The European Union has indicated, despite the US and Israeli opposition, the willingness to work with the new Palestinian unity government. The EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton made the announcement yesterday in a press conference in Brussels. The Palestinian unity agreement came as a prelude to the Palestinian plans to seek full recognition of statehood from the United Nations something both the US and Israel are against. Read the rest of this entry »

It was known since the end of April that the two rival Palestine factions of Fatah and Hamas were to sign a reconciliation pact. Today that reconciliation become real and for many Palestinians a welcomed one after four years of a bitter division. Read the rest of this entry »

The murder of a top Hamas official in Dubai, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, could be a fantastic plot for a bestseller. Unfortunately, never mind what we think about Hamas, it was nevertheless the killing of a human being in cold blood. Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, after a 22-day assault in which more than 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed, there is some hope for Gaza. Facing demands for war crimes investigations, Israel declared last night an unilateral ceasefire. Read the rest of this entry »

The silence of President-elect Barack Obama on the subject of Israel’s war against Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip is only partly out of deference to Bush who still is the country’s president for two more weeks. Whenever Obama does not want to respond to something the mantra of his advisers is always “the fact is that there is only one president …” and yet on December 26, 2008. Obama did not hesitate to state his opinions about the attacks in Mumbai. Read the rest of this entry »

When last April President Carter traveled to the Middle East, his trip was criticized not only by the Bush administration and many in the US, but by Israel and other countries, especially Read the rest of this entry »

Starting on April 13th President Carter traveled to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and met with leaders of each of those nations. This trip has been extensively criticized in the US especially by the Bush administration, as well as by the government of Israel – not for the trip in itself but for the meetings with Hamas and the Syrian government. Read the rest of this entry »