…There is a need for US President Barack Obama to come up with a genuine initiative in his second term to move the Middle East peace process towards that lofty goal of a two-state solution. That failure, along with the ad hoc handling of the forces of change in the republics of the Arab Spring, […]
In the summer of 1993, I was granted a rare scoop as a Palestinian journalist: an exclusive interview with the prime minister of Israel at the time, Yitzhak Rabin, the first ever given to a reporter working for a leading Palestinian newspaper. Midway way through the one-hour meeting, I asked Rabin for his vision as […]
The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the world body to issue its long overdue “birth certificate.” The U.N. victory for the Palestinians was a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, which were joined […]
The announcement in the New York Times that Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister and former prime minister, is retiring from politics is a serious blow to anyone who wants to see the Jewish state take a rational and reasonable approach to global security issues. From his time as an officer in Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal special forces […]
One day before announcing Wednesday, Nov. 21’s cease-fire agreement, at a brief news conference prior to talks between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, late on Tuesday night, the secretary announced that her itinerary included Ramallah and Cairo in addition to Jerusalem. The visit to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was […]
EVEN before the firing between Israel and Hamas had fully died away in the wake of the ceasefire announced on the night of November 21st, two new/old battle-fronts had opened up for Binyamin Netanyahu and his ministers. The first is over public and governmental opinion in the region; the second over the support of the […]
Why is it that Hamas — purveyor of terror, launcher of Iranian-supplied rockets, and source of “death to the Jews” tropes — is getting more attention, traction, legitimacy and support than the “good” Palestinian, the reasonable and grandfatherly Mahmoud Abbas, who has foresworn violence in favor of negotiations? Since the crisis began, President Obama seems to […]
The militants of the Palestinian group Hamas are sending a clear message: They are prepared to take great risks to kill Israelis. When it fired rockets at Jerusalem today from the Gaza Strip — the first time Jerusalem has been targeted — Hamas hoped to hit Jewish residents. The rockets, however, might just as easily have damaged Islamic holy […]
Hezbollah’s launching of a pilotless spy plane, which was shot down by Israel’s air force in the southern part of the country in early October, has been seen as more evidence that the Lebanese militia is preparing for war. Israelis assume that the drone was gathering visual intelligence to help Hezbollah in its goal of bombarding distant targets with long-range […]
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas returns to the United Nations today with the intention to seek, once again, a declaration that Palestine is a “state”. But unlike last year, there will be no street parties in occupied Palestine, no dramatic speeches and no two-storey blue chairs stationed in the centre of Palestinian city squares. Though this […]
looking beyond borders 