As U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to deliver a major foreign policy speech in Cairo and his administration pushes aggressively for a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, neoconservatives and other foreign policy hawks back home are calling on him to scrap the two-state solution altogether and consider alternatives to Palestinian statehood. The most prominent alternative they …
Continue reading “Hawks Push ‘Three-State Solution’ for Palestine”
JERUSALEM — Air raid sirens wailed out on Tuesday morning and Israelis were asked to go down into bomb shelters as the country engaged in its largest-ever civil defense drill. Israelis remain deeply worried by what they perceive as an existential threat of a possible future all-out missile attack from Iran and its proxies. But …
Continue reading “Obama Turns the Screws on Israel”
RAMALLAH — A surge in confidence, following unprecedented U.S. political support, led to the Palestinian Authority’s bloody crackdown on a Hamas cell in the northern West Bank on Sunday which left six Palestinians dead. However, reports of questionable Palestinian Authority (PA) tactics, including the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, has brought the operation …
Continue reading “Palestinian Authority Going the Israeli Way”
End these contradictory, counterproductive policies, says Ivan Eland
U.S. President Barack Obama’s first meeting on Thursday with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas was less remarkable for the actual talks between the two leaders than it was for the changed Washington political climate in which it took place. The meeting between Obama and Abbas seemed to contain no real surprises, as both leaders …
Continue reading “Abbas Visit Comes as US-Israeli Tensions Mount”
RAMALLAH – "I heard voices, I turned around to look, and saw a group of Israeli settlers assaulting my brother Hammad," says Abdallah Wahadin, 82, a Palestinian farmer from Beit Ummar near the southern West Bank city of Hebron. "Three of them surrounded me, while a fourth threw a rock at the back of my …
Continue reading “Humanitarian Crisis Deepens in West Bank”
JERUSALEM – The tremors of Monday’s North Korean nuclear test have been felt all around the world, no more so in a country seemingly not directly affected by whether or not North Korea is a full-fledged nuclear power. In Israel, there is deep concern, an existential fear even – over the implications that Iran will …
Continue reading “Will Netanyahu Give Up Settlements to Gain Support Against Iran?”
RAMALLAH – While the U.S. appears to be optimistic about Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, inter-Palestinian rivalry, a recalcitrant Israeli government, and an international community with its own agenda could well scuttle a settlement. For the first time in decades the U.S., under President Barack Obama’s new administration, appears to be putting pressure on Israel through Prime …
Continue reading “Palestinians Scoring Own Goals”
Helena Cobban on Monday’s Obama-Netanyahu meeting
Edouard Husson says the pope knows about walls
