Saudi king calls for interfaith dialogue
RIYADH (AP) -- The Saudi king has made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews — the first such proposal from a nation with no diplomatic ties to Israel and a ban on non-Muslim religious services and symbols. The message from King Abdullah, which was welcomed by Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders,...
Fierce fighting shows failure of Petraeus strategy
March 28th, 20080 WASHINGTON — The escalation of fighting between Mahdi Army militiamen and their Shi'a rivals, which could mark the end of Moqtada al-Sadr's self-imposed ceasefire, also exposes Gen. David Petraeus's strategy for controlling Sadr's forces as a failure. Petraeus reacted immediately to Sunday's rocket attacks on the Green Zone by...
Death of the two-state solution
March 28th, 20080 It is now clear beyond reasonable dispute that a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has passed into the realm of fiction. The project — if it ever was a real project — is stone dead. Some Western politicians, U.S. President George W. Bush among them, continue to pay lip service to the notion of an independent...Israel’s ‘religious right’ gains clout, complicating peace with Palestinians
Givat Zeev, West Bank — On a hilltop far enough from the existing Israeli settlement of Givat Zeev that one needs directions to get here stands the framework of a settlement meant to house up to 750 families. Eli Yishai stood on an unfinished balcony of one of the new development's shell homes. He's a key coalition partner of Prime...
Iran election: hard-liners hold on, despite high inflation
March 21st, 20080 Conservatives win 70 percent of parliament. But reformers gain, too. TEHRAN — From tomatoes to rent, prices in Iran have soared. Iran's nuclear defiance has brought four sets of U.N. and American sanctions. But that didn't stop Ashraf Banoo Rahimikia from casting her vote for Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And...Evil can’t be kosher
OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM — I realize very well that you are not carbon copies of each other. And I also know that there are many Jews around the world who truly despise what Israel has been doing to the Palestinian people in your name. I earnestly commend these conscientious Jews for their morality and human decency. It is these...Missing the context on the yeshiva shooting spree
In this week's look at media coverage, one story really brought to light the lack of crucial context in American media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. How columnists and editorialists can write about events in Israel-Palestine as if they took place in a vacuum is a mystery. Though many people use the term "cycle...Daze of reckoning in Gaza
It took the Palestinian Authority investigative committee, headed by Tayeb Abdel Rahim, 49 sessions, 29 days and 128 hours to investigate the capture of Gaza by Hamas in June 2007. An original name was found for the committee: "The Investigative Committee on the Matter of the Failure of the Confrontation with the Illegal Armed...A Middle East regime needing change
If the Middle East is to be spared another disastrous explosion of violence, one might argue, the one regime that urgently needs changing is that of Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak. Bernard Lewis, 93, historian, scourge of Islamic radicalism and spiritual god-father of America's neocons, gave a word of advice to Israel's Prime...Support ebbs for West’s nuclear hard line
WASHINGTON (IPS) — Public support for stronger measures, including possible military strikes, to curb or destroy Iran's nuclear program has declined significantly in most countries around the world compared to 18 months ago, according to a new survey of public opinion released Tuesday by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)....U.S. sends mixed signals over rights
CAIRO (IPS) — While in Egypt last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the release of 100 million dollars in suspended financial assistance to Egypt. The monies — part of an annual U.S. foreign aid package — were frozen in December following Israeli claims that Cairo had failed to secure its border with the Gaza...Israel defies freeze on illegal settlements
JERUSALEM — Israel approved plans this week to build 330 new homes in a suburban West Bank settlement north of Jerusalem. The move was denounced by the Palestinian Authority as "a slap in the face of the peace process" and called on the Quartet of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia to "act to get Israel to...Time to step back from the brink
WASHINGTON (IPS) — Describing the current Lebanese political impasse as a moment "pregnant with incredible danger," a U.S. expert this week urged rival factions and their international patrons to adopt of a formula of "no victim, no vanquished" in order to mitigate a possible descent into civil war. "When I think back to...
Is a third intifada brewing?
March 14th, 20080 Bethlehem — Fadi al-Amour and his friends – high school seniors – spent more time last week on the street than in class. Every day, they marched on Rachel's Tomb, guarded by Israeli soldiers, and, along with hundreds of other young Palestinians, pelted the nearest symbol of Israeli power with rocks and Molotov cocktails. "We were...Current lull provides opportunity
BEIRUT — Out of crisis comes opportunity, which describes the current brief lull in the war between Israel and the Palestinian resistance movements in Gaza. Rather than just trying to calm things down, this is the moment to push hard diplomatically towards more serious negotiations, on the basis of a new, more credible, balance of......
The mega prisons of Palestine
In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while continuing the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. I asserted that the genocidal policies are a result of a lack of strategy. The argument was that since the Israeli political...
U.S. conspired to cause civil war in Palestine
March 8th, 20080 Journalist David Rose outlines Iran-Contra-style plot in April issue of Vanity Fair United States officials including President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice participated in a conspiracy to arm and train Contra-style Palestinian militias nominally loyal to the Fatah party to overthrow the......
Massacres continue in Gaza
Israel killed 116 Palestinians in Gaza last week in an orgy of air strikes and ground incursions, turning the besieged and starved Strip into an unbearable inferno. Hundreds more Palestinians were wounded. At least half the dead and wounded were civilians, including many young children. So great was the catastrophe that Egypt,...Iran sanctions vote signals a global rift
Some developing nations may be starting to sour on push by world powers to control lucrative nuclear technology. United Nations — The passage this week by the United Nations Security Council of a third set of sanctions against Iran places a spotlight on two trends in the international community's dispute with Tehran's...U.S. warship worries Lebanese
Regional crisis likely, given Saudi Arabia's threat to boycott Arab summit Beirut — Washington's decision to deploy the USS Cole off Lebanon's coast is kindling grim memories of a past conflict here — and fresh concerns over another war. While the U.S. State Department says the Cole and other warships are being sent to...Iraqi Christians cling to last refuges
BARTELLA — The bullets lay on the desk amid Bibles and rosaries. They're for two pistols owned by Father Ayman Danna. "The only solution left for our people is to bear arms. We either live or die. We must be strong," says the Syriac Catholic priest at the Church of Saint George in Bartella, a northern Iraqi town in a swath of......
If it bleeds in Israel, it leads in America
But most Palestinian resistance to the occupation is non-violent Recent actions by Palestinians in Gaza seemed designed to expose bias in the American media. Last weekend, they organized a non-violent, symbolic protest at Gaza's borders. Later in the week, Hamas began launching retaliatory rockets into Israel,...Why Lebanon hasn’t slipped into civil war
Rival factions have worked hard to defuse points of conflict. Washington — Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was killed by a huge explosion near downtown Beirut in February 2005. Since then, the country has seen – in addition to the Israeli bombardments of summer 2006 – more than a dozen other mysterious assassinations.......
Strategic alliances in Iraq remain elusive
WASHINGTON (IPS) — The George W. Bush administration has ballyhooed recent legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament as a sign that its troop escalation strategy has indeed created space for political reconciliation. But observers say a closer look at the legislation in the context of the grander Iraqi quagmire suggests that the...
Children killed as Israel pounds Gaza
March 1st, 20080 A boy sits next to the body of 6-month-old Palestinian baby Mohammed al-Borai in a mosque before his funeral in GazaGAZA CITY — Israel pounded the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday, February 28, killing four children and 10 militants, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to make the Islamists pay a heavy price for rocket......