Palestinians and Tony Blair’s WAR-nings
By Iqbal Tamimi • Aug 28th, 2009 at 22:48 • Category: Analysis, Israel, Middle East Issues, Newswire, Palestine
WRITTEN BY Iqbal Tamimi
Since Tony Blair was appointed as the international community’s Middle East envoy, he’s done nothing solid about Israel’s breaching of Palestinians’ human rights, all he has been doing is WARNING. I remember he used to be able to do more than that, he was even credited with having started a war on his own, and if he so desires, can mobilize a government to do what he wants should he make up his mind.
Since his appointment the economy of the West Bank has been sinking deeper in total paralysis, and worsening by the unfair arrogant Israeli policies. We thought of his last post as a chance for him to do some good, maybe he would be forgiven for his sins against the so many victims of his policies at home and abroad. But it seems that after all the shouting he has done at the Parliament to send the young kids to fight away from home a war that has nothing to do with their future, he has lost his voice. All he has done since then is just… gently… “warn”.
The last of his warnings is “Israel hobbling West Bank’s economy”. His warning is about Israel’s blocking the Wataniya Mobile project. Wataniya is a Qatari based mobile phone service company, which was supposed to have been working in the West Bank since 2007. But as usual Israel is delaying the launch.
Wataniya Mobile is the second largest private investment in West Bank history, amounting to $700m. But Israel is still continuing to refuse to release adequate frequencies and is threatening to close down its operation next month, seeking the return from the Palestinian Authority of a $140m licensing fee. Israel is charging the Palestinians for investing in their own home country. It seems that occupying their land is not enough.
All Mr Blair has been able to do is call the Israelis to release the frequencies and WARN that such delay might jeopardize the Palestinian economy further, but guess what? His friends put him on hold.
Instead of employing Mr Blair to do the difficult task of WARNING, (we could have done that on our own), Palestinians became an authority in the field of WARNING, and they do it for free. They have been WARNING for over 60 years, and they do not mind extending their services for a further period, they even might adopt other tactics of WARNING since Mr Blair’s tactics proved sterile. The quartet could have distributed WARNING whistles for Palestinians instead of employing Blair, or they could have just adopted Lionel Richie’s song “Hello…is it me you’re looking for?” as a national anthem since no one hears their voice unless someone paid by the EU WARNS on their behalf.
For 61 years not one Western politician has been able to regain any of the Palestinian rights stolen by Israel. But still Western governments invent posh titles for wealthy politicians from their own countries, and pay them astronomical figures to WARN the rest of the word about Israel’s hooliganism. Whoever wanted to get rid of Mr Blair for his bad performance at work should not have exiled him to Palestine, They could have paid him a good redundancy money and requested of him to stay home as an act of mercy towards the Palestinian people. They should not rob the international community further by appointing someone to do the WARNING. The Palestinians have been WARNING for a long time free of charge, they never even requested an annual leave, their voices are still strong, and can do it perfectly well without draining the EU pockets – the question is: would any one hear their WAR-nings?
Iqbal Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Hebron. She is the creator of a vibrant and important activists' network Palestinian Mothers, open to all who share the vision of peace and justice, men and women alike. She is working now in UK.
Email this author | All posts by Iqbal Tamimi
Suffice to note that in Britain Tony Blair, loyal servant of George W. Bush, is known as "Toady Bliar.'
September 14, 2009
Palestinian mobile network still disconnected despite Tony Blair’s help
Sheera Frenkel
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6833189.ece
Outside the offices of Wataniya Mobile in Ramallah, an expansive car park is almost empty. It is symptomatic of problems for a project once seen as pivotal to Tony Blair’s hopes of creating a viable Palestinian economy.
Wataniya was supposed to provide a reliable mobile phone network on the West Bank and create revenue and employment for the Palestinians. But delays threaten to destroy the project and leave the Palestinian economy hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
During his last visit to the region in early August, Mr Blair warned that Israeli intransigence risked undermining the project. “I hope that we can get this moved satisfactorily in the next few weeks,” he said. “But again it has been very frustrating because we have an agreement, we secured the agreement. All we need is the frequency released.” More than $700 million (£419 million) has been invested in the project, but Mr Blair has been unable to get Israel to unblock the network.
Palestinian officials say that the Israelis reneged on promises to provide adequate frequencies to Wataniya.
Israel says that Wataniya has enough frequencies to operate and that “security concerns” have prevented it from releasing more. The company set a deadline of tomorrow for the completion of the deal.
“Nobody has been able to make this project move, and if it fails it will have dire consequences,” said Sulaiman Zuhairi, the Palestinian Minister of Telecommunications.