Palestinian Mayor Says WINEP Scholar Misrepresented Him to Congress

David Bloom says that he believes David Makovsky of WINEP misrepresented to Congress the Palestinian position on the Israeli fence crossing their lands when he said that they would accept it, with compensation. Bloom sent me the following links.

Here is Makovsky's testimony before Congress in 2004:

I happened to speak to the mayor of Qualqilya, and I saw the wall on the Palestinian side, and I asked him, I said, "If there was a compensation program to offset some of these hardships, would you be for it?" He said absolutely. And I think we need to think creatively for that minority of people who live west of the fence, and we'll get to that in a second -- how to create these jobs.

Bloom writes:

Having spent three months in Qalqilya district, including Jayyous, I never met a Palestinian who would accept compensation for their land--regarding it as their ancestral and cultural heritage, the selling of which amounts to collaboration with the Israeli occupiers. Marouf Zahran, the mayor of Qalqilya, told me in a Feb. 9 e-mail:

"It is with deep regret that I learn that David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy implied that I would accept 'compensation' for the impoverishing and destructive effects of Israel's Wall as built around the West Bank town of Qalqilya, the town of which I am Mayor. As I made clear to Mr. Makovsky during his visit that while I would welcome any relief offered to the suffering residents of Qalqilya, such relief would not be necessary if Israel builds its Wall on the border [the Green Line] between what became Israel in 1948 and Occupied Palestinian Territory. I made it very clear to Mr. Makovsky, with the express intent that Mr. Makovsky not misconstrue my statements for his own purposes, that under no conditions would I or the residents of Qalqilya accept or otherwise acquiesce to the construction of the Wall in exchange for compensation. Our property and our human rights are not for sale."

Comments

[syvanen]

Phil

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the WINEP scholar 'lied'. Those guys do that you know. I suspect they take pride in doing so.

[Joachim Martillo]

Makovsky came to Harvard (in 2004 as I remember) and told us that peace will only be possible when Palestinians will read Herzl's Alt-Neuland and view it as something positive.

Here is a passage from the book.

ORIGINAL GERMAN

Kingscourt und Friedrich beeilten sich auch fortzukommen. Sie fuhren auf der schlechten Eisenbahn nach Jerusalem. Auch auf diesem Wege Bilder tiefster Verkommenheit. Das flache Land fast nur Sand und Sumpf. Die mageren Äcker wie verbrannt. Schwärzliche Dörfer von Arabern. Die Bewohner hatten ein räuberhaftes Aussehen. Die Kinder spielten nackt in Straßenstaube.

MY TRANSLATION

Kingscourt and Friedrich hurried to get away. They traveled on the miserable railroad to Jerusalem. Even on this route, scenes of the deepest depravity. Flat land almost only sand and swamp. The spare cultivated fields as if scorched. Colorless villages of Arabs. The inhabitants looked like robbers. The children played naked in the street dust.  

COMMENT

Is there anything worthy and positive in the above crap?

It is just the standard white racist European justification for taking over a country from natives

• who live in depravity,
• who look like robbers,
• who are unable to use their country properly, and
• who are incapable of raising their children decently.

[David Green]

OK, so Makovsky spoke fittingly at the U of Illinois Urbana Hillel last April 1st. First, a noontime invitation-only lunch to talk about Iran (nor reported on); and then, and then an evening lecture on "co-existence" between Israelis and Palestinians, acting like the moderate gift from God. So he starts with a summary of the history of the conflict, and I quote: "The Jews came in peace, but the Arabs wanted war." Really. One example to support this argument: the assassination of Emir Abdullah by a Palestinian. Really. Later on, the Palestinians need to develop themselves economically, if they can only get their act together with people like Makovsky meeting with Salam Fayeed. Really. Never hard of economic suffocation with Oslo, de-development, nothing. A whole lot of pretentious name-dropping, rambling around with 5 minute answers to softball questions without answering them. Playing the "moderate" to the point of assuming that the Jewish audience would think he was some kind of radical, re-assuring them that he wasn't. A sickening, arrogant, ignorant display, summarzing everything that is stupid, venal, and flatulent at WINEP etc. So Makovsky is going back and forth, meeting with people like less than 1% of the vote Fayeed, the great white man coming to teach the little brown people how to get along with the colonists. Saying, he doesn't recommend taking the checkpoints down yet, but it would be nice to offer to the Arabs that we make them more efficient. Really, "more efficient," just like Eichmann. OK, if these people would just be honest: the Jews have beaten the crap out of the Arabs since the day they set foot in Palestine. OK, it's done, it's over, give them a few crumbs and let's move on. But no, it's we're still trying to get you to be civilized so that we don't have to kill you for your own good. Beyond the details, we have to understand that functioaries like Makovsky really do have to be compared to Eichmann. Really.