Discovering MENA and other thoughts

A worrying, although too familiar, bout of violence has erupted in the West Bank, over the death of a Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody. Although Israel denies any kind of wrongdoing in the face of accusations of torture by the victim-s interrogators, Palestinian authorities have called for an international objective inquiry into this death.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, announced on 12 November during a LAS meeting that the request whereby the UN General Assembly would grant Palestine enhanced observer status would be formalized (and the vote would thus take place) today (29 November 2012, 65th anniversary of the UN partition resolution, "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People"). "The required simple majority is already guaranteed", an ecstatic Abbas told reporters in Cairo. Palestinian officials reckon the Resolution has nearly 60 co-sponsors and estimate at least 130 countries will vote for the proposal. EU member states will unsurprisingly find themselves, once again, divided, and their votes will surely follow the same direction as in the "UNESCO case" last year: 11 supported the entry of Palestine as a state, 5 opposed, and the remaining 11 abstained. One thing is for sure, and makes me really happy: Spain and France will vote ...

On 16 October, Qatar (dubbed as a foreign policy "rising star" in the Arab World, as I will analyze over the next weeks) announced the launching of a $254 million plan to "rebuild and modernize Gaza", the biggest injection of aid the territory has received since the 2008 war with Israel. However, for Gaza remains under a controverted blockade, it seems the implementation of the scheme will need the cooperation of both Israel (who partially lifted the blockade in 2010) and Egypt (who has shown a somewhat incoherent stance concerning the famous tunnels), as they will have to allow the entrance of building materials and heavy machinery into the strip (instead of resorting to smuggling, like Palestinians in the Strip had to do before). The plan is aimed at improving Gaza's economic situation, badly damaged after the war and under the blockade: it will create thousands of jobs (the territory's unemployment amounts to approximately 30% of the population, and sta...

A delegation of Palestinian representatives has been visiting Egypt. Apparently, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh met this week with Hisham Qandil, Egypt's Prime Minister, in Cairo. They discussed various possibilities to lift the siege of the Gaza Strip, one of the electoral promises of the Muslim Brotherhood, and even addressed plans are to develop a free-trade zone between both territories. They surely debated on the tunnels' issue,  used for smuggling goods and people across the border, a huge source of problems (amongst many) between Egypt and Israel. Palestinian leaders in the Strip estimate the value of trade to be $2 million a day (of which Hamas takes 7% in taxes) and therefore consistently oppose this possibility: "not even under ousted president Hosni Mubarak did Egypt think of crippling all the tunnels without providing an alternative", senior Hamas official Mahmoud El-Zahar told the Egyptian newspaper  Al Ahram .  Khal...

I won't sum up the evolution and characteristics of the Arab Spring for you, you are all aware of them. I won't even enter into the debate on the term "Arab Spring" and its real meaning (at least, not now!). But I have to admit I really like the sound of it, moreover when it is used to add a new country to this encouraging domino effect movement, and that seems to be the case of Palestine. Nonetheless, this case presents a new surprising feature... It looks like one of the leaders of the country the events are taking place in is actually supporting the uprising!! So... who/what do the people go against (besides, as always, the Israeli occupiers)? Well, they are mainly demonstrating against the other visible authority of the Palestinian Authority. Wouldn't it be nice if I put names to all of these characters? A (key?) meeting of the Arab League was held last week in Cairo (President Morsi surprised us again with flammable declarations about Syria, he does se...