Yes!
Ibrahim Gambari — Special Representative of UNSG BAN Ki-Moon, and Nigeria’s former Ambassador to the UN — did succeed in meeting today in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) with Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi . She has been held under house arrest for some 18 years, but today she was whisked to a Government [...]
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Filed under: Myanmar
Daniel Levy is really, really good. He is the extremely impressive, gifted and talented person from the Israeli side who did the drafting for the Geneva Initiative, under the direction of Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli minister and leader of the sort of leftist Meretz-Yahad party. The Israeli “Geneva” team was packed [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Quartet, Register of damages due to The Wall
Reuters has released an amazing report based on newly-declassified documents from the British Foreign Office, including diplomatic reports from the 1970s that recount discussions with Palestinians about Palestinian discussions. This is the sort of thing diplomats do all the time — every day, in fact — to help their governments know what is going [...]
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Filed under: Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Quartet
There will be 4,000 — instead of 2,000 — Israeli police deployed around the Old City of Jerusalem today, ostensibly to prevent disturbances on this third Friday in the holy month of Ramadan.
[UPDATE: Silly me -- I didn't realize it earlier: THIS WAS THE 28th OF SEPTEMBER, and thus the sixth anniversary, according to the [...]
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Filed under: Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Quartet
Though I have not seen any official announcement of this, there is word going around that Israel’s general closure of all crossings into and out of Palestinian territory may last throughout the entire week-long Sukkot holiday — even though the only full official public holiday during the period is today.
This is a blanket closure, during [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians
The wife of one of the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah last year — the immediate cause of the “Second Lebanon War” — had every reason to want to try to reach Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And even to have this encounter in front of the world press.
The question is, how did she get [...]
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Filed under: Israel, Journalism and Journalists, Lebanon, Middle East Peace Process
Reuters is reporting on Wednesday evening that the Bank of Israel is proposing to supply shekels to Gaza.
The story said that “Israel’s central bank has proposed using a state-owned institution to supply funds to Gaza banks after private lenders began severing ties to a territory that Israel labels an enemy entity, officials said on Wednesday. [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Global Economy, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Quartet
Israel’s Kol Israel Radio, and the news agencies, are reporting that one Israeli bank — the largest Israeli bank, Bank Hapoalim — is cutting off relations with banks in Gaza, as a result of the Government’s recent decision to brand Gaza as an “hostile territory”/”enemy entity”.
The Jerusalem Post wrote Wednesday that Bank Hapoalim is “Israel’s [...]
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Filed under: Donors, Gaza, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Quartet
Of course, it was to be expected that there would be a general closure of the West Bank and Gaza crossings for the Jewish holidays. But, it is never known in advance — at least to the general public — when it will start, and how long it will last.
In this case, the Jewish [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Journalism and Journalists, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Quartet, Register of damages due to The Wall
At first, Abdel Shafi wanted a National Unity Government in order to curb the late Yasser Arafat’s solo rule, or solo decision-making power.
His comments on the break-up of a National Unity Government as a result of Hamas-Fatah fighting have not been reported.
But, his reasons to wish for a National Unity still appear as valid today [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians