Blogs and Stories
Shattered Peace
“After more than a generation of conflict, we’re exhausted,” Zakaria Al-Qaq, the vice president of Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem told me at the time of the soccer match. Faced with growing unemployment—estimated at more than 25 percent in the West Bank and more than 45 percent in Gaza—plunging exports, a corrupt and ineffective Palestinian Authority, and the daily humiliations of occupation, Palestinians are leaving in droves. “There’s a huge external migration of intellectuals and the middle class from the West Bank, as well as a vast internal migration into escapes like sport or the internet, or to God, which means becoming more religious, and often closer to Hamas,” Al-Qaq said.
Sari Nusseibeh, the university’s president and a prominent writer, told me that although Palestinians in the West Bank are still “relatively democratic and open-minded,” if there were a free and fair election tomorrow on the West Bank—unlikely given Fatah’s grip—“Hamas would win.”
Palestinians call the bitter split between Fatah and Hamas the second “nakbah,” or catastrophe, the first being the creation of the state of Israel 60 years ago. In some respects, explained Ronni Shaked, who covers the West Bank for Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s most popular daily, the second nakbah is worse than the original. “First the Palestinians lost the land,” he said. “This time, they’ve lost the people—the unity of the nation.”
The split between the two factions is becoming “worse by the day,” Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told a small group of visitors, including me, at his headquarters in Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital. While marble and glass monuments to Palestinian bureaucracy rise in the hilly city half-an-hour’s drive from Jerusalem, much of the West Bank languishes in serviceless squalor.
Fayyad said that healing the Hamas-Fatah rift was his “highest priority.” But Palestinians say that the two groups despise each other almost as much as they hate the Israeli settlers who harass and attack them.
Prime Minister Fayyad boasted that Palestine now has a $4 billion economy—much of it stimulated by non-government organizations and what Palestinians increasingly deride as the “peace industry.” But the words are hollow given the continuing Palestinian fratricide and the Israeli army’s omnipresence in West Bank enclaves.
Some politicians are hoping that sports can unite the Palestinians. Shortly before the game, for instance, Hamas’s Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh telephoned Jibril Rajoub, the president of the Palestinian Football Association, to wish the team well—in effect blessing the match.
Rajoub himself has been using soccer to create a political base. Arafat’s former security chief who spent 16 years in an Israeli jail, Rajoub supposedly renounced politics last May to become president of the Football Association. He has traveled from city to village, building football leagues and, in the process, a reputation for himself as an effective mediator of local quarrels. The first historic match between Jordan and Palestine—which ended in a one-to-one tie—was his idea, and he negotiated with Israeli and Hamas officials to make it happen.
“What we have done in sport we can do in politics,” Rajoub told reporters on the day of the match. Others aren’t so sure. But if Israel now invades Gaza to stop the rocket attacks, Palestinians will be unified, at least for the moment, not by sports or political compromise, but—as has so often been the case—at the end of an Israeli gun.
Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for The New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator
Amateur Hour at the White House
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Airports From Hell
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
8 New Internet Sex Fads
Rachel Kramer Bussel is the editor of Peep Show: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists, Bottoms Up and over 25 other erotica anthologies, and hosts and curates In The Flesh Reading Series.
Life After the Bombs
Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
Last Chance with North Korea
Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
Beirut's Fragile Peace
Judith Miller is an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times. She is now an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor to its magazine, City Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
We believe ANYTHING this woman writes !?! I'm sorry but her creditability has been completely lost. She was a publicist for the Iraq war effort. I can not believe anything she reports, even if it's true, because of her earlier efforts. I would suggest the Daily Beast never use her again.
Isreal doens't want peace. It wants and gets a slow expansion of territory -- all done with our oney. And Judy Miller-words can not describe what a low maggot she is.
This user is no longer registered.
This user is no longer registered.
judy miller has disgraced herself for the bush people. she should not be barred from this site however. if we believe in free speech we can tolerate comments, even stupid or ignorant ones. my suggestion to those who despise her is not to read or comment on her articles. nothing will get the attention of the editors faster than the lack of response to her.
Forgiveness is a river seldom crossed, and like Darsan54, I find it difficult to believe anything JM says. Having been to jail we share a common malady, but somewhere in the mix she has got to pony up an apology to the American public.
There's a lot of classified material regarding the mortal effects Of Valery Wilson being outed for which JM is not directly responsible, but when asked if her allegiance for the American Public was broad enough to redefine her journalistic oath she failed.
Journalist are the first line of defense to my right to know against a rogue regime, and when they obviously breach that trust the divide widens and its precipice steeper, compelling me to ask why should I even try again?
Considering we ask for apologies from people setting policy for less, and obliquely she's tethered to the links of questionable information trumpeting the cause for war, an apology is the least she can do to gain a little credibility.
This user is no longer registered.
Whatever happened to the sensibilities you promised, Ms. Brown? One more article from this horrible woman, and I - and my cloase friends and immediate family - will never visit your website EVER again, and this expensive website will go the way Talk had; bankrupt. I do not have to remind you how painful that is.
Why is this so-called reporter still allowed to write any vaguely credible news organization?
What can I say that hasn't already been said? The mainstream media bias in favor of Israel is usually more subtle than this, lying by omission rather than doing it outright. Judith, Hamas didn't end the cease-fire. It expired. And Israel never really did lift the blockade in a meaningful way. Not because Hamas never stopped firing rockets, but because other Palestinian militants never stopped. It would be as if I made a deal with Bob that we wouldn't fight. Then Nick comes over and hits me, so I hit both Nick and Bob (and everyone else in the area too).
I have to pile on. Judith Miller has not only lost all credibility as a journalist, but her information is all inaccurate. Perhaps Miller should write for a pro-Israeli blog, one that does not care about accuracy. Hey, Daily Beast, dump her, or lose credibility along with her.
What's needed are bold, imaginative initiatives.
Lowering a huge cloud of pot smoke over the Middle East, for example, would cause peace to break out all over the region. You could try lifting the cloud in three weeks, and then, if any fighting breaks out, lower another cloud of pot smoke.
Repeat until there is a permanent peace.
A pox on both their houses. Neither side can surrender violence and hatred. At this point, my only concern is that the lakes of shit in Palestine don't overflow their banks and contaminate the Mediterranean.
On substance, nothing new here beyond the sports angle. Better Palestinian unity around their national team tha in reaction to the murder of Israeli athletes, as at Munich.
On authorship, I'd much rather hear from someone like Sari Nusseibeh directly--or Avrum Burg, or Shlomo Avineri--than through the distorted filter of the ignominious Ms Miller. Or Eliot Spitzer. Give those folks a rest, and the rest of us a break. What's next--Scooter Libby, David Addington, Karl Rove? How about writers we can believe in--and believe?--The Wise Bard
I agree with the others here that publishing anything by this disgraceful woman is a bad mistake...I will never read anything she writes, and if The Daily Beast gives her a forum to write, I will stop visiting!
She has NEVER apologized for being one of the chief apologists for an occupation of Iraq that has resulted in the deaths and dismemberments of hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed a country!
Not to mention the harm that has been done to the US financially, morally and physically!
GO AWAY JUDITH...no one cares what you say or think anymore!!!
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.