Conflict Blotter

Sometimes Wikipedia nails it. This is from the entry on the Annapolis peace conference:
Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is organizing the event, which will be more than a photo op.

[Read more →]

To mark Condi’s seventh trip to the region this year, I’m going to jot down some thoughts on the nascent peace process and the Annapolis confererence slated for late November or December. First, people still aren’t taking this very seriously by and large, despite Condi’s warnings to journalists on Monday. Palestinians, Israelis, journalists, etc, tend […]

[Read more →]

If we connect a few dots that have emerged over the past week or so, it would appear that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has begun quietly making the necessary political preparations that will allow him to make substantive concessions to the Palestinians on Jerusalem and outposts.
On October 1, the government moved the West Bank […]

[Read more →]

Next Thursday Canadian rocker Bryan Adams will headline a peace concert in the West Bank city of Jericho. The concert is sponsored by One Voice, a New York-based NGO dedidcated to promoting understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. (See Dion Nissenbaum’s post on the concert for more background on OneVoice and its founder). The concert is […]

[Read more →]

Ahh, the joys of covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The International Midde East Media Center reported yesterday:
Three Palestinians have been reportedly wounded in southern Gaza after an Israeli shell landed on a local house near the Sofa crossing in eastern Rafah city, media sources said.
Reported the Jerusalem Post yesterday:
A Palestinian boy was […]

[Read more →]

This is bad news for those of you who oppose the expansion of settlements and favor a two-state solution.
The Samaria and Judea (Shai) District Police will move its headquarters to the controversial E-1 area, which links Jerusalem with the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, by the end of this year, regardless of whether or […]

[Read more →]

Though it seems a bit premature, there’s been an uptick this week in speculation about who will succeed President Abbas. Abbas’ term isn’t up for another 18 months and early elections are off the table, but a failed November peace conference could change all that.
Marwan Barghouti is of course one of the names most often […]

[Read more →]

Here’s a court case worth following. An Israeli court began hearing on Tuesday a lawsuit, filed by five Israeli soldiers who fought in Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, against the director of the 2002 documentary “Jenin, Jenin.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, the plaintiffs site 13 incidents of libel […]

[Read more →]

There have been a pair of reports on the woeful state of the Palestinian economy this week. A British government report released yesterday called on Israel to strike a balance between short-term security needs and Palestiniain economic development. The report argues that removing checkpoints and road blocks in the West Bank and thus freeing […]

[Read more →]

Yesterday and again today the Israeli press is awash with reports that Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas have been secretly toiling away at final status talks in recent months.
Yediot Aharanot reported yesterday that the two planned to present a joint document on the core issues at a US sponsored peace conference in November.
The two [Olmert […]

[Read more →]