News From the Israeli and Palestinian Front: June 13th

A regular feature of news and opinion pieces from the Israeli and Palestinian press.

1.) A new poll has revealed that a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians are highly disillusioned with the current round of peace negotiations. As Haaretz reports, “55 percent of Israeli respondents and 68 percent of the Palestinian respondents think U.S.-backed talks between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are going nowhere and should be shelved.”

Also worth noting is the poll’s finding that a very high percentage of Israelis — 66% — are resistant to returning the Golan Heights in any future peace deal with Syria. While this may look like an insurmountable obstacle, Israeli public opinion during the last round of official Syrian-Israeli negotiations (in 1999-2000) was initially hostile to such a concession as well; yet, as the talks continued and the Israeli leadership “sold” the details of the accord to the public, opposition to a Golan withdrawal dropped to just 15%.

2.) Reuters has a good article about Salam Fayyad, Fatah’s prime minister in the West Bank. Educated as an economist in the United States, Fayyad has brought a unique approach to his job. Unlike many of his colleagues, Fayyad has resisted laying the blame for the absence of a Palestinian state solely on the Israelis; instead, he has emphasized that the Palestinian people also must play a more positive role. As the article notes:

“Don’t just argue or complain. There’s a lot to even cry about,” [Fayyad] told Reuters in an interview this week. “But we should actually act and create positive facts on the ground”. “My message is we can do things in a way that the whole world can relate to, and with respect, to enhance our cause,” he said.

…Fayyad says he is taking a “bottom-up approach” to getting his message across, touring villages and refugee camps to listen to complaints and to publicize a program of community projects that includes enlarging schools and digging wells. “When I go and talk to people, what I’m looking for is a change in the mindset of the people away from defeatism. You need to reinforce this shift in the mindset with deliverables and act on it quickly to make a difference,” he said.

His efforts to build security forces that can persuade Israel and its allies that Palestinians can keep to any deal to curb violence in return for statehood, have also been marked by a readiness to get to know not only the generals but the troops.

3.) Unlike prior Palestinian governments, Hamas has succeeded quite dramatically in bringing security to the Gaza Strip, reports Haaretz.

“The age of the armed gangs has ended,” explained B., a former Fatah member. “I remember getting in a dispute with a member of a large family. I went to the police to file an assault complaint. The police advised me to drop it so I wouldn’t get hurt. Today, you will not encounter anything like that. Family connections are no longer of any importance, and anyone who violates the law is punished. The chaos, the stolen cars, the extortion and threats are all gone.”

A., a resident of Beit Hanun, also reported a substantial improvement in personal security. According to him, there are fewer internal conflicts and gang wars. “I no longer feel the need to be constantly armed for fear of encountering someone else armed.”

4.) This week, the Knesset approved controversial legislation — known as the “Intifada Law” — that frees Israel from any legal responsibility for damages inflicted upon Palestinian civilians. In 2002, a similar law was passed, granting the state “immunity against compensation suits by Palestinians for personal injury or property damage incurred during Israeli operations in the territories since September 2000.” (Haaretz) Following an outcry by human rights groups, the law was ruled unconstitutional by Israel’s highest court in early 2006.

Yet this latest “Intifada Law” is very similar to its now-overturned predecessor. And, not surprisingly, its passage has sparked a familiar controversy. Proponents argue that Israel should not be forced to pay damages for wartime victims — Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, for example, recently defended the legislation by claiming that “there is no country in the world that pays damages to the other side in an armed conflict.” On the other side of the debate, critics such as MK Dov Khenin have argued that the new law sends “a message of anarchy, in which soldiers of the state of Israel can harm innocents without anyone paying the price for it.”

5.) In an op-ed for the website Electronic Intifada, human rights activist Adri Nieuwhof notes that Israeli settlement construction has actually “accelerated” since the Annapolis Conference.

…the Israeli authorities announced plans, approved by Olmert, for the construction of an additional 2,900 units in settlements in the West Bank, including 750 units in Giv’at Zeev, and 1,900 housing units to be built this year for settlers who had to leave Gaza in 2005. In addition, Israel worked on the advancement of another 9,500 housing units in and around East Jerusalem, of which over 5,000 units have already been submitted for public review. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz the municipality of Jerusalem started the process of approving a plan for a new settlement complex with a synagogue in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan.

The website of the Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing reports current construction projects for almost 4,900 housing units in at least nine “urban” settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Almost all of the construction takes place in the Jerusalem area, with over 2,000 housing units in Har Homa alone. Data from the same ministry show that the Israeli government began the construction of almost 300 housing units in West Bank settlements in the first three months after Annapolis.