July 31, 2007
The view from Ramallah
This may not come as a massive surprise, but the West Bank is a pretty depressing place at the moment. Moderate Palestinians in particular are really worried, not just about the rise of Hamas, but also about how splits in the Palestinian ranks will enfeeble them ahead of international talks later this year.
I met a particularly eloquent pessimist in Ramallah yesterday. Mustafa Barghouti, ran second in the Palestinian presidential election and is now head of a big NGO. He sees three major risks in the current situation. The first is the “liquidation of the whole Palestinian cause”. This sounds so serious that I’m not really sure that you need to move onto points two and three. But, for the record, the second problem is the destruction of the democratic system built in the Palestinian territories. The third is popular disillusionment with both Hamas and Fatah.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, is talking of “handing back” 90 per cent of the West Bank to the Palestinians as part of peace talks. But Barghouti is very sceptical. He says that once you take into account settlements that will be retained by Israel and security corridors the real figure is less than 50 per cent of the West Bank.
However, there are definitely pockets of prosperity on the West Bank.I even came across a five-star hotel. The Intercontinental Jericho is not exactly doing a roaring trade. The desk clerk said that 31 of the 181 rooms were currently occupied. But there was plenty of activity around the pool. I was particularly impressed by a Palestinian, with a physique like Tony Soprano, who kept flopping in and out of the pool.
The Intercon could be a huge success. More precisely, the Oasis casino attached to it has the potential to be a vast moneyspinner. Casinos are banned in Israel (the Zionist legacy or something). And when the casino was in operation from 1997 to 2001, coach-loads of Israelis came to gamble. But then the second intifada started and the gambling tables shut down. The fruit machines are all still sitting there – just waiting for a peace settlement. If the casino ever gets going again, it could also be a useful source of employment for disbanded militias – casinos always seem to need a few heavies.
Meanwhile Jerusalem is crawling with would-be British peacemakers. Tony Blair was here last week. And then there is Michael Williams, who is currently working for the UN and who, according to newspaper rumours (Saturday’s Guardian), may soon be appointed to be Gordon Brown’s “peace envoy”. (Anything to spike Blair’s guns.)
I used to work with Michael at the BBC World Service. And then I was a regular visitor to his offices in the mid-90s, when he was working for the UN in Cambodia. Conversations used to follow a predictable and rather comforting ritual. I would walk in and say: “How are things going Michael?” He would sigh deeply (he’s Welsh) and reply: “Totally fucked.” I would say that he has exactly the right temperament to deal with the Middle East peace process.
I would be interested to know if there is any factual evidence that the Hamas lacks the support of a majority of Palestinians, or whether this is another invective-filled fantasy. Hotel swimming pools and casinos are not ideal ways of reaching a representative section of any population other than the British on vacation.
Posted by: Dr S Banerji | July 31st, 2007 at 2:04 pm | Report this commentThe Palestinian “project” was doomed from the start. A Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza will never be economically feasible. The right place for the West Bank and Gaza is in the existent Palestinian state - The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. There are no significant ethnic or cultural differences between the Arabs of the two banks of the river Jordan - none that should prevent them from re-uniting.
Posted by: PL | July 31st, 2007 at 7:26 pm | Report this commentGideon, I hope this is not your last post from Ramallah.
I agree with what you’re saying about hotels and casinos. A significant number of people used to make their living from those places – but not Palestinians. A very few Palestinians used to work there, mostly were Israelis and East Europeans – both are experts in the business. It will never be the core industry for Palestinians.
Mr Barghouti seems to be living in another world. “The destruction of the democratic system built in the Palestinian territories”. The democracy is only at Gaza now, an implementation for the very simple rule of democracy; that is elections – isn’t it? Yes, peace emissaries don’t like it but it’s a fact.
Anyways, there’s a question that’s been going in my mind since a long time and wish you tackle in one of your future posts: when will people give up the two-state solution? Can’t everyone see that the whole idea is impractical and even so absurd?
The whole situation is so pathetic: peace envoys are bumping into each other while an entire nation is starving and lacking the basic rights of living creatures.
Israel is betting on the vanishing of the world’s belief that the Palestinians will get their country. Liquidation for the Palestinian cause is not realistic. It can’t be. It’s complicated. The historic land entirely is in demand, 100% and not the one of Olmert’s dictionary. It won’t be given up. It needs time, not sure how long though - M
Posted by: Mohd | July 31st, 2007 at 8:21 pm | Report this commentYou have got to be kidding. The best that “The FT’s chief foreign affairs commentator” can come up with is THIS? A minor Palestinian celeb with a major axe to grind melodramatises about “the liquidation of the whole Palestinian cause” and the FT’s experienced journalist and purported foreign-policy guru Gid swallows it unchewed. And the casino is SUCH an old story! This is sad. There are things of considerable importance going on in the West Bank and Jerusalem, but this post touches on none of it. That said, with the BBC’s vaunted “Middle East Editor” Jeremy Bowen, who is also supposedly a great guru of Middle Eastern affairs, producing equally shallow and hackneyed stuff for the Beeb, why should the FT be expected to be any better…
There IS some solid, informative, insightful, relevant and original reporting coming out of Gaza and the West Bank. But Gideon Rachman, Harvey Morris, Jeremy Bowen, Tim Butcher and the rest of that lot are not the ones doing it.
Posted by: Paul | August 1st, 2007 at 11:23 am | Report this comment