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Turkey has condemned the attacks on a flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza as piracy. Branding activists as terrorists and denying the human situation in Gaza will not help an Israeli cause that is proving increasingly alienating.
Boosted by technologies that facilitate mass distribution without government control, the heavy metal and hip-hop music scene in the Middle East recalls the role music played in the velvet revolution that toppled regimes in Eastern Europe and Indonesia.
Everyone progressive, liberal and leftwards breathed a sigh of relief at the end of two long Bush Administrations. I too share the hope for change from the Bush era. Sadly, Obama's not the change we're looking for.
Benny Morris' earlier concern with the Palestinian national narrative has given way to an overarching concern with the promotion of the Jewishness of Israel. This comes at the expense of Palestinian national aspirations.
An old joke goes that if you understand Middle East politics, it has not been explained properly. This book places events in their historical context, and illustrates why the conflict, with its religious and political dimensions, is so difficult to resolve.
Leaders of Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians have been invited for peace talks in Washington. Rather than seeking to destroy Hamas, the US ought to encourage a unity government with Fatah, that would bring Hamas into the mainstream.
Memories of the Gaza war are likely to focus on the human rights aspects of Israel's military conduct. Demographics could constitute a greater threat to Israel than rockets or terrorism, and may be the wrench that breaks the cycle of death and destruction.
Despite its offer of a ceasefire, it is doubtful that Israel has achieved its objectives in the Gaza Strip. The popular grievances that propelled Hamas onto the political stage in 2006 will continue to sustain it.
Benny Morris, Israel's best-known revisionist historian, led more and more Israelis and Diaspora Jews in the 1980s to accept the legitimacy of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Morris has changed his spots. (September 2008)
We were invited to share a meal with a Jewish family in Haifa. They welcomed us, and conversation was happy and inviting. Inevitably, the topic of conflict between Israel and Palestine reared its head. The atmosphere was transformed.
An overweening trust in military muscle has led Israel into this campaign; it is hard to overlook the parallels with the Shock and Awe curtain-raiser to the Iraq debacle. It seems there is an unspoken assumption that Palestinian lives are not so important as Israeli ones.