the inclusion of "the transfer of parts of the civilian population of an occupying power into occupied territory" as a war crime as an example of this trend, while at the same time disagrees with the exclusion of terrorism and drug trafficking.

Israel sees the powers given to the prosecutor as excessive and the geographical appointment of judges as disadvantaging Israel, which is prevented from joining any of the UN Regional Groups.
In other words, the PA's declaration to the Office of the Prosecutor amounted to an official request to confirm that the PA can be considered a state for purposes of ICC jurisdiction.

Palestine Self-Determination: UN Bid Heralds Death of Palestine’s Old Guard New leaders will spurn two states

Global Research
Jonathon Cook

Amid the enthusiastic applause in New York and the celebrations in Ramallah, it was easy to believe -- if only a for minute -- that, after decades of obstruction by Israel and the United States, a Palestinian state might finally be pulled out of the United Nations hat. Will the world’s conscience be midwife to a new era ending Israel's occupation of the Palestinians?

It seems not.

The Palestinian application, handed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon last week, has now disappeared from view -- for weeks, it seems -- while the United States and Israel devise a face-saving formula to kill it in the Security Council. Behind the scenes, the pair are strong-arming the Council’s members to block Palestinian statehood without the need for the US to cast its threatened veto.

Whether or not President Barack Obama wields the knife with his own hand, no one is under any illusion that Washington and Israel are responsible for the formal demise of the peace process. In revealing to the world its hypocrisy on the Middle East, the US has ensured both that the Arab publics are infuriated and that the Palestinians will jump ship on the two-state solution.

But there was one significant victory at the UN for Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, even if it was not the one he sought. He will not achieve statehood for his people at the world body, but he has fatally discredited the US as the arbiter of a Middle East peace.

In telling the Palestinians there was “no shortcut” to statehood -- after they have already waited more than six decades for justice -- the US President revealed his country as incapable of offering moral leadership on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If Obama is this craven to Israel, what better reception can the Palestinians hope to receive from a future US leader?

One guest at the UN had the nerve to politely point this out in his speech. Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president who himself appears to be wavering from his original support for a Palestinian state, warned that US control of the peace process needed to end.

“We must stop believing that a single country, even the largest, or a small group of countries can resolve so complex a problem,” he told the General Assembly. His suggestion was for a more active role for Europe and the Arab states at peace with Israel.

Sarkozy appeared to have overlooked the fact that responsibility for solving the conflict was widened in much this way in 2002 with the creation of the Quartet, comprising the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

The Quartet’s formation was necessary because the US and Israel realised that the Palestinian leadership would not continue playing the peace process game if oversight remained exclusively with Washington, following the Palestinians' betrayal by President Bill Clinton at Camp David in 2000. The Quartet’s job was to restore Palestinian faith in -- and buy a few more years for -- the Oslo process.

However, the Quartet quickly discredited itself too, not least because its officials never strayed far from the Israeli-Washington consensus. Last week senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath spoke for most Palestinians when he accused the Quartet’s envoy, Tony Blair, of sounding like an “Israeli diplomat” as he sought to dissuade Abbas from applying for statehood.

And true to form, the Quartet responded to the Palestinians’ UN application by limply offering Abbas instead more of the same tired talks that have gone nowhere for two decades.

The Palestinian leadership’s move to the UN, effectively bypassing the Quartet, widens the circle of responsibility for Middle East peace yet further. It also neatly brings the Palestinians’ 63-year plight back to the world body.

But Abbas’ application also exposes the UN’s powerlessness to intervene in an effective way. Statehood depends on a successful referral to the Security Council, which is dominated by the US. The General Assembly may be more sympathetic but it can confer no more than a symbolic upgrading of Palestine’s status, putting it on a par with the Vatican.

So the Palestinian leadership is stuck. Abbas has run out of institutional addresses for helping him to establish a state alongside Israel. And that means there is a third casualty of the statehood bid – the Palestinian Authority. The PA was the fruit of the Oslo process, and will wither without its sustenance.

Instead we are entering a new phase of the conflict in which the US, Europe, and the UN will have only a marginal part to play. The Palestinian old guard are about to be challenged by a new generation that is tired of the formal structures of diplomacy that pander to Israel’s interests only.

The young new Palestinian leaders are familiar with social media, are better equipped to organise a popular mass movement, and refuse to be bound by the borders that encaged their parents and grandparents. Their assessment is that the PA – and even the Palestinians’ unrepresentative supra-body, the PLO – are part of the problem, not the solution.

Till now they have remained largely deferential to their elders, but that trust is fast waning. Educated and alienated, they are looking for new answers to an old problem.

They will not be seeking them from the countries and institutions that have repeatedly confirmed their complicity in sustaining the Palestinian people’s misery. The new leaders will appeal over the heads of the gatekeepers, turning to the court of global public opinion. Polls show that in Europe and the US, ordinary people are far more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than their governments.

The first shoots of this revolution in Palestinian politics were evident in the youth movement that earlier this year frightened Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas into creating a semblance of unity. These youngsters, now shorn of the distracting illusion of Palestinian statehood, will redirect their energies into an anti-apartheid struggle, using the tools of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. Their rallying cry will be one person-one vote in the single state Israel rules over.

Global support will be translated into a rapid intensification of the boycott and sanctions movement. Israel’s legitimacy and the credibility of its dubious claim to being a democracy are likely to take yet more of a hammering.

Events at the UN are creating a new clarity for Palestinians, reminding them that there can be no self-determination until they liberate themselves from the legacy of colonialism and the self-serving illusions of the ageing notables who now lead them. The old men in suits have had their day.

Jonathan Cook won this year's Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Obama granted Netanyahu a major diplomatic victory

Haaretz

After Obama accepted Netanyahu's demands, the PM now cannot be apathetic to the U.S. president's proposal for 1967 borders.

By Aluf Benn

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can feel satisfied while flying to Washington Thursday night. U.S. President Barack Obama has granted Netanyahu a major diplomatic victory.

In return for his call for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, without defining the size of these lands, Obama accepted Netanyahu's demands for strict security arrangements and a gradual, continuous withdrawal from the West Bank.

He suggested beginning negotiations on borders and security arrangements, and delaying discussions on the core issues such as Jerusalem and refugees.

More importantly, Obama scornfully rejected the Palestinian initiative to attain recognition at the United Nations and to isolate Israel, demanded the Palestinians return to negotiations, and called on Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist. These points came straight out of the policy pages of the Prime Minister's Bureau in Jerusalem. Netanyahu could not have asked for more: Obama outright rejects Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' recognition campaign, as well as the Palestinian reconciliation agreement.

It seems that the new Fatah-Hamas unity has saved Netanyahu from a much more aggressive and binding speech on the part of Obama.

Obama could have also delivered his Mideast speech during the impending AIPAC conference, which he will attend this coming Sunday.

His approach to Israel was empathetic, not only with his reassurance of the U.S. commitment to Israel's security but also with his attempt "to save Israel from itself." Obama warned us that if we perpetuated the occupation, we shall crash due to our demographic inferiority, new military technology, and most importantly, due to the anger of the masses who are slowly gaining power in the surrounding countries. In order to retain the vision of a Jewish and democratic state, Israel must end the occupation and withdraw from the West Bank.

The points of the speech were surely pleasing to Netanyahu's ears. Obama promised he won't force a deal on Israel and the Palestinians and demanded both sides to return to negotiations. He did not condemn, as he did before, the Israeli settlements in the territories as "illegitimate" and did not demand a settlement freeze. He only reminded, in a critical tone, that Israel continues building settlements, as an explanation for the deadlock in peace talks.

Netanyahu will have to reply to Obama by accepting the principle of "1967 borders with agreed land swaps." He made a step toward that direction in his speech in the Knesset this week, when he talked about preserving settlement blocs, which is the same thing in Israeli wording. On the eve of his U.S. trip, Netanyahu's advisers hinted that he will accept this principle on Friday during his close-room meeting with Obama, while presenting a less binding policy during his U.S. Congress speech on Tuesday in fear of causing the breakup of the coalition.

Netanyahu essentially has no choice: after Obama accepted his procedural and security demands, he cannot remain apathetic to the U.S. president's suggestion regarding borders. But Netanyahu has nothing to worry about – there is no chance the Palestinian leadership will agree to return to negotiations under these principles.

Israel admits it covertly canceled residency status of 140,000 Palestinians

Haaretz
By Akiva Eldar

Document obtained by Haaretz reveals that between 1967 and 1994 many Palestinians traveling abroad were stripped of residency status, allegedly without warning.

Israel has used a covert procedure to cancel the residency status of 140,000 West Bank Palestinians between 1967 and 1994, the legal advisor for the Judea and Samaria Justice Ministry's office admits, in a new document obtained by Haaretz. The document was written after the Center for the Defense of the Individual filed a request under the Freedom of Information Law.

The document states that the procedure was used on Palestinian residents of the West Bank who traveled abroad between 1967 and 1994. From the occupation of the West Bank until the signing of the Oslo Accords, Palestinians who wished to travel abroad via Jordan were ordered to leave their ID cards at the Allenby Bridge border crossing.

They exchanged their ID cards for a card allowing them to cross. The card was valid for three years and could be renewed three times, each time adding another year.

If a Palestinian did not return within six months of the card's expiration, their documents would be sent to the regional census supervisor. Residents who failed to return on time were registered as NLRs - no longer residents. The document makes no mention of any warning or information that the Palestinians received about the process.

Palestinians could still return in the first six months after their cards expired, or appeal to an exemptions committee.

The Center for the Defense of the Individual said yesterday it knew that a clear procedure was in place, but the details and the number of Palestinians denied their right to return remained classified. A former head of the Civil Administration in the 1990s was surprised to hear of the procedure when contacted by Haaretz.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. (res. ) Danny Rothschild, who served as coordinator of government activities in the territories from 1991 to 1995, said he was completely unaware of the procedure, even though it was in use during his term. "If even I wasn't told of the procedure, one may infer that neither were residents of the occupied territories," he said.

The Central Bureau of Statistics says the West Bank's Palestinian population amounted to 1.05 million in 1994, which means the population would have been greater by about 14 percent if it weren't for the procedure.

By contrast, Palestinians who immigrated from the West Bank after the Palestinian Authority was set up retained residency rights even if they did not return for years.

Today, a similar procedure is still in place for residents of East Jerusalem who hold Israeli ID cards; they lose their right to return if they have been abroad for seven years.

Palestinians who found themselves "no longer residents" include students who graduated from foreign universities, businessmen and laborers who left for work in the Gulf. Over the years, many of them have started families, so the number of these Palestinians and their descendants is probably in the hundreds of thousands, even if some have died.

Also, several thousands Palestinians with close links to the Palestinian Authority were allowed to return over the years, as did a number of Palestinians whose cases were upheld by the joint committee for restoration of Palestinian ID cards. As of today, 130,000 Palestinians are listed as "no longer residents."

Among them is the brother of the Palestinians' chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat. Erekat's brother left for studies in the United States and was not allowed to come back; he still lives in California.

Erekat told Haaretz he had learned from his brother's experience, and when he himself left for studies abroad, he made sure to visit home from time to time so as not to lose his right to return.

The regulation's existence was discovered by the Center for the Defense of the Individual by pure chance, while it was looking into the case of a West Bank resident imprisoned in Israel.

The Civil Administration told the prisoner's family his ID card was "inactive." After a request for a clarification, Israel's legal adviser for Judea and Samaria said this was a misapplication of a certain policy by the census supervisor in the occupied territories.

The adviser added that three residents were mistakenly defined as no longer residents while in prison or in detention, and that their residency had now been restored. He wrote that their status had been changed not because of a policy but because of a technical error, without any connection to their imprisonment.

The Center for the Defense of the Individual said that "mass withdrawal of residency rights from tens of thousands of West Bank residents, tantamount to permanent exile from their homeland, remains an illegitimate demographic policy and a grave violation of international law."

It noted that an unknown number of Gaza residents had lost residency rights in a similar manner, but that the exact number was still a secret the center vowed to uncover. "The State of Israel should fix the ongoing wrong at once, restore residency rights to all affected Palestinians and allow them and their families to return to their homeland," the center said.

US: Hamas Leader’s bin Laden Remarks 'Outrageous'

Voice of America

The United States has expressed outrage at remarks by Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh condemning the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden. The U.S. comments Tuesday came on the eve of an expected reconciliation deal between the militant Hamas and the mainstream Palestinian Fatah movement.

The comments by Haniyeh, who is prime minister of the Hamas administration in Gaza, only underscored U.S. concerns about an impending Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal that could force an end to U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Speaking in Gaza Monday, the Hamas chief said his organization condemns any killing of a Muslim 'holy warrior.' He said the operation in Pakistan was part of a U.S. policy of murder and repression.

Hamas, like al-Qaida, is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. At a news briefing, State Department Acting Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said Haniyeh’s remarks on bin Laden were an outrage.

"They’re outrageous. It goes without saying bin Laden was a murderer and terrorist," he said. "He ordered the killings of thousands of innocent men, women and children... many of whom were Muslim. He did not die a martyr. He died hiding in a mansion, or a compound, far away from the violence that was carried out in his name."

Hamas and Fatah are expected to sign an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation accord in Cairo Wednesday, aimed at ending the split in Palestinian ranks that began in 2007 when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip.

The United States has since provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas based in the West Bank.

A 2006 act of Congress conditions U.S. aid on a requirement that Palestinian recipients renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist. Lawmakers of both parties in Washington are calling for an aid cut-off to a Fatah-Hamas unity government.

Spokesman Toner said the Obama administration is awaiting developments in Cairo. He said that to be part of regional peacemaking, Hamas must accept terms set down in 2003 by the international Middle East Quartet.

"If Hamas wants to play a role in the political process, then it needs to abide by the Quartet principles," he said. "And those have been quite clear. It needs to accept those principles, which are renouncing violent and terrorism, recognizing Israel’s right to exist, and abiding by previous diplomatic agreements."

Toner said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the impending deal in telephone calls Monday with Mr. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Officials here noted that previous attempts at Fatah-Hamas reconciliation have broken down.

Reports from Cairo say that to stave off an aid ban, the two parties may form a cabinet of technocrats without affiliation with either faction that would run the Palestinian Authority until new elections.

AIPAC is a useful tool when you want to predict the future of any peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

ArabAmericanNews

Prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu is being heavily criticized in Israel for his blatant exploitation of the murder of five members of one family (including three children) at the Itamar settlement near Nablus. Particularly egregious has been Netanyahu's demand that president Mahmoud Abbas personally appear on Palestinian radio and television to condemn the killings, although Abbas had issued an unusually strong statement as soon as he heard of the tragedy.

Forget for a minute that no one knows who committed the crime and that certainly no one believes that the killer was associated with Abbas. Also, lay aside the fact that Netanyahu has never condemned or even expressed remorse over the killing of 300 plus Palestinian children by the IDF during the Gaza War. (In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any Israeli government that ever even criticized the killing of Palestinian children by the IDF, although many hundreds have been killed over the last decade).

None of that is anything new. What is new is Israel's decision to libel the Palestinian Authority (and not just Hamas) which until very recently has been praised by Israel as its partner. That change became evident during the last month when AIPAC (Israel's lobby in America) started attacking Abbas and the PA, returning to the style of the bad old days when the lobby viewed all Palestinians as one and the same: as enemies of Israel.

There are three reasons why monitoring AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a valuable use of time for anyone following events in the Middle East.

The first is that AIPAC faithfully reflects the positions of the Netanyahu government (actually it often telegraphs them before Netanyahu does).

The second is that AIPAC's policies provide advance notice of the positions that will, not by coincidence, be taken by the United States Congress.

And third, AIPAC provides a reliable indicator of future policies of the Obama administration, which gets its "guidance" both from AIPAC itself and from Dennis Ross, former head of AIPAC's think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and now the president's top adviser on Middle East issues.

The next few months, as AIPAC prepares for its annual conference (May 22-24), will be especially fruitful for AIPAC watchers. The conference is a huge event, attended by most members of the House and Senate, the prime minister of Israel, and either by the president or vice president of the United States. It is also attended by thousands of delegates from around the country and by candidates for Congress who raise money for their campaigns at the event. This year, the leading Republican candidates for president will also be in attendance, all vying for support by promising undying loyalty to the AIPAC agenda.

The conference or the egg?

The conference actually beginslong before it convenes at the massive Washington Convention Centre. Right now, AIPAC's top officials are deciding which policies are the most important to be conveyed to the hundreds of officials who will be in attendance. Those policies will constitute AIPAC's agenda not just for the conference but for the next 12 months.

In recent years, AIPAC's main message has been about Iran and its view of the dangers posed by the Iranian nuclear program. Speaker after speaker at various AIPAC conferences over the past decade (including, most histrionically, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu) has invoked the Holocaust when discussing the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

These speakers laid the groundwork for AIPAC's presentation of legislation imposing "crippling sanctions" on Iran — along with the declaration that the military option remained "on the table" if sanctions failed to end Iran's nuclear program. Most of the sanctions legislation enacted by Congress and signed into law by the president originated at AIPAC.

But this year Iran will have to compete for attention with AIPAC's worries about the democratic revolutions that are sweeping the Arab world. For AIPAC, as for Netanyahu, those revolutions have already turned 2011 into an annus horribilis and the year is not even half over.

Early indications are that the main theme that will dominate the conference will be that Israel, once again, has "no partner" to negotiate with. This is an old theme, but one that receded as the Israeli right came to view the Palestinian Authority (led by Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad) as not only partners but as collaborators in maintaining the status quo.

As Al Jazeera's "Palestine Papers" demonstrated, Abbas and Fayyad rarely said "no" to the Netanyahu government — which made them the only kind of partners acceptable to the Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak troika.

But, fearing that it might be next to fall to democracy, the PA started showing some spine recently. It refused to yield to U.S. and Israeli demands that it shelve the United Nations Security Council resolution condemning settlements. It absolutely refuses to negotiate with Israelis until Israel stops gobbling up the land they would be negotiating over. And, most disturbing of all to Netanyahu and company, it says that it intends to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state this summer.

Netanyahu, who needs the illusion of movement to ensure that there isn't any, is suddenly feeling the heat. Even Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor and a staunch Israel backer, both supported the UN resolution condemning settlements and told Netanyahu, in a well-publicized February 24 phone call, that the Europeans are sick and tired of him. Haaretz reported:

Netanyahu told Merkel he was disappointed by Germany's vote....

Merkel was furious. "How dare you," she said...."You are the one who disappointed us. You haven't made a single step to advance peace."

A shaken Netanyahu immediately put out the word that he is getting ready to announce his own plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He told political allies that he has to act fast to deter pressure from the so-called Quartet (composed of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia). It is due to meet later this month to set out the parameters for a final agreement. In advance of that meeting, British Foreign Minister William Hague said that the territorial basis for any agreement must be the pre-'67 borders, the last thing Netanyahu wants to hear.

Reports from Israel indicate that Netanyahu's plan rules out any withdrawal to the '67 lines, offering instead a Palestinian state within temporary borders and only a very partial settlement freeze (no freeze in East Jerusalem at all).

Knowing that the PA can no longer afford to even consider such an offer, Netanyahu has decided to preemptively label Israel's old friends in the Palestinian Authority as extremists, with the goal of ensuring that both Congress and the Obama administration back his plan. His hope is that with the United States safely in his corner, any Quartet initiative will be blocked. As always, his goal is to maintain the status quo, which requires U.S. acquiescence in his schemes. Thus far, the tactic has worked.

Hence, the new AIPAC approach: smear the PA. By the time the AIPAC conference ends, the "there is no partner" mantra will have returned to its position as one of Israel's greatest hits —- a true golden oldie.

Check out a few of the messages AIPAC has sent out over Twitter these past few days (the message is old but the technology is new):

AIPAC: PA doesn't want a terrorist organization to be called a terrorist organization, instead wants unity gov with it

AIPAC: PA seeks to isolate Israel to gain statehood; Obama admin plans to block the effort, calling it a "strategic mistake"

AIPAC: Palestinian Authority to Israel: NO.

By contrast, this is a typical AIPAC tweet before the Palestinian Authority started pushing back.

AIPAC: Can direct talks with PA President Abbas lead to a peace agreement in a year? "Yes, I think so," says Israeli PM Netanyahu.

The bottom line is this. The Europeans, the United Nations, and, it is safe to say, the entire world (except the United States) fear that the Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapsing and, along with it, the whole notion of a peace process. These same forces are determined to re-start negotiations, which will require seeing Israel actually freeze settlements, at the very least. It seems to understand that a PA that is perceived as Israel's lackey (which is precisely how it is perceived) will not survive. It has no faith whatsoever in the good intentions of the Netanyahu government.

Deflecting the issue

The Israeli government, understanding all this, is determined to put the onus back on the Palestinians to forestall any pressure. Most important of all, it is terrified that the Palestinian Authority will go ahead with its plan to unilaterally declare a state this summer, the only PA plan in years that actually has real momentum.

It needs the United States to block that plan by any means necessary, including a full cut-off of U.S. (and even international) aid to the Palestinians (this at a time when Defense Minister Barak is requesting another $20 billion in aid to Israel from the United States). Stopping a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence dead in its tracks is now Netanyahu's number one goal. And getting Obama to go along with him (which shouldn't be too difficult with the 2012 election looming) is the way he intends to do it.

That is why we are about to see a new Netanyahu plan. It is why AIPAC is busy denigrating the PA. And it is why AIPAC will soon have the United States Congress saying, practically in unison, that "there is no Palestinian partner."  That will be followed by the demand that the Obama administration support the Netanyahu plan, which will be labeled the most generous offer in history.

At this rate, the Israeli government and its lobby will soon be back to its old mantra (1948-1977) that "there is no such thing as the Palestinian people" at all.

All this to preserve an ugly and deadly status quo. So far, this tactic has worked every time. Don't bet against it winning again. As so often, a winning strategy for AIPAC and Netanyahu is a losing strategy for Israel and the United States.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, would do well to work on achieving some kind of unified strategy and to stick with the idea of a unilateral declaration. As David Ben-Gurion would tell them, self-determination often requires going it alone.

Bid for State of Palestine Gets Support From I.M.F.

NYTimes

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Authority, which is working toward global recognition of its statehood in September, got an endorsement on Wednesday from the International Monetary Fund, which said that the authority was fully capable of running the economy of an independent state.

The fund issued its latest report on the economies of the West Bank and Gaza, to be presented next week to a donors’ conference in Brussels. It said for the first time that it viewed the authority as “now able to conduct the sound economic policies expected of a future well-functioning Palestinian state, given its solid track record in reforms and institution-building in the public finance and financial areas.”

The World Bank, which will be reporting at the same conference, will make a similar point, one that it made last fall.

“If the Palestinian Authority maintains its performance in institution-building and delivery of public services, it is well positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future,” the World Bank says in its report, to be released Thursday.

Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, said Tuesday that his government was “in the home stretch” of state building, what he called “our rendezvous with freedom.” He was taking part in a ceremony in the West Bank city of Ramallah to mark the opening of a new venture capital fund that has raised more than $28 million for the West Bank.


Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund estimated the Palestinian areas’ real G.D.P. growth at around 9 percent in 2010. They attributed the growth to structural reforms and rigorous budget preparations by the Palestinian Authority, as well as the easing of Israeli restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza, and donor aid.


But both worried about overdependence on foreign aid and said that the current growth rate could not continue without further easing of Israeli restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza.

The authors of the World Bank report noted, “Aid is what keeps many Palestinians above the poverty line, particularly in Gaza, where unemployment is still 37.4 percent and a staggering 71 percent of the population benefited from some form of social assistance in 2009.”

They added that sustainable growth was dependent on a vibrant private sector, which they said was “unlikely to emerge while Israeli restrictions on access to natural resources and markets remain in place, and as long as investors are deterred by the increased cost of business associated with the closure regime.”


Gaza, run by Hamas, has been under Israeli economic boycott for several years and suffered an Israeli military invasion two years ago aimed at stopping rocket fire. Since last fall, Israel has promised to allow more exports and large projects that produce jobs, but progress has been slow.

The Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank, announced in September 2009 that in two years it would be institutionally ready for statehood, and it is sticking to that timetable.

Israel occupies the West Bank and argues that unless the Palestinians negotiate over borders and security, no state can rise. In addition, it says, with Gaza run by Hamas, the divisions between the parts of a future Palestine make statehood a dubious proposition in the short term.

But the Palestinians have been building support internationally. Next week they hope that at a meeting of the so-called Quartet — the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia — an endorsement of negotiations based on the 1967 lines will emerge.

The Israelis are opposed to that and seem to have some American support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is traveling to Berlin on Thursday, hoping to persuade Chancellor Angela Merkel that a statement on the 1967 lines would be counterproductive because it would permit the Palestinians to avoid real negotiation.

The Palestinians say that if September comes and nothing has changed they will apply to the United Nations for membership.