Marian Houk

Still no cheers and applause, after the two-day event in Washington last week where the Obama Administration hosted Israeli and Palestinian delegations to relaunch "direct" talks that were suspended 20 months earlier, as Israel launched a massive military operation in Gaza. Here is a round up of some interesting post-talk positions.

An invitation by the Obama Administration has managed to get the principals involved in a relaunch of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks -- more than twenty months after the fading U.S.-sponsored Annapolis peace talks convened by the former Bush Administration were suspended, as Israel began what became a massive three-week military operation in Gaza. The Obama Administration's Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell told journalists in Washington on Thursday 2 September that "Any realistic appraisal of the situation, including the recent history - by which I mean the last two decades - makes clear that there are very serious differences between the parties, that there are many difficulties which lay ahead both in terms of the substance of the issues, the impact on their domestic politics, the needs and interests of their societies. We have not, of course, attempted to prescribe what they can or should say about any issue. These are independent and extremely able leaders representing the interests of their societies. What we have sought to convey in innumerable conversations that I have had personally with both leaders over many, many months is President Obama's conviction that despite all of the difficulties - near term, long term, political, substantive, personal, and otherwise - the paramount goal of making the lives of their citizens more safe, more secure, more prosperous, more full can best be achieved by a meaningful and lasting peace between the parties and in the region; that the alternative to that poses difficulties and dangers far greater to the individuals, to the leaders, to their societies, than those risks which they run in an effort to reach an agreement that brings about their lasting peace"... Here is a look at some of the highlights of the diplomatic action.

Critical hours lie ahead as a Libyan-chartered cargo ship carrying food and medicine destined for the Gaza Strip sails past Egypt's Port Said. The Israeli Navy made contacout with the ship hours ago, to emphasize that it cannot sail through though an area under formal Israeli blockade. The ship's stated destination is the Egyptian port of El-Arish, in the northern Sinai, not far from Egypt's Rafah crossing into Gaza. What will happen now?

After weeks of delay -- due to a country-wide strike in the entire Israeli court system -- the Ir Amim organization working for a Jerusalem that is equitably shared between its two peoples and three religions has finally been able to file a petitition to the Israeli Supreme Court asking for cancellation of a concession of one of the world's most sensitive archeological and religious sites, now referred to by Israelis as the City of David, which happens to be located in a crowded and delapidated Palestinian area of East Jerusalem. The site, including extensive arecheological diggings which Palestinians say have undermined the structural integrity of their homes and streets, was given to the El-Ad group, a private organization of Israeli Jewish settlers, to run as they see fit. Palestinians in East Jerusalem have no agreed or effective political representation. Ir Amim argues that "no other national park in the country is managed by a private organization, with a clear political orientation and agenda". Ir Amim's Director, Yehudit Oppenheimer, stated that "The state of Israel has privatized one of the most sensitive historic sites in the country ... The public's interest will be best served if national parks would be run by government authorities who were established for that exact purpose". Attorney Michael Sfard, who is presenting the petition on behalf of Ir Amim with Attorney Neta Patrick, said that "The delegation of authorities to El-Ad is illegal".

As a Libyan charity was set sail in a chartered cargo ship carrying food and medical aid destined for the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense and Foreign Ministers of Israel had already intervened to discourage them. An Israeli naval assault at sea at the end of May on six ships sailing as a Freedom Flotilla to Gaza resulted in the deaths of eight Turkish men and one American high school student of Turkish origin. When it was first announced in January 2009 during the Gaza war, there was no public challenge to Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. But Israel did not do a great job of publicizing and explaining this formal naval blockade -- at least until the Freedom Flotilla was already on its way. Now, the lessons do appear to have been absorbed. Israel's UN Ambassador has written to the United Nations to ask for support to stop attempts to challenge the naval blockade. And, for better or for worse, all indications suggest that Israel's Naval blockade of Gaza -- a measure which is rooted in international customary law -- appears to be quietly gaining international assent.

The Israeli government has developed a new approach to its sanctions against the Gaza Strip that have been administered by the Army ever since the Israeli cabinet decided three years ago was an "enemy entity" or "hostile territory". Many major actors have welcomed the new policy. But human rights organizations are both sceptical and critical, and say that much more is needed. Sari Bashi of the Israeli human rights organization said about the Government plan, "if they are to be believed, [it] would allow only 70 percent of what Gaza received in 2005."

A Hamas-affiliated East Jerusalem Palestinian politician reportedly said in court last Thursday: "I am prepared to do anything in order to stay in Jerusalem". Will that include signing a document promising to cut all links and ties to Hamas? This is not yet clear, but may be the basis of a deal that his lawyer suggested may be in the works. Three other Hamas-affiliated East Jerusalem Palestinian politicians are facing the same dilemma. The choice is not an easy one -- but if the deal doesn't work, or if international pressure doesn't succeed, the four man may be sent against their will to the West Bank on the other side of Israel's security Wall, where a security crack-down against Hamas has been going on for years without any sign of lettig up. They may be pushed from the frying pan, into the fire.

Behind-the-scenes activity to prevent the possible imminent "deportation" of Palestinian East Jerusalem politicians elected in 2006 to the Palestinian Authority's now dormant Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), or parliamant, may be intense. But there is relatively little public protest, at least until now. Three elected Palestinian parliamentarians who are awaiting possible "deportation" from Jerusalem -- to where, is not clear -- are now participating in a sit-in at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a beleagured neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The fourth man under imminent threat of "deportation" is sitting in an Israeli jail cell, awaiting a possible court hearing on Sunday.

Israeli police are preparing to carry out a 2006 order to "deport" -- whatever that means -- from Jerusalem an elected Hamas-affiliated member of the moribund Palestinian parliament. The sentence was pending while the man, Mohammad Abu Tir, spent over four years in an Israeli jail on the same charges -- that is, being Hamas-affiliated, and elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Three other men are facing the same situation by the weekend. And U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell is here, trying to make progress in "proximity" talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Yes, an Israeli Border Police person has reportedly admitted shooting a Palestinian man, Ziad Julani, at point blank range after what witnesses claim was an accidental injuring, while driving, that hurt several other Border Police on foot patrol in a crowded commercial and residential area of downtown East Jerusalem after Friday prayers on June 11. The Border Police shooter explained that he acted because he thought Ziad was a "terrorist". But, as one blogger has written overnight, "There are a few problems with his account" ... And, it continues to be a matter of law -- or lack of it -- in occupied Palestinian territory, and of respect for human life.

Four Palestinian men from East Jerusalem are awaiting imminent "deportation" -- when, and to where, is not clear. They are all elected members of the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC), or parliament, who ran on the Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform party platform in January 2006 elections. To general surprise, Hamas-backed candidates won the majority of seats in the PLC -- after which Israel and the Quartet (composed U.S., Europe, Russia, + the United Nations) imposed harsh sanctions on the new Hamas-led Palestinian government. Then, Israel detained and jailed most of the Hamas-affiliated candidates, preventing the PLC from taking any decisions for lack of a quorum. Many of these Palestinian legislators -- including the men now facing deportation -- served four-year terms, and have recently been released. Now, after they served time jail, a "deportation" order made in 2006 may be enforced against these men. Why? They live in East Jerusalem, which Israel effectivly annexed just after its capture in the June 1967 war, and Israel says they "were deemed to be residents of Israel and, therefore, obliged to be loyal to Israel". However, the Israeli Interior Ministry reportedly argued, "the moment they entered the [Palestinian] Legislative Council and the government, on behalf of the Hamas terror organization, which is hostile to Israel…they very seriously violated their minimal obligation of loyalty to the State of Israel". One of the four men told Amira Hass of Haaretz that "The whole world, led by America, demanded that Abu Mazen [President Mahmoud Abbas] hold elections, aware that our participation was a condition for holding these elections. They didn´t say in advance that the price of participation was revoking residency"… If carried out, these deportations would be based on purely political beliefs. Ironically, East Jerusalemites can vote in Palestinian elections (as well as in Jerusalem municipal elections, but not Israeli national elections, because they are permanent residents of Israel, but not citizens). But, if East Jerusalemites run in Palestinian elections to the Palestinian parliament on a ticket backed by Hamas, they are then subject to deportation -- though it is a clear violation of the U.S.-backed Road Map toward peace...

This was portrayed as a defining moment in the Obama presidency: would the President have the courage to fire the man (General Stanley McChrystal,commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan) who said some rude things in the presence of a journalist (for Rolling Stone magazine) who then in turn published an unbridled account of what he reportedly saw when he hung out with the General and his entourage? It was then re-cast, going all the way to the top -- to the President himself -- as test of "the sacred concept of civilian control of the military". But, was it?

Israel's announcement that it was modifying the regulations of its military-administered sanctions against the Gaza Strip (at least vis-a-vis the land crossings) still leaves many questions unanswered and many issues un-addressed. In the first day after the announcement, however, only 97 truckloads of goods were allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, and on the second day it was up to 130 (whereas before the sanctions were imposed, between 400 and 600 truckloads of material entered daily). But Israeli officials are insisting they have a right to inspect each and every thing that goes in or out of Gaza (except, of course, through the tunnels...)

After due deliberation and much speculative leaking, the Israeli government announced today some changes regarding goods it will now allow into the Gaza Strip through Israeli militay-controlled land crossings -- in particular, Kerem Shalom (which Israel has always wanted the Palestinians to agree to use, but they were not consulted in today's decision). Only weapons -- and the materials used to make weapons (a rather broad list of items, which has included sugar -- will now be barred. But no boats will be allowed to go directly to Gaza, the Israeli government said. Everything must pass through the Israeli-controlled land crossings, and everything must be inspected by Israel. Quartet Middle East Envoy Tony Blair tried to put a positive spin on the situation, calling this "a significant change in policy", even though it only tightens Israeli supervision and control. As one Palestinian official noted, there is no change at all in the policy that bans the movement of people in and out of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli "nuclear whistleblower" - kidnapped in Italy in 1986 as the British Sunday Times prepared to publish his photos of the inside of Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor - served 18 years in jail (11 of them in solitary confinement), after a secret trial. Released in April 2004, he has not been allowed to leave Israel, and various restrictions imposed on his contacts with "foreigners" have been renewed annually. On 23 May he was returned to jail to serve a three-month sentence for violating the bans. Now, Amnesty International reports, Vanunu is back in solitary confinement. And, Amnesty International now calls Vanunu a "prisoner of conscience".

The issues here are the value of human life, and the rule of law. Award-winning Israeli journalist Amira Hass, writing in Haaretz today, reports that witnesses confirm earlier accounts that a Palestinian man driving in stop-and-go traffic in narrow streets of a crowded residential and industrial area of East Jerusalem last Friday afternoon was shot, pursued, and then finished off at close range by Israeli Border Police whose colleagues had been lightly injured in what now seems almost certainly to have been some kind of unintentional accident. But, the Israeli Border Police spokesman, Moshe Pinchay, said there were no fatalities... and more questions are raised.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been shaken by many events in recent years, not least of which is a series of public revelations of their leadership(s) inexplicably cavalier attitude to the needs of their own people. The division between the two parts of the occupied Palestinian territory, three years ago today, after a Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security forces in Gaza, has been neither healed nor overcome, despite years of grandstanding, negotiations and mediations. This split has made it impossible to hold "national" elections for a new President and Legislative Council scheduled for last 24 January. A few weeks later, in February, "local and municipal" elections were set for 17 July, and full preparations went ahead, including voter registration campaigns -- but the local and municipal voting was just postponed indefinitely, the Palestinian Authority Cabinet announced last week. This decision was a shock, and reactions are still coming in. While there is resentment at this embarassing and inconsistent behavior, there is relief at least in some quarters that elections will not now worsen the already deep and bitter political division.

Ziad Julani, a 41-year-old father of three American daughters, was shot by Israeli Border Police in a crowded neighborhood of downtown East Jerusalem last Friday morning. The Israeli Border Police, who have a particularly bad reputation for brutality in dealing with Palestinians, said Ziad was trying to run them over as they were setting up a temporary or "flying" checkpoint in the area outside the Old City of East Jerusalem due to a special security alert about possible protest demonstrations following the forceful Israeli interventionsa week earlier to stop ships sailing together in the eastern Mediterranean as a "Freedom Flotilla", hoping to bring humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials to Gaza. Two Israeli Border Policemen said they were lightly injured in what they claimed was Ziad's attack. Ziad, however, was killed. He was shot in the back as he was trying to get out of his truck and run. Then, eye witnesses say, he was finished off by Border Policeman who approached Ziad who collapsed, wounded on the ground, and fired at least two bullets to the head. One photo shows two bullet wounds to his left cheek, one at the level of his ear, and the other at the level of his mouth. Ziad was unarmed. He had never been involved in any kind of trouble, and his family say he would never have deliberately attacked anyone. They say it is possible he may have accidentally swerved while driving -- but they do not know, and they are asking for an official investigation. Their demand was backed by the Palestinian Authority Cabinet meeting in Ramallah on Monday. The Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din was already doing preliminary field interviews and research.

Because of restrictions placed on access to those detained during the Israeli Navy's forceful interdiction of the Freedom Flotilla of six ships carrying nearly 700 activists and perhaps as many as 60 journalists, little was known about what actually happened -- except what the Israeli Defense Forces wanted to tell us. Now, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's sudden decision to release all the detainees immediately, the stories are beginning to emerge.

Grief, then shock. Those were the reactions to the Israeli naval assault at sea of the Freedom Flotilla, which was heading to "break the siege" of Gaza before dawn on Monday. Three days later, still much is not known about what happened. But the international ramifications are widening.

Israel is preparing a difficult welcome for the Freedom Flotilla now sailing towards Gaza, laden with thousands of tons of humanitarian equipment and materials that Israel has banned from entry into the Gaza Strip. Haaretz has reported that "An IDF spokesman said that the army is prepared to carry out the instructions of the executive branch in preventing the ´Freedom Flotilla´ from reaching the Gaza Strip. He said the flotilla was a provocation in the guise of a humanitarian act, that there is no shortage of food in Gaza, and that the border was open to any organization or state to transfer goods … IDF sources said they were concerned that terrorists may try to use the ´Freedom Flotilla´ to enter the Strip or smuggle in weapons. In Ashdod Port, a large tent has been set up complete with air-conditioning, intended to receive flotilla participants. After the navy leads the vessels to the port, the activists are expected to be taken into the tent where they will undergo a procedure similar to that undergone by sailors entering any port. The process will include security checks, after which each participant will speak with a representative of the Interior Ministry who will propose that the activist sign an undertaking to keep away from Israel. If the participant agrees, he or she will be flown back to their country of origin at Israel´s expense. If they refuse the offer, they will be arrested. They will then undergo medical checks and an Magen David Adom ambulance team will be on hand in case any require hospital treatment. Then they will undergo further medical checks by the Israel Prison Services. From here they will be taken to a detention center in Beersheba. Thousands of IDF and government ministry representatives will take part in the operation. Certain distinct groups such as diplomats will be accompanied by representatives of the Foreign Ministry. Food and beverages will be supplied throughout the process. Authorities are also preparing for the possibility of provocative behavior, which will be handled by Prison Services staff. The process is expected to take just a few hours before mission members are transferred to the airport or detention center". Israeli government officials have said that the participants in the Freedom Flotilla will be charged with illegal entry into Israel, which they did not intend to visit in the first place...

The Israeli Ministry of Defense told journalists on Wednesday evening that it will not allow the Freedom Flotilla, now moving toward a rendez-vous in the Mediterranean sea carrying tens of thousands of tons of needed consumer goods -- including construction materials -- to reach its destination on the shores of the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely-populated strips of land on earth, where 1.5 million are living without any reasonable chance of escape. The activists are still saying they will not be deterred. The projected plan is for the Freedom Flotilla to head to Gaza on Saturday.

The London Sunday Times publication, in 1986, of the photos taken by nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu at his workplace -- Israel's nuclear reactor plant in Dimona -- provided confirmation to the world at large of the possible military application of the supposedly purely scientific activities being conducted there. The week the photos were published, however, Vanunu was already in secret Israeli custody. He was convicted in a closed-door trial some months later, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. He served every day of his term -- and spent over 11 years in solitary confinement in the process, during which he questioned his own mental health. He was released in April 2004, but forbidden to leave the country, or speak to "foreigners", or even to approach an embassy. The restrictions on his release have been renewed annually. On Sunday 23 May, Vanunu was returned to jail on a three-month sentence after being arrested in the company of a Norweigan woman in late December. Vanunu was offered an option to do community service as an alternative to jail time, but he refused to do this in mainly-Jewish West Jerusalem, where he felt he would be harassed and probably also assaulted. But, there are apparently no community services in mainly-Palestinian East Jerusalem. So, Vanunu is now back in jail... and Amnesty International now says it intends to campaign for his immediate and unconditional release.

Palestinian negotiators are reportedly very mad about a report published in the Wall Street Journal today saying that they have made a "bold opening offer" that includes concessions on territory that they have never made before. A statement was issued to the media on Friday afternoon angrily denying and denouncing the report, which was subsequently picked up widely by other media outlets. No, the Palestinians say, there is no change from the offer they made to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during the Annapolis process of negotiations to swap 1.9 percent of West Bank land for an equal exchange of territory from Israel. Olmert had previously indicated, in the direct talks under the Annapolis process, that he wanted to take 6.5 percent of West Bank land, and make a deal. Those talks broke down when the Israeli military launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza on 27 December 2008 -- and they have not been resumed. U.S. Special Envoy has just coaxed the two parties to engage in "indirect" or "proximity" talks that have just started under his auspices, and two rounds have been completed in the past two weeks.

Noted American scholar Noam Chomsky, a professor emeritus at MIT and long-time political critic of injustice and oppression around the world, said in a television interview on Sunday evening that "I cannot see any basis for misunderstanding ... The facts were completely clear to everyone ... It was a decision by the (Israeli) Ministry of Interior" to deny him and his daughter entry to the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge from Jordan earlier in the day. The Allenby Bridge is the only crossing that Palestinians with Palestinian ID cards are allowed, by Israel, to use to go anywhere in the outside world.

Another Israeli denial of entry -- this time, into the occupied Palestinian West Bank. And, this time, it was Noam Chomsky, renowned American academic and intellectual, who has been for decades a prominent left-wing critic of many international developments, including of American and Israeli policies. After this ordeal, the Israeli Ministry of Interior has reportedly suggested this was due to a "misunderstanding" -- and a spokesperson has said that if the Israeli military Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) gives the "all clear", then Chomsky will be given entry. It was not clear why the Ministry of Defense was being asked to rule on this matter. However, Chomsky has already returned to Jordan, from where he told Israeli Channel 10 television that he was told by Israeli interrogators that he was accused of having "written things the Israeli government didn't like"

The situation in Gaza is dire. An Israeli military-administered embargo that has been tightened since the Hamas take-over of the Gaza strip in mid-2007 has severely restricted what Israel allows into the densely-populated Gaza Strip to what is called the "humanitarian minimum". Egypt is building a steel barrier extending 25 meters underground to stop the tunnelling activity that has been Gaza's lifeline during this embargo. During Israel's unprecedented military Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, it also formally imposed a naval blockade on Gaza -- aimed both at stopping weapons smuggling and also at blocking international activists from high-profile and risky but mainly symbolic attempts to bring humanitarian aid in by sea. Now, Turkey, a major regional actor with previously close relationship of cooperation with Israel, may put its weight behind a new effort to change the seige affecting 1.5 million Palestinians (half of them children) living in Gaza.

Four Palestinian teenagers were shot and killed by Israeli fire near Nablus in the West Bank during the past 24 hours. While the Israeli military is publicly maintaining that only "crowd control" measures were used -- and rubber-coated steel bullets were used only after tear gas and stun grenades were of no effect -- an Israeli human rights group, Israeli activists, Palestinian doctors, and one anonymous senior IDF officer now all say that only live ammunition could have produced the wounds that killed the first two youth in the village of Iraq Burin. Two other Palestinian teenagers were killed on Sunday, after being accosted in a field by Israeli forces. The Palestinian leadership is now calling for international intervention.

The Israeli military extended its total closure of the Palestinian West Bank from last Friday until Tuesday at midnight, as tensions continue to run high. Separate-but-related Palestinian demonstrations continued Monday in East Jerusalem (about the restrictions on Palestinian worshippers and about what Palestinians say they fear is an attempt to undermine Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites in the Old City) and the rest of the West Bank (about The Wall and the military checkpoints). Just before dawn on Monday morning, the Israeli military also entered the West Bank villages of Bil'in and Nil'in, to post notices of a military order apparently issued three weeks ago, banning the presence of Israeli or international activists, or any Palestinians who don't actually live there, from the villages all day on Friday for the six months. There was an astonished reaction to this new attempt to ban protest demonstrations.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said at Tel Aviv University on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's new statement -- that it could take years to actually construct 1,600 new housing units in one Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem -- was "significant" -- because it allows time for negotiations to resolve the issue. Does he now believe, or did he get private assurances, that Netanyahu has issued a go-slow policy for this specific plan for new settlement housing? Two days ago, Biden issued an unprecedented statement condemning the Israeli government announcement about the 1,600 units, during his high-level visit to the region. In his speech in Tel Aviv, Biden ignored signals in recent days -- and clear statements made by Arab League officials and Palestinian negotiators overnight - that, contrary to an American announcement made earlier this week, there would be no Palestinian participation in "indirect" negotiations under U.S. auspices until the Israeli government cancelled its plans for these and all other new settlement housing units. But, Israeli peace activists say, there are at least 40,000 other housing units being planned in various settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Both the Palestinian President and the American Vice President said that yesterday's Israeli announcement of further steps to construct additional housing in the Jewish settlement of Ramat Shlomo, next to the Palestinian village of Shuafat in East Jerusalem, "undermined trust", and any proposal for negotiations. Yesterday evening, Vice President Biden issued an unusually strong statement in which he said: "I condemn the decision of the government of Israel"... But, it was not enough to persuade Palestinian negotiators, who said, after Biden's visit to the Palestinian Presidential headquarters in Ramallah, that proposed "indirect" negotiations had not yet started.

The Palestinians appear to have been edged out in Round One of the proposed new "indirect talks" with Israel that are to be managed by U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell. Despite Palestinian insistence that negotiations must take up where they left off (at the end of December 2008, when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip), the U.S. made a very official public announcement yesterday evening (Jerusalem time) that the process has begun. Now, the Israeli media reports today that the U.S. has backed the Israeli government's position instead, and has given assurances that any previous offers are "non-binding". What will the Palestinian leadership -- and the Palestinians -- do now?

A Palestinian official in Ramallah says that they are still waiting for an American response about the terms of the negotiations that the U.S. State Department is saying have already started. For the Palestinians, it is not so important whether the negotiations are styled as "indirect" or "proximity" talks. Instead, this official said, "Ihe problem we have with the Americans is that they are speaking about ´relaunching´ these negotiations, while we want to ´resume´ negotiations at the point they ended on 27 December 2008 [the day Israel launched an unprecedented three-week military operation against Hamas in Gaza]. But Israel doesn´t want to do that". He added that "We are here to negotiate to obtain our freedom. If this turns out to be just an attempt to make a good PR [public relations] campaign for Mr. Netanyahu, then of course we are not willing to do simply that".

The Palestinian leadership has now received qualified approval to embark on "indirect" negotiations with Israel that will be brokered by the U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell. The agreement is that the process will be evaluated after four months, and the U.S. is supposed to state publicly if either party has been an obstacle to the process. Previous negotiations have gone on for years without any result but a maintenance of the status quo, which is an Israeli miltary occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Gaza is isolated and under total Israeli blockade -- a situation Israeli officials have argued is an end to its occupation there. Part of the present process seems to be managing the situation until the exclusion of Hamas, the winner of the 2006 parliamentary elections, and now in control in the Gaza Strip after ousting Fatah-led security forces in mid-June 2007, is complete. But, how do all the political leaderships involved think they're going to be able keep a lid on this explosive situation?

Is the Israeli pressure on Palestinians in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem just a pressure tactic to force the resumption of negotiations on its terms? This is what some Israelis say, as tensions mount surrounding "holy places" in East Jerusalem and in Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jericho, and as Palestinian demonstrations against The Wall continue to be repressed. There is daily speculation about the imminent outbreak of a third intifada, or uprising. But the Palestinian leadership is on the verge of getting final approval for a new series of U.S.-mediated indirect talks with Israel. The idea, at least as Palestinian sources describe it, is to have these talks limited to a period of four months only. If there is no progress, they say, then the impasse will be taken straight to the United Nations Security Council...

After one of his many frequent trips abroad, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was back at work today in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority. He had a full agenda.

In a worrisome and unprecedented step, Hamas authorities have detained freelance British journalist Paul Martin at a courthouse in Gaza City on Sunday, and ordered him held in Gaza's central jail for 15 days on suspicion of violating what a Hamas spokesman called "Palestinian law". Palestinian journalists who were present at the courthouse during the arrest say that Martin had arrived to testify on behalf of a Palestinian "fighter" who is being accused of collaboration with Israel -- a dangerous accusation in the charged circumstances. But, according to a Hamas spokesman, it was testimony from the Palestinian on trial -- in whose defense Martin was to testify -- that laid the basis for Martin's arrest. One Palestinian media source reported briefly that Martin may be accused of trying to locate Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held captive somewhere in Gaza since late June 2006. Israel wants Shalit released, and has said they will keep up the pressure at all the crossings into Gaza until Shalit's safe return home.

Israeli military raids have been occurring nightly in the Israeli occupied West Bank, targetting both Palestinians and the few internationals who are here supporting their non-violent resistance. This is what it means to be living under occupation. And these are terrifying raids, especially as they occur in the dark and the cold, when the people targetted are most deeply asleep. Since mid-December, there has been a notable intensification. The tactics are morally, politically and legally questionable -- but the Israeli military keeps pushing ahead with them. On the few occasions when internationals have been hauled before Israeli courts, the Israeli judges have criticized many aspects of the modus operandi -- but the Israeli military only modifies their actions slightly to conform to the letter of the (Israeli) law. The Palestinian Authority is largely silent, with only intermittant pleas for an end to the incursions...

Members of prominent Palestinian families from Jerusalem have come out today in protest against plans to build a Museum of Tolerance on top of part of the ancient Mamilla Cemetery where their ancestors are buried. Until now, must of the opposition to the building plan came from Israeli and Jewish rights activists who have argued, in part, that the construction offended their Jewish beliefs and values, and was against Jewish religious and moral teachings. Today's initiatve is reaching out to a larger audience, and includes filing a petition in Geneva to various United Nations Human Rights bodies, and to the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), which is responsible for protecting the world´s cultural heritage. Much of the momentum behind today´s initiative comes from Palestinians who grew up and who still live in the diaspora that developed after the 1948 war, many in the United States. At a public discussion some months ago in [East] Jerusalem, one Palestinian offered to donate alternative land for construction of the proposed Museum of Tolerance near The Wall which Israel is currently completing around the Jerusalem area to isolate areas of dense Palestinian population. At that alternative site, the Palestinian donor said, both Israelis and Palestinians could visit the future Museum of Tolerance. The lawyers for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance who were also in the audience, merely smiled, without replying.

Palestinian map expert Khalil Toufakji -- who has Israeli permanent residency status due to his presence in East Jerusalem at the time of the June 1967 war -- has just been given an order banning him from travel outside the country for the next six months. No explanation was given other than "security reasons" -- which are of course confidential and cannot be disclosed even during a court appeal, which Toufakji is at least entitled to make within 14 days of receiving the order. Toufakji said that he was given no other restrictions -- and he will continue to speak out, in media interviews and on television, as an expert in Israeli developments on the ground affecting the status of Palestinian land and lives in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Just days before the UN Secretary-General is due to report on whether of not there have been independent investigations into what happened during last winter's Israeli military operation in Gaza by (1) Israel, and by the (2) Hamas -- and by (3) the West-Bank-based Palestinian Authority as well -- new revelations continue to emerge based on interviews with key (but unnamed) Israeli military officers.

Friday prayers are being held this week in a mosque in Burrin village, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank, under Israeli occupation. The mosque has been under construction for a while, and is nearly complete, except for the minaret. Five days ago, Israeli soldiers delivered demolition orders. Will the Friday worship service help prevent the demonstration? Some distance away, in Bil'in village west of Ramallah, post-Friday-prayer demonstrations have been held for the past five years against The Wall which cuts off a substantial amount of the village lands. The Israeli Supreme Court ordered the Israeli military to re-route The Wall months ago, but nothing has happened. And, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Israeli activists who have gone to the area every Friday for the past three or four months -- and over 70 of them have been arrested -- are prepared for a new confrontation this week, with Jewish settler militants vowing to counter-demonstrate. Is this strategy gaining new momentum? Will that make a difference?

In his State of the Union speech on Wednesday night, Obama avoided any mention of the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate -- an area where some say he is facing his greatest and most disappointing failure to date. Middle East expert Juan Cole said that Obama "needs desperately to get a better handle ... and take control of policy". Harvard Professor Stephen Walt wrote earlier that "It's not as if the dysfunctional condition of Israeli and Palestinian internal politics was a dark mystery when Obama took office ... The point is not that Obama's initial peace effort in the Middle East has failed; the real lesson is that he didn't really try". Some are now calling for Obama's Special Envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to resign.

The Guantanamo Naval Base Detention Facility was opened on 11 January 2002, to imprison suspects in the War on Terror declared by former President George W. Bush. At the time that this War on Terror was declared, experts warned that it could be a long time before it could finally (if ever) be declared over -- a fact which could create multiple problems, including what to do with the detainees being held in various covert facilities around the world. A year ago, on 22 January 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order directing that "The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order". He also ordered the "appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base". The Presidential order noted that this would "further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice". President Obama has also ordered an end to the terminology ("War on Terror") -- but it seems that the policies and practices die harder. One report suggests that torture has continued in the Guantanamo detention facility even after Obama's Executive Order...

Israeli anti-occupation demonstrators have begun holding weekly Friday afternoon protests in recent months over the Green Line that demarcates East and West Jerusalem, to enter the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in support of the Palestinian families who have been evicted from their homes -- built by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA -- by Israeli court order and replaced by Jewish settlers. Arrests of the Israeli demonstrators in recent weeks have risen -- and Israeli police have reportedly said they intend to break up today's demonstration as well.

Jared Malsin was deported from Israel on Wednesday morning, and was flown to the United States, after signing a document asking to leave Israel that he believed was part of his own lawyer's strategy to get him out of eight awful days of detention at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport while pursuing his legal struggle to challenge the Israeli charges made against him.

A shock announcement was made at 2:20 am Wednesday morning that American journalist Jared Malsin, who had been working for a privately-owned Palestinian news agency in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, will be deported from Israel on the next plane to Prague. On Tuesday morning, a Tel Aviv judge assigned to the case had called for a hearing into the charges lodged against Malsin by Israeli interrogators. What happened after that is unclear...

A Tel Aviv judge has chosen the middle ground, and decided to order a hearing into the Israeli Attorney General's decision that American-born journalist and editor, Jared Malsin, should be deported. Jared Malsin travelled out of Israel in order to renew his visa, and was denied re-entry and detained upon his return. According to Ma´an colleagues today, Judge Vardi expresed concern with the accusation by Israeli security, apparently accepted at face value by the Israeli Ministry of Interior, that Jared "refused to cooperate." Such an accusation covers, however, a wide latitude of possible circumstances. It also makes it seem as though the accusations against Jared were taken more as a disciplinary measure — a "we´ll show him" step — rather than as a matter of law, or regulations, or because of any real security concern. It is not yet known how soon the hearing will be held. The hearing — which could be public — will allow for full examination of the accusation and the defense. Nor is it yet known if the judge will agree to Jared´s presence in his own defense, or — if the hearing will not be immediate — if Jared could be released on some kind of bail.

Six days after he was denied entry upon his return to Israel's Ben Gurion Airport after a brief trip abroad to renew his visa, the American editor working at a Palestinian-owned news agency remains in detention. Jarid Malsin, editor of the English-language website of the Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency has not yet been granted a hearing. A Tel Aviv judge received the Israeli compliation of complaints against him on Sunday. On Monday afternoon, the judge asked the attorney hired by Ma'an News Agency to present Malsin's response to the charges. The options remain: (1) rejecting the Israeli charges against Jared, and authorizing his admission into Israel; (2) calling for a public hearing for a fuller examination of the issues and arguments presented by both sides: and (3) ordering Jared's immediate expulsion.

One year after two unilateral cease-fires (one by Israel, one by Hamas) ended the unprecedented Israeli military operation that was supposedly directed against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, how is the situation? Worse than ever. The details are dismal -- and even horrifying. Meanwhile, the politics of the situation involve a cat-and-mouse game between Israel and Hamas: if Hamas can exert its authoritiy over all factions and military sub-groups in the Gaza Strip, and prove itself a more effective "address" to which Israel can address any grievances, then Israel would be inclined to deal with Hamas on a government-to.... well, authority basis. If this cuts out the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, so what? Only a few officials in Israel care about sustaining that structure, which resulted from an agreement between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. If Hamas can assert effective rule in Gaza, Israel will go along with it -- despite the fact that it is Israeli pressure on the U.S. that keeps the rest of the world from dealing with Gaza at the moment.

By Sunday afternoon, near the end of the working day on the first day of the work week in Israel, the Israeli state prosecutor had still not filed charges against Jared Malsin, an American editor working for the privately-owned and operated Palestinian news agency Ma'an (Together), which is based in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Malsin was detained and denied re-entry at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport upon his return to the country after a short trip he needed to take in order to renew the only visa he has been able to obtain that would enable him to remain at his work. It is not possible to enter the Israeli-occupied West Bank without passing an Israeli military checkpoint, and to do that, internationals must have a valid Israeli visa. So, Malsin apparently must remain in detention for a fifth day.

The reality is complex, and to understand it requires a presentation of the details: Jared Malsin, the editor of the English-language website of the Bethlehem-based Ma´an News Agency, was detained upon arrival at Israel´s Ben Gurion International Airport when arriving from a trip abroad. Jared traveled to renew his three-month tourist visa, which appeared to be the only option that would allow him to work for the privately-owned and operated Palestinian news agency, which covered news developments in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip -- and in Israel as well. He was accompanied, on a short trip to the Czech Republic, by his long-time girlfriend Faith Rowold, a volunteer for the Lutheran Church in Palestine. Faith has already been deported, and Jared remains in detention in Israel, awaiting a deportation hearing scheduled for Sunday -- despite statements made Friday by an Israeli official who reportedly said "There was no security concern", and also that "We didn't know he was a journalist". Israel has refused to give its press cards to anyone from Ma'an News Agency, and Israel does not recognize press cards issued by the Palestinian Authority. Yet, it is impossible to go to the Israeli-occupied West Bank without passing through Israeli military checkpoints...

American-born Jared Malsin, editor of the English-language website of the privately-owned and donor-funded Palestinian news agency, Maan ("Together"), which is based in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, was detained when he tried to re-enter the country via Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport. He and his long-time girlfriend, Faith Rowold, also an American, and a volunteer working with the Lutheran Church, had travelled for a brief visit to the Czech Republic, in order to get new visas upon their return. Instead, the couple were both held, interrogated for hours, and informed that they would be deported. It is not exactly clear why, but the indications suggest that it is a political matter, related to Israeli objections to Palestinian connections. There is no way in or out of the Israeli-occupied West Bank except through an Israeli-controlled checkpoint. The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and Consular officials in Jerusalem were reportedly heavily involved. Somehow, Faith was deported on Thursday morning, while Jared remains in Israeli detention, after his deportation hearing was postponed until Sunday.

While negotiations and peace efforts languish, the suffering in Gaza continues. There are calls of alarm from the United Nations, but the situation continues to deteriorate.

The Israeli Government and its formidable military act as if almost all the Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank are part of Israel, even though Israel has never formally annexed most of the West Bank. (Israel never formally annexed East Jerusalem, either, though it was part of the West Bank until the June 1967 Mideast war. But Israel says that Jerusalem is its eternal capital and will never again be divided). But, Israel's killing of three Fatah men in the West Bank town of Nablus on Saturday, in response to the killing of an Israeli settler outside of Nablus on Thursday, was the exercise of sheer military force. It has caused shock waves among many Palestinians, and renewed anger against the politically-weakened Palestinian Authority. Palestinian Fatah member Qaddura Fares told Al-Jazeera TV in Nablus a few hours later that if Israel had evidence against these three men, they should have been arrested and tried, but not killed. But, as Haaretz reported, the PA concern was somewhat different: "The PA on Saturday complained to the U.S. that during the raid Israel had unjustly invaded area A [one of three not-totally-clear designations of West Bank land decided under the Oslo Accords], for whose security the Palestinians are solely responsible. The PA demanded that the Americans voice their own position on the matter. Over the weekend, the Palestinians also protested to the coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, that IDF soldiers had entered area A in Nablus and had not allowed PA security forces to arrest the wanted men".

Despite current tensions, and a history of deadly clashes, Jewish "activists" are planning a big "pilgrimage" on Thursday to what they call the Temple Mount -- a plateau known to Muslims as the Haram as-Sharif, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque sacred to Muslims is situated. The Jerusalem Post reported today that "The pilgrimage, which will include guided tours of the area throughout the morning, will also be a litmus test for the shaky calm that has prevailed in Jerusalem's Old City since October"...

Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is a traditional town disturbed in 1948 by a large influx of refugees fleeing fighting in what became central Israel, then disturbed again in 1967 by the Israeli conquest during the "Six-Day" war, and disturbed once again by the arrival of returning Palestinian forces and cadres permitted by Israel to "return" in the context of the Oslo Accords to establish the ministries and security forces of the Palestinian Authority. Ramallah is now the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority (or "Sulta", as it is known in Arabic), and it is a boom town for construction of multi-story glass-fronted corporate headquarters -- while there is little provision for future infrastructure. "The Israelis will give it to us", some say confidently. Others say that "if it is destroyed again, we will rebuild again". As the elite seems to prosper, everybody else is still managing to survive, and life goes on -- even as the "peace process" appears blocked, the Palestinian leadership is in crisis, and the Israeli government is trying to appease the Obama Administration by restraining its settler population living all around Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank, but in a completely different world.

An important decision is in the balance today as European Union Foreign Ministers meet to consider taking a strong stand in favor of the creation of a future Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israeli government officials have been lobbying against such a step, while Palestinian envoys are lobbying in favor. The U.S. position is unclear -- though until 1980 there was far more clarity. On 14 July 1967 (after Israel extended its law and administration over East Jerusalem following its conquest in the June Six-Day War) U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg (representing President Lyndon Johnson) stated in a UN General Assembly vote that "this Assembly should have dealt with the problem by declaring itself against any unilateral change in the status of Jerusalem … [O]n July 3, I said that the safeguarding of the Holy Places and freedom of access to them for all should be internationally guaranteed and the status of Jerusalem in relation to them should be decided not unilaterally but in consultation with all concerned. These statements represent the considered and continuing policy of the United States … We insist that the measures taken cannot be considered other than interim and provisional, and not prejudging the final and permanent status of Jerusalem". And, on 1 July 1969, U.S. Ambassador Charles Yost (representing President Richard Nixon) told the UN Security Council that "the United States has always considered that Jerusalem enjoys a unique international standing and that no action should be taken there without full regard to Jerusalem´s special history and special place in the world community … The United States considers that the part of Jerusalem that came under the control of Israel in the June war, like other areas occupied by Israel, is occupied territory and hence subject to the provisions of international law governing the rights and obligations of an occupying power … The pattern of behavior authorized under the Geneva Convention and international law is clear: the occupier must maintain the occupied area as intact and unaltered as possible, without interfering with the customary life of the area, and any changes must be necessitated by immediate needs of the occupation. I regret to say that the actions of Israel in the occupied portion of Jerusalem present a different picture, one which gives rise to understandable concerns that the eventual disposition of East Jerusalem may be prejudiced and the rights and activities of the population are already being affected and altered … We have consistently refused to recognize these measures as having anything but a provisional character and do not accept them as affecting the ultimate status of Jerusalem".

Tensions are being stoked in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of East Jerusalem, as organized religious-nationalist Jewish settlers, accompanied by vigilante-style settler security agents, use the Israeli court apparatus to get orders for Palestinian eviction and settler installation in homes built by the United Nations (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees in the mid-1950s, in the wake of the fighting that surrounded the creation of Israel in May 1948. Since last November, four homes built by UNRWA for Palestinian refugees have been vacated, and Jewish settlers have taken their places. A total of 28 homes are targetted in this particular neighborhood of East Jerusalem, north of the Old City where the most sensitive Jewish and Muslim religious sites are located, and which did not fall to Israeli forces in 1948, but instead were conquered two decades later, in the June 1967 war. The tensions have aroused European concern on the eve of an important European decision about their common position on Jerusalem. The American stand is not very clear. At the same time, Israeli settlers further out in the occupied West Bank are vowing to resist the Israeli government's decision for a settlement freeze that is apparently only intended to last ten months.

Ramallah, formerly a small provincial Palestinian town in the West Bank, has become the de facto capital city of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Palestinian security forces abound on the streets, stopping normal civilian traffic while escorting senior PA officials, and sometimes bearing an eerie resemblance to American soldiers in Iraq. But Israel retains overall security control of the West Bank, and Israeli settlements dot many of the nearby hilltops. Palestinians say they are anxious about the lack of leadership, and are trying to concentrate on going about their normal lives under occupation.

The present disarray in Palestinian politics is causing great dismay. Fatah prisoners in Israeli jails suggest that for the time that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas remains in office -- after his recent decision (1) not to run in the next elections he decreed for 24 January and (2) to cancel the elections -- he should continue to work to help find a solution to present to his people. Fatah leader Qaddura Fares, said Saturday in Ramallah the de facto Palestinian West Bank's capital city) that "We do not elect leaders to serve only in good times, or when things are going well ... They must also be leaders in bad times, and when thing are not going so well".

The awful oppression of the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lives and Palestinian land is still not fully known, forty-two years after the June 1967 war, and twenty-one years after the Proclamation of a State of Palestine in Algiers on 15 November 1988. Visitors who come here are shocked. They say they could not imagine what it is like, despite the news reports that almost everybody is aware of. How to tell what it is like? Here is one attempt...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told an invited group of political allies and journalists -- and a world-wide television audience -- that he had no wish or desire to run again for office in the elections he has decreed for next January. The main reason, he indicated, is his disappointment with the U.S. Administration's backing off from a firm stance against Israel's settlement policies in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem. Another reason is the recent tidal wave of criticism he faced at home, in early October, because of the Palestinian leadership's decision to postpone consideration of the Goldstone report into last winter's Israeli attack upon Gaza. Is his decision final?

Justice Richard Goldstone is not "going to lie down and die", to use his own words, as the UN General Assembly is looking for a date to examine the nearly-600-page report on last winter's Gaza war that the Fact-Finding Mission he headed have submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in mid-September. Pressure on the Palestinians not to press the matter in the Human Rights Council backfired -- and badly damaged the credibility of the Palestinian leadership, to the extent that there was virtually no opposition to a Palestinian about-face, and a resolution they finally submitted was adopted by 25 votes in the 47-member Human Rights Council in mid-October. But, there has been no let up in the pressure, and Justice Goldstone has now asked the Obama Administration to justify its criticism of the report. He has, so far, received no answer.

The Israeli military is proceeding at its own pace to carry out its own internal investigations into the war -- and some cases have reportedly been sent for possible criminal prosecution, including cases of Palestinian civilians being shot while waving white flags. But the report written by South Africa's Justice Richard Goldstone, his team, and many Israeli as well as international human rights and international law advocates all have said that it is not possible for the Israeli military (or any powerful institution, for that matter) to carry out a credible investigation of itself. The Israeli Minister of Defense and his Chief of Staff are opposed to any other investigation. But other senior Israeli officials are reportedly speaking out in favor of an independent Israeli investigation. However, as reported in recent days, the reasoning is that it is advantageous to comply with the bottom-line recommendation contained in the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Goldstone report -- namely, that Israel and Hamas must each establish internal investigations within six months, or be referred to the UN Security Council. And, many Israelis argue that this is required for "better PR".

A dispute involving power and politics has delayed the launch of a second Palestinian mobile phone company, Wataniya, in mid-October. Wataniya is owned by Qatar Telecom and by the Palestine Investment Fund -- and the company is threatening to sue the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to recover costs due to the failure to secure an adequate bandwidth for its operations. Despite a reported agreement to authorize more, Israel has so far authorized the release of only part of the necessary bandwidth.

What's the real problem between the two main Palestinian political parties? Why is the dispute so bitter, and the division so deep? Hamas was urged to become a political party, and it complied, contesting January 2006 Palestinian elections for the Legislative Council, or Parliament -- and surprising everybody by winning. Fatah was not amused, and boycotted the first Hamas government, which was also boycotted by the U.S. and all the major donor countries. After Saudi mediation in 2007, a National Unity government was formed, but the Hamas rout of Preventive Security Forces in Gaza in May 2007 -- which Palestinian officials in Ramallah said was a military coup threw Palestinian politics into complete turmoil. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas then angrily dissolved the cabinet and appointed an Emergency Government -- which some analysts view as a political coup. President Abbas says that Hamas must restore the status quo ante, and return Gaza back to Palestinian Authority rule. A decision on reconciliation hangs in the balance now after recent months of efforts by Egyptian officials. His son, Yasser Abbas, explains the emotions behind the antagonism between the Palestinian rivals.

Yasser Abbas is a businessman in Ramallah, and the older of two living sons of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Fatah movement. In an interview, he talked about the Hamas takeover in Gaza, and about his father's house there.

The Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister invited diplomatic representatives in Ramallah for a briefing on the latest Palestinian strategy to have a discussion of the Goldstone report either in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, or in the UN General Assembly in New York. He said that the Palestinian Investigative Committee nominated eight days ago to look into the widely-denounced decision to withdraw a resolution supporting the Goldstone report began its work today.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas finally addressed his people on Sunday night after ten days of uproar over the Palestinian agreement to shelve the UN Human Rights Council's report on the Gaza war prepared by South Africa's Justice Richard Goldstone -- but the air did not clear. Abbas did not explicitly admit a mistake had been made, and he did not apologize (or resign, as some had urged). He simply said that a committee he had composed by decree a week ago would look into what happened, and if the decision was wrong, Abbas said, "We are courageous and we will accept it". And, Abbas said, he had instructed the Palestinian Ambassador in Geneva to reverse what had happened ten days ago, and to seek a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to reconsider the Goldstone report. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus said minutes later issued a call for a "better" Palestinian leadership. Those responsible for the fiasco should be put on trial, Meshaal said. Meanwhile, he suggested, it would be impossible to sign a reconciliation document that Egypt has been negotiating for months.

U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell is in the Middle East trying to re-start blocked Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but without success so far as the fallout from the Goldstone report fiasco persists, and Jewish-Muslim tensions simmer in the Old City of East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has said it wants to go back to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to reintroduce a resolution it withdrew ten days ago supporting the report of the Goldstone Fact-Finding Mission into last winter's Israeli military operation in Gaza. The reaction of anger from the Palestinian public -- which the Ramallah leadership apparently did not anticipate -- has not diminished, and may have grown. Meanwhile, Hamas now says it does not want to sign a reconciliation agreement with the Palestinian leadership that withdrew the resolution in the first place.

U.S. Special Envoy on the Middle East George Mitchell is back in the region again to try to re-start Palestinian-Israeli talks that were broken off during last winter's Israeli large-scale military operation in Gaza. Mitchell held talks with Israeli government ministers on Thursday, while the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stayed on in Rome to speak with the Pope. The U.S. State Department has announced that Mitchell will be meeting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Friday -- and with the Palestinian President. But where? And then, on Saturday, Mitchell is scheduled to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Will U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell, due back in the Middle East on Wednesday, be able to do anything in his trip to the region this week, while political turmoil simmers in the West Bank capital city of Ramallah? Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is also due back on Wednesday from several days abroad after having decreed the establishment of an investigative commission to look into how it was decided not to back a UN Human Rights Council resolution supporting the conclusions and recommendations of the Goldstone report that looked into last winter's Gaza war.

The reaction has been strong, sustained, and continuing. Palestinians are angry, very angry, that someone authorized the Palestinian Ambassador in Geneva to withdraw support for a draft resolution in the UN Human Rights Council that would have endorsed the conclusions in Justice Richard Goldstone's fact-finding mission into last winter's 22-day Israeli military offensive in Gaza. It is not yet clear who -- or how -- this decision was made. No Palestinian official has taken responsibility, or offered any explanation. Matters have, if anything, only been made worse by an order given by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday for the establishment of a three-member committee to look into what happened. Many are asking how, since he is the President, it is possible that he did not know? This is all being chalked up to American pressure to get peace negotiations restarted -- negotiations that the Palestinians broke off during the winter offensive by the Israeli military in Gaza. This reported pressure may have been a grave miscalculation, as the very legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership is now at risk.

Is there a quid pro quo for the Palestinian agreement to delay -- until March 2010 -- action in the UN Human Rights Council on the report on the Gaza war submitted by a fact-finding mission headed by South Africa's Justice Richard Goldstone? The Palestinian move was made under intense U.S. pressure. So, what are the promised benefits? There has been no real explanation offered by any Palestinian leader. The U.S. hasn't been really helpful to the Palestinians, either, having accepted the Israeli argument that United Nations examination of possible war crimes committed during the IDF's Operation Cast Lead would damage prospects for peace negotiations that did not reach the promised conclusions by the end of 2008 -- and that were then suspended by the Palestinians during the 22-day Israeli military operation in Gaza.

The UN Human Rights Council is holding a day of public discussion of a report it mandated from a Fact-finding Mission headed by South Africa's Justice Richard Goldstone that looked into the circumstances involved in Israel's 22-day military operation in Gaza last winter, Operation Cast Lead. Justice Goldstone told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that "to date of the Government of Israel avoids dealing with the substance of the report". In the report, the Mission stated that it was "struck by the repeated comment of Palestinian victims, human rights defenders, civil society interlocutors and officials that they hoped that this would be the last investigative mission of its kind, because action for justice would follow from it. It was struck, as well, by the comment that every time a report is published and no action follows, this 'emboldens Israel and her conviction of being untouchable'. The Mission is firmly convinced that justice and respect for the rule of law are the indispensable basis for peace. The prolonged situation of impunity has created a justice crisis in the OPT (occupied Palestinian territory) that warrants action." Today, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner told the Human Rights Council that "We encourage Israel to utilize appropriate domestic (judicial) review and meaningful accountability mechanisms to investigate and follow-up on credible allegations ... If undertaken properly and fairly, these reviews can serve as important confidence-building measures that will support the larger essential objective which is a shared quest for justice and lasting peace". Posner also called on Hamas to investigate war crimes committed by Palestinians in Gaza.

Tensions have flared after clashes on Sunday -- just hours before Israel effectively shut down for observance of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar -- when a group of Jewish visitors accompanied by armed Israeli troops walked up onto the revered plateau in the Old City of East Jerusalem that houses the third holiest site in Islam, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock. The plateau overlooks and is bordered by the Western (or Wailing) Wall, the most revered site in Judaism, which is believed to be the only visible remnant of the second and perhaps even the first Jewish temple. Palestinian figures protested on Monday that it was an attempted "break-in" designed to change the status quo on the Harame as-Sharif (known to Jews as the Temple Mount). The Palestinians said they feared the move presaged an attempt to partition the Muslim holy sites as has happened to the very important Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, where Abraham and his wife Sarah, among others, are believed to be buried.

Leonard Cohen kept his date with over 50,000 fans in Tel Aviv's 50,000-seat Ramat Gan Stadium on Thursday, to glowing reviews. He will not, however, be making a separate but parallel appearance on Saturday in the seat of the Palestinian Authority -- the West Bank's capital city Ramallah -- because of objections from a Palestinian boycott committee. The sole issue for the boycott committee was that Leonard Cohen should have avoided Israel completely, something Leonard Cohen did not, and would not, agree to do.

U.S. President Barack Obama presided over a very major American diplomatic victory when he chaired a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday attended by 13 other world leaders that unanimously adopted a new resolution endorsing most aspects of American nuclear diplomacy, including the current pressure on Iran. It is a very nuanced document.

Israeli experts are making unprecedented warnings about the dangers of their government's new settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem -- and about the possible consequences. Haaretz's Akiva Eldar wrote today that "Three days after the U.S. administration criticized the decision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to authorize the construction of hundreds of new housing units in settlements, the Israel Lands Administration published tenders for the construction of 486 apartments in the neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev in East Jerusalem". He reported that Israeli attorney Danny Seidemann "describes the bid-taking as yet another example of a fraud that leads to creating facts on the ground". In addition, Colonel (Res.) Shaul Arieli has just writtend that "the strategic consequences [of Israeli settlement development in the West Bank] are alarming. Israel continues to invest in the [E-1] plan as if no final status negotiations are taking place, or as if it does not treat the negotiations with the seriousness needed to conclude an agreement". Arieli accuses his government of continuing "to position itself in the West Bank, including entrenching the settlement enterprise, under an apparent work assumption that the conflict would continue".

Washington's reaction is still awaited after announcement in Israel, during the U.S. Labor Day holiday, of the approval of new building permits for housing and apartments in Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank which has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. The authorization of new building permits in the settlements is seen as a highly-provocative symbolic move in a big-stakes game in both international and domestic Israeli politics. So far, the Palestinian reaction has been discounted -- and viewed as really not very important, which may be a big miscalculation.

In a direct challenge to American efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak -- who apparently rules the occupied West Bank -- has just authorized construction of some 455 new Jewish homes there, after getting a go-ahead from Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Palestinians are in despair, and Palestinian negotiator Sa'eb Erekat said today that "This decision to approve the construction of over 450 new settlement units poses a particularly serious challenge to the international community, who for the past eight months, have unambiguously stated that both sides must meet their obligations under existing agreements and international law to create the environment for meaningful negotiations to resume. Rather than meet its Road Map obligations, Israel has spent the past eight months trying to renegotiate the Road Map, including exemptions on a settlement freeze". What will the U.S. do now?

Veteran Palestinian politician Nabil Shaath told international journalists at a briefing in Ramallah today that although there is no violence in the region at the present time, banking on the fact that violence has been defeated would be "very stupid". Palestinians want a fresh start to the peace process, but they do not want the process itself to restart back at square one. Shaath said that U.S. President Obama must stand firm on Israeli settlement activities: "We want Obama to come with a clear sentence repeating what is in the Road Map and in the Annapolis Declaration: 'there should be absolutely no settlement activity, including natural growth, and this does not allow continuing what is already under construction'," Shaath said. There must be no loopholes, no limited freeze, no nuanced cessation -- only a full halt to settlement activities, including in Jerusalem.

The most powerful and influential Palestinian political party, Fatah, has been meeting in Bethlehem, the town where Jesus is believed to have been born, which has been under Israeli military occupation for over 41 years. The Bethlehem meeting is the first for Fatah in 20 years, and will be the first time in those two decades that party members have the opportunity to elect new leadership.

Despite U.S. and international objections, Palestinian families were brutally evicted by a large number of armed Israeli Border Police from two structures in East Jerusalem before dawn on Friday. Almost immediately -- the move had clearly been prepared and coordinated, according to witnesses -- Jewish settlers moved into the Palestinian homes, and set to work setting up house behind Israeli police barricades. Israeli and international "leftists" protesting the actions were arrested on Sunday night, and Palestinians were injured in reported protests on Monday morning. U.S. diplomats in Israel delivered an initial protest on Monday morning, which they said would be followed by "high-level" steps from Washington, because these evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and their replacement by Jewish settlers are "not in keeping with Israeli obligations under the Road Map", according to the American statement.

On 3 June, the IDF announced that a checkpoint north of the West Bank's Ramallah, which is currently the capital city of the Palestinian Authority, has been dismantled. But, there are still Israeli soldiers at this checkpoint. And, sometimes they do continue to make life quite miserable for the Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. One of these occasions was observed, and recorded, and documented by Machsom Watch (Checkpoint Watch), a group of Israeli women who are opposed to their country's occupation, and for human rights.

Pressure on Palestinians who are residents of East Jerusalem have been mounting in recent months. On Sunday, as two families awaited with anxiety and dread their imminent forced eviction in one area of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, after losing all appeals to the Israeli courts, Israeli settlers with armed private guards protected by Israeli police made a surprise move into a nearby area of the same neighborhood. At the same time, international diplomatic pressure is also mounting -- though perhaps too discretely to be very effective -- on Israel to restrain settlers from exercising grandiose plans to restore a Jewish presence in East Jerusalem which most of the world regards as being under Israeli military occupation. Though Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu recently stated that the Israeli claim on all of Jerusalem is non-negotiable, a UN official told the UN Security Council on Monday that the position of the UN Secretary-General (a member of the Quartet of Middle East negotiators) is clear: "the future of Jerusalem remains a matter for final status negotiations between the parties".

Leonard Cohen's current World Tour has been scheduled to end in Tel Aviv on 24 September. Once that concert was announced, supporters of a boycott against Israel due to its policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians asked Leonard Cohen to cancel the Tel Aviv event. Instead, it was announced, Leonard Cohen would add a performance in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. But, boycott supporters inside and outside Palestine have urged that the Ramallah performance be cancelled. The decision on this matter has been put in the hands of Qaddoura Fares, a prominent member of the "young guard" in Fatah, who said he wants the matter to be decided by the families of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners now in Israeli jails. Qaddoura Fares says he has proposed that Leonard Cohen's concert in Ramallah be dedicated to the release of the Palestinian prisoners -- and also of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, seized three years ago at the Gaza perimeter and presumably still held somewhere in Gaza. "They all deserve to be free", Qaddura Fares said.

Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem live in a unique political limbo, without representation by any Government or Authority. They adhere, like most of the rest of the world, to the view that Israel's annexation of territory it conquered in the June 1967 war is illegal. Therefore, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are not citizens of Israel by and large, but rather remain only permanent residents, a status which they wish to retain. Now, however, their worst fears of expulsion -- either through force or through the result of secret Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations -- are being reinforced by recent Israeli offers to given them new land to live on, in the Palestinian West Bank.

There is a mounting convergence of evidence reported by major international and Israeli human rights organizations that is being published now, documenting the Israeli use of battlefield weapons on trapped Gazan civilians during a major offensive this past winter. The reports all urge Israel to start to cooperation with the ongoing Fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, and led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone. If Israel does not do its own independent investigation, the groups say, there should be an international inquiry. Meanwhile, Israel continues to slam the motives of these reports, and still maintains that its own internal IDF investigation is quite sufficient. However, Amnesty International takes issue with Israeli reports that Hamas used civilians as human shields, saying it found no evidence of that. Amnesty International says that its findings show the opposite is true -- that the Israeli military turned Palestinian civilians in Gaza into human shields during the IDF's Operation Cast Lead. But, both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes, Amnesty International said -- adding even more reason for a major independent international investigation.

As it vowed, Israel has not allowed the latest Free Gaza expedition that sailed from Cyprus to reach the Gaza Strip. The "Spirit of Humanity" ship with 21 persons on board was intercepted around 2:00 am Wednesday morning, but it refused orders from Israeli naval ships to stop and turn around. About twelve hour later, when it was just a few miles away from Gaza's maritime space, the Free Gaza ship was boarded, and then forcibly towed to the Isreli southern seaport of Ashdod. The cargo was impounded, but Israeli officials say it will be transferred by them to Gaza after it passes inspection. The passengers and crew are reportedly still being held by Israeli immigration authorities, and may soon be deported.

In the first meeting of the Middle East Quartet since Barack Obama took office, the group issued a statement on Friday in Italy that reflected the somewhat tougher tone being taken by the Obama administration (a freeze of all Israeli settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territory -- but not a roll-back on anything beyond "outposts" constructed since 2001, and an early resumption of negotiations without preconditions), combined with some long-held EU positions (unilateral actions will not be recognized by the international community). The Quartet said that "the establishment of a state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza in which the Palestinian people can determine their own destiny is in the fundamental interests of the international community". And in one of its strongest statements to date, the Quartet said that the current situation in Gaza is "unsustainable" -- and in nobody's interest.

Free Gaza activists are still vowing to try to leave Cyprus by sea for Gaza Friday, despite warnings from Cypriot and American authorities that it is too dangerous. The group said that "We take these risks well aware of what the possible consequences may be. We do so because the consequences of doing nothing are so much worse. Anytime we allow ourselves to be bullied, every time we pass by an evil and ignore it - we lower our standards and allow our world to be made that much harsher and unjust for us all".

For the first time in nine months, the Israeli military is authorizing the transfer of some 350 calves on Sunday -- for the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza. The Israeli military, which administers the Israeli policy of blockade and sanctions against the entire population of Gaza, has determined in a "Red Lines" document that a minimum of 300 cows per week are needed to avoid malnutrition and a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. According to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, some 4,000 live cattle will be delivered for the upcoming month of Ramadan starting in September -- for 1.5 million people. Last year, about 9,000 live cattle were delivered for Ramadan. Apparently, it is hard to smuggle live cows through the extensive tunnel system under the border with Egypt that Gazans entrepreneurs operate at the risk to their employees's lives -- sheep are easier, because they are willing to walk through on their own, and besides they are smaller. For comparison, some 40,000 lambs have been brought into Gaza through the tunnels over the last year.

Israel's Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu offered his response on Sunday evening to President Obama's speech to the Muslim world from Cairo on 4 June. Palestinians must accept that the Jewish people have a right to live in its historical homeland, Netanyahu said, and a future Palestinian entity must be demilitarized, with Israel maintaining real security supervision under ironclad international guarantees.

The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz has published revelations about how the Israeli blockade against Gaza operates -- although there is still a lot more to be revealed. The article, entitled "The Gaza Bonanza", reports that there is smuggling not only from the Egyptian side of the border, but also from the tightly-sealed Israeli crossings. Meanwhile, Sari Bashi, the Executive Director of the Israeli human rights organization GISHA says that "It is obvious that two years into the blockade, the restrictions on civilian goods entering Gaza are only hurting 1.5 million civilians, but providing no solution to regional problems". Bashi notes that "Almost nothing is allowed into Gaza … and there is no security rationale for that … This is not serving Israel´s security interests. Two years since the closure, none of the declared security or political goals have been achieved".

A United Nations mission with a broad human rights mandate -- and a military expert on board -- will arrive in Gaza on Monday to begin both public and private hearings on the what happened before, during, and after Israel's military operation in Gaza from 27 December to 17 January. The preparation has been intense, and meticulous, and the mission says the information it collects will remain the property of the United Nations, and that precautionary measures will be taken to ensure the safety or protection of victims, witnesses, sources and any other persons cooperating with the mission. Anyone wishing to make contact with the Mission on any matter relevant to its mandate can do so by email to factfindinggaza@ohchr.org, according to the Public Advance Notice. In addition, anyone wishing to make contact with the Mission during its visit to Gaza may call the Mission by telephone at: (+970) 0597 444 158 or (+970) 0597 444 159.

Israeli Border Police, carrying out a court order and a decision of the Ministry of the Interior, prevented the opening and closing sessions of the ninth annual Palestinian Literary Festival (PalFest09) from taking place in the Hakawati Theater -- the Palestinian National Theater -- in East Jerusalem. The Israeli suppression of Palestinian events that are thought to be connected to the Palestinian Authority in East Jerusalem has been increasing in recent years, even as the U.S. tried to move the peace process forward. The Palestinian Authority was established under the Oslo Accords after Israel and the PLO formally exchanged recognition and began to negotiate interim arrangements which the Palestinians, at least, believed would lead to statehood. But, despite the fact that East Jerusalem Palestinians have voted in successive Palestinian Authority elections held under the terms of the Oslo Accords, neither Palestinian Authority representation nor Palestinian Authority-connected activities are allowed in East Jerusalem. This past week, British and French diplomats have gently intervened to allow the Literary Festival to take place, in a small but significant gesture of defiance of the current suppression of Palestinian activities in Jerusalem.

Whatever precautions the Israeli military took were clearly inadequate, a UN Board of Inquiry has just reported about IDF attacks that hit UN installations in the Gaza Strip during the three-week Operation Cast Lead there. Warnings to civilians were unclear, and there was nowhere for them to go anyway. The victims in the UN installations included: a night guard in an UNRWA school; three young men (25,24,19) the IDF believed to be preparing a military attack but who were apparently only heading to a toilet in an adjacent area of another UNRWA school compound; two small boys (5 and 7 years old) sleeping in still another UNRWA school; and more. There was also millions of dollars worth of property damages. The Israeli Defense Minister insists that none of the attacks was intentional, and has just ordered that the UN be given the results of the IDF's own inquiry into the attacks on UN installations in Gaza during the recent war. It is not clear why this was not done earlier. And, Israel's State President Shimon Peres said that the government had formed a committee to look at the issue of compensation.

Even before the United Nations report was released on the Israeli military strikes that hit UN installations in Gaza during the 22-day IDF Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli government machine was busy at work, preparing to denounce the report, and trying to pressure the UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-Moon to soften the findings -- even more than he apparently already has. Israeli news reports said that the report, as it stood, "is liable to generate a diplomatic earthquake", and would "drag Israel into deep diplomatic mud". Will this Israeli pressure succeed?

The body of a young Palestinian man shot dead by Israeli Border Police during a punitive house demolition still has not been returned for burial, four days later. His father said Friday that the young man was not involved in an attack, contrary to what a police spokesman had stated -- and he said his son was killed "for no reason, for no reason". Yet, Israeli law enforcement officials claimed that it had been a terror attack -- this providing proof that heightened security measures are justified during the current ten-day Passover holiday period.

As the political climate in Israel hardens, pressure upon Palestinians is mounting. In East Jerusalem, house evictions and demolition orders are piling up. A punitive demolition was carried out on Tuesday in a Palestinian village in south-east Jerusalem, near Bethlehem, of part of a home of the family of a bulldozer driver who was killed after he allegedly went on a terrorist rampage last July -- though the family maintains he was innocent and had not intended an attack. Meanwhile, there has been little reaction to an Israeli media report that unmanned D-9 bulldozers had demolished many homes in Gaza in the closing days of the IDF's Operation Cast Lead in mid-January.

An Israeli military investigation was hastily opened, then quickly closed, after remarks made by soldiers that they had been given unusually "permissive" rules of engagement during the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza. But, Israeli rights groups say that there is plenty of evidence to back up the accusations that the lives of Palestinian civilians or the protection of Palestinian property were not regarded as very important, by comparison with the safety of Israeli soldiers operating on the ground in Gaza for two weeks in January. Now, a shocking new report has just emerged, that the Israeli military used huge unmanned D-9 armored bulldozers in the Gaza operation -- and was pleased with the results.

White phosphorus was used by the Israeli military in Gaza, for the first time, during two weeks in January, according to Human Rights Watch. The group's senior emergencies researcher told journalists in Jerusalem that "It was used extensively, it was used repeatedly, in densely-populated areas. For us, that means it couldn't have been just one unit, it had to have been a policy or a decision on the highest levels. Or, at least, there were no orders saying 'Don't use it in densely-populated areas', which is an order that they must, and should give, because that's the law. You don't use this stuff". He said that American and British military experts who were consulted said "We don't use white phosphorus in populated areas -- everybody knows that".

Israel's use of white phosphorus bombs during its recent Operation Cast Lead in Gaza violated the rules of war, a leading human rights organization reported today. Human Rights Watch said that even before its experts were even allowed to enter Gaza, they had watched from adjacent areas in Israel as air-exploded white phosphorus bombs exploded over densely-packed residential areas in Gaza. The report is damning.

More of the horrors of war continue to emerge from Gaza. A sewage lagoon containment wall was hit, and a large flood of raw sewage rushed 1.2 kilometers across the landscape, settling in the midst of growing crops. There are fears that even more damage has been done by this sewage flood to Gaza's already overly saline and already polluted underground water aquifer -- which is the only source of water in the crowded coastal strip where 1.5 million people are trapped. Fields of crops have also been polluted by the sewage flood, while Israeli military-administered sanctions ban the entry of many needed items into the Gaza Strip, including bottled gas used to cook and to boil and purify water for drinking. And, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights released figures confirming 1,434 deaths in Gaza in the 22-day Israeli military offensive.

It's hard to keep up, now, with the moves being made by Israel on the ground in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, in the absence of a functioning peace process -- moves that jeopardize the two-state solution that the U.S. has been working for in recent years, and moves that jeopardize local, regional, and international peace. This is much more than "unhelpful", as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton just said in the region, echoing the exact wording of her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice...

Palestinian negotiators broke off direct negotiations with their Israeli interlocutors during the recent Israeli 22-day military operation against Gaza. Now, they say that for negotiations to resume, any new Israeli government must renounce settlement activity, and endorse all previous agreements -- including the aim to work for the creation of a Palestinian State. In the meantime, there is continued Israeli pressure on the ground in both the West Bank, where settlement activity is continuing, and in Jerusalem, where over a hundred Palestinian homes may soon be demolished.

A rare new interview with a former U.S. Army guard at Guantanamo describes abusive treatment of men and boys there some seven years ago. The interview came to light as a result of the extensive work of the Guantanamo Testimonials Project at the University of California at Davis. Newly-inaugurated President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo detention facilities -- a year from now. But the goals of the Guantanamo Testimonials Project will not be met, its director says, until "all the abuse that took place there has been entered"(recorded)...

The Israeli elections held on 10 February came months after the country's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to resign because of continuing investigations into possible corruption charges. The results give a winner -- Tzipi Livni's Kadima Party, and a challenger who will not concede -- Benjamin Netanyahu, a former Prime Minister who was also obliged to leave office early over questions about unethical behavior. Netanyahu claims to be better positioned to put together the next government by forming a coalition of "right-wing" parties that will hold a majority of seats in the new Knesset, or parliament. In the meantime, Olmert will continue in office, while negotiations with Palestinians, and relations with Israel's own Arab-Palestinian minority, some 25 percent of the population, hang in the balance.

U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell has arrived in the region to listen, and to work for a consolidation of a durable cease-fire between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, for an easing of the humanitarian situation, and for an end to attacks on innocent civilians. He has spent the past two days listening to various Israeli officials. He also had lunch with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. But he apparently won't be meeting Hamas...

The international press has finally managed to gain unrestricted access to the battered Gaza Strip on Friday for the first time in months, but international aid workers are saying that they are having problems entering -- at a time when the needs are so acute. The conditions in Gaza are nothing less than shocking.

The scale of the devastation in Gaza is becoming clearer. The entire population could be said to be casualties, according to U.S. Professor Richard Falk, who is the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory. Israel has made the halt to arms smuggling into Gaza its top priority -- and says that it will not open border crossings into Gaza for anything other than the most basic necessities until captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is returned home.

Israel has opened a small clinic at the imposing Erez border crossing into Gaza as a "regional medical center for the people of Gaza". Israel's Ministry of Health asked the country's Magen David Adom (or Red Star of David, Israel's national equivalent to a Red Cross Society) to set up the clinic last Friday, a day of very heavy attacks that preceeded the proclamation of a unilateral cease-fire. So far, few patients have passed though -- despite the fact that this clinic has the power to make referrals for Gazan patients to Israeli medical centers, which helps avoid the cumbersome bureaucracy that was previously in place.

UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-Moon entered Gaza from Israel on Tuesday, the second day of what appears to be a fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. The UN Chief apparently did not leave the UN compound, and the only damage he actually witnessed was along the route his convoy took to enter and leave the Gaza Strip. BAN said that he only saw a fraction of the devastation.

Just 70 miles off Gaza's coast, the Israeli Navy confronted just before dawn this morning the seventh Free Gaza expedition that set off from Cyprus on Wednesday after emergency repairs -- and after letting off some of the passengers following an explicit Israeli waring that it would use "all means" to block the ship from arriving in Gaza. Israel's Operation Cast Lead moved into a new phase on Thursday, and ground forces pushed into the middle of Gaza City, and into inhabited areas in the north and the south of the small but densely-populated coastal ship.

The acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza could easily worsen, Israeli human rights groups said at a press conference in West Jerusalem. It must be addressed immediately. There are many questions that will have to be asked later, the groups said, but the priority now is to get help to the Palestinians who are suffering. The group offered a list of suggestions, including the opening of a route for civilians to escape the battle zones. Rescue and medical teams must be allowed to reach areas of battle, or the IDF should do it. Appropriate medical care should be provided immediately, either outside or inside the Gaza Strip. The electrical, water, and sewage systems must be operating properly. Disproportionate harm to civilians -- and targetting of civilian objects -- must be stopped. Right now, they said, there is a clear and present danger.

Israel's attacks against targets in Gaza have moved into a new phase on Thursday, the 20th straight day of Operation Cast Lead, which has been unprecedented in both its ferocity and its duration. Diplomatic efforts are multiplying, but Israeli Defense Minister says that the fighting will continue "until the last minute".

It is not clear at all what is happening with the latest Free Gaza expedition, which set off from Cyprus for Gaza on Monday, then returned within hours for "repairs. The expedition was reportedly warned by Israel that it intended to stop the voyage by all available means. The Free Gaza's new boat, the Spirit of Humanity, may or may not have set out again from Cyprus headed for Gaza on Tuesday evening, but with far fewer people on board.

Israel's announcement of a naval blockade of Gaza's territorial waters may be challenged in the next day or two, by a new Free Gaza expedition that plans to sail from Cyprus to Gaza on Monday.

Israel attacks on Gaza continue, and the IDF is reportedly creating a "security zone" on the ground along the inner perimeter of the Gaza Strip -- one of the most-densely populated areas on earth, and only about 25 miles long and six miles wide. Alarm is rising about reported use of new weapons, along with calls for international investigations into grave breeches of the humanitarian law, and possible war crimes. And, a sixth Free Gaza expedition has now set sail from Cyprus toward Gaza, now under a formal Israeli naval blockade. There are many journalists on board.

The UN Security Council passed a new resolution calling for an "immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza" -- but it didn't really mean it, exactly. Rather, the wording indicates that the Security Council expects all three conditions to be fulfilled -- and that the ceasefire should be durable and fully-respected -- before the fighting is expected to stop. That is very similar to the position described by the U.S. State Department days ago. The new UN Security Council Resolution also includes wording that restates its support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Hours later, the Israeli Government said that it would continue its military operation in Gaza. A Hamas spokesman said this new resolution "failed to consider the interests of the Palestinian people".

Two days of three-hour afternoon breaks for "humanitarian respite" from the IDF's unprecedented attacks in Gaza have led to grim discoveries -- untended wounded, starving children huddled next to the bodies of their dead mothers, and more corpses of Palestinian victims killed days earlier. The killing by IDF tank fire on Thursday of one (or possibly two) Palestinian contract workers driving trucks to pick up supplies of urgently-needed humanitarian aid has caused the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees to call off aid delivery in Gaza until the security of its staff can be assured. And, the UN Security Council holds a third day of consultations to discuss arrangements for a possible cease-fire.

On the 12th day of Israel's unprecedented attacks on and in Gaza, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the military to open a humanitarian corridor to allow the transfer of essential humanitarian goods inside the besieged coastal strip where 1.5 million people are trapped. Israeli military planners did urge the population to flee -- but it did not say where, or how -- nor did it make preparations to take care of large fleeing families, or to set up field hospitals to treat the wounded, or to ensure an adequate supply of clean water or food. While some goods may have gotten in on Wednesday, journalists, however, did not. And international concern is mounting.

No one really knows exactly what is happening in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces are in total control of the flow of information. Only fragments of the overall picture are available. But the International Committee of the Red Cross, (ICRC) based in Geneva, sayid Tuesday that there is now a full-blown humanitarian crisis -- or worse -- in Gaza.

Israel's ground invasion of Gaza got underway on Saturday evening. Israeli censorship rules bar reporting of on-going military operations or casualties, but Israeli media reports indicate that the IDF has created two or three blocked-off areas inside the Gaza Strip, and that Gaza City is surrounded. Meanwhile, the U.S. has prevented United Nations Security Council action on a call for a cease-fire.

Israel's military attack on targets in Gaza continues, one week into Operation Solid Lead (alternately translated as Operation Cast Lead), but a widely-anticipated and feared ground operation has not yet begun.

Tension is rising about a possible imminent Israeli ground invasion into Gaza, as air and naval attacks continue, and the cabinet decided not to accept calls for an immediate cease-fire. The human suffering is increasing as well -- both for Palestinians in Gaza who have no where to go to escape the attacks, and who can barely expect adequate medical care in the current situation if they are wounded, as well as for Israelis living in communities around the Gaza border, as rocket and missile attacks continue with ever-expanding range.

The Israeli attacks on Gaza continue by air and sea, with a tentative land probe reported. And rockets and missiles fired from Gaza continue to fall on what is now being reported a 60-mile radius in Israel, from Ashdod on the Mediterranean Coast to Beersheva in the Negev desert.

International journalists have been barred from the Gaza Strip for most of the past two months, by a decision of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). An interim decision by Israel's Supreme Court, or High Court of Justice, handed down on Thursday in partial reply to a petition by the Foreign Press Association for restored press access to Gaza, was not implemented by the Israeli military on Friday, as its unprecedented attacks on Gaza continue for a seventh day by air and from the sea -- and a major ground offensive may be imminent. Meanwhile, the IDF is pleased by the press coverage of its war.

The Israeli Navy intercepted the sixth Free Gaza expedition sailing from Cyprus to Gaza on Tuesday morning. The Free Gaza organizers say their ship, the SS Dignity, which sails under a British flag, was in international waters at the time, and that it was deliberately rammed and damaged by an Israeli Naval vessel. Five previous Free Gaza expeditions were able to make round-trip voyages without any incident, though they were tracked by Israeli Navy vessels and asked to identify themselves..

Israel pressed its air attacks against what it said were carefully-chosen Hamas targets in Gaza for a third day on Monday. There were also reports of an Israeli naval attack on Gaza. The Palestinian death toll reached at least 370 -- and three more Israelis were killed on Monday (for a total so far of four, during this operation. Another man was stabbed to death in a West Bank settlement outside of Jerusalem in the direction of the Dead Sea. Intifada-style rock-throwing attacks and tire-burnings are occurring sporadically in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. And, a debate has been engaged in Israel between those who are ecstatic that their government is acting militarily to fight terrorism, vs. those who are calling for a cease-fire and dialog -- together with an immediate stop to the belligerent actions of "the neighborhood bully", in the words of Haaretz's Gideon Levy.

Israeli attacks on Gaza continued for a second day on Sunday, as the casualty figures continued to rise. In a statement to the press issued after emergency consultations late Saturday night, the United Nations Security Council called for an immediate halt to all violence, and an immediate stop to all military action. United Nations Human Rights officials took a stronger stand, and called for an end to the Israeli blockade on Gaza, as well as for international protection to Palestinian civilians. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority officials reportedly indicated they would be willing to go back into Gaza, if the Israeli military action is able to oust Hamas.

The situation in Gaza is critical -- and nearing critical mass. Israel has said it is on the verge of launching a major military operation against the Gaza Strip to stop the firing of rockets, mortars and missiles onto Israeli territory. Yet, quite negotiations still continue on renewing the calm -- or tahdiya -- that was more or less in place since last June. Hamas reportedly wants concessions from Israel, including re-opening of all border crossings. Israel wants the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, seized in a cross-border raid in late June 2006 and held somewhere in Gaza since then.

Israel has launched an unprecedented wave of air attacks on Gaza starting just before noon on Saturday that may be a prelude to even more Israeli military action on the ground and from the sea. By evening time in the region, at least 200 deaths were reported, and 700 injuries, as a further series of Israeli attacks was reported just underway. The decision to attack was taken on Saturday morning by three top Israeli officials -- the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister, and the Foreign Minister. The Israeli cabinet approved a major military action against Gaza in a meeting on Wednesday, but left the timing to be determined. The stated aim is to end rocket, mortar, and missile attacks from Gaza onto Israeli targets. But some Israeli officials indicate that another aim is the ouster of Gaza's Hamas rulers.

The United Nations Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory -- American professor and expert on international law Richard Falk -- was barred from entry into Israel after arriving on a flight from Geneva on Sunday. Falk was deported back to Geneva early Monday morning, according to reports in Israel. The Israeli Government says it objects to his mandate -- and to remarks he has made.

Two ships chartered by the Free Gaza group of international activists have set off from Cyprus on Friday morning on what should be a 30-hour journey to the Gaza Strip. Their aim, they say, is to "break the siege" imposed by Israel on Gaza. Israel exerts full security control of Gaza's territorial waters -- and the Israeli government is facing a delicate dilemma concerning how to handle the situation. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has informed the Free Gaza group that it regards the expedition as a form of support for what it believes is a terrorist group, Hamas, now in control of the Gaza Strip. Israeli media reports indicate that the country's Navy has been ordered to stop the expedition.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni described what sounds like at least some progress in post-Annapolis peace negotiations with former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei'a. In a press conference in Jerusalem, Livni told journalists that what both sides want is a comprehensive agreement that is "concrete enough, that represents the interests of both sides, and that can be implemented the day after." But, she said, this would require a change in the present situation on the ground, where Hamas is in control in the Gaza Stip.

The situation of some 150 or so Fatah-affiliated "asylum-seekers" who were legally admitted into Israel by the Israeli military upon a decision of the "political echelon" is very complicated. Thirty-two were sent back to Gaza -- and immediately arrested -- after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad changed their minds about bringing them to Ramallah as they (and Egypt) had originially requested. While flip-flops by the Palestinian Authority leadership are shocking and awkward, they do not lessen Israel's responsibility for the protection of these "asylum seekers".

Further amendments are required to a revised plan to reconstruct the ramp leading from the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem's Old City up to the Haram as-Sharif plateau where Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located. Israel's Regional Planning Committee has said that Islamic-era artifacts must not be converted into Jewish prayer halls, and that artifacts up to the modern period -- and not just those dating back to before 1700 AD -- must be preserved. But, the Regional Planning Committee has also approved an expansion of the Western Wall Plaza, and has given only large guidelines ordering that the artifacts "must be taken into account". This leaves a lot to discretion, and close attention and monitoring is still required, according to Ir Amim attorney Daniel Seidemann, who has been closely involved in trying to improve the reconstruction plan.

If negotiations for a two-state solution do not get serious, soon, the European Union at least should consider stopping its aid to the Palestinian people, a Palestinian political moderate, Sari Nusseibeh, has just said in Jerusalem. Massive international aid to the Palestinians over the past 15 years was intended to help build an independent state, but it has just been wasted, Nusseibeh said. One way out would be for the EU to condition its aid on Israeli seriousness about the post-Annapolis negotiations. Another suggestion Nusseibeh made was that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should just go into a room and sign an agreement -- any agreement, Nusseibeh said. He predicted that the majority of both peoples can be counted on to back a serious deal.

A revised Israeli design of the ramp from the Western Wall Plaza up to the Mughrabi Gate entrance to the Haram Ash-Sharif is expected to receive approval shortly. An earlier Israeli plan aroused great controversy, but the new plan is much more reasonable, according to some experts. They say that international attention the controversy attracted earlier has convinced the highest levels of the Israeli political echelon that this issue should be resolved responsibly. The new plan is more similar to the damaged ramp in location, slope, and overall size, the experts say -- but the real test will not be the design of the ramp itself, but whether or not part of the area underneath the ramp will still be marked for razing, and whether the idea to turn Islamic-era artifacts into Jewish prayer halls will be retained or rejected.

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert flew to Sharm as-Sheikn on Tuesday to hold discussions with Egypt's President Husni Mubarak on the recently-announced Egyptian-brokered cease-fire with Hamas. What happened in the Sharm talks is anything but clear. The cease-fire called for a two-stage opening of the Gaza border crossings this week, then for negotiations on the reopening of Rafah and the release of prisoners, including Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Palestinian fighters from Gaza two years ago, and who is still being held captive inside the beseiged Gaza Strip. After an appeal against the cease-fire by Gilad Shalit's parents, the Israeli Prime Minister now says that the release of the young soldier is at the top of Israel's priorities. And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has just re-sealed the Gaza border crossings, as punishment for the firing of three "projectiles" fired from Gaza in retaliation for an Israeli attack that killed two Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Hopes are rising for breakthroughs that may bring peace -- after long months of anxieties about war -- in several areas of the Middle East.

Three United Nations reports presented Monday to the Human Rights Council in Geneva say that human rights continue to be violated in the occupied Palestinian territory -- they also say that Israeli civilians are at danger from rocket and other "projectile" firing from Gaza, also a human rights violation. Both Israel and the Palestinian parties must establish "accountability mechanisms", and the closure of the Gaza strip must end, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. And, the new Special Rapporteur asks for his mandate to be expanded to cover Palestinian violations of human rights "internationally" -- though not in the Palestinian territory.

The Palestinian Legislative Council has been in the deep freeze since last year's rout of Fatah security forces by Hamas in Gaza. Recently, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has made an initiative to call for dialog. And, members of the Palestinian Legislative Council have taken steps that may help build a bridge between the various actors in the Palestinian body politic. Palestinian parliamentarian and political figure Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, who himself has run, twice, against huge odds as an independent candidate for President, explains what is happening.

Gaza's borders are sealed only the Israeli military can decides who -- or what -- can get in or out. One indication of this control is the impact on students who hope to travel abroad to pursue higher education. A small group of Gazan students who hoped to be able to take up Fulbright scholarships to study in the U.S. in the next academic year were thrown into despair when they were notified late last week that they would not be permitted to travel out of the beseiged coastal strip, after all. But, a newspaper report drew attention to their plight, and the situation now seems to have changed -- though hundreds of other students are still affected, as are all the other 1.5 million inhabitant of the most densely-populated areas on earth, many of whom are refugees...

Israel's Foreign Minister and deputy Prime Minister Tzipi Livni spoke out on Thursday in favor of preparations for Kadima Party primaries, which might replace beleagured Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as party leader. Livni also said that she had spoken out against Hamas participation in 2006 Palestinian elections, but that her arguments were dismissed. Now, she says, the situation on the ground in Gaza -- where Hamas exercises de facto rule -- must be dealt with before the creation of a Palestinian State.

As international investors are being urged to take a risk in the Palestinian West Bank to support the peace process, an East Jerusalem businessman says that the main effort should be focussed now on Jerusalem. But, he feels frustrated by the lack of commitment, so far...

By now, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under the Annapolis process were supposed to be well underway and proceeding towards conclusion later this year or, at the limit, by the end of President Bush's term in office in January 2009. However, there is no progress reported. Yet, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is pushing a Palestine Investment Conference planned as part of the Annapolis process, that will be held in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, from 21-23 May. Bethlehem's Governor Salah Ta'amri, a senior and legendary leader of Fatah, says he supports the investment conference, although the situation, he said, is surreal, like a scene in a Checkov play.

The situation in Gaza is descending into confusion and anarchy. The need for fuel is desperate. Pressure is mounting. But no much is moving in the crowded coastal strip.

Again, when the situation was just at the brink, the Israeli Military has authorized a limited loosening of sanctions it administers against the entire 1.5 million souls in the Gaza Strip, to allow a limited resupply of fuel to Gaza's only power plant. Without today's delivery, the power plant would have had to shut down this evening. The fuel expected to enter Gaza today will permit the power plant to operate until Sunday evening -- when the week-long Israeli public holiday of Passover ends, and fuel deliveries can resume. That is, as long as Palestinian attacks on Israel and on the Gaza crossings do not continue...

Again, Gaza's only power plant is facing imminent shut-down on Wednesday evening unless the Israeli military orders renewed fuel deliveries through the Nahal Oz terminal which is now closed for security reasons. Warnings from Gaza of an impending "explosion" have been increasing. An Israeli human rights organization has begun pre-litigation procedures and is preparing to appeal to the High Court of Justice on Wednesday, if there is no movement.

At nearly the last minute, on a day full of grief and anxieties, Israel delivered industrial diesel fuel to run Gaza's only power plant on Wednesday. A small quantity of fuel arrived -- as promised two days ago by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak -- but late.

Seven staff members of a Ramallah-based radio station, RAM-FM, were released from restrictions confining them to residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday, but are still under gag orders, and may not return to work for another week, while an Israeli police investigation continues into charges that the station was broadcasting without a licence from Jerusalem. RAM-FM says it was only broadcasting from Ramallah, and only used a microwave link set up by an Israeli broadcasting services company to transmit materials from the Jerusalem studios to Ramallah to go on the air from there.

Gaza's only power plant, that supplies electricity to Gaza City and regions of central Gaza where one-third of population of the beseiged coastal strip resides, is once again facing a complete shut-down due to a lack of Israeli-supplied fuel. The industrial diesel fuel it uses is paid for by the European Union, and supplied by the Israeli Dor Alon company under a contract concluded with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. A shortage of regular diesel fuel and of gasoline for cars has brought Gaza to the brink of another crisis, and Hamas is warning that civilians might soon take matters into their own hands.

The Jerusalem studios of Ramallah-based RAM-FM radio were raided on Monday, equipment was confiscated, and staff were arrested and questioned in the night before their court appearance on Tuesday. The charges: illegal broadcasting. The station has a Palestinian-Authority assigned radio frequency and a powerful transmitter in Ramallah that covers much of Israel, but there were problems with radio interference in Jerusalem. For six months, the station has been saying on air that listeners having difficulty in Jerusalem could tune into their second frequency. RAM-FM may -- or may not -- have fully complied with all the legal requirements...

American Palestinian businessman Sam Bahour speaks about the difficulties of living and working under Israeli occupation in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and discusses whether or not present proposals are helping to improve the situation.

Israeli security obliged journalists -- at least, the "foreign" journalists -- who wanted or needed to attend last Saturday night's press event between U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert. The press event was held at Olmert's official residence in Jerusalem. The travelling press who accompanied Cheney were not subjected to this treatment, nor were journalists who attended a Cheney-Mahmoud Abbas press event at the Palestinian presidential compound in the West Bank City of Ramallah.

The outlines of a Grand Deal between Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinians appears to be taking shape. Under an agreement approved by Arab League Ministers in May 2007, and later finalized directly between Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, Egypt will build a new electricity line to Gaza which will offer an alternative to, if not totally supplant, the present arrangement whereby Israel supplies just over half of Gaza's present electrical demand. An Egyptian-Israeli gas deal that became operational this month may offer an alternative to Gaza's own power plant, which now operates on Israeli-supplied industrial diesel fuel. This Grand Deal both depends on, and offers an incentive for, a new relationship between Israel and Gaza, and between Israel and the Palestinians overall.

The Israeli government has not -- yet -- ordered the demolition of the East Jerusalem family home where the yeshiva attacker lived. But there is still a troubling absence of high-level statements condemning viligante behavior of demonstrators who have vowed to do the job themselves if the government does not act. Former top Israeli police officials, however, complain about police unpreparedness that barely restrained Sunday's violent protest.

With tensions rising, the Israeli government does not appear to be doing enough to cool hatreds between communities in Jerusalem or elsewhere -- and government officials are even among those stoking the fires. But it is the responsibility of the government, both under the international human rights treaties it has signed, and under domestic Israeli law, to step in and calm things down.

U.S. Secretary of State Rice left the Middle East on Wednesday with her mission apparently accomplished. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to resume Annapolis-process negotiations with Israeli negotiators, though he had suspended the negotiations only days earlier to protest Israel's recent deadly military incursion into Gaza. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch headed off to Egypt to pursue all matters relating to Gaza, while Lt. General William Fraser will return for as "trilateral" meeting next week with Israelis and Palestinians to discuss his evaluation of their progress, or lack of it, in implementing Road Map obligations.

Egyptian liquid natural gas begins to flow to Israel in what could be the beginning of an economic rearrangement of relations in the region. Israel, meanwhile, says that it needs to have at least five energy suppliers, to be sure it can survive any future embargo.

Israel's Supreme Court has accepted the Israeli military argument that its fuel cuts and proposed electricity cuts to the 1.5 million people in the crowded Gaza Strip are reasonable measures to take in retaliation for attacks by Qassam rockets and other projectiles shot from Gaza into Israeli territory. Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups are deeply dismayed, and say they will continue to resort to the court for a remedy to relieve the effects on innocent civilians.

Gaza´s Power Plant is coming back on line but still at the brink after one Israeli fuel delivery. Uncertainty continues, and so will power cuts, because not enough electricity is available, and it is cold in Gaza. Condoleeza Rice says Hamas is ultimately responsible, but calls on Israel to avoid a humanitarian crisis. The UN Security Council is meeting and expected to issue a statement.

Gaza's only power plant has been forced to shut down operations on Sunday, because of continued Israeli closures of crossings into Gaza where vital humanitarian supplies are transferred into the nearly-totally-isolated Gaza Strip. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the closures on Thursday after continued Palestinian firing on Israel territory.

Israel is loosening its sanctions against the Gaza Strip, as humanitarian consequences are reported, though it says Palestinian complaints are propaganda. Industrial diesel fuel used exclusively to operate the main Gaza Power Plant will now be supplied in the amount delivered in October, before Phase I fuel cuts went into effect. This will help, but it is not enough.

Israeli military-ordered fuel cuts to Gaza have now caused electricity cuts in the nearly-totally-isolated Gaza Strip. The Associated Press reported Sunday that 8-hour per day electricity cuts will now have to be instituted across the board in Gaza. Maher el-Najjar, Deputy Director of the Coastal ...

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s program to punish Gaza’s population for Qassam rocket fire into Israeli territory is apparently moving into a new phase. A second round of fuel cuts – Phase II -- was scheduled to start on 30 December, with a military-ordered reduction of some 35% to 43% (appare...

USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore, who was just sworn in by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on December 13 at a ceremony in Washington D.C., suddenly turned up in Jerusalem on December 14, and on December 15 appeared on the main road to Ramallah (which is now being repaired by USAID), where...

Israel has been reducing fuel supplies to Gaza for some weeks now – though tightened Israeli sanctions against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip were supposed to go into effect only a week ago. Gaza is totally dependent on Israeli supplies of fuel – including gas for cooking, gasoline for automob...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has just forcefully endorsed positions taken by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and by Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak, calling on Palestinians to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state. This may actually be a gift. The Palestinians have actually a...

Photo by Rev. Julie Rowe. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visited the Church of the Nativity -- reputed to be the birthplace of Jesus -- in Bethlehem on Thursday. The visit was described as “a break from peacemaking” — but she must have whispered a prayer or two, to help her efforts ...

The UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, John Dugard, has said today that the UN Secretary General should pull out of the Quartet that the U.S. has put together to support President Bush’s moves for Middle East peace -- unless the Quarte...

Israel's President Simon Peres told journalists from the world media last week that Israel is "today being supported by the Quartet". Peres has served in 12 different Israeli cabinets, and three times as Prime Minister. In 1994, a few months after the surprise announcement of mutual recognition be...