Palestinians should not lend their name to a charade of endless negotiations while historic Palestine disappears.
Israel-Palestine: Enough Negotiations Already!
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West Bank
John Kerry’s Doomed Peace Process
Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest foray into Middle East negotiations should be called the Einstein peace process. Doing the same thing over and over again and still expecting different results is the great scientist’s definition of insanity. This time around,...
“World War Z”: Israel’s Best Foot Forward?
A pivotal scene set in Jerusalem lends itself to different interpretations.
Obama’s Chance to Renew the Peace Process
President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to the Middle East presents an opportunity to move the dormant Palestinian-Israeli peace process forward. If he’s serious about making progress, the president should take into account how dispute resolution works in the Arab and Muslim world and note how little resemblance it bears to the West’s approaches to resolving conflicts. Understanding the sides’ different cultural perspectives on key aspects of negotiations will be crucial to creating a successful peace bid.
Samer Issawi’s Hunger Strike Shines a Spotlight on Israel’s Inhumanity
Despite a 200-day hunger strike, Israel continues to deny Samer Issawi a trial.
Putting Bibi in a Corner
With the January 22 general elections only days away in Israel, the majority of polls and media sources concede that Benjamin Netanyahu is on track to be elected for his third term as prime minister. However, few would truly consider this a triumph for the Likud prime minister, who has been overshadowed by the charismatic Naftali Bennett, a rising star on Israel’s far right.
Remembering Israel’s West Bank Offensive
Ten years ago this month, following a particularly deadly series of Palestinian terrorist attacks, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an assault on several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West Bank. The Bush administration largely supported the Israeli offensive, even as hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands of young men were detained without charge amid widespread reports of torture.
Postcard From…Bi’lin
The ritual occurs every Friday in Bi’lin, occupied West Bank.
Palestinian protestors — community members and activists — gather around the mosque following midday prayers to march against the construction of the separation wall and the proliferation of Israeli settlements.
What made last week’s march different was the overwhelming presence of foreigners. The fourth Bi’lin International Conference on Popular Resistance, a three-day conference that I attended from April 22-24, was intended to build solidarity and support for the Palestinian nonviolent struggle. Conference participants included Palestinian political leaders and community members, delegations from South Africa and Italy, and European Parliament Vice President Luisa Morgantini. The closing activity was a larger-than-usual protest against the construction of a wall that will arbitrarily cut across large parts of the village, separating families from each other and villagers from their land.
Gaza: Laboratory for the Power-Hungry
Unfortunately for the people of Gaza, all the bloodshed there wasn’t really about Gaza. Despite the tenuous ceasefire, the issue of Gaza remains unresolved not because the sides disagree but because all sorts of external actors find the dispute useful. The larger reality is that Gaza serves as a cold-hearted laboratory for these external actors for testing dangerous hypotheses about far greater global political issues.
On the Brink of Peace in the Middle East?
Over the past half decade a broad consensus has emerged among informed observers in the Middle East that recent U.S. policies in the region – from Iraq and Iran to our approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah – have been ill-conceived and executed, and have damaged both America’s standing in the region and prospects for peace and stability in the area. Yet a series of local initiatives this year suggests that an important restructuring of relationships across the region might lead to some resolution to a number of the region’s thorniest problems.