“ARABIC TV does not do our country justice,” President Bush complained in early 2006, calling it a purveyor of “propaganda” that “just isn’t right, it isn’t fair, and it doesn’t give people the impression of what we’re about.”

The president’s statement, along with the decision by the New York Stock Exchange to ban Al Jazeera’s reporters in 2003, is a prime example of how the Arab news media have been demonized since the 9/11 attacks. As a result, America has failed to make use of what is potentially one of its most powerful weapons in the war of ideas against terrorism.

For proof, in the last year we surveyed 601 journalists in 13 Arab countries in North Africa, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The results, to be published in The International Journal of Press/Politics in July, shatter many of the myths upon which American public diplomacy strategy has been based.

Rather than being the enemy, most Arab journalists are potential allies whose agenda broadly tracks the stated goals of United States Middle East policy and who can be a valuable conduit for explaining American policy to their audiences. Many see themselves as agents of political and social change who believe it is their mission to reform the antidemocratic regimes they live under. When asked to name the top 10 missions of Arab journalism, they cited political reform, human rights, poverty and education as the most important issues facing the region, trumping Palestinian statehood and the war in Iraq. Overwhelmingly, they wanted the clergy to stay out of politics. And, aside from the ever-present issue of Israel, they ranked “lack of political change” alongside American policy as the greatest threats to the Arab world.

Though many Arab journalists dislike the United States government, more than 60 percent say they have a favorable view of the American people. They just don’t believe the United States is sincere when it calls for Arab democratic reform or a Palestinian state, as President Bush did again this month in Egypt.

Make no mistake, the Arab press has many flaws, including being subject to state control; only 26 percent of our respondents said they felt their fellow Arab journalists “act professionally” and only 11 percent said they were truly independent in their work. Nevertheless, Arab news outlets are more powerful and free today than at any time in history. If the next administration is going to try to reach out to the Arab people, it won’t get far by blaming the messenger.

Palestinian youths form one of the largest sectors of Palestinian society, a sector that is often overlooked and requires close attention when trying to solve the challenges facing it.

Broadly speaking, young Palestinians face challenges and conflicts on three fronts: "family" conflicts, "social" conflicts and "political" conflicts.

A subject that is rarely broached in Palestinian society is that of family conflicts. There are enough dysfunctional families in society for this to be an issue of serious concern and there is now also a major problem of families that have been separated, especially in the past seven years and as a result of the difficulties imposed on the movement of Palestinians within and between the Palestinian areas.

Youths from such families become victims as their insecurities at home affect behavior. It is clear that young people who suffer conflict within their families face a lack of motivation in school and at work, can become violent and generally lack confidence in themselves.

Another important challenge Palestinian youth face is the "social" conflict, pitting traditional values against modernity, fundamentalism against liberalism. With developments in technology, youths are very exposed to other cultures and traditions. These new ideas and influences often contradict, or seem to contradict, the values they have been brought up with or that they see around them. Often, young people start to make comparisons and contrasts that don't actually help them realize a transition in their thoughts. Consequently, one of two things is likely to happen: they blindly imitate another culture, leaving them alienated from their surroundings; or they totally reject any outside influence, turning away from new ideas and thoughts.

The final and greatest challenge Palestinian youths face is of course the political conflict with Israel. As in so many areas of Palestinian lives, any resolution or progress toward resolution of the many challenges facing young Palestinians will be extremely limited in the absence of a resolution to the one conflict that all Palestinians have to deal with on a daily basis and that affects so many areas of life.

The suffocating occupation affects young people in a multitude of ways, whether directly and in the short term in the form of the absence of decent employment opportunities, the inability to move freely from area to area let alone country to country, and the lack of control over their own political destinies, or in the long term, where psychological factors may inflict more damage insofar as the occupation instills a deep sense of mistrust toward authority and creates enormous anger. Witness how young people identify with the suicide bombers of the intifada. Look at the disruptions to normal life that they have to suffer on a daily basis, whether in terms of curfews, fear of simply walking the streets should a military incursion be under way or the humiliation of waiting in endless lines at checkpoints with not even a guarantee that one can cross. This anger is real, deep and will not go away overnight.

But the political conflict is evolving now to include more than just Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The growing Palestinian-Palestinian conflict, which started in Gaza, is moving slowly but surely, infiltrating other parts of the land, especially between young people because of their misinterpretation of authority and power.

Palestinian youth, like any nation's youth, plays a key role in the development of the country's culture, politics, economy and education. The PA, interested organizations and individuals should work hard to guarantee a peaceful life for active non-violent youths by building their capacities, training them on issues related to society and communication, opening their horizons to other cultures, reinforcing conflict management training courses on a community level and creating a fruitful basis to enable them to achieve their ambitions and improve their skills.- Published 30/7/2007 © bitterlemons.org

I cannot describe the events since the formation of a committee to investigate into the defeat of Fatah in Gaza as anything but a second coup  that is, following the coup Hamas staged against Fatah in Gaza. However this time, the coup was led by President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader accused of having a weak personality and the incapacity to elicit any change.

President Abbas chose the critical time and the appropriate event to finally stage his coup after enduring a long wait since he assumed the presidency in 2004. And thus the most powerful figures in Fatah, including Mohamed Dahlan and Yasser Abd Rabbo, in addition to 60 other senior Fatah officers have either fled or fallen at the first sign that the president meant business. Abu Mazen has abandoned his position as a peaceful leader to become a combatant leader who seems to be leading the new battle himself.

Apart from his hesitant decisions, Abu Mazen remains a Palestinian necessity after the Palestinians were orphaned following the death of Yasser Arafat; a nation without a real leadership that is embroiled in war. The Palestinians had become accustomed to Arafat who was their front in the Diaspora and who governed over them internally for 36 years. Abu Ammar succeeded in overshadowing all those who tried to compete with him for the seat of power, including the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin who despite his huge following and popularity still could not take his place, like many others who tried before him.

But Arafat was not simply a leader by virtue of heading the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, but rather for a number of traits he possessed, including his shrewdness, focus, decisiveness, reconciliatory approach and the complex alliances he forged on an Arab and Palestinian level.

As for Abu Mazen, he inherited the leadership of Fatah without any challenges posed from the leadership of the movement by reason of his seniority and the respect he had gained. However, over the past three years, he has shown no signs of leadership qualities. He did nothing to resolve the recurring internal crises in the Palestinian arena, or even within Fatah itself. Abbas was disdained to the point that emboldened his partners in Hamas against him, despite the fact that he was the one responsible for admitting them to power. In turn, they plotted to kill him then turned against him and seized Gaza in a manner that intended to demonstrate their challenge of Abu Mazen’s leadership.

Perhaps this was the last straw that woke the president up, after which he broke his silence and began shooting at his potential opponents.

Nabil Amr’s unexpected proactive statement was met with amazement after he made some announcements, before the Friday prayers, that 60 officers in Fatah will be held accountable and that Dahlan had resigned, and before them was the news of the formation of Salam Fayyad’s two governments. The president commenced with a harsh speech in which he revealed that Hamas had made attempts to assassinate him.

This series of bold steps could mean a new awakening on Abu Mazen’s behalf, one in which he has come to realize that it was not only his power that was targeted, but that there had also been a conspiracy to take his life. Perhaps these developments might indicate a plan in which Abu Mazan has waited for the right moment to attack his adversaries, both at home and abroad.

Should he succeed in his internal coup, Abu Mazen will have taken charge of the full reins of leadership and the absolute right for the Palestinian Authority, especially after shutting the cage on Hamas, which it had willingly backed itself into after seizing Gaza. Hamas put itself on the frontline to face Israeli gunfire and the faces of 1.5 millions Palestinians who require it to provide them with their share of water, electricity, gas, pensions and food.

Today, the aftermath of this ‘counter-coup’ has set the scene for Mahmoud Abbas to take action. He has become obligated to adopt reforms, reorganize the order of power and change the bad image that has come to represent Fatah, and finally, to lead the Palestinian people towards their dream project: the Palestinian state.

The strategy behind resurgent diplomatic activity to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beginning to emerge, pointing to the goal of interim statehood for the Palestinians before President George W. Bush’s term in office runs out.

Within a year, according to some analysts, a new political entity could come into being called the State of Palestine. However, they warned of many potential pitfalls and doubted it would fulfil the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

“They want to change the name of the Palestinian Authority to the Palestinian state,” said Hani al-Masri, a West Bank political analyst. “But it wouldn’t change anything on the ground. It would be a state under occupation.”

Many Palestinians are wary of a short-term solution they perceive as having more to do with Mr Bush’s legacy and the US’s problems elsewhere in the Middle East than with a lasting settlement of the conflict.

The pace of diplomacy has accelerated since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza last month and Mahmoud Abbas’s consolidation of Fatah’s authority in the West Bank. The PA president’s dismissal of Hamas from government has converted him into a “partner for peace” in the eyes of Israel.

Mr Bush was similarly supportive when he said this month: “By supporting the reforms of President Abbas and Prime Minister [Salam] Fayyad, we can help them show the world what a Palestinian state would look like – and act like.”

Since then Tony Blair has been appointed envoy of the international Quartet to oversee reforms and the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan made a joint visit to Jerusalem. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, this week embarks on her latest shuttle to the region.

An international conference, announced by Mr Bush in a speech on July 16, will take place in the autumn, probably in New York. If all goes well, a more substantive session will be held in December.

In the meantime the leaders on both sides have been preparing their national constituencies for the consequences of the new strategy. Both Mr Abbas and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, spoke of the need to define the final outcome of renewed negotiations. Mr Abbas calls it an “end game”, Mr Olmert “an agreement of principles”.

For Mr Abbas these principles would include a Palestinian state in pre-1967 borders, the solution of such core issues as the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, “and afterwards, only afterwards, the implementation”.

Mr Olmert’s vision is of a state including some 90 per cent of West Bank land, with Israel retaining its big settlement blocks. He would prefer to sidestep the issues of Jerusalem and refugees for now.

To sweeten the pill for the Palestinians, Ms Rice said last week that Israel must end its occupation of the West Bank and secure its future in regions such as Galilee and the Negev. The latter is a policy already embraced by the Olmert government and long sponsored by Shimon Peres, the new Israeli president.

Haim Ramon, a close political ally of Mr Olmert, has said Israel should leave most of the West Bank because “the occupation of the territories threatens our very existence, our legitimacy and our international standing”. Mr Ramon was seen as flying a kite for the prime minister, a function Mr Olmert performed for Ariel Sharon, his predecessor, when the latter was planning the controversial 2005 Israeli exit from Gaza.

The Olmert government might be tempted to secure a deal with Mr Abbas while he is relatively weak.

The Palestinian president previously rejected any interim statehood that would leave borders undefined. A putative interim state would remain hemmed in by Israeli military controls and the army might even insist on retaining a right of hot pursuit.

The concept of interim statehood – analysts have taken to calling it Oslo-2 in reference to the autonomy agreements that created the PA but failed to lead to Palestinian independence – faces considerable barriers.

Success assumes that Hamas, isolated in the Gaza Strip, will continue with its policy of non-aggression towards Fatah in the West Bank. It also assumes that the Israeli public will buy the idea so soon after a Gaza withdrawal whose aftermath they blame on Palestinian intransigence.

Israel and the PA leadership may be tempted to seize the moment because the focus of attention in the Middle East has shifted to Iraq and Iran.

As James Wolfensohn, Mr Blair’s frustrated predecessor, said in a recent interview: “Israelis and Palestinians really should get over thinking that they're a show on Broadway. They are a show in the Village, off-off-off-off Broadway.”

Ramallah - Palestinian reformists in the ruling Fatah movement said on Wednesday they would consider running on a rival ticket in December’s general elections if the so-called Old Guard tried to “steal” party primaries being held this week.

Young Guard reformists made sweeping gains in West Bank primaries this week before voting was halted in Gaza when Fatah gunmen stormed polling stations and set fire to ballot boxes, claiming fraud.

In Ramallah, the largest number of votes went to Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah militia leader serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail for murder. Mr Barghouti is considered the leader of the Young Guard.

Some veteran Fatah officials associated with the era of the late Yasser Arafat picked up only a few hundred votes in the grassroots poll of thousands of party activists and supporters.

Political analysts said the choice of reformists not tainted by the corruption that surrounded Arafat’s rule would boost Fatah’s chances in a parliamentary election where it faces a strong challenge from Hamas, the militant Islamic organisation.

Members of the Young Guard, however, said they feared that officials who had dominated the party since they returned from exile with Arafat a decade ago would attempt to secure places on the Fatah list. “There is a group that believes it has the right to continue nominating itself for any jobs,” said Qadoura Fares, a Fatah parliamentarian who is close to Mr Barghouti. “After the primaries, they will have a chance to interfere by putting the list to the Fatah central committee,” he said. “It will be a tough discussion.” The final list will be determined by a committee of “wisemen” under the chairmanship of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president.

It will have the authority to substitute names from among those who failed to secure a high place in the primaries, theoretically giving the Old Guard the final say on who will run inthe election.

Some members of the Young Guard said they would run under an alternative name, such as the al-Aqsa or Jerusalem list, if they were squeezed out of the official Fatah list.

Israeli officials have dismissed speculation of an early release for Mr Barghouti, who was jailed for his involvement in the shooting of four Israelis and a Greek priest during the Palestinian uprising.

Associates of Mr Barghouti said he was closely watching developments in Israeli politics in the run-up to an election in March. He wanted to see an end to armed confrontation in Gaza and to all attacks on Israeli civilians in order not to help the Israeli right into power.

Jerusalem - In a welcome coup for US diplomacy in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, on Tuesday secured an Israeli-Palestinian agreement on border controls in the Gaza Strip.

The deal puts the Palestinians in charge of a strategic border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and eases the flow of exports from the territory, opening the way for the international community to plough a promised $2bn (€1.7bn, £1.2bn) a year into regenerating the Palestinian economy.

Ms Rice called the agreement “a major step forward for the Palestinian people in their own movement toward independence”.

The new regime will start to go into place next week when an Italian carabinieri general takes command of a special European Union police unit that both sides have agreed will monitor the performance of Palestinian frontier officials.

Weeks of negotiations mediated by James Wolfensohn, special envoy of the quartet – the US, European Union, United Nations and Russia – had stalled on the issue of Israel’s demand to maintain controls on people crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

On Monday, however, Ms Rice said an agreement was near on an extended package of proposals put forward by Mr Wolfensohn’s team that also included the introduction of convoys for Palestinians travelling across Israeli territory between Gaza and the West Bank and the go-ahead for construction of a Gaza seaport.

The Palestinian side accepted the package but the Israelis still had outstanding concerns about security.

After a brief side trip to Jordan on Monday evening to pay her condolences after last week’s al-Qaeda bombings, Ms Rice returned to Jerusalem. Working until 4.30am, she averted a last-minute crisis after the Palestinians objected to attempts by Elliott Abrams, the White House’s Middle East adviser, to re-open detailed discussions on the package.

Diplomats said the Palestinians had at one point been close to pulling out of the deal, a potential disaster for the secretary of state after she put her credibility on the line by extending her stay in the Middle East.

Mr Wolfensohn said: “If you are an envoy of the quartet, you have a certain amount of possibilities in negotiations. If you are the secretary of state of the US, I would say there is a little more clout associated with that, and therefore to push it over the edge. I wanted to congratulate the secretary on having done that.”

Under the terms of the agreement, EU monitors headed by Italy’s Brigadier-General Pietro Pistolese will ensure that Palestinian officials conform to correct procedures in checking Palestinians travelling between Egypt and Gaza.

The unarmed force will not have any responsibility for arresting suspects. Israel, however, will be able to view live video of movements at the border at a joint Israeli-EU-Palestinian liaison office.

The Palestinians will consider Israeli requests to bar specified individuals, although quartet officials stressed the Gaza side of the border crossing would be under full Palestinian control.

Quartet diplomats said the significance of the deal was that it would help show the Palestinian people that there were benefits to be drawn from Israel’s historic withdrawal from Gaza. “But Gaza’s not the end of anything,” said Javier Solana, the EU’s visiting foreign policy chief. “It’s the start of a process.”

As Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, prepares to offer a glimpse of his peace strategy this week, the outlines are emerging of a potential deal with the Palestinians.

If Ahmed Qurei, his Palestinian counterpart, takes the bait, the Palestinians might have a provisional state in a year's time that would encompass more than 95 per cent of the population but less than half the West Bank.

Diplomats say the arrangement would involve Israel withdrawing from a small number of settlements and from areas the Palestinian Authority controlled before the start of the uprising in September 2000.

The barriers to such a deal are enormous. Israel would demand a prior end to Palestinian violence. Most Palestinians would probably reject a package they saw as confining them to densely populated cantons.

Diplomats close to the peace process are guarding their optimism.

"Expectations are rising again," Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations representative in the region, said last week. "If this peace process collapses before it starts, it could lead to frustration, violence and further bloodshed."

Mr Qurei has ruled out negotiations on a long-term interim agreement - a concept that has always been a central aim of Mr Sharon. He is demanding a final settlement now.

"We have no more time," Mr Qurei told the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv last week. "We cannot have interim agreements."

Some diplomats believe, however, that Mr Qurei might be tempted to renew negotiations with Mr Sharon on such a basis, as long as he could sell it as part of a seamless progression to a final settlement.

The two leaders have yet to hold a long-promised summit and are unlikely to meet before Mr Sharon delivers a keynote speech to the annual Herzliya security conference on Thursday.

There is much anticipation about its contents, not least among an Israeli public bemused by the prime minister's recent cryptic references to concessions and unilateral moves.

During almost three years in office, Mr Sharon has proved a master at maintaining the status quo. As long as his main task was to react aggressively to Palestinian violence, there was little pressure on him to reveal an exit strategy.

The public mood has changed in recent months, however, as the level of Palestinian violence inside Israel has subsided.

Mr Sharon is under pressure from opinion polls expressing support for unofficial peace plans rejected by his government. He is also under international pressure to ease restrictions in the occupied territories and to end construction of the separation barrier.

He has meanwhile lost support on the right for suggesting unilateral withdrawals from territory that his ruling Likud party still officially regards as part of greater Israel.

It would be uncharacteristic of Mr Sharon to reveal much of his hand at Herzliya.

He is expected to guard details of his broader plan for his first meeting with Mr Qurei.

But if Mr Sharon is under pressure, so too is Mr Qurei. Failure to wring any concessions from the Israelis would doom his premiership, which is already regarded as a "last chance" administration for the PA.

Faced with Mr Sharon's challenge that he will implement his plan whether the Palestinians agree to it or not, Mr Qurei may see no choice but to negotiate on Israeli terms.

Mr Qurei, a consistent opponent of the armed conflict with Israel, knows that the Palestinians have effectively lost the military part of their struggle.

Added pressure came from the refusal this month of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to heed his appeal to declare a ceasefire, although talks resumed in Cairo this week.

Some diplomats believe the militants, particularly those based abroad, may overestimate the pressure on Mr Sharon to sue for peace just as they misjudged Israel's capacity for absorbing three years of violence.

"They may think they won the war," said one diplomat, "but I don't see many Hamas helicopter gunships hovering over Tel Aviv."

Source: Financial Times (UK)