With seven Latin American countries formally recognizing Palestine as an independent state, there is one question floating in the corridors of the United Nations: will Asia and Africa follow suit? "It is a decision to be made by individual countries in their respective capitals," says one U.N. diplomat, who also ruled out any chances of …
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BUENOS AIRES – With the string of announcements in South America of recognition of a Palestinian state this month, the region’s integration process showed a new interest in and capacity to reach common positions in the realm of foreign policy. After Brazil announced in early December that it recognised a Palestinian state, Argentina, Bolivia and …
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Hope among both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis that a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians can ever be achieved appears to be fading, according to two major new polls released here Thursday. A solid majority of 63 percent of Palestinian Israelis and a plurality of 47 percent of Jewish Israelis say they don’t believe …
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Gleeful Israeli leaders and their neoconservative supporters here have spent much of the past week insisting that the State Department cables published by WikiLeaks prove that Sunni Arab leaders in the Middle East are far more preoccupied with the threat posed by an ascendant and possibly nuclear Iran than with a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian …
Continue reading “Mideast Peace Key to Countering Iran, Arabs Told US Diplomats “
RAMALLAH, Palestine – Samer Hamdan*, a 26-year-old Palestinian prisoner, recalls being beaten until he bled. Seeing other prisoners covered in blood and screaming is the norm in the Israeli prison, he says. Hamdan is serving a nine-year sentence in Ketziot prison in the Negev desert for membership of an "illegal organization". "In the end you …
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JABEL MUKABBER, Occupied East Jerusalem — The Palestinian Prime Minister ventured into Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem bypassing Israeli security authorities who tried to stop him. The city’s Israeli mayor, who also wanted to venture into the eastern of part of "his" city, was unable to because of objections from those same Israeli authorities. For four decades …
Continue reading “In Jerusalem, East Is Nobody’s”
GAZA CITY — Few outside of Gaza would consider its history much beyond the decades of Israeli occupation. But Gaza is a historical treasure house. Many of those treasures are now in Israeli museums, and those that remain are becoming difficult to preserve due to the Israeli siege. Gaza, set along the historical silk road …
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Rannie Amiri on Israel’s defense of settler attacks
The 2003 death of young peace activist Rachel Corrie, crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer, inspired worldwide press coverage, demonstrations and debates – and eventually at least two plays and a number of songs. Years later, however, mystery still surrounds the exact circumstances of Corrie’s death. Simone Bitton’s 2009 documentary Rachel, which premieres Friday night …
Continue reading “Israeli Documentary Probes Death of a Peace Activist”
GAZA CITY — As the many colors of the fish and flowers slowly disappear from the Gaza landscape, the already grim prospects of the besieged residents begins to look even bleaker. Fishing was a profession that used to keep thousands of fishermen and their families fed, but with Israel restricting the movements of fishermen, the …
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