via Lobe Log
Only 1% of the world stood by US-Israeli rejection of President Mahmoud Abbas’ request for non-member state status, which puts Palestine on par with the Vatican and allows Palestinian claims to be filed in the International Criminal Court. Lobe Log’s Mitchell Plitnick reported at the time on the politics [...]
via Lobe Log
You will not hear me say this often, but Hossein Shariatmadari — Iran’s irascible and intractable editor of the hardline Kayhan daily — makes one important point in this editorial. Although a few months ago Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei referred in general terms to the fact that Iran had been [...]
via Lobe Log
By Richard Javad Heydarian
The recent war in Gaza has been portrayed as a political dividend for the main protagonists, namely Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Egypt’s Mohammad Morsi, and the Hamas leadership in Gaza, despite the tremendous psychological, infrastructural and humanitarian costs borne by innocent civilians, especially the Palestinians.
As Hamas and [...]
via Lobe Log
When I was living in Cairo, the transition to winter was sometimes smooth. The beastly oven of summer changed slowly into a bearable fall of cool-warm. The fall moved from the cool-warm to a few weeks of cold, or at least what was cold to Egypt. These were smooth changes. It [...]
via Lobe Log
Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, provides seven takeaways from the Gaza ceasefire in the Daily Beast. From Number 5, “Denying Palestinian political realities just got (much, much) harder”:
Let’s keep this short. Hamas-run Gaza in the midst of conflict with Israel has just played host to the [...]
via Lobe Log
The Gaza Strip, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt and the State of Israel, is 25 miles long. At its narrowest point it is less than 4 miles wide, and at its maximum width, it’s 7.5 miles wide — a total area of 141 square miles. With a population of 1.7 million [...]
By Nadia Hijab
via al Shabaka
Whenever Middle East tensions rise, observers wonder whether the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt will weather the storm. It is no different this time. Asked at last Friday’s daily briefing if the peace treaty was “in jeopardy”, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, assured correspondents that the [...]
via Lobe Log
Mark Perry — who recently explained that the “chance for calm” has been assassinated by Israel in the past – on the current potential for a ceasefire (via CNN’s transcript):
MARK PERRY, MIDDLE EAST EXPERT: I would have said six hours ago if you had asked me that I [...]
via Lobe Log
If current diplomacy fails, pent up rage on both sides, a cycle of tit-for tat-retaliation, Hamas’ hopes for greater Arab assistance, and a yearning to emerge from this latest round of heavy fighting on better footing than either side did from the last face-off in 2008-2009 could sustain Israeli-Hamas violence for quite a while. Without [...]
via Lobe Log
What a difference four years can make! Almost a week into Operation Pillar of Defense and the Israelis have yet to make the case for the necessity of continuing the attacks on Gaza in order to prevent Iran’s expansion of its influence in the region. No more President Shimon Peres [...]
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