Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2002, pages 59, 64

Special Report

 

Daoud Kuttab Recalls Destruction of TV Station, Al Quds University Plight

 

By Pat McDonnell Twair

Repairing ruptured water lines, tending to the wounded and sheltering the newly homeless are just band-aids for Palestinian victims of Ariel Sharon’s latest rampage against his sworn enemies, stated journalist Daoud Kuttab.

“The issue that must be dealt with is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land,” he insisted. “It must stop.”

Kuttab, who is director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University, was in Southern California in late April to help raise funds for the Palestinian institution, which has been unable to pay its 700 employees for the past five months.

“If we get water back to Jenin, so what?” he asked rhetorically. “This does not stop the suffering of people living under a brutal military occupation. “

Asked if continuous curfews are causing starvation and if there are any estimates on the rising toll of missing Palestinians, Kuttab replied, “Palestinians aren’t yet starving in the African sense.”

However, he added, “Upwards of 5,000 men have either been killed or imprisoned. Dreadful war crimes occurred in Jenin and elsewhere.”

Regarding the possibility of European Union intervention, he noted, “The problem is the U.S. does not want to be involved and it doesn’t want anyone else to be involved. That’s not to say the Europeans couldn’t put pressure on Sharon. Sixty percent of Israel’s exports go to EU states; all they need to do is take away the preferential trade status they give to Israel.”

Asked whether Sharon’s latest onslaught has broken the back of the Palestinians, or instead advanced their aspirations, Kuttab responded, “There are two schools of thought on this. Some believe we are truly doomed, that we’ve been pushed to the brink of disaster. I’m not so sure. Israel now knows we are willing to sacrifice everything to fight off this occupation. They also understand what the cost of the settlements and continued occupation will be. The Arab world has never been so mobilized. Superficially, we’re back to 10 years ago—but Israeli progressives are with us, Arabs all over the world are behind us.”

 

Israeli Destruction

Kuttab remained determined in the face of Israel’s destruction and confiscation of records from Palestinian educational and civil institutions. “We did have some back-up records in safe places—but not enough,” he acknowledged. “It will be a process of rebuilding. It’s bad, but we’re not going to whine.”

Among the items Israeli soldiers confiscated were “artifacts and computer data on an excavation at al-Bireh from our Al Quds archeological department,” he told the Washington Report.

It was too soon to say, Kuttab added, whether the cities of Nablus and Bethlehem, whose ancient quarters were heavily damaged, might receive UNESCO assistance in restoring areas where even automobile traffic had been banned in order to preserve the fragile stone architecture and monuments.

Kuttab’s voice swelled with pride as he described the alternative Palestinian TV station his institute founded at Al Quds University’s campus in Ramallah. With assistance from the Ford and Open Society Foundations, the station broadcast programs on public health, family planning, physical and sexual abuse of children and even a joint Palestinian-Israeli version of “Sesame Street.”

The veteran journalist’s aim was to produce news free of government influence. When the station aired a series dealing with corruption in the Palestinian Authority, Kuttab was arrested and held in a Palestinian jail for seven days.

On March 29, as Israeli tanks rolled into Ramallah, the university station ran phone numbers for medical services and a Unicef program informing parents and children how to deal with the trauma of violence.

On the third day of the Ramallah invasion, Kuttab said, Israeli troops entered the Medical Professions College building where the TV station is located. Two staff members manning the broadcast were arrested, then watched helplessly as TV cameras and irreplaceable video archives were thrown from the fourth floor.

“Computers were stolen or destroyed,” Kuttab said, “libraries were ransacked, graffiti in Hebrew stated: ‘No Palestine, Ever’ or ‘Eat, Drink and Destroy.’

“A red line has been drawn,” he stated emphatically. “Our people have decided there will be no more refugee lines. We are determined there will be no more refugee lines. We are paying this high price because we refuse to buckle.”

Kuttab expressed disappointment in the American Christian community for not criticizing Sharon’s campaign of destruction.

“In the Middle East,” he explained, “we think of the West as being Christian. Why don’t these powerful Christian communities in the U.S. speak out against the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem? No more than 30 of the 200 Palestinians who took asylum in the church are armed.

“Taking refuge in a holy place is as old as the Bible,” Kuttab pointed out. “Ten cities of refuge are mentioned in the Old Testament. The Latin Patriarch announced it is the responsibility of the Church to protect these Palestinians and ensure they are released in safety.

“American Christians,” he concluded, “haven’t done enough.”

Kuttab was speaking at a gathering of Palestinians in the Laguna Hills home of Rima Nashashibi. Also on hand was Rabieh Husseini, widow of Hatem Husseini, the first president of Al Quds University.

“We have never seen a situation like this,” she stated. “The Palestinian Authority is paralyzed, we are left with no funds, and 700 professors and staff have not been paid in five months.”

Since the onset of the current intifada, it has become impossible to collect tuition and, she disclosed, for the past three years the university has not received funds from the European Union.

Noting that Al Quds is home to the only medical school in Palestine, Husseini said the university has grown since its establishment in 1984 to offer 33 bachelor degree programs and 22 master degree programs to 16,000 students. She urged qualified educators to teach science courses at the beleaguered university.

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Los Angeles.

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