Five Palestinians were killed on Monday in clashes between two armed groups in the Palestinian Mieh Mieh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, a medical source told AFP. “Five dead and more than 20 injured were brought to hospital after clashes between armed groups,” the source in the Palestinian Red Crescent hospital in the southern city […]...
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has threatened to take unilateral action against Palestinians, if they press ahead with moves towards statehood. “These will only make a peace agreement more distant,” Netanyahu said of applications the Palestinians made on Tuesday to adhere to 15 international treaties. “Any unilateral moves they take will be answered by […]...
By Jeremy Salt Turkey is in a turbulent and uncertain state. Street demonstrations are crushed with tear gas and water cannon. Protestors are killed without one policeman being charged. A 15-year-old boy dying 269 days after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister is called a member of a terrorist organization by […]...
By Jonathan Cook – Nazareth There was a mad scramble by Washington last week to prevent the seemingly inevitable – an implosion of the Middle East peace talks. In a last-ditch effort to stop Israel reneging on a promise to release a final batch of Palestinian prisoners, the US briefly threw in possibly the biggest […]...
By Frank Barat – LMADO LMADO: How are you Leila? What are you doing nowadays in Amman? Leila Khaled: I am fine as long as I am a part of the struggle for freedom, for our right of return and for an independent State with Jerusalem as capital. I know it is not going to […]...
By Uri Avnery There nothing better than a scandal every week. A juicy scandal excites people, engages the media, takes our minds off matters like war and peace, occupation and apartheid. Like panem et circenses (bread and entertainment) in ancient Rome. This week we had several scandals to occupy us. Ehud Olmert, a former prime […]...
By Hasan Afif El-Hasan Arab people, especially the Palestinians, do not believe the Arab League promises in conferences and other public forums because many pledges were made over the years and none was fulfilled. Kuwait meeting is no different. The theme of the summit was set as “Unity for a better Future” but the concept […]...
A spokesperson for Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel on Sunday of undermining the peace process first, minutes after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of making “unilateral moves” that had harmed the talks. Nabil Abu Rdeina told Ma’an on Sunday that “it was Israel who took unilateral steps to thwart the […]...
Israel will not release the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners because of renewed Palestinian efforts to join international organizations. A spokesman for Tzipi Livni, Israel’s justice minister and the government’s chief negotiator, said on Thursday that the Israeli government had been working to finalize an agreement to free the prisoners when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas […]...
By Ghada Karmi No term in the Israeli-Palestinians political lexicon has been so abused or so denuded of meaning as the “peace process”. It was set up after the Oslo Accords in 1993, to settle the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians by peaceful negotiations, but has led nowhere. Yet it is still ongoing, its latest […]...
By Ramzy Baroud As the US-imposed April 29 deadline for a ‘framework’ agreement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority looms, time is also running out for the American administration itself. The Obama administration must now conjure up an escape route to avoid a political crisis if the talks are to fail, as they […]...
A long and heated meeting between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in Jerusalem ended early Thursday without any signs of bringing both sides back to the negotiating table. Palestinian sources told Ma’an that the nine-hour meeting with US Special Envoy Martin Indyk was attended by PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, Head of Palestinian intelligence Majid Faraj, and […]...
By Stuart Littlewood What maddens Zionists most is that they cannot control civil society like they can pull the strings of the spineless political élite. They fear BDS action (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) will derail their precious project for a Greater Israel. So they now sneer at civil society and try to discourage further BDS […]...
Hamas said on Tuesday that it rejects the extension of negotiations with Israel, and called on the Palestinian Authority to “stop this travesty.” The extension of talks would mark the “genuine ending of the Palestinian cause”, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. US peace efforts are teetering on the brink of collapse after Israel refused […]...
Israeli authorities opened the Kerem Shalom crossing with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to allow a single truckload of wooden furniture to be exported to Ukraine, a Palestinian official said. Raed Fattouh told Ma’an that 280 truckloads of humanitarian aid and commercial and agricultural goods were also allowed to enter Gaza. He said eight truckloads […]...
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has signed a request to join several UN agencies in a move that could derail a US push to revive faltering peace talks with Israel. “The Palestinian leadership has unanimously approved a decision to seek membership of 15 UN agencies and international treaties, beginning with the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Abbas […]...
A Tel Aviv court has found former premier Ehud Olmert guilty of bribery linked to a Jerusalem property development, in one of the worst corruption scandals in Israeli history. At a lengthy hearing in Tel Aviv District Court on Monday presided over by Judge David Rosen, Olmert was convicted on two counts of bribery, making […]...
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has returned to the Middle East to try to salvage peace talks brought to the brink of collapse due to a dispute over the release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel. Kerry was holding late-night talks with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem on Monday evening. However, […]...
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command announced Monday that a ceasefire agreement was reached in Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp. Husam Arafat, a PFLP-GC leader based in the West Bank, said in a statement that an agreement had been reached between Palestinian factions and other militant groups in the Damascus camp. […]...
By Ira Glunts I have sent an ‘open letter’ to Margaret Sullivan, the Public Editor of The New York Times, requesting that her newspaper issue an apology in print to its readers, especially its Palestinian readers for publishing the following sentence which was contained in a letter to The Sunday Book Review: “The ‘conflict’ exists […]...