What’s Next for Palestine?

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Bio

Raja Khalidi has spent most of his professional career with UNCTAD, where he is currently Chief, Office of the Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies. He holds a B.A. from Oxford University and M.Sc. from University of London SOAS. From 2000-2006, Mr. Khalidi was Coordinator of UNCTAD’s Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian people, which combines the analytical and operational expertise of the UNCTAD secretariat in an integrated manner. His assignments at UNCTAD have also dealt with Debt and Development Finance, the global economic crisis and institutional development and strategic management reform. His own publications include a book on the dynamics of Arab regional economic development in Israel and contributions on Palestinian economic development issues to the Palestinian Encyclopedia, the Journal of Palestine Studies, edited volumes, as well as Jadaliya online and Palestinian, Israeli and international media. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations.

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Baltimore.

In the Middle East, moves are afoot, to a large extent led by Qatar and its emir. He was in Gaza recently, and he seems to have made a deal, some people calling it a shotgun marriage, where Hamas and Fatah–Hamas recently moved its head offices to Doha, and now we have a sort of peace agreement between Hamas and Qatar. We’re told by our journalist in Gaza, everywhere you see a Palestinian flag, there’s a Qatari flag flying next to it. And Hamas is actually allowing people to protest, carrying the portraiture of Abbas, Abbas the head of Fatah and the PA. It’s a very interesting development, including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which seems to have managed the peace agreement with Gaza in a way that has pleased President Obama.Now joining us from Geneva is Raja Khalidi. He’s spent most of his professional career with the UN Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, where he’s currently chief of the Office of the Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies. And I have to point out, the opinions he’s about to express are primarily his own; they’re not necessarily those of UNCTAD. Thanks for joining us, Raja.RAJA KHALIDI, SENIOR ECONOMIST, UNCTAD, GENEVA: Nice to be with you.JAY: So, first of all, what do you make of what’s going on, in terms of the UN recognition of Palestine as a nonmember state? And just what kind of Palestine does Qatar and others who are kind of moving pieces around on the chessboard, what kind of Palestine do you think is going to be built?KHALIDI: Well, I mean, with all of the regional, you know, transformations underway–and I think we haven’t seen the end of them–they’ve started last year in a certain vein, with a largely political, economic, social content. They’ve been transformed this year into bloody battles around the region, unfortunately. In some places standoffs between demonstrators and the new governments, in other places various protest movements and human rights advocacy campaigns are underway. So I think, you know, the region is certainly in transformation, and we haven’t seen the end of it, Arab Spring or not, whether or not we’re in an “Arab Winter”, as some would say. I think that’s the first–you know, and you correctly noted that as the first and most important determinant for the Palestinians in the current circumstances, where things might go. The second important issue, I think, that has changed the discussion in the last month or so is, of course, the recent battle in Gaza between the Israeli military and the Hamas, largely, and other factions who, as we all now, let’s say, fought to a standstill. In any case, as was–you know, we saw on Saturday with the huge celebration in Gaza, that’s certainly a factor that has now also come into the equation, both the internal Palestinian equation and, I think, the regional equation. The third important issue, of course, is that [crosstalk] mentioned [incompr.] the diplomatic–let’s say legal, also, to a certain extent–battle that’s been fought by the PLO to upgrade its United Nations status to that of a nonmember state. Hence it’s now referred to in the United Nations as the state of Palestine. So we’re talking, of course, here about the PLO, which is the representative of the Palestinian people. So that upgrade is largely–so far appears to be a procedural one, in the sense that it allows the Palestinians access to certain things, like maybe instruments and courses of diplomatic, legal recourse that they didn’t have, perhaps, before, but most importantly, I think, because it was a successful effort to get the world–large majority of the world to state, you know, very clearly its support for a two-state solution, most importantly for the establishment of the Palestinian state, the Palestinian rights, national rights, and sovereignty, and for the existence of state of Palestine, you know, more or less implicitly, though not so clearly in the resolution, on the ’67 border. So that moment of global solidarity, I think this should not be underestimated, and the fact that, you know, both the Hamas as well as the Arab governments supported that effort.And the outcome, I think, is also indicative [incompr.] referred to pictures of Abbas being carried in Gaza, and, you know, to which one could add the presence of a Fatah delegation in Gaza on the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Hamas. And there’s clearly talk in the air of national reconciliation. So, you know, I think the United Nations, whoever, except for, you know, really, some governments, have largely supported the idea of Palestinian reconciliation. And now it’s on the cards in a way that is more acceptable to the international community, it would appear, and to the region’s main players than it was perhaps a year or less [incompr.] These are all factors which change the regional landscape but don’t necessarily change anything on the ground as far as the Palestinians are concerned. So when you ask what sort of state we can expect to come out of this, I don’t think any state–I don’t think from–I mean, at least from the status of the peace process, I don’t think we can expect any state to come out of this. We haven’t seen a change in Israel’s position. On the contrary, we’ve seen a hardening of the Israeli position regarding settlement of the West Bank. We haven’t really seen anything in the way of a durable ceasefire that could ensure for the people. . . . Yeah. So, I mean, we haven’t, I mean, seen in–as a result of the Gaza conflict, we haven’t seen a relief of the siege of Gaza. So people in Gaza haven’t really felt anything new as a result of a very hard-fought and widely publicized battle. So, I mean, as I said, I think the prospects for a Palestinian state haven’t looked good for a long time, and they don’t look any better, to me, at least, today as a result of–notwithstanding the diplomatic, military, if you wish, and regional diplomatic sort of pluses that the Palestinians have chalked up in the last few weeks.JAY: A Palestinian friend of mine, his theory of what’s happening here is: Qatar, together with Saudi Arabia and in cooperation with the United States, the sort of plan is to develop the economy in Gaza and the West Bank and develop Gaza in a way that it becomes more and more integrated with Egypt, and Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood sort of manages Gaza. And in the West Bank, again, investment from Qatar and others develop the economy there in a way that strengthens the links with Jordan. He saw the whole thing as sort of the–his quote was this is the end of the Palestinian project.KHALIDI: Well, the end of the–the first person to say that was, I think, a Palestinian scholar in 2005, who said that with Arafat’s death, the Palestinian national movement would start to come apart. In many ways, the last five years, six years have seen that sort of a disassembling of what was otherwise a fairly united national project now scattered into two regional, you know, political projects, as well, I mean, regional in the sense of Gaza and Ramallah, two different, separate Palestinian political entities, if you wish, political systems. And everything else we’ve seen in the way of disunity, if one can use that word in the Palestinian political and geographic and economic and international and regional relations sort of map. And now the fact that capital in the region might–I mean–or the idea that capital in the region might flow into Gaza or to the West Bank more readily than it has, let’s say, in some better periods, i.e. periods where things were looking up, the Oslo period, for example, or even the last few years in the West Bank, you know, that it’s going to somehow transform the economic prospects, I think, is unlikely. You know, there’s very little what we call–in Arabic we use the word [incompr.] brave capital, courageous capital that’s really willing to put its feet down in Palestinian–in investing in Palestine. So, you know, there’s a Palestinian capital out there that could come back. So I don’t see a major, you know, resource transfusion. We have this–yesterday we heard about this safety net, financial safety net approved by the Arab League. Basically, it’s saying that, you know, if the Israelis cut off the tax revenue that’s due for transfer to the PA, the Palestinian Authority, then the Arabs will step in and foot the bill, which is really, you know, almost–you know, which is a good safety net for a short period, but it’s not really a sustainable one. In Gaza, you’re right, there was this–there were major pledges for infrastructural development projects, and I think from Qatar prior to the last fighting. And those might actually–you know, now, in fact, you know, there’s probably even more to reconstruction than there was before.But I don’t think that, you know, that’s–again, you know, we’ve had these spurts in Palestinian economic history of either donor-funded or remittance- (in some cases) funded or labor from–you know, wages-from-income-funded growth spurts, which led to, in some cases, some prosperity here and there, what we’ve called in UNCTAD, you know, individual prosperity and communal impoverishment. And we could see the same sort of–you know, especially in Gaza, because I don’t think the West Bank has that, is really–you know, has anywhere to grow, whereas Gaza has a lot, still, to recover from. There’s a lot of, you know, major infrastructural and social expenditures that could be envisaged there. And that will–you know, that could delay certain things, but we’ve always seen–you know, the thing comes back and bites any economic piece or any, you know, prosperity booms in the rear very badly. And it’s happened–you know, it happened in 1987 with the First Intifada. It happened again after Oslo twice, both in the mid ’90s, and then in 2000. The Second Intifada, we’ve had it again and again in Gaza. So, I mean, I think that the main issue is mainly occupation, lack of sovereignty, extremely limited, if any, economic policy space, even for the Gaza–government in Gaza, especially for the PA, in terms of its–the nature of its economic agreements and security and Oslo and Paris so-called agreements with Israel. I don’t see anything yet that’s–you know, with all of the links that might exist between the Hamas, Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood and their other–Egyptian and others, there are other very important forces at play. I mean, you know, the Iranian support for–the military support that has reached Gaza can’t be discounted. There’s a situation in North Sinai of lawlessness, which the Egyptian government hasn’t gotten its handle on, hasn’t gotten a handle on. And I think–you know, it worries Israel, and even worries Hamas, because it’s a Salafi–sort of armed Salafi–not insurgency, but lawlessness, as I said, in the northwest Sinai. And then you have everything that’s happening in Syria and Jordan in terms of regime change or potential, you know, reform, constitutional reform in Jordan. So, you know, I think the key player here in all this, even though I’ve, you know, made the tour of the Arab world, the key player is really Israel. I mean, the party that has it in its hands to change the prospects for a Palestinian state or a Palestinian economy, or even, you know, some achievement of Palestinian rights, is Israel. And, you know, we haven’t seen any moves except, you know, further consolidation. This extraordinarily, you know, sensitive settlement plan in this area east of Jerusalem, E1, is certainly not–not to mention the tax issue, the revenue withholding. I mean, you know, that could go on as a short-term punishment, but I don’t think the PA can live with it for very long. And already I think President Abbas, when he addressed the Arab League the other day, unfortunately, I think this has, you know, given us an example of the limitations of the state–status of being a state that the PLO is accorded in the UN is that he announced to them, he says that we’re fast approaching becoming a collapsed state, basically, you know, probably the fastest failed state in history, between November 29 and–you know, only because we have one month of Israeli-, you know, channeled tax revenue withheld. And that’s problematic. I mean, you know, it’s problematic when you talk about state institutions that are supposedly there ready to function, and all that is needed is the magic wand of a political agreement. That’s–you know, that’s more easier said than done.JAY: So, in the next segment of our interview, let’s talk further about just what kind of economy is going to be built in Palestine and Egypt, other countries of the Arab Spring. People were demanding democracy, but not just political democracy. People want something in terms of their economy. So please join us for the next segment of this interview on The Real News Network.

End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

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