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Hamas leaders have every reason to laugh all the way back from Mecca to Damascus and the Gaza Strip. The unity government agreement they signed with Fatah on Thursday, which has become known as the Mecca Accord, does not require…
read moreIf Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh manage to implement the Mecca agreement in the Palestinian territories, Israel may benefit as well, particularly in the security sphere. If the implementation fails, the very existence of the Mecca deal is bad for…
read moreOn January 26, 2006, Hamas celebrated its election victory. Ismail Haniyeh, who would assume the premiership, rededicated his organization to violence. “Our fighting is only with the Zionist enemy,” he explained. “We will continue our dialogue with all brotherly factions…
read morehttp://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_hirsh/2007/02/independent_voices.html Antony Lerman argues for the “Independent Jewish Voices ” statement as follows: Pro-Israel and Zionist groups have interpreted intensified criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism as the expression of a “new anti-semitism”. The IJV initiative leans towards the view that…
read morehttp://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mitch_simmons/2007/02/mitch_simmons.html The repeated, increasingly desperate reinvention of dissenting Jewish groups, this time in the guise of Independent Jewish Voices, which is invariably accompanied by the admiring cooing of the left-liberal press, throws up the obvious question: why not engage productively…
read morehttp://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/arnold_wesker/2007/02/arnold_wesker.html I was approached to be part of the new group, Independent Jewish Voices, and declined. I couldn’t quite see how one could be independent being part of a group, especially as there is a third group, unattached, unclubable, who…
read moreView this bulletin online here New Palestinian schoolbooks present a world without Israel, turn territorial dispute into religious conflict, andreflect an anti-western bias Washington, DC – The new Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks for Grade 12 encourage students to see Israel,…
read moreThis week saw the launching of the Independent Jewish Voices initiative by a group of prominent left-of-center Jews in the U.K. The initiative intends, according to its founding statement, to “promote the expression of alternative Jewish voices.” Its sponsors believe…
read morePalestinian leaders, whether from Fatah or Hamas, have been keen to find an excuse to divert attention from their internal problems. So it is not surprising that many have jumped on Israel’s reconstruction of an access bridge to Jerusalem’s Temple…
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With the US in danger of failing in Iraq and Israel thwarted in Lebanon, Iran sensed a historic opportunity last summer to spread its influence, make itself safer, roll back the US and promote Islamic solutions in the region. A…
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