Has America exhibited moral courage by addressing change, or the lack there of, in the world? Or has it squandered our hope for a principled effort to rid American foreign policy of its realist inclinations and desire to cling to paradigms? Many of us have placed our trust in America (i.e., President Obama) to challenge […]
This week, the ballet of heads of state and government will open up at the United Nations headquarter in New York. This year, tensions are a little higher than the previous ones for one reason: Palestine. The Palestinian Authority will be seeking for a change of status within the UN. One of the major concerns […]
Do positive opportunities exist because of the upcoming vote on Palestinian statehood at the UN? Are our diplomats really trying for peace, or are they adhering to a diplomacy of intransigence? Will the development of a mutually hurting stalemate finally allow for peace between Israel and Palestine? The impending vote to recognize Palestinian statehood has inspired […]
Is Turkey’s grandstanding vis-a-vis the Palestine issue hypocritical in light of its own continually deleterious approach to another stateless group – the Kurds? What conditions support the notion that there should or should not be a dichotomy between Turkey’s approach to the two groups – Kurds and Palestinians? With this, how does the apparent contrast […]
News broke recently from various outlets that Israel has been providing training and non-lethal supplies for Jewish settlers in Palestine to defend themselves from an expected onslaught of unrest during the days surrounding Palestine’s bid to seek official recognition from the UN in September. Palestine’s attempt at recognition, while doomed at the outset because of […]
Finding an address to the conflict involving Israel and Palestine, to ensure lasting peace in the Near East, has been nearly impossible. A continual lack of support for Israel, though, has driven us to ask for some sort of  punitive measures to ensure that Palestine does not further endanger peace in the region. The Arabs’ lack […]
I have recently been fortunate to conduct several interviews with some very influential and interesting figures, the latest being with the former U.S. Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman, David J. Dunford. Ambassador Dunford was appointed to Oman in 1992 and served until 1995. He has since retired to Tucson, Arizona, where he is an […]
Twilight on the corniche in Beirut in February The chatter in the news and on Twitter today is about President Obama’s big speech on the Middle East at the State Department tomorrow. What will he say? There is no question this is a serious opportunity to get the Arab Spring back on track. It has veered […]
An interesting debate has begun over at Foregin Policy. Last Tuesday, Israel’s vice premier and minister of strategic affairs Moshe Ya’alon wrote a provactive article that blames Palestinians for stalling the peace process. He writes that Palestinians, “instead of concluding a deal with Israel…have demonstrated a total unwillingness to compromise, often favoring terrorism, as witnessed […]
What will Jerusalem be like in twenty years? Today, the city is divided into predominately Jewish west Jerusalem and predominately Palestinian east Jerusalem. East Jerusalem itself is striped with both Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods. Quality of life in different neighborhoods varies dramatically, but it is safe to say that Jerusalem’s Jews enjoy a far greater […]
After being shut down last month under the pretense of having no valid operating license, Nativity TV is still not back on the air. Nativity TV is the only Christian television station in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and operates out of Bethlehem. Last month, after the TV station was shut down by the PA, an […]
This week, President Lula kicked off his tour of the Middle East, the first time a Brazilian head of state has been to Israel. His visit began on Sunday in Israel, and Lula will continue on to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders and to Jordan to conclude his trip. In Israel, President […]
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