February 28, 2013

Around 220 of the fish appeared on the Gaza City beach yesterday, the Times of Israel has reported.

It is thought to be the first time in five years that fishermen are catching the ray fish in waters off Gaza.

Aid Hurting Palestinians

Local food for local people. That’s the idea behind Sharaka (‘partnership’, in Arabic), an entirely volunteer-run, Palestinian organisation that aims to bring locally grown products directly to Palestinian dinner tables.

Analysis: Egyptian foreign policy hasn't changed

Despite public declarations this week condemning Israel over the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat, Egypt is attempting to maintain its role as the mediator the US turns to in the region.

Under ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt also spoke out in support of the Palestinians, but maintained working relations with Israel behind the scenes.

Why the Middle East Needs America

Over the years, the contention that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be solved only through “direct talks” has become almost a mantra, especially from the Israeli government and its allies.

But direct talks between implacable foes, without active mediation, may be the worst possible way to try to settle the conflict. Facing one’s adversary directly across the table heightens psychological barriers even to a mutually beneficial deal.

Abbas needs an heir apparent

President Obama [27]'s visit to the Middle East [28] next month is widely billed as an earnest attempt to double down on diplomacy and revive the moribund peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against the president.

Eight hundred thousand

Eight hundred thousand. That is the number of Palestinian residents arrested and imprisoned in Israeli jails since the beginning of the occupation, according to The New York Times. Almost a million people. That estimate could be a bit high; some say it's “only” 600,000. After all, there is no exact number.  But the general picture is clear and chilling: When people say that Israel imprisons the Palestinian people, this is what they mean: the physical, concrete, overcrowded and torturous imprisonment of people in jail.

Israel Should Reconsider Administrative Law

It was only after the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradath [31], the violent demonstrations that erupted in its wake, and the fear that this could be the spark that ignites a Third Intifada that the Israeli media decided to expand its coverage of hunger strikes under way in Israeli prisons [32].

A Third Intifada?

Over the past days, growing unrest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in response to the death of a Palestinian in Israeli custody has threatened the relative calm that has prevailed recently, a result of the considerable amount of cooperation between the Palestinian security services and the Israeli army.

Zero Dark Zero

A minister in the outgoing Israeli government put it to me bluntly during a recent visit to Israel: “For the first time in these elections, the Palestinians did not come into it.”

Israelis for the most part are comfortable enough to ignore their neighbors. If they are on the Titanic they prefer not to think about it.

Will Bibi and Obama make history?

 

During his next term as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu [36] will have to do what he avoided doing in his previous terms: Draw boundaries and begin establishing two states [37] for two peoples. This painful process, certainly from Netanyahu's perspective, will commence soon.

Israel's dwindling chance to oppose an unjust one-state future

“The two-state solution is dead! Long live the two-state solution!” has resonated as the battle-call of the decade, a nostalgic swan song of the halcyon days of hope of the Oslo era. But the past week or so has seen a hushed gathering of liberal intellectuals around the deathbed of the Israeli-Palestine dilemma and a two-state solution.

Fair-weather friend: Israel's selfish attitude toward Diaspora Jewry

Israel pretends to represent the Jewish people. Its leaders wave the Jewish banner at every opportunity. But the sad truth is that Israel has never been truly worried about the situation of the world's Jews, about their well-being and their rights. World Jewry interests Israel only to the extent that it serves this country and its interests. Israel sees the Jewish people as a pool of resources for its use: financial and political support and human resources, in the form of immigrants.

Op-Ed: Don’t censor BDS, expose it for what it is

During the Vietnam War protests at the University of Wisconsin, students were said to have gathered on the front lawn of noted historian George Mosse, imploring him to stop supporting the university’s policy of allowing the ROTC on campus. To some students, this alignment with the machinery of war was a “fascist policy,” and they charged their teacher with the same label.

“A fascist,” he was said to have mused. “Which kind?”

Two Books Offer Dueling Peace Roadmaps as Obama Prepares for Trip to Middle East

As President Obama prepares for his first presidential visit to Israel and the West Bank, he can choose from two books, both just out, to read on the plane ride over. Each is produced by veteran presidential advisors on the Middle East. But each offers a starkly different perspective.

---

---