Arab world’s minorities must be respected
NEW YORK � The gunmen used silencers on their weapons when they assassinated Assyrian Orthodox priest Youssef Adel outside his home in Baghdad last Saturday. But their message was loud and clear: Iraq's dwindling Christian minority is the target of a cruel bloodletting. It may seem insensitive just to single out one group for...Jordan acts as hub for U.S. renditions
NEW YORK (IPS) � Jordan, often described in the mainstream press as the most moderate country in the Arab Middle East, was the first to receive prisoners "as a true proxy jailer for the CIA" and has received more victims of "extraordinary rendition" than any other country in the world, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch...Iraq still a quagmire say experts
WASHINGTON (IPS) � Despite a reduction in violence over the past 15 months, "the U.S. risks getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to come, with serious consequences for its interests in other parts of the world," according to a new assessment by the same group of experts who advised the bipartisan blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group...Ghosts from the land of milk and honey
NEW YORK (IPS) � Somewhere in Baghdad, a family sits down to dinner. Heaped plates of food line the long table. A man sits at the head, fork in hand. Beside him, a youngish woman with immaculately shaped eyebrows turns to speak with a young girl. Forks and spoons face upwards on still empty flowered plates. Somewhere in Baghdad,...Battle of Lebanon’s political players on billboards
BEIRUT � Hours after Hizbullah commander Imad Mughnieh was killed, huge billboards of his burly face stenciled like the iconic Che Guevara portrait or a photo of him in battle fatigues were printed and ready to display all over Lebanon. Pictures of this man on America's Most Wanted list are among the first images to greet visitors...Iraq lawmakers seek help from Iran
BAGHDAD (IPS) � Despite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure. The date March 25 of this year will be remembered as the day of truth through five years of occupation. Fighting had...Turkish scholars aim to modernize hadith
Theologians are revisiting the collections of the Prophet Muhammad's sayings that Muslims use as a guideline for daily life. Ankara � For centuries, the hadith � a collection of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad � has guided Muslims in their daily lives and served as a basis for Islamic jurisprudence, offering...PLO representative discusses challenges to Palestinian statehood
Palestinian ambassador calls for non-violent resistance movement, discusses peace prospects TUCSON � The Palestinian ambassador to the United States said Palestinians should move toward a non-violent resistance movement in the Occupied Territories, even as latest reports reveal Israel does not intend to halt its settlements in the...Whispers for engagement with HAMAS
WASHINGTON (IPS) � Two years after HAMAS was isolated almost unanimously by the international community following its victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections, the militant Islamist group has repeatedly proved that it can disrupt U.S. President George W. Bush's plans for a decisive agreement on Palestinian-Israeli peace by the...
Divided Arabs deliver little at summit
April 4th, 20080 DAMASCUS (IPS) � The Arab summit held in Damascus over this weekend has convinced many Iraqis that Arab leaders do not speak for them. More than anything done or not, the very absence of many Arab leaders at the summit has left displaced Iraqis here angry. "It was a disappointment to us that some Arab leaders decided not to attend...With friends like these, Israel needs no enemies
The amount of support being shown for Israel these days is almost embarrassing. The parade of highly-placed foreign guests and the warm reception received by Israeli statesmen abroad have not been seen for quite some time. Who hasn't come to visit lately? From the German chancellor to the leading frontrunner for the American...A smart Arab investment
Social and industrial awakening in the Middle East and North Africa may start in unexpected ways. The most potent indicator of social change is the status of women's education. Nine years of schooling for every woman would wipe out a large segment of poverty. It would also significantly reduce children's school dropout rates and...Lebanon bans prize-winning animated film ‘Persepolis’
BEIRUT (AFP) � The Oscar-nominated film "Persepolis," which has annoyed authorities in Iran for its critical portrayal of the Islamic revolution, has been banned in Lebanon, an interior ministry official told AFP on Wednesday. The official, from the ministry's general security department, would not give a reason why the French...Hopes of peace remain unfulfilled
BEIRUT (IPS) � The pages of Lebanon's history are drenched in blood. And, more than 30 years after the start of the 1975 civil war, Lebanese factions are still pitted against each other in a...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......