Israeli tourists were killed today in a bomb attack on a bus in Burgas, Bulgaria. We don’t know how many were killed yet – at least three, but there are reports of up to seven fatalities with 20 wounded. We don’t know for sure how the bombing was carried out, though initial reports suggest that […]
Category: Middle East politics
Thoughts on the Arab revolutions
A few thoughts after sitting in a panel discussion on the Arab revolutions, with speakers from Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, the USA and Israel, as part of the Israeli Presidential Conference. Jordan Though Jordan isn’t undergoing a violent revolution (or a violent repression of a peaceful revolution), there are now weekly protests against the King and […]
Get the picture?
Avi Mayer called it first, when he asked if the photo below was genuine. He guessed it wasn’t. Over the last few days, hundreds of increasingly sophisticated rockets have been fired into Israel by Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. The rockets have been able to reach large cities like Ashdod, Beer […]
Why Mahmoud Abbas is like Yoko Ono
Is Mahmoud Abbas the new Yoko Ono? I ask because it seems very much like he’s trying to break up the Middle East’s very own Fab Four. In 2002, roughly 18 months after the start of the Second Intifada, the USA, European Union, Russia and the United Nations came together to form the Quartet on […]
Some legal consequences of UN membership for Palestine
Today the Palestinian Authority’s request to be accepted as a UN member state will be submitted to the Security Council. So far, this has proved a good tactical move to embarrass Israel. Strategically, though, in the long run it could make life harder for Abbas and the PA. Guy Goodwin-Gil has already pointed out that […]