Posted on October 31st, 2009 by Marian Houk
It looked better on television than in these stills – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was wearing a beautiful, sophisticated medium blue tie with irregular white shapes on it, for his meeting in Abu Dhabi on Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Special Envoy for the Middle East, George [...]
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Filed under: Middle East Peace Process, Negotiators and negotiations, Palestine & Palestinians, USA
Posted on October 25th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Basem (Correction from comment below: Bassim) Khoury won a lot of admiration and respect when he reportedly resigned, at the beginning of October, in protest of the (later reversed) Palestinian decision to withdraw support from a resolution they (the Palestinians) had been drafting in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in support of the [...]
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Filed under: Donors, Gaza, Humanitarian Aid, Journalism and Journalists, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on October 25th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Tensions — and provocations — have risen for weeks.
Jordanian intervention recently defused a days-long sit-in by Muslims who heeded an earlier call, during the recent Jewish holidays, to come to defend Al-Aqsa against a reported call by Jewish settlers for their faithful to come to pray inside Al-Aqsa. A group of about 200 Palestinians slept [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on October 24th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The latest report by Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, transmitted through the United Nations Secretary-General (document A/64/328), dated 25 August but presented by Falk himself to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee at UNHQ/NY this week, says that:
“On Palestinian self-determination, the [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Human Rights, International Law, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, United Nations
Posted on October 24th, 2009 by Marian Houk
A U.S. diplomat representing her country at a debate of the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee last week said, after hearing the presentation of Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967, that “her delegation had serious reservations about the Special [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, UN General Assembly
Posted on October 24th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom called on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at UNHQ in New York on Friday afternoon, and afterward told the Israeli Ynet media group that the Goldstone report on the Gaza war should be “buried”, according to a report on the YNet website.
According to Ynet, Shalom said, “I am more optimistic [...]
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Filed under: BAN Ki-Moon, Gaza, Goodwill Ambassadors, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General, UN Security Council, United Nations
Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Marian Houk
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas started the legal procedure, in Ramallah today, for presidential and legislative elections to take place in three months’ time, on 24 January 2010.
In the announcement, Abbas said that the elections would take place in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip which has been controlled by Hamas [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Gaza
Posted on October 22nd, 2009 by Marian Houk
Both the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon — a cautious bureaucrat if ever there was one — and the more-willing-to-take-risks UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have backed the Goldstone report on last winter’s Gaza war that at least two (or three) and perhaps four (or all five) of the UN Security Council’s Permanent Members don’t [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, UN Secretary-General, UN Security Council, United Nations
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by Marian Houk
Israeli officials seem to be taking a range of views on the question of establishing an independent Israeli commission to look into last winter’s war on Gaza.
The IDF’s Operation Cast Lead (27 December to 18 January), was primarily justified as necessary to stop rocket, mortar, and missile fire from Gaza onto surrounding Israeli communities (the [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on October 20th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Today, speaking to journalists at a press conference at the presidential headquarters in Cairo (after his meeting with Egyptian President Husni Mubarak), the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave some new details about the circumstances surrounding the fiasco concerning the Goldstone report in the UN Human Rights Council on 2 October.
According to a report of Abbas’ [...]
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Filed under: Egypt, Gaza, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
