Dive into the archives.
- Goldstone on Lieberman
“What peace process are they talking about? There isn’t one. The Israeli foreign minister doesn’t want one at all.” (full article…)
- Zionist “Concessions”
Israel has reportedly agreed to freeze West Bank settlement activity for up to 9 months in exchange for normalizing relations with some North African and Gulf Arab states, according to a Washington Times exclusive published on Tuesday. (full article…)
- Myth of the “Generous Offer”
Once again, most Israelis can snuggle up around what appears to be a daring and generous offer, but what is in fact, as usual, a compromise between the anxieties, the weakness and the self-righteousness of the center just-to-the-right and the center a-little-left. But what a great distance between them and the harsh demands of reality, [...]
- Blair Makes a Worthy Observation
He added one point not often made: that it was hard to see a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem if Israel did not turn over the Jordan Valley to be part of a future Palestinian state. Refugees wanting to return might have nowhere else to go, he argued. (more…)
- No Reason For Optimism
Obama has told Netanyahu firmly that Israel must stop building settlements on expropriated Palestinian land in the West Bank, but such words have been uttered by the president’s predecessors. Unless these statements are followed by decisive action–perhaps to limit American subsidies to Israel–there’s no reason to believe the lip service that failed in the past [...]
- What Israel Lobby?
GOP House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) circulated a letter to colleagues this week urging President Obama to support Israel when moving forward with any Israeli peace process. Trouble is, they forgot to delete the name of the lobbying group involved in the letter from the document. Attached [...]
- Netanyahu, the SOB
“That SOB doesn’t want a deal,” growled Mr Clinton at a particularly frustrating juncture in diplomacy. It remains to be seen whether—or how fast—Mr Obama may come to the same conclusion. (more…)
- A Bi-National State?
Many Palestinians and some important voices in what remains of Israel’s now-battered peace camp have concluded that it is now impossible to win the ‘two-state solution’ envisaged by Bush and Obama. This has led to the re-emergence in both communities of an old idea: that of a single bi- national state between the Jordan River [...]
- Netanyahu’s “Rubbish”
For it will rapidly become plain that his alternative ideas—giving Palestinians “economic independence”, for instance, without an actual state—are rubbish. (more…)
- Obama’s Cues on the Middle East
Former U.S. Mideast peace negotiator Martin Indyk is leading discussions between Israeli and Palestinian advisors and officials at a three-day, off-record Brookings event that got underway last night. Among those said to be attending are longtime Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. (more…)
- Don’t Worry—Obama’s Not Serious
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves if we imagine this is already a U.S. challenge,” says Israel’s foremost political analyst, Chemi Shalev. “The Mitchell mission should not be viewed as a big deal by anyone worried this heralds a major U.S. peace drive. (more…)
- Israel’s Lies
Middle East peacemaking has been smothered in deceptive euphemisms, so let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a lie. Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce, it tightened it further. [...]
- This is What Passes as Political Analysis in the U.S.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. “Guy walks into a bar …” No, not that one — this one: “This is the most critical year ever for Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy. It is five minutes to midnight. If we don’t get diplomacy back on track soon, it will be the end of the two-state solution.” [...]
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Over half of the Israeli population, some 55 percent, supports holding negotiations with Palestinians with the aim of reaching a permanent agreement, according to a ‘New Wave’ poll commissioned by the Geneva Institute. (more…)
- Well If Indyk Says So…
“[George Mitchell] is neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian,” said Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel. “He is, in a sense, neutral.” (more…) This former research director for AIPAC must have a very clear understanding of neutrality. In fact, I am now convinced that Mitchell’s appointment is a bad decision purely because of Indyk’s endorsement.
- What Did I Tell You About Obama?
There are rumors that Dennis Ross is back in the Middle-East peace process—under the incoming Obama administration.
- If Obama is Serious…
Some time before Israelis vote in February, Mr Obama should spell out precisely the sort of peace America envisages: two states sharing Jerusalem, with a border very close to the pre-1967 armistice line, not one that lets Israel keep its settlement blocks deep in the West Bank. Just as Hamas needs to hear that Israel [...]
- Ali Gharib: Regional Players Key to Salvaging Peace Process
One of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama will be reinvigorating what looks like a completely stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Repeated failures in the struggle for peace make clear that a change in direction is needed. And many observers think that taking advantage of the Arab Peace Initiative [...]
- Gideon Levy: Born in Sin
The Israeli peace camp was born in sin and died because of a lie: It was born as the legitimate son of the sin of occupation, and died the illegitimate son of the lie that “there is no partner” with whom to negotiate on the other side. Between September 1967 and October 2000, it spent [...]
- That Much More of a Tragedy: On the Stupidity of Bush
When I reflect upon the upcoming U.S. Presidential election, I tend not to place so much faith in the rhetoric of change. Despite prevailing, popular attitudes here in Europe, I find it difficult to imagine anything but the most marginal change in domestic policy should Obama become President (and virtually zero change elsewhere). We may [...]
- PCHR: 60 Years of Ethnic Cleansing
May 15, 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, when Palestinians were forced from their homes and ethnically cleansed en masse in a premeditated and organized campaign carried out by armed Zionist militia. Historical accounts indicate that the forced migration of Palestinians from their homeland had been planned well in advance. The establishment [...]
- Bradley Burston: Sixty Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Nothing
In a nation as coiled and embroiled as this, with a language fraught and zip-filed as the bible, it’s only fitting that a single daily newspaper headline will often say more than the thousands of words that follow. So it was, that on the day before Israel was to celebrate its independence, Maariv’s banner read, [...]
