NOW Lebanon
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=196297

The resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in early September offers significant opportunities and pitfalls for all parties.

For the Obama administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement of the talks represents the culmination of almost a year of intensive diplomacy. Whether or not the United States has a backup plan if talks founder is entirely unclear. The administration’s assumption appears to be that direct talks will generate their own dynamics; but if they don’t, it’s not evident what the next American step will be.

NOW Lebanon
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=194583

The Palestinian leadership is still seeking a political formula to reenter direct negotiations with Israel. There is no doubt that the Palestinians will agree to this, largely because the United States is insisting on it. However, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues feel very exposed politically because they have almost nothing to show for diplomatic efforts in the proximity talks and are facing considerable domestic opposition to such a move.

Hamas’ many-splendored contradictions

August 10, 2010 - 12:00am

NOW Lebanon
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=192955

Hamas was in the news last week, accused by Egypt of having been behind the rocket attacks from the Sinai against the Israeli town of Eilat and the Jordanian town of Aqaba. This, once again, told us something about the paradoxes of the Islamist group.

Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/16/while_no_ones_looking_the_pales...

In the world of Palestinian politics, the recent weeks have been a study in contrasts. The international media has trained its focus off the shores of Gaza, where the flotilla fiasco has generated dramatic images of dead civilians and battered Israeli soldiers. The politics of this incident reflect the traditional sturm und drang of the Palestinian national movement: full of grand gestures and transformative ambitions that might result in bloodshed and embarrassment for Israel, but make no substantive contribution to Palestinian liberation.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/07/israel-must-clarify-palestin...

While world attention has been heavily focused on efforts to break the siege of Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are pursuing a series of new, nonviolent, strategies challenging the Israeli occupation. What they are primarily seeking, and what the Israeli government is desperately trying to avoid, is clarity about the status of the occupied territories.

Common Ground News Service
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=27779&lan=en&sid=0&sp=0&isNew=0&p...

The Obama administration was successful in arranging for the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations through “proximity talks”, which began last week, but expectations in all quarters are correctly low for any near-term breakthrough. Consequently, Palestinians have been systematically developing a new set of peaceful strategies to achieve independence and advance a resolution to the conflict.

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/24/binyamin-netanyahu-palestine...

The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is not being honest with his fellow Israelis by insisting that settlement building is compatible with a peaceful future between Israelis and Palestinians, or that the colonisation of occupied East Jerusalem "in no way harms" Palestinians and is not in any sense different from building in Tel Aviv.

A real plan to build Palestine

February 2, 2010 - 1:00am

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/02/palestinian-state-build-isra...

Two weeks ago the Palestinian Authority issued a detailed budget for the state and institution-building programme it adopted last August. The programme calls for Palestinians to unilaterally build the administrative, economic and institutional framework of an independent state in spite of the Israeli occupation and as a peaceful, constructive means of countering it.

Palestine must be a secular state

January 27, 2010 - 1:00am

washingtonpost.com
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/01/palestine_must_be...

As Palestinians press the international community to live up to its commitment to ensuring the establishment of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, conversation is intensifying about the character of this new state. In their own interests, Palestinians should buck the regional trend towards religious politics and ensure, from the outset, that it is firmly and irrevocably a secular state.

Worldfocus
http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/20/jerusalems-undying-ethnic-strife-deepens-u...

Worldfocus spoke with Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force for Palestine, a non-profit dedicated to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Originally from Beirut, Ibish is the former Washington D.C. correspondent for Lebanon’s Daily Star and current author of IbishBlog.

Worldfocus: How would you characterize the current situation in Jerusalem?