Does anyone else wonder why Benjamin Netanyahu is already insisting that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians must include recognition by the latter that the state of Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people? By insisting on no ambiguity whatsoever, the Israeli prime minister has thrown...

A Palestinian expert has warned of the danger of repeating the mistakes made by the Palestinian negotiators, especially concerning Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, in signing the Oslo Accords in 1993. The second round of direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians is now under way in Egypt’s...

By Abdul Bari Atwan When, in an article published by the New York Times yesterday, the American journalist Thomas Friedman calls on the reigning Saudi monarch, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, to welcome Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Riyadh and personally hand Netanyahu the ‘peace initiative’ he launched...

Last week, Iran celebrated International Jerusalem Day with angry demonstrations marching in its various cities including the capital Tehran and was attended by hundreds of thousands, chanting anti-Zionist slogans and burning U.S. and Israeli flags. Arabs do not celebrate Jerusalem or International Jerusalem Day which was initiated by the...

By Raghid el-Solh At the start of these direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, many questions were raised about the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s, real position toward the negotiations and a political settlement between the Arabs and Israelis. By extension, similar questions were asked about the...

By Abdel Bari Atwan It was right that the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad did apologize for the actions of elements within the security apparatus under his authority. They had attacked a gathering of representatives of PLO factions and independent national figures, and prevented them from participating in a...

By Bilal Al-Hassan Palestinian acceptance of direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions is in effect a return to square one in the process of political settlement between the two parties. The point of departure is, undoubtedly, the Oslo agreement signed in 1993. Seventeen years of negotiations starting from the...

By Dr Ahmed Yusuf Ahmed The US administration has decided to commence direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians on 2nd September. The Palestinian Authority accepted the invitation on the basis that there will be American assurances regarding the negotiations. A question, however, arises about the development of...

A symposium planned by the Popular and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the People’s Party (formerly the Communist party) has been prohibited by the Palestinian Security Forces. The audacious move was made because the meeting provided a forum for opposition to the direct negotiations due to...

By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban After demolishing all the houses of Al-Arakib, the Israeli occupation authorities razed the village cemetery, completely erasing the memory and history of this Palestinian village, as it has erased more than 500 other Palestinian villages since 1948. A few days later, the Israelis desecrated 150...

By Mohamed Mohsen Watad – Umm al-Fahm A complaint is to be lodged with the human rights agencies of the UN about the intensification of house demolitions in the Negev desert region by the Israeli authorities. The demolitions are part of a wider range of land and housing abuses...

By Yasser Al-Za’atraPalestinians across the West Bank noticed it before the facts were revealed in the Israeli media: the volume of the call to prayer (azan) from mosques in the occupied territory has been turned down. Israel’s “Civil Administration” – which sounds better for PR purposes than “Occupation Authority”...

By Prof Abdullah Al Ash’al The Arab Initiative’s mandate to hold direct negotiations with Israel which was the result of its Committee meeting on July 29th 2010 is bound to remain confused given its extreme gravity, and the fact that the Arab world is not convinced of this nihilistic...

By Ali BadwanA few days ago, Israeli bulldozers destroyed forty houses in the Palestinian Beduin village of Al-Arakib north of the city of Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Around 300 people were displaced under the pretext of “building without a permit” in a village that is one of the...

Al-Quds Opinion You would think that the half million Israeli settlers spread across the occupied West Bank would have little to complain about. After all, they enjoy control of almost half the land, water sources, swimming pools and private roads, with security provided by the Palestinian Security Forces. But...

By Fahmi Huwaidi As direct negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian Authority take centre stage we must declare publicly that it is the “moderate” Arab states which have provided the Israelis and Americans with the fig-leaf of cover to implement their plans on the Palestinian issue. The green light...

By Adel LatifiIsrael depends on and has benefited greatly from the immense influence of Jewish elites in the west, particularly those who operate in lobbies such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC. These pressure groups give Israel unlimited support for its policies, even when they are in...

By Hani al-Masri We are witnessing numerous attempts to pressurise the Palestinians to move straight to direct negotiations with Israel, despite the absence of any significant progress due to the intransigence of the Israeli government and the failure of all previous efforts to reach a peaceful agreement. Much of...

By Abdel Halim Qandil There is no rational explanation for Palestinian Authority officials to continue in negotiations with the Israelis, whether direct or indirect, because there is no benefit for the Palestinians in what is clearly a miserable process. The benefits for the Israelis are obvious, as they give...

By Fahmi Huwaidi Although it is humbling to read that Netanyahu is coming to Egypt, two questions arise: are relations between Cairo and Tel Aviv entirely divorced from Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian Territories? And is the pan-Arab conflict going to be more difficult to solve than the...

By Dr. Bouthaina ShaabanThe above title is actually a subtitle of a book by Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University with the full title of Uninhibited, Robust and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century (Oxford University Press). It was a good coincidence for me to read...

By Bilal Al-Hassan The United States is basically a self-appointed leader of the “peace process” between the Palestinians and Israel. It also happens to be the world’s remaining superpower. As such, one would expect its allies, especially its pampered ally Israel, to listen when it speaks, but that is...

Israeli research and study centres, as well as the Zionist lobby, are working overtime studying Israel’s opponents in the Middle East, primarily Syria, Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas. Some leaked reports have confirmed that many Israeli experts are engaged on looking at the causes of the decline in...

By Fahmi Howeidi Turkey now has to pay the political price for its solidarity with the Palestinian people, even perhaps a coup, the warning signs for which have already appeared across the Middle East. All of this comes in the wake of the Marvi Marmara incident, with repercussions and...

By Yasser Za’atra What can the President, the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian Legislative Council do for the former Hamas minister and three parliamentarians who Israel has decided to deport from Jerusalem? Apart from timid condemnations that will not change a thing – nothing of course. When the Israeli...

By Dr. Ahmad Youssef Indeed, all things do come to an end. The blood of the martyrs aboard the Marmara ship was not spilled in vain. It was a wakeup call to the world and opened their eyes to the injustice and criminality exercised by the rogue occupation forces...

The recent calls across the world for the siege on Gaza to be eased, if not lifted, are welcomed by most people but not, it seems, those in power in Ramallah and Cairo. Reports from the West Bank and Egypt suggest that concerns exist about lifting the siege and...

By Bilal Al-Hassan Even though the Freedom Flotilla was not allowed to reach Gaza as planned, the mission was far from unsuccessful. The situation in Gaza has been put back on the international agenda, with many countries around the world calling for the immoral and illegal Israeli siege to...

By Fahmi HuwaidiThe Muslim and Arab world must thank the organisers of the Freedom Flotilla for waking us out of our coma and reminding us that the situation in Gaza is unacceptable and has been for far too long. The scandalous attack and hijacking of the humanitarian flotilla has...

In an escalation of Israel’s official aggression against the Palestinians who stayed on after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and their leaders, Israel’s Interior Minister has submitted a request to the Attorney General for the parliamentary immunity of Haneen Zoubi, MP, to be revoked. Eli...

The view of “Al-Quds”US President Barack Obama has invited Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an official visit to Washington on the 1 June. The date for a similar visit by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has still to be decided. A White House spokesman said that the Netanyahu...

By Hani Al-Masri The Palestinian Authority’s campaign to boycott products made or grown on illegal Israeli settlements deserves support. It is an important economic and national move, and an indication that Palestinians could once again act as one people which might – just might – encourage others to deal...

Whenever the topic of the Palestinian Authority arises, few people talk about the institution itself, or the PLO or its President. The main topic for discussion is Salam Fayyad and his “genius” attempt to build the institutions of state while under Israeli occupation but with a view to ending...

By Bilal Al-HassanPalestine-Israel negotiations have failed miserably over the past seventeen years and the Palestinian Authority itself describes those talks as absurd. Despite this, for the first time in this lengthy conflict a round of talks has just begun about which there is an overwhelming sense of failure already....

By Ahmad ObaidatHas the Palestinian cause been turned into a project to protect the Palestinian Authority, no matter what the cost? I only ask because it is hard to conceal both shock and fury at the reactions of the Arab states, including the Palestinian Authority, to the Israeli military...

According to its own website, Freedom House is “an independent watchdog organisation that supports the expansion of freedom around the world”. It “supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights”. At the end of last month (29 April 2010) the organisation published a report on...

By Dr. Buthayna Shaaban Following Israel’s assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, it was suggested that the intelligence agencies of fifteen or so Western countries had cooperated with Israel by providing Mossad’s death squad with passports. The Western media focused on the fake passports to cover up the assassination itself...

By Dr Ahmed Yusuf Ahmed On 22nd April, US Special Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, arrived in the region for a new round of fruitless shuttling back and forth between Israel and the Palestinians in an effort to resume the “political process”. The lack of productivity cannot...

By Fahmi HuwaidiIt should not be assumed that the US convened “Entrepreneurship in the Islamic world” conference in Washington this week is as innocent as its name suggests. There are strong suspicions that the main objective is “interlinking” interests between Arab and Israeli businesses, bridging the deep chasm between...

A special commemorative programme was held last Saturday on the sixth anniversary of the martyrdom of Dr. Abdel Aziz Al-Rantissi. The day-long event – the Festival of those Faithful to Resistance and Martyrs was organised by Hamas to remember the assassination of one of their most prominent leaders on 17...

By Professor Muhammad Amaraand Dr. Abdul Rahman Mari The Palestinian issue is at the centre of the conflict between Israel and the Arab world. Starting with the early Zionists’ lobbying around Europe’s capitals in the early twentieth century, through Britain’s “Balfour Declaration” and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire...

When he began his first period in office in 1996, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received advice from a group of scholars and experts. Under the chairmanship of Richard Perle, one of the staunchest of US Zionist neo-conservatives, the group aimed to formulate an alternative strategy to Oslo-Taba, which...

Israeli authorities are planning to launch a campaign of expulsion against thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank. This ethnic cleansing will be carried out mainly under the pretext that the individuals are originally from the Gaza Strip or are resident in the occupied territory “illegally”. The military...

The steel wall being built by Egypt along the border with Gaza is “almost finished”. An Egyptian security source said that only three kilometres remain to be completed, representing the most difficult stage in the construction of the wall in the section between Salaheddin and Barahma, which is densely...

Dr. Abdel Sattar Qassem The apparent impasse over Israeli settlements – is their construction going to be halted or not? – makes Palestinians wonder what the Jewish state and its American sponsors have in store for them, given that the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League appear to be...

By Dr. Ahmed YousefA lot of attention was given in the media to the recent statement by the Quartet which condemned Israel’s illegal settlement activities. Not so much time was given to a serious analysis of this and previous Quarter statements to evaluate what the latest actually means. Interpretations...

By Fahmi Huwaidi This has been a week of shocks in the Middle east “peace process”. In fact, it’s been a week of scandals which should leave Arabs shamefaced. Forget the talks about talks, the listing of two historic mosques on the occupied West Bank as “Israeli national heritage...

Al-Jazeera Center for Research The Obama administration has made the re-launch of the stalled ‘peace process’ between the Palestinians and the Israelis a top priority in the region with the aim of attaining the two-state solution. For this purpose Obama appointed former senator   George Mitchell to be his special...

American and British newspapers have addressed the recent dispute between the US and Israel from a variety of angles ranging from commentaries on the failure of US policy and anger within the White House to the pressure Israel is currently experiencing and threats to US interests in the region,...

By Awni Farsakh The Arab Committee charged by the Arab League to follow-up on peace proposals has given Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the cover to hold “proximity” talks with the Israelis, for four months. The basis of this cover is that Abbas received “guarantees” from the Americans. At...