Dr. Mohsen Salah sets out a 5-point critique of the PLO, including its lack of function and purpose and its exclusive membership. Only overcoming its sectarianism will give it new life. Posted below, a diatribe against the PA and PLO by Khalid Amayreh who, within the hate-speech, makes the same point: Islamic politics must be recognised and represented.

There is no doubting the increase in applications for Israeli citizenship by Arabs living in Jerusalem. The question is why. Here Yehudit Oppenheimer (1st) of Ir Amim argues that it is a survival strategy while Khaled Abu Toameh, 2nd, suggests Israeli citizenship confers more rights than the impotent PA is able to provide.

In the recent Palestinian protests about high prices both President Abbas and PM Fayyad were blamed. But, as these articles from Bloomberg and the Carnegie Middle East Center show, there is little either man can do given dependence on foreign donors, with trade between outside markets and the West Bank and Gaza trip strictly limited by Israeli authorities and internal movement choked in the name of Israel’s security.

The speech by President Abbas to the UNGA on Thursday (see post below) has divided Palestinians; some can’t be bothered with what he has to say, some think he valuably brought Palestine’s predicament and Israel’s aggression to an international audience, some thought it was a demonstration of Palestinians’ lack of power and strategy. A critical article from Doc Jazz is followed by an overview from Ma’an news.

This posting on the West Bank price protests is a very mixed bag, reflecting the restless form and focus of the disturbances. The pieces range from short news items – Abbas will cancel the Oslo accords, Fayyad posts an anti-government song on his Facebook page, to a couple of longer assessments of where the protests will lead. Plus link to a +972 photo essay.

Zakaria Zubeidi, child of a refugee camp, was a member of Al Aqsa Brigade. He decided to renounce violence and co-founded the Freedom Theatre in Jenin with Juliano Mer-Khamis. Mer-Khamis was assassinated in 2011. Last May the PA arrested Zubeidi. He has been held without charge or trial since then. In protest, he began a ‘death fast’ on September 9th, refusing all fluid as well as food. See Action Alert for what you can do.

Joseph Massad advances the argument that the decision of the Palestinians to reject partition was a rational rejection of colonial oppression. Rather, what has been neurotic, in his view, has been the Palestinian compulsion to treat the first rejection as a trauma and so to compulsiveley enact the acceptance of partition in all its institutions and strategies. Yet ‘reversibility is the only successful strategy to end the violence [colonial] projects constantly engender.’

Neither the US nor Quartet will use tools to block Israeli transgressions – or rein in ‘radical factions’ – says former British ambassador Tom Philips in Prospect magazine; Arab states have been no more effective. But the EU, Israel’s greatest trading partner, has many tools it could use to press for change. It should start using them. Jonathan Cook, 1 and Akiva Eldar, 2, comment.

UNESCO’s World Heritage committee has agreed to accept the PA’s request for the Church of the Nativity and Pilgrimage Route in Bethlehem to be accepted, as an emergency, onto the list of sites in danger. This will facilitate rapid restoration work. The PA’s bid was opposed by Israel and the USA, whose spokesman misrepresented the judgment of an expert committee (link to this in post). Haaretz and NY Times.

Archaeology in the Holy Land has long been a hot conflict. Now the PA has put in a bid to UNESCO for the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, to be in need of emergency conservation.The report by advisory body ICOMOS rejects the urgency but fully accepts the unique importance of the Church – but deplores the overcrowding around it. Excerpts from its report; accounts by AFP and JPost seem to be about something else.

After months in which the point and efficacy of the PA have been in question, including by Mahmoud Abbas himself (4), Arab foreign ministers have agreed to fund the PA if Israel witholds the taxes it collects for the PA (1 and 2). This follows Obama’s decision to continue aid to the PA (3) reported in right-wing press as Obama sidesteps Congress to fund terrorists. 5), explainer on the Arab Follow-Up Committee

Fig-leaves for the institutional players, a naked emperor for the wishful thinkers, all metaphors for the ‘peace process’ convey it is not real. The ICG focuses on new forces, like religion, on possible new actors , Palestinian diaspora, settlers, and on agents, like the Quartet, to be discarded.

This post is a mixed bag. The common theme of 6 pieces is the persistent, but worsening, lack of attention given to Palestinian life and politics. It was attributed to the dramatic Arab uprisings and threats to Iran. But even the mass hunger strike – a newsworthy event anywhere, at any time – has failed to receive much coverage. When Gaza does make it into the news, it is as an imaginary, abnormal community that is habituated to deprivation and destruction by bomb.

Within a fortnight of each other – and a poster campaign in the West Bank – the co-creators of the Palestinian Authority made public statements that the Oslo process and the PA had both failed to bring a just agreement in Israel/Palestine any closer. 1st, news report of the call for a one-state solution by former PM Ahmed Qurei, 2nd Harriet Sherwood sums up where the Oslo peace partners are now, politically.

!n 1995 Yossi Beilin and Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) drew up the framework agreement between the PLO and Israeli government which was to lead to the establishment of two states. Here Beilin argues that it has been sabotaged by extremists on both sides and Abu Mazen should and could declare the end of the Oslo peace accord and break the deadlock by winding up the PA. Apart from +972 there has been no response in the region.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and Amnesty International called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Operation Cast Lead for war crimes committed by both sides. The Prosecutor’s office has rejected this because the PA is not a state party. Amnesty argues the decision should be made by jurists, not taken from a blocked political process and calls on the Prosecutor to reconsider the decision.

Mayssun Sukarieh reviews a new book by Khalil Nakhleh which explores from the inside how the PA facilitated the rise to wealth and prominence of a Palestinian elite which has made its money through firms linked to global capitalism – mainly the ex-pats who went to the Gulf states. NGOs (creator of a middle class) helped solidify this class structure. The reviewer questions the values of the author.

Yousef Al Shayeb, a journalist in Ramallah, is being sued for libel by the PA and the Palestinian diplomatic mission in France for reporting that the latter forces Palestinian students to spy on Muslim groups. He also reported complaints of corruption against various PA officials. Al Shayeb has refused to reveal his sources -and been fired by the newspaper which employed him. Fellow journalists have rallied to his support.

Marwan Barghouti, in prison since 2002 for terrorist offences after what was widely regarded as a show trial, has issued a call for a mass popular uprising and an end to all co-operation with Israel. As the most popular unofficial leader, he may provide the political programme for Palestinian resistance suggests Uri Avnery.

The Palestinian Authority has asked the UN Human Rights Council to conduct a formal inquiry into the impact of the settlements on Palestinians. Egypt has added its voice to this request. Israel has dismissed it as a move by the PA to avoid negotiations.