The New Year always provides an opportunity for both introspection and speculation. So it seems a good time to consider what the big stories are likely to be this year. Some of the five major stories I…
Escalating confrontations in Jerusalem centred on the al-Aqsa Mosque, 1500 more homes to be built in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and a sharp deterioration in Israel’s relations with Jordan have…
As the dust settles in a bloodied Gaza, after what one US official described as not so much another military exercise in “mowing the lawn” as “removing the topsoil”, Palestinians greeted the ceasefire…
With the August 26 ceasefire between Israeli and Palestinian forces holding, both sides have resumed their relentless pursuit of political advantage. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, Palestine…
If we apply Karl Marx’s dictum that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”, then the Gaza Strip is one of the longest-running tragicomic productions in the world today. It is not hard…
Amidst the cycle of fighting and ceasefire between the Israeli military and Hamas the safety of children remains severely threatened. Young Israelis are vulnerable to the trauma of frequent air raids that…
Writing about conflict is always difficult because of the romantic Western need for good guys and bad guys. That makes it difficult to make sense of things when everyone’s hands are dirty. Writing for…
Fawaz Gerges, London School of Economics and Political Science
After days of oscillation over an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, the conflict between Israel and Hamas has escalated into a full-on Israeli ground offensive in Gaza. According to authorities in Gaza, 258…
The world was no longer watching – at least, that was what both Israelis and Palestinians seemed to feel when I visited Jerusalem and the West Bank late last month. Yet the people on both sides of the…
At a ceremony in Gaza on Wednesday, representatives of the two main rival Palestinian political factions, Fatah and Hamas, signed a reconciliation agreement. Predictably, the news was met with stern criticism…
Recently, Musheer al-Masri, a Hamas member and spokesperson, blamed his Palestinian political rivals Fatah yet again for hindering the implementation of the Palestinian Reconciliation Agreement. The agreement…
When Melbourne man Ben Zygier, an alleged agent of Mossad, or perhaps a double agent, died in December 2010, his end was barely perceptible. He had been held anonymously in solitary confinement at a high-security…
Israeli air-raids on Gaza have stopped. Palestinian rockets are not being fired at Israel. The cease-fire seems to be holding. After seven days of war, and 157 Palestinian deaths (the great majority of…