In the past few days, protesters have filled the Palestinian streets. This time, their protest is not against Israel, but rather against the Palestinian Authority and specifically Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The Palestinians are coming out to protest the rising prices in the West Bank, which have increased at a time when the Palestinian Authority has been unable to pay its employees their full salaries on time. Prime Minister Fayyad found himself at the center of the anger and frustration of the Palestinians. In the first few years following his appointment, Fayyad received rave reviews by locals and internationals alike for…

Last week, news surfaced in the Palestinian media about a conflict between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. According to Alquds Al-Arabi, Abbas has not been answering Fayyad’s phone calls after his refusal to deliver a letter about the need for Israel to halt settlement construction to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ma’an News suggested that Fayyad didn’t want to meet with Netanyahu on the same day that 1,000 Palestinian prisoners launched a hunger strike. However Alquds Alarabi reported that the real reason behind the refusal to take the letter is that Fayyad was not consulted on the content…

When the South African government tried to build non-sovereign states for its blacks they were soundly rejected by the world community. But now the Palestinians appear to be the ones seeking to legitimise their own Bantustan. Virginia Tilley has  a very important post up on Electronic Intifada, discussing the possibility the Palestinian bid at the UN is a political suicide of sorts. She argues they are defiantly riding into the very trap the South African national movement managed to avoid: International recognition for divided, isolated, powerless cantons as a "nation state" solution for national aspirations of the oppressed.  She suggests:…

Journalist Ashley Bates has been revisiting Gaza last week (she used to run the Dispatches from Gaza blog, praised by NYT's Nick Kristof as "a model for filling gaps in news coverage.") On this visit, Bates interviewed Dr Ahmad Yousef, who recently retired as close advisor to Ismail Hanniyeh and deputy foreign minister for the Hamas government in Gaza (she interviewed him earlier this year, for Mother Jones). He now serves as the head of the Hamas-affiliated think-tank Beit al-Hikma. Despite the possibility of Salam Fayyad staying on as prime minister in the transitional Hamas-Fatah government being described as one…