Asia & Americas

US Secretary of State John Kerry's current visit to Palestine was foreshadowed by a familiar dark cloud; every such high-level American visit results in more pressure on the Palestinian...

This week's decision by the Israeli daily Maariv to publish a report which claimed that John Kerry supported the organisers of the Freedom Flotilla was significant in many respects....

President Obama's address at the UN General Assembly must have been a welcome relief to Egypt's de facto rulers. Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy described it as "positive" and reflective...

It's almost one hundred years since the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Spurred on by a promise of recognition from Britain and France, Arab leaders sought independence...

Palestine was shaken by a number of diplomatic tremors this week. The aftershocks were felt as far away as Washington, forcing US Secretary of State John Kerry to postpone...

The stage setting was as good as it gets; they hardly come bigger. US Secretary of State John Kerry chose the backdrop of the Davos conference of the World...

Despite the drums of war on the Korean Peninsula, US Secretary of State John Kerry has been busy shuttling back and forth to the Middle East. His latest visit,...

The obviously orchestrated decision by the American and Israeli governments to release millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority (PA) may be too little too late. If the purpose...

Now that the Obama show has left town the Middle East can return to reality. All eyes are focussed on the 24th meeting of Arab heads of state due...

Israel's interim Defence Minister Ehud Barak was back in Washington this week for consultations with senior American officials. His monthly pilgrimages to Capitol Hill now seem more frequent than...

On the 65th anniversary of the UN partition resolution which allotted to a minority of Jews most of the land of Palestine, the Palestinians have returned to the world...

Hope and change have been the defining slogans of Barack Obama's political career. In his inimitable way he has now convinced the American electorate twice that he is capable...

Israel foresees a nuclear agreement between Iran and the G6, Haaretz newspaper said Sunday. According to a senior Israeli official quoted by Haaretz, a permanent agreement on Iran's nuclear...

When the United Nations General Assembly convenes for its annual meeting next month, the PLO/PA will make a request for "non-member state" status. Even if successful, the move would...

Two exceptional developments took place in the Middle East this week; neither Egypt nor Israel had witnessed anything like them before. Never in the past sixty years has a...

The Americans would be foolish to commit themselves to an attack on Iran based on Israeli intelligence, for the latter's claims about a nuclear threat from Tehran go back...

A media frenzy followed the publication of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's description of Benjamin Netanyahu as "a liar" during a private discussion with US President Barack Obama. The exchange...

A discordant trend is tearing apart the Western alliance and its Middle East policies. The armed intervention in Libya has highlighted this graphically, with the US giving only token...

No one could have expected that US President Barak Obama's resistance to the Israeli campaign against him, led by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, in response to statements he made...

With a better track record of positive action, Barak Obama could have returned to Cairo to deliver his latest speech on the Middle East. Having failed to deliver on...

Arab dictators were not the only ones to have been taken aback by the scale and speed of events in the region. Their allies were also caught off guard....

The uprising in Libya and the government's response dominate the news.  After the success of the revolution which ousted President Mubarak in Egypt, it only took a few days...

It appears the United States efforts to resume direct negotiations between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Israeli Government has started to bear fruit. This comes amid widespread...

As the US mid-term elections draw tantalisingly closer the battle lines have been drawn. At the centre of them all is the Palestine issue. This is the message from...

By Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.), Tufts University, October 15, 2010 As an American, I look at the results of U.S. policies in the Middle East and...

By Paul R. Pillar Lately one hasn't heard much of the screaming against the observation that supporters of a certain Middle Eastern state exercise influence over U.S. policy that...

It is shameful to see the United States grovelling before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing coalition government. The US government is Israel's biggest political and...

American Vice President Joe Biden has criticised his country for putting pressure on Israel. He opposes Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, 1985 recordings have revealed. The recordings purportedly belonged...

American expert of Middle Eastern issues at Wilson Research Centre, Aron Miller, has said that Israel is not ready to grant the minimum demands of Palestinians in any peace...

Sudan has harshly criticised the US State Department's annual global terrorism report, released on Wednesday, which names Sudan as a "state sponsor of terrorism". The Sudanese Foreign Ministry issued...

Israeli police yesterday rejected the US State Department's annual global terrorism report which named Jewish extremists' attacks against Palestinians as terrorist acts saying such incidents cannot be compared with...

Former US President Bill Clinton has revealed that during the Camp David negotiations, which took place in 2000 between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and then-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat,...