Israel has taken its share of lumps over the past year for entertaining an array of tactics that critics warn will undercut its democracy, from bills penalizing human-rights advocacy groups to measures that would make journalists …
Mahmoud Abbas
The Mainstreaming of Hamas Continues as Palestinian Unity Gains Steam
One of the least-noticed consequences of the Arab Spring might be called the “mainstreaming of Hamas.” The chief of the Palestinian party and militia, which the West knows chiefly for its suicide attacks on Israel, has …
“The People Are Suffocating”: West Bank Economy Struggles Under Pressure From U.S. Congress
“Does this look like the city of Ramallah?” asks Jawad Tamimi, in the doorway of his store on the main street of downtown Ramallah. The scene is very nearly normal: Sidewalks crowded with pedestrians. The aroma of roasting …
Hamas Edges Closer to the Mainstream: Agreeing to Nonviolence, Opening the Door to Recognizing Israel
The leaders of the two biggest Palestinian parties met in Cairo on Thanksgiving, and just going by the headlines afterward, you’d have thought nothing had happened. “Palestinians talk unity, no sign of progress,” said Reuters. AP: “Palestinian rivals talk, but fail to resolve rifts.” But read the stories, and it becomes clear that a …
Netanyahu’s Response to UNESCO’s Embrace of the Palestinians: Expand the Settlements
The government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made its answer to Palestinian membership in UNESCO, and it’s an interesting one: Accelerating construction in the West Bank settlements.
Construction of some 2,000 housing units will be hastened to bring more Israelis onto Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 …
Palestinian Statehood Gets Recognized by UNESCO: What’s Next?
Unesco’s approval of full membership for Palestine is not without practical significance: The U.N. organization bestows and enforces the status of World Heritage Site, and with portions of the Heritage-aspirant Dead Sea located in Palestinian territory, as well as Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and the Hebron tomb of Abraham and …
Palestinian U.N. Recognition Bid Gets Balkanized
Everyone talks about the United States using its Security Council veto to stop the Palestinian application for UN membership, but there’s another calculation driving the most intense diplomacy now bubbling around the UN bid: If the Palestinian bid doesn’t get nine votes from other members of the Security Council, Washington won’t have …
How the Middle East Conflict Could Look Like “Seinfeld”
Some days reality defies improvement. Tuesday may have been such a day in Jerusalem, where the actor Jason Alexander of “Seinfeld” fame paid a call on Shimon Peres, the president of Israel. Alexander was visiting the Holy Land as part of a pro-peace delegation from a grassroots group called OneVoice, dedicated to finding a two-state …
Good for Hamas? Ramallah Residents Weigh-in on the Gilad Shalit Prisoner Exchange
Just how good for Hamas was the Gilad Shalit deal? A good place to inquire was downtown Ramallah, the West Bank city, just north of Jerusalem. It’s the main stronghold for Hamas’ rival faction, the secular Fatah party led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, popularly known as Abu Mazen. If Hamas is getting props around …
On World Tour for Palestinian Statehood, Mahmoud Abbas Still Talks About Talks with Israelis
In the wake of the Palestinian application for full United Nations membership, the game is catch-me-if-you-can. Israel and Washington are painting the UN bid as an effort to achieve the dream of statehood without negotiations. The Palestinians argue that it’s a way to assure future negotiations are meaningful, the previous 18 years …
Back from the UN, Mild-Mannered Abbas Hailed as Man of Steel
The man who lives in Yasser Arafat’s shadow returned from New York to a reception that suggested a measure of newfound respect from a Palestinian public that likes its leaders to show some steel.
Abu Mazen, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is known here, always had the respect of the population that elected him in …
Watching Abbas in Ramallah: A People Tired of Waiting
At one end of Ramallah, Israeli riot police line up behind barricades, stubby tear gas rifles leveled at shoulder height toward the few dozen young Palestinian men who reliably emerge from the Qalandia refugee camp when Israeli soldiers emerge from the checkpoint of the same name two blocks away. Camera crews set up between them, …
Netanyahu to Abbas: Why Not Kibbitz in New York?
“Let’s use New York for negotiations,” Israel’s minister for intelligence suggested to a roomful of journalist and diplomats bright and early Monday morning. And before the witching hour Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was making it official:
“I call on the chairman of the Palestinian Authority to launch direct …