Egyptian police, Taba-Cairo road: our minibus driver told the police we had ‘two Israelis’ on board; the police assigned us protection. The thing is, they were Israelis citizens... Khaled and Ahmed. But we were nevertheless flanked by a number of consecutive police cars, waiting endlessly at the end of each station's jurisdiction while the following station sent their escort.
Palestinian police, Al-Khalil (Hebron), Palestine: Presidential Guard, s’il vous plait, escorted the group of US university students touring the West Bank, last year.
Israeli army, northern West Bank, Palestine: the Palestine Investment Conference had presidential-level coordination, and we benefited from Israeli army 'protection' - and their help to cut through the insanely long checkpoints... that they themselves set up. Ironic, huh?
Palestinian police, Al-Khalil (Hebron), Palestine: Presidential Guard, s’il vous plait, escorted the group of US university students touring the West Bank, last year.
Israeli army, northern West Bank, Palestine: the Palestine Investment Conference had presidential-level coordination, and we benefited from Israeli army 'protection' - and their help to cut through the insanely long checkpoints... that they themselves set up. Ironic, huh?
22 comments:
I love the "eikh ani noheg/t" sticker on the back of the Israeli military vehicle.
I wish we Arabs were more civilized in this regard.. Ya Allah these Jews are so customer service oriented, next thing you know the machsomim will be covered in stickers declaring "How's my occupation?"
:))
Mohammed, how is the economic development in the west bank? I mean, we've read that the economy is better in West bank thanks to Fayyad, but is it really possible to improve much with the Israelis controlling the infrastructure? also, I read about the water issue..any thoughts on that? thanks,
Helen in the uk
I once saw an Israeli Armored Personnel Carrier on the back of a truck...the APC had the "eich ani noheg/t" sticker...which cracked me up on several levels: 1) the "/t"--how many woman APC drivers do you see around? and 2) I thought it should have had below it a continuation... "not that I care, I'm driving an APC!!!"
Nizo - "If you don't like my driving, please bring basic belongings, say goodbye to your family and present yourself to Ofer prison, we'll be happy to take your complaint".
Barry - I don't know if there are many women driving APC - but the mental image turns me on.
Helen - (good to have you back! :)
I doubt we can say it's thanks to Fayyad. Rather, it's thanks to the return of international aid flows after the June 2006 mini-civil-war and the ousting of Hamas from the government, which was a rough year - with no aid entering the country, we were talking employees waiting 6 or 8 months without salaries.
The problem is that the Fayyad people weren't keen on proving that they really had not much to do with a statistical 'recovery' because they would be admitting they really did nothing..
One thing to keep in mind is that economic stats can be tweaked any way you want. Sure, if you count aid flows (hell - if you count international loans!), you'll end up with a positive budgetary balance. Big fucking deal.
Re: occupation: you know, before I got to Palestine I would read that occupation/checkpoints/border controls are the main cause of the lack of growth, at times of the "de-development" of the Palestinian economy. And i thought all those reports were just choosing the easy way out.
When i got there, i realised that - it's true. When you cannot move a shipment of tomatoes from Jenin to Hebron, let alone to Jordan, because it'll almost assuredly be stuck at checkpoints until it goes bad, when workers cannot reach the factories in Al-Ram because of closures every third day - and when, if you're a Palestinian investor you realise that you'd rather build a factory in a country where it won't be confiscated for a greedy settlement or bombed at the whim of a military commander - then yes, occupation is, by far, the main cause of poverty and underdevelopment in Palestine.
Damn, that was so long, I could've made a post out of it.
Thanks for the answer! Didn't know it was solely because of our aid...
Helen
Hi Moh-,
Came across a web that might be of interest to you and some of your readers. wanted to share it with you see what you think. I wrote a post on my blog on it, it's the Babyloan microcredit scheme/web.
Do you think it could work in the current Palestinian/Gaza context?
:-)
maria
I don't know if anyone has truly benefited from the Palestinian Investment Conference! It drew a lot of attention but really I have no idea about a single project which was built due to this event....
I am sure Israel has benefited from this conference otherwise it wouldn't have allowed it to be held in the first place.
This is what Israel is looking for: Economic stability for the Palestinians in exchange for a Palestinian state. I have to admit, they have done a gr8 job while achieving this goal.
نيالك على الصحبة يا عم ;)
Hey, how come I wasn't invited? I'm crushed.....
Helen - it's not solely because of the aid, but that's what i know the most because that's what i worked on while in Palestine.
Maria - Thanks! checking your blog at the very moment!
Khaled - the chief problems that were there before - territorial discontinuity, lack of security, impossible and unpredictable borders, etc - are still there. A fancy conference - two of them, actually - allowed for businessmen to vist and check the projects but did not correct for those problems.. as such, I don't think anything really came from this conference!
Aliyah06 - Invited where, to the Palestine Investment Conference? Well you missed something... A good dinner for sure. :)
Mo-ha-med said...
Helen - (good to have you back! :)
I doubt we can say it's thanks to Fayyad. Rather, it's thanks to the return of international aid flows after the June 2006 mini-civil-war and the ousting of Hamas from the government, which was a rough year - with no aid entering the country, we were talking employees waiting 6 or 8 months without salaries.
The problem is that the Fayyad people weren't keen on proving that they really had not much to do with a statistical 'recovery' because they would be admitting they really did nothing..
One thing to keep in mind is that economic stats can be tweaked any way you want. Sure, if you count aid flows (hell - if you count international loans!), you'll end up with a positive budgetary balance. Big fucking deal.
Fayyad is the primary reason why the Palestinians had their aid restored at all. Fayyad is widely credited with providing the PA finances a semblance of transparency and accountability that can satisfy Western donor countries. There is absolutely no one in the PA leadership who approaches Fayyad in terms of the trust and respect the Western donors and intl organizations has towards him on these matters.
Nobody, just like Obama got his Nobel peace prize for "Not Being Bush", Fayad's credibility comes from the fact that he's "not Hamas"; coming to head the government after a Hamas-led, followed by a failed coalition government.
Yes, he landed in Palestine with the reputation of being a technocrat, a World Banker, etc - but he rapidly became part of the establishment and is no different than the rest of the Fatah clique. There's little to celebrate about his person.
Well. This is not the impression in Israel. Israelis who happened to negotiate with Fayyad said that he is very different from the rest of Palestinian politicians and in fact they never understood what this apparently normal person is doing in this cuckoo nest. All intelligence reports seem to concur that Fayyad is a total outsider imposed on the Palestinians by the West, he had no following in Fatah and he still has none. In the better days his list barely managed to get two seats out of 120 and probably both Fayyad owes to Hanan Ashrawi and not to his own popularity. This man has revamped the Palestinian financial and accounting systems, created a government packed mostly by technocrats and not Fatah apparatchiks, led the West Bank into a relative economic recovery. Well, he is not calling on the Palestinian street to start the third Intifadah and does not promise them to martyr them and their children for the sake of liberation of Jerusalem. Maybe this makes him unelectable, but I don't think it makes him indistinguishable from the rest of the Fatah upper echelon, which he does not belong to anyway.
I'm well aware of the squeaky clean Washington DC boy reputation he's surfing on, but I can assure you, he might not have his Fatah membership card but he's very much the establishment boy.
I've witnessed the political backroom deals that took place. Fayyad's two hats - as minister of finance and prime minister - allowed him to approve money spent that shouldn't have been approved, for example.
As for 'unelectable'- that's a matter of little importance. He wasn't elected in the first place, was he.
Well, you know. We are talking about a person who is engaged in a very delicate balancing act, for who politics is really about the art of the possible. As far as I am concerned, they can give him Nobel just for what he says to his inexistent electorate and it's of course an absolute Chinese to these people. Now you say that he approved some money that he should not have and I am supposed to trust your judgement. Dennis Ross or Martin Indyk once related then when they were visiting Arafat, people were entering the room and the chairman would just sign them checks. There was no approval, the place was run as a kind of mafia headquarters. No one had any idea where the money went until Fayyad forced them to use procedures and hired outside accounting company to do a complete revision. This is how the legend about Arafat's hidden riches was born.
Well, Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk I neither consider as honest sources for anything regarding.. ehh... anything they talk about.
But about Arafat, it's much simpler: donations he used to received all throughout the early days of the PLO was deposited into his personal account. So, yeah. When he was dying - five years and a few days ago - Erekat and co. were trying to get to his hospital room to get him to give them the money -- and Soha Arafat wouldn't allow it.
I was waiting outside the hospital the day he died, and it was amusing seeing them walk the 100 paces on the other side of the hospital gate...
Ah, fun days.
Anyways.
Look, glad you're such a Fayyadist. I mean, there's one Palestinian you don't want to murder: good for you, really.
Anyways.
Look, glad you're such a Fayyadist. I mean, there's one Palestinian you don't want to murder: good for you, really.
You made me smile with this one, really. I wanted to use this as an example to draw your your attention to some funny aspects of the mentality of your people, but I won't bother. Enjoy your strawmen, Mo
:D :D
Hmm.. Okay, I guess? Not sure what you're going for but alright!
But seriously. "Nobody the Fayyadist" - that's gonna stick. Remind me to inform Abu Saar. :)
Fayyadist? Funny. Reminds me of the term coined by Thomas Friedman. Though unlike real Fayyadists I see Fayyad for what he is - a forein implant of common sense in the middle of this insanity. If Fayyad were a leader of some Fatah revolutionary gang. Or some insane Hamas preacher. But stability? Economic recovery? These Fayyadists should be kidding me. I can only laugh at this. This is not the stuff you can impress the Arabs with. I will leave it to Abu Saar to elaborate on this one
:D :D
By the way. There is another Palestinian I don't want to murder :D :D You should add him to the list - Sari Nusseibeh. I usually don't agree with him, but I have appreciation for this guy.
PS
Why actually are you Arabs so fucking funny? :D :D I heard Arabs calling us baby killers and the stuff. But this is the first time I hear anything like this directed at me personally :D :D
BTW In case I did not make it very clear, neither I want to murder you if it comes to this. You can live as far as I am concerned
:D :D
Oh, thanks! When you fellows decide to revive the good ol' dream of the Nile to the Euphrates, I'll hold you to that statement.
I don't see why you think that Palestinians wouldn't appreciate "stability and economic recovery". Come on, dude. Give them some credit. It takes more than a "leader of some revolutionary gang".
After all, they're not the ones still waiting for the return of the weirdo who wrote the "nachman neuman" one-line rhyme...
I'm not sure I understand your 04:31 message - are you offended that I called you a Fayyadist, or that I said you wanted All Arabs dead?
Mo-ha-med said...
Oh, thanks! When you fellows decide to revive the good ol' dream of the Nile to the Euphrates, I'll hold you to that statement.
I think it's getting a bit ridiculous. How many times I told you to stop testing on yourself those artificial Chinese hymens and vaginas? You can never know what these Asians are putting inside. Now you have only yourself to blame for the result, you've been warned.
I don't see why you think that Palestinians wouldn't appreciate "stability and economic recovery".
For starters, I don't see that you appreciate them. I don't need to check what the Palestinian street is thinking about it. From your blog down to the Egyptian or Palestinian street it can only get worse.
I'm not sure I understand your 04:31 message - are you offended that I called you a Fayyadist, or that I said you wanted All Arabs dead?
Don't worry about this. You are not offending anybody. At the worst you are just trying to be funny
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