Media attention has focused on the loss of life and property in the bombardment of Gaza, the domestic skirmishes between Jewish and Arab Israelis, and Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. Yet there are unique implications for Palestinian communities in Lebanon, too. In Lebanon, more than 470,000...
Faced with a serious clash in Jerusalem between two communities divided on the subject of religion, the Roman Empire’s man of the hour, its colonial governor Pontius Pilate made the bold decision to suppress his own opinion and not to intervene in the debate. As a patriotic polytheist, he had no...
No city in the world has seized the imagination or captivated the soul in the way that Jerusalem has. Revered by more than half the world's population, Jerusalem is the beating heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is a city widely held to have been inhabited by the Jebusites, long before...
The rapidly-evolving geopolitical equation in the Middle East just got another layer of complexity added to it. Earlier this month, Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced the launch of an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in the...
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been raging for over seven decades, and the prospects for peace have never seemed more distant than today. The two-state solution, which was once the most widely-accepted remedy for the impasse, has lost traction, and efforts by the United Nations and other...
Uncertainty hangs over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pending decision on whether to annex as much a 30% of the West Bank, including the possibility of all existing Israeli settlements there and the entire Jordan Valley. Should he proceed, the proposal will go before the Israeli...
When assessing the geopolitical damage done by US President Donald Trump’s during his initial term in office, Palestine and the fate of the Palestinian people must be given a prominent place. In recent decades, US governments have not only declared their uncompromising fealty to Israel but, to a...
On January 28, US President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he hailed as the “deal of the century.” This is the latest attempt by the US to mediate between the Israelis and Palestinians and end the seven-decade-old...
The long-awaited “deal of the century” crafted by Jared Kushner and presented by his father-in-law, US President Donald Trump, finally saw the light of day on January 28. Playing the role of the most brazenly dishonest of “honest brokers,” Trump, accompanied by legally (and morally)...
At the Peace to Prosperity summit recently held in Bahrain, Oman announced plans for opening an embassy in Israeli-occupied Ramallah, making it the first Gulf state to do so.
Dear Ambassador Friedman, We, both Israelis and Palestinians, are members of the editorial board of the Palestine-Israel Journal, a joint quarterly issued in East Jerusalem for the past three decades. Our aim is to promote dialogue based upon equality, mutual recognition and respect and...
In the run-up to this year’s general election, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that he would annex large areas of the West Bank if he secured victory. The fulfillment of his promise — assuming Netanyahu wins the re-run scheduled for September after failing to form a...
The latest gambit in trying to maneuver the Palestinians into a corner is a conference in the Bahraini capital Manama set for the end of June. In early May, Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and the lead architect of the so-called “deal of the century,” gave a lengthy...
