Annapolis or bust

By Khaled Diab

Ahead of the Annapolis conference, a TV debate in which I appeared was broadcast on Wednesday 22 November. In it, I argued that Annapolis was little more than a photo op and that the hopes it raised would be dashed in a camera flash. If the gathering fails, then the time would be ripe to experiment with creative and radical approaches to peace.

Nadia Abu Zahra hosted Middle East Today, an hour-long debating programme on the new London-based satellite channel, Press TV*. The other members of the panel were Ghayth Armanazi, a former Arab League ambassador, George Lambrakis, a former US diplomat, and Simon Tisdall of the Guardian.

The discussion revolved around the prospects for a breakthrough at Annapolis, the aims and agendas of each of the parties, whether or not Israel was missing an opportunity, and what the different players – the EU, Russia, the Arab League, etc. – from the outside world could do to improve prospects.

When asked whether and why Israel was missing an opportunity, I pointed out that the Israeli peace camp is too weak to hold back the vested interests that want to hold on to the settlements and large chunks of the West Bank. I added that there is a lot of public disillusionment and apathy, with a lot of Israelis reconciled to the idea of an indefinite conflict.

When quizzed on why the Palestinians were going to Annapolis despite the low expectations attached to the event, I suggested that, given the desperate situation Palestinians endure, certain Palestinians are compelled to clutch at straws in this way.

The road less travelled
Given the resounding failure of top-down diplomacy, I speculated that perhaps we were tackling this conflict the wrong way round. I argued that involving all the stakeholders to the conflict was crucial and that means engaging the citizenry directly in the peace process because the leadership on both sides do not enjoy the mandate necessary to make the necessary concessions.

I also suggested that it might be time for the Palestinians to do something daring if Annapolis did not deliver: give up their national struggle and demand full civil rights and Israeli citizenship.

_____
*Press TV is a new Iranian satellite channel based in London. I had never heard of it before they contacted me and was somewhat concerned by the fact that it was owned by the Iranian government and whether that would place restrictions on what I could or couldn’t say.

The station’s fixer assured me that Press TV operated on the “BBC model”, i.e. it is funded by the state, but there is no governmental interference, and that I would have complete freedom during the programme to speak my mind. She also informed me that the programme was taped as live and none of it is edited. However, after the debate, a journo friend told me that he’d heard that the channel cuts out the bits it doesn’t like – which worried me a little bit. Fortunately, as far as I could tell, every single word was broadcast.

This was the first time I’d taken part in a TV debate and the frequent breakdowns in the satellite connection did not help the flow. In addition, the fact that I could not see the other panellists and could only hear them like ghostly apparitions in my ear while gazing into the impassive eye of the camera, made it a lot tougher to get my points across than in an article!

Back to Gaza

By Khaled Diab

Earlier this week, the BBC’s Panorama programme featured a depressing episode entitled Return to Gaza in which Jane Corbin bravely returned - six weeks after kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston’s release - to that strip of land forsaken by the entire world .

In introducing the episode, Jeremy Vine observed that Gaza “could be a holiday destination like Turkey or Egypt”. And, in an ideal future world, it might become that. Now people are keener to flee it than flock to “what is basically now a huge prison”, as Corbin put it as she walked through the gates of the imposing Israeli wall surrounding the tiny slither of territory.

Watching the miserable situation on our TV drove home just how much the Palestinian people have been let down by the international community, Israel and their own leadership.

Already worn down by food shortages, rampant unemployment, an unending Israeli siege and weeks of near civil war, at about the same time Panorama aired, hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents had their bleak situation made blacker when the EU effectively switched off one of Gaza’s main power station because it feared that some of the revenue was being siphoned off by Hamas.

Corbin toured Gaza and saw the influence of its Hamasisation everywhere, including a gutted nightclub where the corrupt Fatah elite used to hangout. Despite the more restrictive Islamic influence, Hamas has also been providing Gazans with some entertainment by playing the popularity game. Corbin showed footage of bulldozers removing the barriers set up around exclusive Fatah beaches, declaring them open to all Gazans.

All my books were destroyed
One of the most touching parts of the documentary was when Amani al-Dramli, a bright and sensitive 21-year-old physiotherapy student, showed Corbin around her family’s destroyed apartment which had been hit by a rocket during the “battle of the rooftops” between Fatah and Hamas, as Corbin described it.

Calm until she entered her burnt-out study, she could barely suppress a tear when she told Corbin that all her books had been destroyed in the fire and she could no longer study without them. Her mother, unable to contain her anger, said that if Hamas and Fatah couldn’t agree among themselves, then: “We want neither of them!!!”

Articulating the 'flight' impulse many young Palestinians feel, including some I had met in the West Bank, al-Dramli said that she and her family were waiting for the border to re-open so that they could join other family members working in Saudi. “Life is easy and comfortable there,” she said sadly.

Katleen wondered how terrible it must be for all these highly educated Palestinians – still among the best-educated in the Arab world, despite all the Israeli closures and socio-economic problems they face – losing their youth in a straitjacket of unemployment, despair and destitution.

The main error Corbin made in her reportage was to claim that Hamas was unwilling to talk to Israel. In fact, considering its past, Hamas showed a great deal of pragmatism in the months following its electoral success. Faced with the reality of actual rule, it was seriously moderating its position vis-à-vis Israel, and said everything short of outright recognition of Israel – which for anyone who bothered to read between the lines meant that they were providing Israel with de facto recognition in a face-saving manner.

Rather than engage Hamas and woe it to further moderation, Israel brought down its iron fist and the international community followed suit. Does no one realise that strangling a people and robbing it of hope actually radicalises it more? Where is the humanity in all this? Does Israel really want an angrier neighbour? For how much longer will Israel continue actively to rear uglier monsters – after all, it once backed Hamas as a counterbalance against the then despised Fatah, today its doing the opposite, even though there are factions of Fatah, such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which may well use the weapons against Israel in the future – which it then turns around and tries to slay or starve?

I can understand what makes the Israeli public afraid but there are far more sensible ways of gaining security than this collective oppression.

Watch this episode of Panorama

The plot sickens

Why is it that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to be able to share the euphoria at the Blair-Peres-Bush makeover of recent weeks?

Perhaps it is because appointing ex-British prime minister Tony Blair as the Quartet's Middle East envoy is one way of making that foursome even more irrelevant than it already is. How can a man reviled as a warmonger in the Middle East and other parts of the world (even in his own country), whose handiwork in Iraq is still visible for all to see, become a credible peacemaker in the region he played a big role in destabilising?

One wit likened his appointment to making Harold Shipman minister for women and health.

Some will say that Blair played little more than a supporting role in Iraq and it was US President George W Bush who cried havoc and let slip this poodle of war. But would Blair perform any more effectively as a poodle of peace, especially since he only has a mandate to help Palestinians reform their institutions and economy?

Some draw solace from the fact that Bush is showing more interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has called for an international conference at the end of this year. But this keener interest is only keener in Bushite terms. Besides, how can a president who can only see the Israeli side and whose answer to every international issue is war, war, war, be able to resolve one of the world's most intractable conflicts in the few months remaining to him?

Besides, as previous experience shows ,few US presidents are brave enough to address the tough issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an election looming. It might be Bush's final term, but he would not want to put into peril the Republican candidate's chances, particularly if that candidate turns out to be Jeb Bush, or something!

Those clutching for straws point to the appointment of Shimon Peres as president. Some might think of him as Israel's 'elder statesman' but he is little more than its most dogged political survivor and comeback kid. Besides, he's new position carries no political weight and he has little political credit to push effectively for peace.

"I know that the president is not a governor, is not a judge, is not a lawmaker. But he is permitted to dream," Peres admitted in his inauguration.

And we're all dreaming if we think these three developments will make a shred of difference to the depressing situation on the ground. If I'm wrong, please pinch me!

Neither here nor Blair!

By Khaled Diab

After he hands over the reins of the premiership to Gordon Brown, Tony Blair intends to become a Catholic and is prime candidatefor the job of Middle East peace envoy for the largely dormant Quartet (USA, EU, UN and Russia).

This is a proposal that is hardly set to get the pulse racing at the exciting possibilities that, through the good offices of Blair, Israelis and Palestinians will move infinitely closer to peace. Given his own personal track record on Middle Eastern peace - namely invading Iraq and turning it into an anarchistic battleground and garnering a reputation in the Arab world as a 'war criminal' - his candidacy can only baffle and bewilder, not inspire. If you though Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank was bad - think again!

One can just imagine him addressing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his team in a closed session, earnestly pressing his sweaty palms together as he earnestly urges them in a voice of feigned earnestness, to give peace a chance. "You chaps really ought to stop bombing Gaza."

"Well, you bombed Iraq," the Israelis would remind him.

"Well, that was different," he would protest. "We were liberating the Iraqis from that evil Saddam."

"Well, the Palestinians can hit us in much less than 45 minutes - and we don't need a sexed up dossier to claim that." "Well, how about you end the occupation of the West Bank?" "Well, how about you end the occupation of Iraq?"

And then how would Blair handle the Palestinians, given the fact that he was one of the engineers of the international boycott that has brought such misery and destitution raining down on them. I mean, as prime minister, he's hardly shown much visionary potential as a peacemaker. If he had, he would've urged the USA and Israel to engage with the Palestinian unity government, rather than turn the screws and help percipitate the current chaos and lawlessness in Gaza.

What would've been better: a moderating Hamas engaging with the outside world or a hardening Hamas stamping de facto control over the streets of Gaza? I don't see how Tony Blair could broker with the Palestinians. Hamas would probably refuse to see him and any moderate Palestinian who did would be committing political suicide. So, at the end of the day, this ridiculous proposal seems to be neither here nor Blair - and the conflicts endless cycle will continue to spin.

The Middle Eastenders

Khaled Diab

This weekend I went to London for a mini trip to the Middle East for an encounter with Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian (not to mention Sikh!) intellectuals, as well as a reunion with old friends from Egypt.

After a massive delay on the Eurostar owing to a broken rail in one of the tunnels, I arrived in Hackney at around midnight. Hatem, one of my oldest and dearest friends, and I stayed up late into the night shooting the breeze, despite the fact he had to get up early to go to work, even though it was the weekend. We caught up on everything that had happened in the nine months or so since we’d last met, swerving and veering and flowing with the conversation – with Hatem puncturing the late-night silence with his rapid-fire fire and brimstone-style impassioned delivery. When he speaks, he can make an offer of coffee sound like a revelation.

The next morning we all got off to a late start, delayed by conversational congestion. We heard on the TV in the background that Salman Rushdie had been made a knight – and it disappointed me to learn that he’d accepted it. Why is it ageing radical rockers and novelists seem to go gooey at the knees in middle-age and allow the establishment they once pilloried to claim them as its own?

To my mind, the author of such daring and creative post-colonial literature as Midnight’s children, The Moor’s last sigh and The satanic verses, which mock, deride and sympathise with history’s human products and progenerators. For someone who was born, like the characters in Midnight’s children, the year of India’s independence, I would’ve expected him to turn down that ultimate symbol of empire and refuse to become a ‘knight of the realm’, particularly given how mocking he is of England.

But, then again, he has increasingly become an establishment figure in recent years, with his cheerleading of the American policy, etc. Despite his obvious talent and rebelliousness, elements of haughtiness and vanity bedevil his persona and his works. I also think his own condition must prey on him and this is reflected in the fact that the antiheros of his novels always seem to have fetched up in some degenerate cul-de-sac of the soul. Sir Salman, you’ve lost your edge.

As we discussed whether or not he should’ve worshipped the ground beneath the Queen’s feet, we thought London had been transformed into Baghdad as fighter jets flew overhead. Luckily, it was only the Red Arrows engaging in their acrobatic amaze and awe, rather than the Royal Air Force’s bloodier version, shock and awe.

Finding a break in the clouds and avoiding the pomp and ceremony around the palace, we headed for SOAS, where Manuela, Hatem’s girlfriend is doing an MA on Arab perceptions of their black minorities.

Would future immigrants have to attend trooping the colours ceremonies as part of their citizenship ceremony proposed by Ruth Kelly and Liam Byrne I wondered, as I overheard SOAS faculty lampooning the Kelly-Byrne package in the student bar. My interest in all issues multicultural meant that I could not hold my tongue and joined the fray in mocking the proposals.

Political encounters
Later, I met Brian Whitaker, The Guardian’s Middle East editor, in what has become something of a tradition whenever I’m in London. We went for a drink in Islington and talked about a Middle East angle for the ‘summer of love’, honour killings, the situation in Gaza and how the future might pan out.

In the evening, I went to dinner at Linda Grant’s place in north London. The novelist and writer had started up a correspondence with me during my trip to Israel and Palestine and I had been invited for one of her Middle Eastern ‘diwans’.

To get to her house, I had to go via Finsbury park, the famous one-time home of Abu Hamza al-Masri, or ‘Captain Hook’, as the tabloids colourfully call him. With some time to kill, I stopped off for a cappuccino at an espresso bar which turned out to be run by Algerians. When I remarked that they were a long way from the normal Algerian destinations, they told me that everyone was looking for a way out of that den of extremism.

When they counted zena (adultery, i.e. pre-marital and extra-marital sex) as one of the issues bringing down the country. I was flabbergasted that he could put sex on a par with political and financial corruption, nepotism, extremism and violence. “What’s sex got to do with it?” I asked.

“Well, they’re enraging God,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“Let’s leave religion aside for a second.”

“No, we can’t do that!” he said, slightly offended.

“Please, just for the sake of argument.”

“Okay.”

“When a young couple go off and make love to each other, who are they hurting?”

“It’s haram. They might have an illegitimate child – they’ll be hurting that child.”

“But they’re not hurting society. If they are hurting anyone, they are only hurting themselves, whereas a corrupt politician or a violent Islamist is hurting everyone.” He conceded that I had a point. Depressed by the state of sexual liberty in people’s minds, I cheered myself up by with the thought that I’d dropped a small sex bomb into their cosy bigotry. Ahh, when the sexual revolution comes, they’ll realise that making love makes the world a better place.

Linda had invited Palestinian writer Samir el-Youssef, Israeli photojournalist Judah Passow and Sikh journalist Sunny Hundal. However, Judah was stuck in Amsterdam airport and so was unable to make it.

The conversation also went to Gaza and what could be done there. Samir also recalled his spectacular debate with a Hamas politician at the Hay festival in which he professed his atheism. I noted my view that agnosticism was the most rational choice, since no one could prove conclusively either way whether or not a god existed. This sparked a lot of controversy and a long debate on comparative religion. Sunny provided us who came from the Abrahamic tradition with a lot of interesting insights into Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

After much food for thought, it was off, with Hatem and Manuela, to a Moroccan restaurant in Covent Garden for the birthday party of an old friend from the Cairo days, Jessica. Sunday was spent in true Middle Eastender style, kicking back and wondering around the markets of the Eastend and strolling along the Embankment.

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

2048: a hundred years of interludes

By Khaled Diab

This month, there has been a general preoccupation with the 1967 war and the occupation that started 40 years ago. But all the retrospectives have done little to raise people's optimism that peace is attainable. It might now be worthwhile to cast our sights four decades into the future and consider Israel's first centennial.

In 2048, will it depressingly be 'business as usual' - only even more entrenched than it is today, with the land carved up into severed, separated and heavily armed Israeli and Palestinian bantustans and ghettoes? Will it possibly have turned 'apocalyptic', with the region-wide war many have been fearing finally engulfing the Middle East, spreading out from the two epicentres of Iraq and Iran, and Israel and Palestine, to subsume everything in between and a lot that lies beyond?

I'm going to be optimistic and dream of desirable and remote, yet plausible, future.

____________________

Israel celebrates first centennial

Staff and agencies

Israelis took to the streets today in jubilation to mark the hundredth anniversary of the painful birth of their once troubled nation. In Palestine, Palestinians, who also today celebrate 15 years of independent nationhood and the fulfillment of their national aspirations, extended warm congratulations to their Jewish neighbours.

The legendary one-time Israeli and Palestinian premiers, after attending separate Independence Day rallies in their respective capitals, Tel Aviv and Ramallah, came together in jointly adiministered Jerusalem, the two nations' spiritual capital, for a joint celebration with thousands of revellers.

"Words cannot express my pride and joy on this special day," a clearly emotional Shalom V___, the charismatic one-time Israeli prime minister, told the assembled crowd as he fought back the tears. "I am proud to be alive at this important moment in the Jewish people's history. After two millennia of statelessness, the Jewish people's dream of nationhood has gone from strength to strength over the past century. Today, we can truly hold our heads up high as proud members of the family of nations, now that we and the Palestinians have found a way of living together in peace and prosperity. I would like to take this opportunity to wish our brothers and sisters in Palestine a happy 15th birthday for their nation."

A deafening roar gripped the mixed audience of Israelis and Palestinians who spontaneously began to chant the name of Salama B____, the popular ex-Palestinian prime minister. "Just 20 years ago, the idea that a Palestinian leader could be standing here wishing Israel a happy birthday was still unthinkable. We've come a long way. It has not been easy for my people to come to terms with the painful reality that accompanied the loss of our land in 1948, but our Jewish brothers and sisters also suffered a lot in their exile. Now they are safe among their brethren. From the very bottom of my heart, I wish Israel many centuries more of prosperous coexistence."

The still youthful-looking Salama and Shalom, who prefer to stress the peaceful connotations of their first names, hugged like the two veteran comrades they were.

The path to peace
Back in 2007, while the world was marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 war, Salama was into his fifth year in administrative detention in an Israeli prison. As a passionate young idealist, the pictures of Ariel Sharon entering the Al Aqsa Mosque complex with hundreds of troops had led him, the introverted medical doctor, to join the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. He was engaged in a number of gunbattles with the better-armed IDF soldiers, but was opposed to suicide bombings and attacking civilians. This set him on a collision course with the more extreme factions of the group, but the imminent standoff was averted by his capture and arrest during another shoot out with the Israeli army, ironically while tending to the soldier he'd critically wounded.

As he was a fairly senior member of the Brigade, the Israeli officer in charge of Salama did not symapthise with Salama's distinction that, in a war, it was legitimate to attack soldiers - besides he did not believe that Salama had no part to play in any attacks against civilians. "Even if what you say is true, you're my POW until the end of this war," the hawkish officer famously said.

Little did this officer suspect that he was aiding the prospects for peace. In prison, Salama learnt to speak fluent Hebrew and discovered a passion for history - and what he learnt about Jewish history did not quell the anger in his breast that he felt at the plight of his people, but it caused him to feel compassion for the other side. He also started up a correspondence with a junior Knesset member and historian, Shalom. Together, they realised the powerful explosive effect of history and ideology and so set about to defuse it. Slowly, they formulated a common history which gave credence to both sides. It sought to replace the current epic narratives of both sides, with more nuanced narratives, with some epic elements.

Although the Jews had seen conversion and intermixing in the two millennia since they were exiled by the Romans and the indigenous population that was left had seen a fair bit of immigration and converted to Christianity and Islam, the two young men came up with the appealing storyline of long lost brothers and sisters coming home to their family after years of suffering and pain. However, the ensuing family feud had made the reunion an ugly one, but now it was time to drop the familial bickering and work together for their common good.

They also agreed to work together on 'bread and butter' issues. Shalom, then only 31 and with no military background, began a clever and charismatic grassroots campaign calling for Salama's release. Once out of prison in 2009, Salama faced some suspicion of being a 'collaborator', but his natural intelligence and charm and his simple message of 'individual dignity before national pride' won him many converts among the hard-pressed Palestinian population, at a time of Israeli closures and crushing occupation, international embargo, civil war in Gaza and the West Bank, and regular bloody skirmishes with the Israeli army. And the many scattered groups involved in non-violent activism found in him and Shalom natural leaders.

Timeline to independence
Together, Salama and Shalom effectively turned the Palestinian struggle into a civil rights movement for the next decade or so. By around 2018, the movement they'd spawned turned its attention to Palestinian autonomy, which was achieved in 2021. The vexed issue of refugees was handled through a sustainable number of Palestinians being allowed to return each year, compensation for those willing to stay away - and the entire Palestinian diaspora being allowed to visit. The Arab countries which had had significant Jewish populations also instigated a right of return for those Middle Eastern Jews who had been made refugees after the creation of Israel and their offspring wishing to return to their ancestral homelands and revive the once vibrant Jewish minorities there. Most who returned came from Europe or the USA, but some also moved from Israel.

After a dozen years of autonomy, rapid economic growth and convergence between Israel and Palestine, the time came to decide on the fate of the two nations. In 2033, two separate referendums were held among the two peoples outlining the options ahead. Surprisingly for some observers, a majority of Palestinians and Israelis voted for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, but then for its immediate entry into a federal union with Israel. The Palestinian state was born on the same day as the Israeli one 85 years previously, so that the day of Israel's joy - traditionally associated with Palestinian tragedy and despair - would also be that of Palestine's, set according to the lunar calendar common to Judaism and Islam. In addition, Israeli remembrance day was broadened to include the Palestinian 'naksa'.

'Given the size of this land and the proximity of our two peoples, that is the only sensible option," Shalom said at the time.

"In the past, we had our hands at each others' throats. Today, our two peoples have voted to walk into the future hand-in-hand," said Salama, independent Palestine's first premier.

Of bombs and bombast

By Khaled Diab

While the west was discovering new self-confidence and freedom as it basked in its ‘Summer of Love’, the Arab world was waking up to the winter of its humiliation.

Although the eight-year-old Vietnam war was preying on the conscience of western youth, it didn’t spoil the baby boomer party back home. June 1967 saw the world’s first major rock festival, the Monterey Pop Festival. The Beatles released their groundbreaking album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club on 1 June 1967.

Less than a week later, Israel attacked its Arab neighbours. It is said that God made the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh he rested. In six days, Israel brought the heavens crashing down around the Arabs’ ears and, on the seventh day, the Arabs were left to sweep away the debris of their shattered pan-Arabist dreams.

It will remain a bone of contention why Israel started that conflict. Israel claims the war was a ‘pre-emptive’ strike. Although the Israeli public were terrified and felt that Israel’s imminent destruction might be at hand, the military’s hawkish top brass had a different idea. The country’s dovish prime minister Levi Eshkol did not want a military confrontation with the Arabs and tried to beat back the warmongers, but the hawks proved tougher than the doves and flew Moshe Dayan in as defence minister to guarantee a standoff.

Then IDF chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin, who had not yet been reborn as a dove and was still a hot-headed militarist escalating the confrontation with Syria and threatening to invade it, later admitted that: “Nasser did not want war.”

Even the conservative and Israel-leaning The Economist concluded in its 26 May 2007 issue: “It was a war prompted by a gung-ho [Israeli] military, a misreading of the enemy’s intentions and political expediency”.

It seems that the Israel’s military leaders were convinced that they had to crush the Arabs while Israel still enjoyed massive military supremacy and that any delays could result in a protracted conflict further down the road. In addition, if the war was not about land, resources and ‘strategic depth’ as it later became known as, why are the Israelis still holding on to most of the prime real state they captured four decades ago? If they were only interested in forestalling an Arab attack, why didn’t they pull out once they’d so comprehensively crushed the Arabs?

The catastrophic price of bluster
But the Arabs have their own difficult questions to confront. If Nasser did not want war – as the sorry state of Egypt’s economy and military at the time, as well as government documents and private memoirs reveal – why did he feel compelled in such dangerous and risky brinkmanship?

Israel had bombs to back up the swagger of its generals; Egypt was armed only with bombast. If wars were won and lost on oratory, then Egypt would’ve been a superpower under Nasser.

“Because there was enough information available to Arab governments and the PLO which should have told them that they were not ready to do battle with Israel, it resembled an act of mass suicide,” writes Said Aburish, in his incisive biography of Nasser.

Aburish blames Nasser’s flawed and awful decisions on the ‘Arab street’ which this people’s dictator listened to very closely, and the longing of ordinary Arabs to go to war with Israel and win back some lost pride.

But the malaise ran far deeper. Nasser was Egypt’s first native son to lead her in 2,300 years, who hailed from a small, unprepossessing town in upper Egypt and was raised in Alexandria. He looked and spoke like an ordinary Egyptian, albeit more eloquently. Most importantly, he held out the promise to restore Egyptian – and later Arab – pride.

But that promise was not rooted in any reality or realistic road map; it was an illusion, even a delusion, which the Egyptian and Arab public lapped up gratefully and Nasser and his crew administered liberally. For the first few days of the war, the radio was full of dispatches from the ‘front’ claiming one improbable victory after another.

Ahmed Fouad Negm, who after the defeat would become Egypt’s leading ‘street poet’ and made colloquial Egyptian an acceptable language of poetry, bought into the illusion and was completely thrown asunder by the comprehensive defeat. He penned a biting satire which Sheikh Yassin, his future duet partner, put to music and sang.

Oh people of Egypt guarded by thieves
Cheap food is plenty and everything is okay
Thanks to people who sing to fill their stomach
Sing poems that glorify and appease even traitors
While Abdel-Jabbar is destroying the country

But the Arabs awoke from their collective delusion, the secular pan-Arab dream was dealt its final death blow. Long gone were the heady days of optimism of the 1950s; to a collective sigh of relief in western capitals where Nasser was seen as a bogey man, despite his early pro-western inclinations, because they failed to understand that ‘non-aligned’ did not mean ‘enemy’. Besides, the novelty of a ‘third world’ leader talking back and demanding to be treated as an equal was not something they appreciated. But with secularism slayed, Islamism rushed to fill the void.

The only silver lining for Arabs is that they lost their bluster and now pursue a far more realistic foreign policy. In fact, in the long term, it is Israel that is proving the victim of her own success, falling prey to the arrogance of the victor, it is unwilling to make the compromises needed to reach peace and ensure the country’s long-term sustainability.

©Khaled Diab

Middle East sans frontières

By Khaled Diab

The first days after my return home to Belgium were like a period of decompression following a deep-sea dive. Going from a situation in which even the air I breathed felt politicised and charged with conflicting passions to the more temperate and mild air of Belgium required some readjustment.

After all those days during which I tickled the curiosity of everyone I met, it was welcome to be back in the land of cultivated disinterest, in which privacy is so holy that people turn their eyes away rather than trespass on the sacred space that encircles each one of us. Riding the morning commuter train to Brussels was an opportunity to revel in obscurity, although, after all the intensely passionate issues I had been dealing with, it was a bit of a slog refocusing my mind on obscure EU issues.

It was great to see Katleen again and talk about all those things I had been dying to discuss with her during my trip. Next time I go, she hopes she has the time to join me. We were also careful to spend quality apolitical time together, i.e. make room for rest, relaxation and romance.

But the world insisted on intruding. While I was in Israel, Katleen had been in Geneva talking landmines and had spent the last three months or so working inhumane hours to shed light on the human cost of cluster bombs - on a personal level, I was concerned about the human cost it was exacting on her.

Weekend escape and unwelcome intrusions

The first weekend after my return, my father-in-law invited us on a weekend away to Doornik/Tournai to celebrate his 60th and Katleen's 30th birthday. Interestingly, my last birthday also made me, at 33, exactly half the age of my own father.

The setting was idyllic: gentle rolling hills (quite rare in flat Belgium); beautiful country houses; cows chewing lazily on grass (or human-imposed bovine gender segregation and forced mating programmes!).

My conflict sensors being on such high alert, I quickly spotted another possible reality hidden behind the picturesque scene. Doornik lies somewhere along Belgium's language faultline. It is a city with, historically, a strong Flemish influence but is today part of Wallonia. I recalled that when I mentioned that Belgium had quite a few parallels with Israel-Palestine, Tzachi had quipped: "What have Belgians got to fight over except for chocolate?"

But there is a lot to fight over, if the wrong dynamic ever took over and Belgians took the Flemish-Walloon struggle out of the political process and abandoned their famous ability to compromise. As we wondered around the town and its environs and admired its distinct Flemish architecture, spectacular cathedral and belfry (the oldest in Belgium), we speculated about how different it could be. We even imagined what if the quaint hilltop houses were actually to become 'settlements' taken over by aggressive Flemish nationalists wishing to reassert their ancient claim to their entire fatherland.

Doornik is the oldest city in Belgium and started life as a Frankish settlement and was actually the capital of the Frankish empire until that was moved to Paris in 486AD. Over the years, it has been ruled by the French, Spanish, and others - it was even the only Belgian city to have ever been ruled by the English and King Henry VIII built a castle there which we saw.

For hundreds of years, Doornik and much of northern France was part of the county of Flanders as can still be seen in the names of towns and cities: 'Lille Flandres' (Rijsel, in Dutch), Dunkirk, or Duinkerken, i.e. Dune Churches, etc.

We also ventured across the 'border' into France, to Lille Flandres. Of course, even for a practiced eye, it is very difficult to work out where Belgium ends and France begins. The same Flemish architectural heritage could be seen in Lille's town centre, mixed in amid the more recent French elements. We were there on the Sunday the French went to the polls to choose their new president.

Even though they choose the intolerant and divisive Sarkozy, our little escapade across the frontier drove home to me what I love about Europe: its head-spinning mix of cultures and languages and its absence of borders. If only the same could happen elsewhere. I look forward to a Middle East sans frontières.

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

My son, the peace broker!

By Khaled Diab

My mother worries about her kids. Despite her commitment to independence, personal choice and individual freedom, she sometimes cannot help herself. Part of the problem is that she’s the proud owner of a fully functioning, top-of-the-range, active imagination (anyone who thinks my solutions to the world’s ills are quirky ain’t met me ol’ mam!).

Then, there’s the Egyptian in her. She may have travelled quite widely and lived in three different countries but, like most Egyptians, the idea of venturing too far away from the beloved embraces of the Nile Valley is seen as an adventure, a grand voyage into the strange.

So, you can image my trepidation about telling her that I, son of one of the most grounded and placid countries on Earth, was trekking off to the volatile land of the dispossessed. Although I’d mentioned, during my last visit to Egypt, a vague desire to go to Israel and Palestine to see for myself the situation on the ground, I was still not entirely sure how she’d react to an actual visit.
With all the other challenges of the trip, I decided it was best not to have a worrying, or worse, potentially disapproving mother to deal with. So, I phoned her before I left on the pretext of some family business but did not mention my trip.

The day I returned, I called her. “Mama, do you know where I’ve been?”

“No, where?” she asked with curiosity.

Then, I dropped the bombshell. “I’ve been doing my bit to try and solve the Middle East conflict,” I began sheepishly. “I was in Palestine and Israel.”

“Weren’t you afraid?” she asked predictably, although her tone was surprisingly light.

When I explained to her the purpose of my visit, she responded proudly: “My son, the peace broker!” Luckily, it sounded more tongue-in-cheek than her normal proud pronouncements about her children and so didn’t wind me up.

“Are Israelis as frightening as we’re led to believe?” she queried.

“No, they’re not. They’re actually a lot like us. May be half of them are originally from Arab countries.”

“That was the biggest mistake the Arab countries made in this conflict: expelling their Jewish populations,” she reflected melancholically. “Do you think any of them want to come back and live here?” she asked in the naïve innocence she sometimes displays.

Some of the older ones might be interested in returning to their former homes and others might want to visit, but a couple of generations have been born there and their home is Israel, I ventured.

She asked me about my impressions of Israelis. “Most ordinary Israelis just want peace and to get on with their lives,” I said.

“That’s one of the troubles with the world: ordinary people get on just fine, but their leaders spoil it,” she reflected.

“The Arabs have been begging the Israelis to sign a peace agreement for years. Why haven’t they then?” she asked more soberly.

We talked about Israel’s fractured, fragmented and factionalised political landscape and other factors holding back peace. To be fair to the Israelis, I also pointed out that the Arabs have missed opportunities to reach peace with Israel over the decades.

“But we were concerned with questions of justice back then. What kind of modern world would we have built had we just approved of a country that was created on the dispossession and displacement of an entire people? We dreamt of a better world than that,” she said, revealing the pan-Arab idealism of her youth.

She had grown up at a time when the charismatic Gamal Abdel-Nasser was the first indigenous Egyptian leader (apart from Mohamed Neguib, who was actually a Nasserite figurehead) in some 2,300 years. The last native Egyptian pharoah was King Nectanebo II, who ruled from 360-343 BC!

Jews talk of the two-millennium long exile. Well, Egyptians had their own version: an internal banishment. For more than two millennia, a continuous string of foreign rulers took over the Egyptian mantle and the natives were deprived of their right to self-determination, second-class citizens in their own country. Sometimes there were periods of great prosperity’ at others, there was persecution; but at all times, Egyptians were not masters of their own destiny.

Nasser had appeared like a saviour and promised to change all that; to return pride to the Egyptian people – a message he later extended to the whole Arab people. My mum had grown up in those optimistic, idealistic times. But the domestic and regional failures kept coming in thick and fast and the Egyptian nationalist and pan-Arab dream gradually faded until it was dealt a killer blow by the comprehensive military humiliation of 1967.

“No modern country should be founded on religion,” my mum remarked. “The answer is a secular society for Jews, Muslims and Christians.”

©Khaled Diab.

Please open your political baggage

By Khaled Diab

With the long farewell discussion still buzzing in my head, I sat on the drowsy late-night train to the airport wondering whether my exit would be as tricky as my entry. I had already been warned by some to expect an interrogation on the way out, which was a new policy.

Partly to catch the last train and partly to give myself plenty of time for potential delays, I had decided not to go to bed and get to the airport more than three hours before my flight was due to depart.

While the passport control officer was checking my documents and asking me the by now routine questions – the purpose of my visit, whether I knew anyone in Israel, where I had been, etc. – a senior officer appeared over my shoulder and took the passport out of his subordinate’s hands. “Hi,” he said to me in a more friendly tone than I had become accustomed to. “You must be getting used to this,” he said cheerfully. I nodded my ascent. “I’ll have this back to you in a few minutes,” he promised.

In the long, long check-in queue, there were young men and women interviewing the passengers. The first interviewer to reached took one look in my passport and became somewhat nervous. Deciding that she wasn’t senior enough to handle a VIP like me, she asked me to wait a minute and called her boss over. Her boss asked me some pre-formulated questions and then stuck red stickers all over my bag – most of the people around had green stickers on theirs – which I presume signified my security level.

Next, on the paranoia conveyor belt, was the thorough checking of my bags. At a quadrangle of desks, I was asked to open my rucksack, shoulder bag and laptop case. While the two staff members were going through everything, including my dirty boxers and socks, with a fine-tooth comb (well, actually some sort of detector to identify explosive residue, I assume), I took the opportunity to admire my surrounding.

In an expression of Middle Eastern political hospitality, my red stickers had afforded me not only one searcher, like the rest of the passengers, but two. The book I’d received as a gift came in for special attention because I had unwisely answered in the affirmative when they asked me whether I had received any gifts. Honesty isn’t always the best policy! Luckily, I hadn’t mentioned the CDs!!

After my bags, it was my turn. The Yemeni Jew who had led the search took me to the same back room I had visited on my arrival for the X-raying of my luggage. There he patted me down and scanned me with a hand-held metal detector. “We apologise for the delay,” he told. “But I’ll take you through check in,” he offered as compensation.

We returned to collect my baggage and then he whisked me through the airline check in, led me to a special lift for my rucksack and led me to the customs area, making me feel oddly like a celebrity.

With a cappuccino to prop up my sleepy frame, I spent the last hour before my flight reflecting on my trip and all the intense experiences I had gained. I was glad to be returning ‘home’ to the mildness of northern Europe and the Katleen’s warm embrace.
©Khaled Diab. Text and photos.

Final shaloms, debriefings and debates for the road

By Khaled Diab

After an all-night writing spree, in Jerusalem cafes and then in my hotel room, I woke up with a serious intellectual hangover on Sunday morning, so I decided to treat myself to a nice brunch. Before I left, I said goodbye to the incredibly earnest brother of the owner of the hotel, who turned out to be Palestinian.

I then caught one of the private minibuses to Tel Aviv. After engaging me in conversation in English, the guy sitting next to me switched to Arabic when he discovered that I was an Egyptian. It turned out that he was a Palestinian, but I'd kind of supsected that from how he was dressed.

Although nowhere near as overbearing, he came across vaguely as the Palestinian version of Ricky Gervais' character in The Office or one of the pretentious wannabes in the BBC's The Apprentice! He was an apprentice yuppie. Within about 10 minutes, he'd told me that he was a marble and granite subcontractor, how much he earned, and his future business aspirations. Thankfully, a long telephone call in Hebrew with a business contact kept him busy until he had to get off.

A taste of Jaffa

Having heard and read so much about Jaffa, I decided to stay there and checked into a small hotel which was housed inside a beautiful old Ottoman building. The establishment was the kind of Bohemian place where smeared and torn clothing is worn as a badge of pride and the women aren't too bothered if their moustaches are longer than the men's.

Despite the rather low ceilings, my room was cosy, with wooden floors, Bedouin embroideries and a divan. Lying on my bed, I could look out of the low-slung window at the antique market. With my intellectual hangover to nurse, I decided to take it easy for the rest of my penultimate day - except, that is, for my encounter with Uri Avnery in the early evening.

I explored Jaffa's markets and walked around the atmospheric streets of the Old Town and wandered a little in the newer parts, too. Large sections of the market looked like a typical souq or bazaar from anywhere in the Middle East, except for the kippas.

From the Jaffa clocktower and beach, you can see the encroaching Tel Aviv skyline advancing towards s this old Palestinian town and threatening to subsume it. I decided that I would take a leisurely stroll along the beachfront to the centre of town.

Although it did not take more than an hour and a half to reach, Tel Aviv is a world away from the solemn piety of Jerusalem and the heavy chains of history and conflicting ideologies it bears. With its carefree ways, one would almost be forgiven in thinking there was no conflict, except for the odd soldier walking around. Tel Aviv's liberal ways and beautiful people puts me in mind a lot of Beirut, which is only 220km or so further up the beach - an impossible distance in this troubled spot. Although it is not all gleaming, modern and liberal, and I witnessed quite a few cracks and run down areas on the bus in, particularly the Yemeni quarter.

After meeting Uri Avnery (an encounter which made Alex very jealous), I had some time on my hands before my evening appointment, so I sat at a streetside cafe with a too-large coffee, watching the city groove by.

Alex and Max had suggested we meet at a place called Fish and Chips. "Typical Londoners," I'd thought to myself, "arranging to meet at a chippy's!" I'd also suggested to a couple of American students of Arabic at Tel Aviv University who'd wanted to hook up that they meet us there. The road on which this 'chippy' was located reminded me a lot of Gamet el-Dewal el-Arabiya or Abbas el-Aqqad in Cairo, the busy roads where young people hang out and cruise.

Over completely un-English chips and beers, we chatted about Egypt, Arabic, building bridges, Middle Eastern politics, and more. Afterwards, Alex, Max, Hagay and I went to a Tel Aviv bar which was designed to look like someone's front room, where we were joined by another friend from Haaretz. There, we talked more politics, music, culture, and they wanted to know my impressions of Israel.

Familial debriefing

On the morning of my final day, Monday, I had breakfast in Jaffa and then decided to buy a gift for Katleen (well, the both of us, actually!). I bought a beautiful, cobalt-blue Bedouin embroidered hanging. The merchant was a little surprised by my haggling skills - he'd assumed I was just a naive tourist - and appeared somewhat peeved by the final price we reached after I refused to budge from my offer. It's not only Israelis who can be intransigent, you know!

I took the train to Pardes Hana but got off at one station and Tzachi was waiting for me at another! After much consulting of maps and colleagues, a taxi-driver found the address and took me there.

Anat and Tzachi were keen to hear about my journey and 'debrief' me, particularly my trip through the Palestinian territories. Zipora was in Tenerife and Amos had hoped I'd get there earlier so I could join him. He'd gone to see a Samaritan ceremony on the holy Mount Gerizim. As there are only 700 or so of them, and they claim to be the only true Jews, having lived uninterrupted and unconverted in Palestine since ancient times, I was disappointed to have missed the opportunity to see them in action and hear their liturgical Aramaic.

There was some excitement about a snake Tzachi's brother had seen and the family called in a local 'snake catcher' to find it, but to no avail. Anat told me that Dan, her son, had asked whether I would be returning, which really touched her, especially since he couldn't understand any of my 'gibberish' as he called it, until she discovered that he wanted more Belgian chocolate!

In the evening, we had one last political debate for the road. One of Tzachi's friends, an IT consultant and semi-professional computer game player, towed a pretty hardline and the discussion with him got pretty animated, particularly when it reverted to history. But I was pleased to see that my visit and the months of communicating beforehand had helped converge the views of Anat, Tzachi, Debby and myself. There are still a lot of differences in perception, but the gap is much narrower now.

Amos returned from the Samaritans all excited and full of stories to tell. Apparently, he'd grown bored of the ceremony but was fenced in by the railings on one side and the crowd on the other. So, being 80, he thought it would be clever to fake a heart attack or a fainting spell! However, he got more than he bargained for, as the person who came to attend to him shouted out that he couldn't find his pulse and began to push down on his chest to resuscitate him.

"He almost killed me!" the eccentric and fit old man complained.

Amos told me that I should weigh up carefully what I advocate. He warned me that promoting the idea of a binational state, instead of two states, could have dangerous consequences and may actually lead to more conflict. I wasn't entirely convinced by his line of argument - he sounded more like a man who had spent most of his long life committed to a Zionist vision and saw a federal state as a threat to the ideals he had grown up with. But times move on and identities evolve.

Besides, I do not advocate a federal state here and now. I believe that it will probably be a consequence of peace, as the two sides discover the impracticalities of trying to maintain two separate states on such a small plot of land, and the synergy closer ties would create. Alternatively, I fear that the hardliners who have built settlements left, right and centre and sabotage every attempt to reach a final settlement may have made a single state, without the interim two-state period I envision, all but inevitable, particularly if no courageous and visionary leadership emerges soon to reach peace.

With time, as this reality dawns on everyone, the Palestinian struggle may evolve away from demands for nationhoood and become a civil rights movement, demanding equal rights and opportunities and autonomy.

And the future, historic and contemporary discussions - 1967, 1948, etc; - continued on late into the night, until we realised the time and had to dash so that I could catch the last train to the airport. Debby gave me a lift and, at the station, I had to run and leap over a fence to get to the platform in time.

Next, 'Please open your political baggage'.

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

Blessed are the peacemongers

By Khaled Diab

Ever since I was introduced to the term ‘peacemonger’ in an article from September last year written by Uri Avnery, Israel’s most famous peacenik, I have quite fancied myself as one of those troublemakers beating courageously on my peace drum.

“A terrible enemy is conspiring to impose peace on us. He is advancing against us from two sides, in a giant pincer movement,” he wrote. “Against this danger of the Arab peacemongers, the Olmert government is calling up all its forces.”

But this official peace cavalry has been cut off at the pass and lacking the ability to win ‘hearts and minds’, it has retreated in silent defeat. That is why individual ‘peacemongers’ and dedicated bands of peace worriers must take up the fight. Lightly armed with compassion, empathy, wit, guile and a willingness to compromise and coexist, they must launch their own stealthy guerrilla offensives against the massed forces of hatred and distrust mobilised by the extremists.

Given my powerful desire to declare peace on the enemy, I decided that it was a good idea to visit Uri Avnery, Israel’s best-known and most controversial ‘peacelord’ to exchange strategies and debate ideas. Having read so much of his writing over the years, the idea of meeting him did fill me with a certain amount of trepidation. This wise old man was once a teenage member of the extremist Jewish militia, the Irgun – branded the ‘terrorists’ of their time.

His colourful career has seen him reinvent himself to become Israel’s leading alternative media publisher in the 1950s and 1960s, one of its most radical politicians and eventual founder of Gush Shalom, the left-wing peace movement. He was the first Israeli to meet Yasser Arafat, during the Battle of Beirut in 1982, and faced accusations of being a ‘traitor’ from fellow Knesset members.

Over the years, Avnery has been Israel’s loud and unrelenting public conscience. Although never part of the Israeli mainstream, the veteran peacenik has had a massive magnifying effect over the years, often occupying a pioneering position that the mainstream would later flow towards – what he calls, the ‘small wheel effect’. As I also suffer from the urge to roam uncharted yet fertile political and social terrain, I thought it would be useful to meet a veteran ‘pioneer’.

Given his visionary’s ability to look beyond the here and, I wanted to hear from him what kind of wheels are currently being set in motion and what the future holds.

Prophet of peace
On my last Sunday in Israel, Uri Avnery ushered me into his Tel Aviv apartment which boasted one incredible view. His brilliant white beard and hair had a faint suggestion of the Biblical prophet about it. He sat me on armchair where I could admire the setting sun as it descended into the Mediterranean. Behind my shoulder was the sky-fawning Tel Aviv skyline.

In his no nonsense and slightly intimidating manner, he got straight down to business: “What is it exactly you wish to talk to me about?”

I asked him what settlement he expected. “The solution is that there will be a Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories along the Green Line, with some small exchanges of territory. And Jerusalem will be under joint control,” he predicted.

I asked him how this would come about, given that the Israeli government had turned down the Arab League’s peace overtures – and the other sticking points, such as the status of Jerusalem and the right of Palestinian return.

“There must be push and there must be pull. It is good that the Arab League is offering clearly and unequivocally a fair peace offer. The push must come internally from the peace movement and from the international community.”

I wondered to myself how likely it would be that the peace movement would be able to mobilise enough support in time to salvage this latest bid and whether the international community would be able to take a robust stand, given America’s own stridently militaristic approach in the region and Europe’s inability to agree on a common Middle Eastern policy.

I asked him about the prospect of moving the 400,000 settlers living in the West Bank – or at least most of them – given how difficult it was to pull only 8,000 settlers out of Gaza. “It’s difficult,” he admitted. “But it won’t get any easier. An exchange of territory may partly solve this, but there’s no way to avoid it.”

He went on to explain that: “The Israeli government does not want peace because of the political price of dismantling the settlements. In general, Israeli society does not like the settlers. But they are Israelis, so it is a difficult challenge to face up to.”

“If you want peace, you must remove settlements,” he stressed.

I told him about the remarks I’d heard from numerous Israelis who expressed a fear that if they abandoned the West Bank, the Palestinians would just see it as an opportunity to launch more rocket attacks. “Either you have peace or you don’t have peace. You can’t say ‘I don’t want peace because I’m afraid of war’.” He warned that if no peaceful settlement was reached soon, “the West Bank would be like Gaza in a couple of years.”

When I asked what he thought of Israel’s so-called ‘deterrent posture’, he said he believed it was counterproductive and had to be abandoned but explained that it was a product of the hostility Israel has historically faced in the region, as well as the collective trauma of the Holocaust, after which Jews vowed they would never be so weak again.

Reaching across the divide
I asked Avnery what the Palestinians could do to better manage their cause. He recommended that Palestinian activists should work on creating real co-operation with the peace movement in Israel. “After the death of Arafat, all connections were cut. Now, the need to reach out to Israeli society,” he said.

They also need to work on constructing a unified Palestinian voice and highly organised social structures. “They need social organisations that allow Palestinian resistance to become general and non-violent… Mass action in the spirit of Martin Luther King is very effective, but need strong organisation.”

“Violent resistance has proved ineffective… Non-violence for me is not a question of principle; it is a question of usefulness,” he added.

He then turned his attention to the wider region. “In all this, the Arab World has not played a very glorious role. They have done very little to help the Palestinians. Even today, it is ridiculous that the West can impose an embargo on the PA and the Arabs, like Saudi Arabia, cannot keep the Palestinian struggle alive with their oil wealth.”

I asked him about the prospects of a bi-national federation emerging sometime in the future. “Any independent Israel and Palestine would have very close ties. There can be no truly separate states because the country is too small and their economies are interdependent.”

Whether they simply coordinated everything closely or formalised their relationship in the form of a federal arrangement would depend on the political climate of the time. “Our two peoples are much closer to each other than would appear in the clouds of conflict. What prevents closer co-operation and ties is the occupation.”

He used Belgium as a useful analogy for Israel-Palestine, with two communities, Flanders and Wallonia, and Brussels like Jerusalem. He said that Arafat often spoke of BeNeLux between Israel, Palestine and Jordan. He also said that King Hassan of Morocco had told him that he had proposed in the 1950s that Israel be invited to join the Arab League.

“At least for the foreseeable future, I see the two states as the only sensible solution,” he noted.

I asked him how optimistic he was about the future. He told me that he expected peace in his lifetime. The man is a robust and healthy 83.

©Khaled Diab. All rights reserved.

Pints for peace

By Khaled Diab

Going out for a drink is great in and of itself. But boozing for a good cause is a wonderful cocktail of sin and virtue! In fact, I, for one, am willing to pub crawl all the way along the road to peace.

While in Jerusalem, I went out with The Guardian's ‘Comment is Free’ contributors Seth Freedman and Alex Stein. Seth even wrote this article about the encounter. And I've been berated by Alex for not replying to it yet. "Not good enough for yer, were we?" he quizzed in his booming voice.

In his column entitled 'Long live lunacy', Seth described our encounter so:

In a crowded bar in downtown Jerusalem, Khaled joined our crew for a night of heavy drinking and even heavier debate.
What began as a getting-to-know-you exercise soon descended (or ascended, depending on your interpretation) into a heated debate about last summer's war in Lebanon. In the blue corner was Khaled, the Egyptian born Muslim; in the red corner was Max, a boy I grew up with in London and who took part in the ground offensives inside Lebanese territory last year.

Max Terminator, as I was soon to start calling him, describes himself as “hardly a pacifist”. Being a strident, and sometimes aggressive pacifist myself, his Rambo approach to life was guaranteed to provoke me. Our verbal pub brawl did little to bridge our differences of opinion over the Lebanon war – which I perceive as a complete failure no matter how you look at it – but Max and I did discover that we shared some surprisingly similar views about the future, particularly regarding the possible emergence of a federal Israeli-Palestinian state.

One striking thing about our little get-together was the amount of common culture we shared – around the table, there were four Jewish ‘London boys’ and an Egyptian one. And I think the mixing and matching of the global melting pot offers some hope for the future by eroding perceived cultural differences even further. For instance, Alex, who was about to join the IDF, was my cavalry against Max Terminator’s sound offensive.

Although the decision of all these young Londoners to volunteer to join the IDF raises certain moral issues in my mind, I do not doubt their moral rectitude as individuals and I respect Alex and Seth’s attempts to be fair in their judgements and reach out to the other side.

Encounters, both virtual and in the flesh, are crucial to bridging gaps and breaking down misunderstandings and misconceptions. This was illustrated eloquently by our eagerness for a second encounter which I had with Alex and Max in Tel Aviv – where we were also joined by a couple of Haaretz guys and an American couple – and where the debate was less like a pub brawl and more like a debating society.

And we have more opportunities than ever before to do so.

As Seth put it:
And then comes Khaled – a man so keen to dive into the maelstrom that he flies across the world to meet the people on the street, such as my friends and me… and the more encounters like this… the closer we'll come to bridging the chasm and reaching solutions.

As I noted in an earlier post, Palestinians brew a very good micro-brewery beer. Israelis are not allowed into the Palestinian Territories and Palestinians need a permit to enter Israel. Why not set up impromptu tents at the checkpoints where Israelis and Palestinians can knock back a couple of pints for peace. I know a lot of people on both sides don’t drink. They can go for the alcohol-free version and chat over coffee or share a peace water pipe.
©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

The long road to Hebron

By Khaled Diab

The quickest way to get from Ramallah to el-Khalil (Hebron) is via Jerusalem – a journey that should take just over half an hour.

But the Israeli occupation in all its infinite wisdom provides Palestinians with the unavoidable opportunity to take the scenic route, along secondary roads, via Bethlehem – a journey which takes two hours, assuming you don’t have to stop long at the checkpoint and there is no heightened state of emergency.

While the rest of the world goes about its business at increasingly break-neck speeds – the Maglev train in Japan can go almost as fast as a plane and Paris is now only an hour away from Brussels via a high-speed rail link – the Israeli authorities have enabled the Palestinians to go about their lives at a more leisurely pace.

Who needs a high-octane-rapid-burnout career when they can, instead, simmer slowly in the bubbling frustration of unemployment and poverty? And if you have a job, why overwork yourself dashing from one appointment to the next, when you can stop and smell the flowers, or admire the midday sun as it hangs perpendicular over your sweating brow while you kick your heels at a checkpoint?

And don’t forget the flora and fauna. Look around you and marvel at the growing forest of settlements that have been planted on almost every hilltop and in many valleys, and why not follow the wild growth of the security wall as it cuts through people’s backyards and land?

All this, and much more, you can do, as a Palestinian, on the long roads between Palestinian towns.

The Israelis believe the checkpoints and road blocks are justified because they prevent would-be suicide bombers from crossing into Israel and murdering Israeli citizens - I had lunch at a roadside cafe near Haifa where a large attack had occurred and, while there, Tzachi admitted to me that he sometimes thought about the best place to seat his children so that they would be shielded from a possible attack.

The Palestinians see them as yet another form of collective punishment that may slow but not prevent a determined extremist from getting through, especially since the back ways are often left unguarded. In addition, they are bewildered why, if Israelis are so concerned about their well-being, do they build so many vulnerable settlements on Palestinian land and push more Palestinians to extremes? A couple of Palestinians I met went so far as to suggest that this was part of an elaborate policy to make daily life unbearable for Palestinians, to 'encourage' many of them to leave the land 'voluntarily'.

Splitting the Palestinian atom
For me, the journey was a chance to have a long chat with my companion from a Palestinian NGO. He spent the first part of the drive tracing the course of the settlements which have mushroomed up on much of the available land between the Palestinian towns, penning them in and inhibiting their future growth.

A practical illustration of the atomised nature of the West Bank – which is supposed to represent the heartland of a future Palestinian state – is that every few minutes, my companion would have to switch between his Palestinian and Israeli mobile phones when he needed to talk to his colleagues and the group of European NGO activists we were due to meet in Hebron.

My companion is the third generation of his family to live in the Kalandiya refugee camp, which is home to over 10,000 registered Palestinian refugees and was established in 1949, shortly after the armistice in the first Arab-Israeli war. Israel considers it to be part of ‘Greater Jerusalem’. “The camp still witness clashes with Israeli soldiers and frequent stone throwing incidents,” according to UNRWA.

My companion pointed out the densely populated and walled-off camp as we drove past it. “It’s often hard to sleep,” he confessed to me. “Israeli soldiers regularly patrol under my window late and I hear armoured cars passing all night.”

I realised just how fortunate I am: not only do I have a land (two, in fact); I am also free to travel the world and am more mobile in my Palestinian companion's land than he is.

The Hamas factor
The conversation drifted to Hamas and I asked him whether secular people and Christians were finding life harder in the wake of the gains made by the Islamist group.

“Hamas respects the plurality of Palestinian society. In fact, a lot of Christians voted for them,” was his response. He explained that, despite their Islamic platform, Hamas were less bigoted against Christians than most Fatah members and hangers-on, many of whom were little more than thugs.

The Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians, who voted for Hamas, he said, did so because they were sick and tired of Fatah’s corruption and the criminal gangs that lived off it.

He acknowledged that in Gaza, where Hamas rules the roost, things had become a lot more conservative and restrictive than in the West Bank, but this was also down to the religious and social dynamic that has been gaining ground there. And, I would imagine, the desperate economic situation and the fact that Gaza is the most densely populated place on Earth also play a role in making it so stifling.

I asked why then was the Christian population of Palestine dwindling. He said that life under occupation was miserable for all and that masses of Palestinians have fled and are trying to flee the country. He explained that Christian Palestinians, who are generally better-educated than their Muslim compatriots and have more connections with the outside world, find it easier to get out. I found this was a partly satisfactory explanation. But I imagined with the growing politicisation of Islam, it was also becoming more uncomfortable for Christians.

I asked him if he was not afraid of Hamas’ vision of, one day, creating an Islamic nation. “Not really,” he shrugged, expressing his belief that the party was committed to the democratic process and so whatever goals it achieves “will occur in the context of the democratic process”.

He contended that, much like the religious Jewish parties in Israel, Hamas may succeed in pushing through some Islamic elements but Palestinian society will remain secular because Palestinians prefer that system of government.

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

Where’s the security in that?

By Khaled Diab

Shawan Jabarin, the general director of Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, spoke to me about the human rights situation and prospects for the future.

He began by stressing the importance of people going out to see what’s going on on the ground and speaking to ordinary people “because they often have better and more sensible ideas than their leaders”.

He believes that 'security' is a catch-all used by Israeli politicians to justify their actions in the eyes of the Israeli public and the international community. "In el-Khalil and Ramallah, there is a lot of misery and hardship," he noted. "Events here are not isolated and temporary - they are part of a grander scheme."

He points to the severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, the economic hardship Israel has inflicted on the Territories and the wall it has built through the West Bank as indications of certain long-term policy objectives: to reduce the Palestinian population living in the West Bank by making life there increasingly unbearable and to grab the parts of the West Bank Israel would like to annex.

"Permits are, at first sight, for security purposes. But they are also used as a tool to frustrate, annoy and plant despair in the hearts of Palestinians," he posited. "The restrictions on movement not only hurt the economic well-being of the Palestinian population, but also hurt their family and social ties - for example, weddings are often cancelled because family and friends from other towns and villages cannot attend."

He also talked about the nearly 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, of which 120 are women and 300 are minors. Of these, around 700 are so-called administrative detainees, i.e. they are being held without charge.

"Occupation is not just a question of land possession but also controls every inch of people's lives."

Many Israelis I have spoken to argue that these measure are not part of any systematic policy, but are simply cobbled together responses to the Palestinian 'terror threat'. However, some Israelis do acknowledge that certain cynical political forces might be exploiting the fear and loathing to create certain realities on the ground while everyone's attention is focused on security.

A lot of Israelis find it hard, despite documented violations, to accept the fact that the army is not a benign force. "The IDF is the most moral force in the world," Anat proudly proclaimed several times. "It's just the occupation corrupts." Although it is certainly not the most immoral force in the world, not by a long stretch, I do not share such a high opinion of the Israeli military, although I can understand why Israelis do, since decent Israelis have to serve in the IDF and see any slur on it as a personal attack on them.

Rebranding the occupation

Shawan is sceptical about the wall Israel has constructed and questions how much security it could ever bring to Israel. "The wall is not a 'security fence', but a political boundary. In my opinion, the long-term objective is to keep the occupation in place without actually calling it an occupation. Israel wants the land but does not want the responsibility of the human population."

Quite a few Israelis I have spoken to see this as not contradictory. Security to them does not just mean stopping suicide bombers but also separating themselves from the Palestinians. They argue that the course the wall runs is not fair and it should be rerouted along the Green Line, but they also believe that the biggest settlement blocks in the West Bank should be annexed by Israel because evacuating them would be too difficult.

But given the fact that dismantling even small settlements is seen as 'politically costly' by Israelis, I wonder how successful any attempts to reroute the wall will be in Israel's factionalised political landscape. In addition, any unilateral solution, as the wall is, can only provide temporary respite, since it is carried out without the consent of the other party.

"Israeli leaders do not have the courage to work for peace... Israel is engaged in crisis management not crisis resolution," Shawan argues.

Even when viewed from the perspective of Israel's own self-interest, this policy is incredibly misguided, since Israel is perpetuating the occupation and making the prospects of the emergence of a future Palestinian seem increasingly implausible.

He says that the fragmented nature of a future Palestine and the lack of Palestinian sovereignty over borders and resources, "may lead to the quietening down of the conflict for a while but it will flare up again when its impracticality and unfeasibility become apparent".

And the worsening situation and despair may, he warns, push some Palestinian towards greater extremes than Hamas, such as Al Qaeda-style groups. "Our society used to be pragmatice and well-developed but the continued lack of hope may lead to greater extremism."

Utopic solution

In the more distant future, the ideal solution, according to Shawan's own personal opinion, "would be a single, secular democratic state on all of historic Palestine.. And, in the long term, I'm optimistic this state will emerge."

Such a state would be in everyone's interest, especially the Jews of Israel, he argues. "If Israel refuses to deal with equality and justice and stop the occupation, then if it ever weakens, a future war could destroy it. The best protection for the Jews is not might but justice."

But he does not realistically believe that this could happen directly. "First step could be a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders. Later, the two states could voluntarily build a closer union."

When questioned about the name of this future state, he responded: "They can call it Apeland for all I care. Its name is not important; its nature is."

He dismissed fears that Jews would become second-class citizens in such a state, which they fear would quickly become Islamicised. "Most Palestinians support the idea of a unified, secular state. The PLO, for example, in its charter called for the creation of a single state where Muslims, Christians and Jews live side by side in peace."

He admits that Hamas and other Islamist parties may not share this vision, but he believes that, in times of peace, they will be sidelined.

In order to allay Jewish fears, which given their history of persecution is understandable, he suggested the creation of a triangle of authority in this future binational state: an autonomous Jewish parliament, an autonomous Palestinian parliament and a joint federal parliament where the two meet.

"Of course, Palestinians do not share the identity fears of Israelis because they live in a region of other Arabs," Shawan acknowledged, which makes it easier for them to support the single-state solution.

©Khaled Diab. Text and images.

Tuning into peace in stereo

By Khaled Diab

All for Peace is the only joint Palestinian-Israeli radio station around. This unique media voice is 50% Israeli and 50% Palestinian. Likewise, the content is also balanced equally, and the gender mix is finely tuned.

"Our main objective is to disseminate information that does not fall within the agendas of both people's media - which are, on the whole, too nationalistic," Faris Arouri, the station's public and international relations coordinator, told me. "We seek to spread accurate information about life on the other side because there are a lot of misconceptions, particularly on the Israeli side, because they are the dominant power."

The most troubling misconception on both side, as Faris puts it, is that "the Israelis fear we want to drive them into the sea; we fear they want to drive us across the Jordan". But minefields of misperceptions in terms of culture, society and religion litter the chasm between the two peoples.

The station, which goes out in 107.2 fm, has seen its mission evolve from directly striving for peace to building the solid ground on which it can take root. "At first, it was about convincing people of the need for peace. Now it's about giving hope. We always endeavour to give unbiased coverage."

Civil society, which does good work but is often overlooked by the mainstream media, has pride of place at All for Peace.

The station has been a success, attracting some 40,000 simultaneous listeners at peak moments, and a total of around 100,000 listeners per day.

One of All for Peace's most spectacular scoops was a conversation it broadcast between Noam Shalit, the father of the abducted Israeli soldier in Gaza, Gilad, and the Popular Resistance Committees Spokesman Abu Mujahad.

"After their conversations, each side said that only dialogue and prisoner exchange would secure Gilad's release. The father even said that if Israel attacked Gaza to try to rescue his son and his son died, he would hold his government responsibile for Gilad's death," noted Faris.

But the station's greatest achievement, according to Faris, are not spectacular scoops but the gradual demystification of the other side. "The biggest success of the station is that it gives people on both sides the chance to humanise one another, instead of focusing only on the suffering and agony."

©Khaled Diab. Text and photos

Guns and wreaths and the face that failed to launch a nation

By Khaled Diab

On a twilight stroll through the still rather deserted town, everyone we came across was incredibly friendly, warm and welcoming, striking up conversations as we walked past and the children asking me to take photos of them. Our 'outlandish' appearance and my accent meant that our progress through the streets was rather slow at times, as we stopped to chat and press the flesh.

Ramallah today has grown to merge with a neighbouring village. Once it was little more than a village itself, but the 1948 refugees made its population swell. It is surrounded on just about every visible hilltop by settlements, some of which are so close to Palestinian homes that all that separates them is a thin brick wall or they can actually see each other through the windows. This leaves very little wiggle room for the increasingly crowded town to expand and the locals told me this makes them feel trapped, surrounded from all sides by Israel.

The closures, restrictions on movement, the difficult economic situation and the encroaching settlements have led to a gradual depopulation of the area, according to one local I met. Usually, the ones who can leave are the more educated and cosmopolitan, and that is one reason why the Christian population in Palestine has dropped significantly.

A little out of the old town, we heard a series of loud gunshots. A little further up the road, a couple of men were emptying out their guns into the open air to express their grief at the death of their fallen comrade whose wake had just taken place in a nearby building. "There goes a week's wages," Tom observed, having earlier explained to me how expensive bullets were because they were often purchased on the black market.

When I pointed my camera at the two men with the guns, their colleagues who were standing behind us tsk-tsked and told us to stop, and not to shoot. Not really in the habit of defying (or even being near) men with smoking guns, I lowered my camera carefully as if it were a weapon.

The Egypt card had served me well so far, so I tried to reassure them by saying: "Don't worry, I'm Egyptian - I just want to take a photo."

To my utter surprise, the demenure burly man who had just been communicating to me with steely coolness softened dramatically and he became all welcoming. "Go ahead and take your photo," he said in the same sort of voice as an Arab offers tea to his guests. To help faciliate my task, he called out across the street to the men with the guns telling them to fire their guns for the Egyptian. One of them was grumpy and unco-operative - probably didn't like doing tricks for strangers - but the other one was only to happy to oblige. Unfortunately, his gun kept jamming or a car would pass in front of the camera, so it took a few attempts and the result still wasn't perfect.

Following the fireworks display, we walked around the posher part of town. Ramallah has a fair amount of ostentatious wealth floating about, judging by the fancy houses and flash cars about. The Edward Said Conservatory, Tom told me, has built up quite a reputation and graduates talented musicians. Israeli conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim still comes to perform there at least once a year, infuriating the Israeli right.

The city has a few gaping craters where buildings were demolished by the Israelis, such as when they destroyed a police station after the lynching of a couple of their soldiers on a mission. Many of the walls and shop fronts bear posters of some of the thousands of political detainees being held by Israel.

We went to the 'Muqata'a', which had variously been a British camp, an Israeli prison, the PA's nerve centre, and became an Israeli prison again when Arafat and a group of his dedicated supporters were besieged there. It's interesting that both sides have their own conspiracy theories about his death: some Palestinians think the Israelis found a way of poisioning him and some Israelis believe he died of AIDS and was a closet homosexual.

Rebuilding work was well advanced and a lot of the destruction that Israel had wrought on this symbol of Palestinian weakness, hopelessness and fortitude. A small mausoleum is almost complete for the face that tried, but failed, to launch a nation.

©Khaled Diab. Text and photos

The refreshing taste of revolution in Ramallah

By Khaled Diab

On Friday morning, I set off to Ramallah. While I was waiting for the bus driver to return from Friday prayers, a group of young lads hit off a conversation with me.

They had got to Jerusalem by jumping out of the minibus just before the check point and taking back routes. On the journey back, there would be no problem because the Israeli military didn't really care who entered Ramallah.

Like so many other Palestinians I have come across, these younguns informed me eagerly that they loved Egypt and Egyptians - believing the celluloid myth that we are all friendly, kind-hearted, care for others and have a wicked and biting sense of humour.

In fact, travelling around this land has made me somewhat self-conscious because I seem to draw attention as if I were some kind of minor celebrity - nothing major, just someone who features in a crappy soap opera about a bitter, generations-old feud between two families: a rich and powerful one and its poor cousin.

The boys who worked at a shopping mall in Ramallah joked with me about their dead-end lives, smoking, Egypt and wanting to get out of Palestine. "Take me to Europe with you. Everything here is so messed up - the occupation is humiliating and the PA are pimps!" one of them maintained.

A do-good busy-body type standing near by decided to give them his Shekel/Dinar's worth. "How are we ever going to build a country, if every young person wants to get out and is going to bad mouth it?" he asked, although he was not actually interested in a reply.

I could not really blame the young men for wanting to flee the misery and madness around them - who wouldn't? In most of the Occupied Territories, if I recall the stats correctly, unemployment is running at over 50%, the majority of the population lives under or near the poverty line and they can barely move from one town to the next without an Israeli permit.

Just before I got on the bus, I got a message from Tom, my Belgian friend who lives and works in Ramallah for a Palestinian NGO, informing me that there had been a gun battle the previous night and the city was not only quiet because it was Friday but was also dead because of a curfew on shops and businesses.

When I arrived, Tom led me through Ramallah's semi-deserted streets. Most of the shops were shut, or had their shutters down but were working surreptitiously behind doors left ajar for their customers. The so-called 'strike' was apparently by order of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Tom suggested that we sit out the strike in his favourite cafe. En route, we chatted about his work and life in Ramallah.

Inside the cafe, we met a group of his NGO friends, such as Gareth, an Irish lawyer with Al Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, and Emma, a Palestinian-Brit with Save the Children.

First bottle up against the wall

With the cafes shutters down, it felt like we were in a kind of American prohibition and clandestinely drinking a toast to the revolution of Palestine's best beer. Al Taybeh, whose slogan is 'taste the revolution', is a quality local poison and a successful Palestinian export.

When I told one of the punters that many Israelis find it hard to believe that Palestinians drink alcohol, he retorted: "They'd better believe it. Israeli beer is so bad that even Israelis don't drink it. Our is good enough for us and good enough for export."

He said that the Israelis lived a few kilometres up the road yet they knew very little about the realities of Palestinian society. To him, this was proof of a willful ignorance - he believed Israelis would rather not know because that makes living with the occupation easier.

We sat around discussing Israeli abuses of human rights, the security wall, Tom's theory that an Egyptian pyramid could not have been possibly built in 20 years (at which point, we all got out our phone calculators to disprove him). Gareth provided us with access to his on-brain log of weird legal precedents under eccentric English common law.

The cafe's colourful Palestinian owner gave me his political punditry on everything from the Sykes-Picot agreement to the wall in Israel and now in Iraq. "Who are the Israelis trying to kid?" he asked eagerly, his eyes blazing with excitement. "The man who shot the policeman yesterday was a car smuggler. If criminals can get around the wall, do the Israelis really think it will keep out a determined killer? The wall is about land, not security."

©Khaled Diab. Text and photos.