October 11, 2009

Exploring the Geneva Initiative

I have had a bit of time to explore some of the detailed Annexes to the long-running, Swiss-funded peace-visioning project called the Geneva Initiative. You can access them through this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:15 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

IPS piece on Abbas's waning popularity

Oops, I forgot to mention this when it came out, on Friday. But anyway, the piece is here, and also archived here. The conclusion there: there is increasing talk amongst...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:03 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

October 10, 2009

Nonsense from Blair

Mondoweiss today gives us a Youtube clip of Tony Blair dodging a tough question from a University of Buffalo student about the Goldstone report. The student, Nick Kabat, asked Blair...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:14 PM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

October 06, 2009

Goldstone's careful documentation & argument

I've had the chance to be reading more of the report of the Goldstone Commission Report (PDF). It's 425 pages long, so not an easy or light read! But I've...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:53 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

Abu Mazen's legitimacy plunging

Just two months ago, Abu Mazen's western backers (and bank-rollers) were lauding the non-trivial achievement he racked up by being able to convene a selected list of invitees to the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:58 PM | Fulltext link (15 comments)

October 04, 2009

Long knives in Ramallah over Goldstone?

Mahmoud Abbas, who wears the three hats as head of Fateh, president of the interim PA, and head of the PLO, has now "ordered an enquiry" into how it was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:30 AM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

October 03, 2009

Palestinian society supports Goldstone, criticizes Abbas

A glance at the Maan News website today shows Palestinian society rising up to urge strong endorsement of the Goldstone Report's recommendations, and criticizing Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:15 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 02, 2009

Palestinian political update

The first stage in the Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange deal related to long-held Israeli POW Gilad Shalit took place today, with the exchange of 19 Palestinian women prisoners for a two-minute...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:21 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

September 29, 2009

Good start on Goldstone, Michael Posner

Michael Posner, who's the US's Assistant secretary of State for Human Rights, Democratization, etc, spoke about the Goldstone Report at the UN Human Rights Council today. He called on Israel,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:30 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

Palestinian independence, borders, and Jerusalem

I've been thinking, based on many conversations over past years, about what constitutes the heart of the "independence" that Palestinian supporters of a two-state solution judge it is, that their...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:48 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Palestinian reconciliation update

There have been positive signals coming out of the Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks between Fateh and Hamas. Al-Quds al-Arabi tells us that Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal, who met with Egyptian intel...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:37 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

MP3 audio: Who Speaks for the Palestinians?

For those who want to hear what I said in my talk on this topic September 24 at the Middle East Institute, you can now listen to it here. Thanks...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:45 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

September 27, 2009

Iran sanctions and-- Jerusalem

As the Obama administration prepares for next Thursday's important P5+1 meeting with Iran, the prospects for mounting a successful sanctions campaign against Iran are being seriously undermined by the actions...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:35 PM | Fulltext link (42 comments)

September 26, 2009

My IPS piece on dimming peace prospects

... is here. Also archived here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

September 25, 2009

Rahm Emanuel's disturbing view of US role

Key Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel said this about Israeli-Palestinian peace and the US role in securing it, to Charlie Rose on Wednesday night: You can’t want this more than they...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:41 AM | Fulltext link (29 comments)

September 23, 2009

Obama's peacemaking pledge-- to the world

Where he said it was as important as what he said. Today, in his debut appearance as US President at the UN General Assembly, Barack Obama vowed, I will... continue...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:47 PM | Fulltext link (35 comments)

September 22, 2009

Obama: Peace in US interest

Finally, he said it! Just as I and some others have been urging him to do for some time now, today Pres. Obama said this about getting a final Israeli-Palestinian...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:39 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

September 18, 2009

IPS piece on Obama-Netanyahu tussle over priorities

With all the fast-moving developments of the past couple of weeks, I felt it was time to draw out the main theme behind them.... I tried to do that in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:30 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Gaza police and noncombatant immunity

Phil Weiss, who's read more of the Goldstone report than I have at this point, zeroes in on the paragraphs Goldstone and Co wrote about the IDF's killings of police...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:15 PM | Fulltext link (46 comments)

September 15, 2009

Goldstone Commission reports on Gaza-war war-crimes

The Goldstone Commission, appointed in April by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that were committed during last...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:13 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

September 13, 2009

I-P: Borders first-- and fast?

The usually well-informed Akiva Eldar has an important piece in today's Haaretz, reporting this: Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will resume next month on the basis of an understanding...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:10 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

September 12, 2009

Malley on refugees, settlers, etc

I realize I promised to put something on the blog about the presentation that Rob Malley made during Thursday's discussion of Hussein Ibish's latest anti-one-state screed. Let me convey just...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:03 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

September 10, 2009

Trashing one-staters with Hussein Ibish

This morning I dropped by the Woodrow Wilson Center, a serious think-tank here in Washington DC that's headed by the near-iconic Lee Hamilton. They had a panel discussion that had...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:30 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

September 09, 2009

B'tselem's figures on Gaza assault toll

The Israeli human-rights group B'tselem today released its final report on the death toll in Gaza from the highly asymmetrical fighting of last December-January. Their figures differ a little from...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:19 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

September 08, 2009

Israel's assault on Gaza: The final toll

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has now published (PDF, in Arabic) its final tally of the human cost of last winter's Israeli assault on Gaza. The English version...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:28 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Hamas-related negotiations moving forward?

The negotiations for a prisoner-exchange agreement between Hamas and Israel seem to have entered a new, more productive phase, with the news-- first reported by Xinhua-- that Norwegian officials have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:46 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 02, 2009

An exiled Palestinian visits "home"

I've been reading the blog entries that Palestinian-American writer and activist Nehad Khader has been posting about her first-time visit back to her grandparents' homeplaces (here, etc.) Amazing, heartfelt writing....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:03 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

Israel releases nine of 32 Hamas legislators

The Israeli government today released nine of the 32 Hamas-affiliated legislators, elected in June 2006, whom it had been holding since June 2006. International law completely prohibits the detention of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:17 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Why Blair wants Dahlan to retake Gaza?

The Mail Online's Nick Pisa recently put together a great series of photos of Tony Blair, Middle East envoy extraordinaire (very extraordinaire!) reclining and romping aboard various rich people's luxury...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:02 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

September 01, 2009

State-building: Palestine

Conventional wisdom here in DC has it that the Palestinians somehow need to "prove" they're capable of running a state before they're allowed to have one.... Never mind that the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:14 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 31, 2009

Fayyad, Maliki, the Americans

Over the weekend I finished reading the 37-page program that Salam Fayyad, the PM in the Palestinian Interim Self-Governing Authority (PA) produced for the new, and still western-funded 'government' that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:59 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

August 30, 2009

Neve Gordon and BDS: Update

Most JWN readers are probably well aware of the firestorm of controversy that erupted after Neve Gordon, the chair of the Politics Department at Israel's Ben Gurion University published this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:45 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

August 29, 2009

Saturday reading: Two plans for the West Bank

One of the docs I'm reading today is the full text of the "Fayyad Plan", aka the Program of the Thirteenth PA Government. If you recall that the PA was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:25 PM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

August 28, 2009

At IPS, on peace vs. settlements

My piece at IPS today is titled Can Final Peace Deal Overcome Settlements Roadblock? I've also archived it here. Tell me (courteously, as always) what you think......
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:43 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Obama team needs to align its rhetoric NOW

In the pronouncements he made at the very beginning of his presidency, Obama said-- quite correctly-- that the United States has its own strong interest in seeing the speedy conclusion...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:46 AM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

August 27, 2009

Eyal Weizman's "Hollow Land"-- Read it!

I've been reading a most amazing book: Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation, by the Israeli architect and social activist Eyal Weizman. (He is on the board of the excellent...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:03 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

Settlements-- or the final peace?

There has been a lot of chirping and noise in the media about whether Sen. George Mitchell and Israeli PM Netanyahu might be close to some kind of a deal...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:11 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 25, 2009

Palestinians and Israelis reclaiming a village's memory

I just got the latest mailing from the great Israeli organization Zochrot, about a tour they organized last Saturday to the ruins of the Palestinian village al-Damun. This report is...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:29 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 23, 2009

Hints of Obama's peace plan--but a notable J. Diehl mistake

Jackson Diehl broke some important news in today's WaPo: As the U.N. General Assembly meets in late September, Obama aims to announce the opening of a new negotiating process between...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:19 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

August 22, 2009

Reading Sari Hanafi on refugees, spatiocide, Jerusalem, etc.

I had a few good research experiences this morning. The first was that I was looking for something else online but ended up reading this chunk out of a chapter...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:50 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

IPS piece: 'Republicans Attack Obama on Palestine Policy'

... is here, and also archived here. It deals primarily with Huckabee but also with other important US pols who went on partisanly sponsored junkets to Israel and the OPTs...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:12 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 21, 2009

Sam Bahour on economic realities of occupation

The prominent Palestinian-American business executive Sam Bahour has an op-ed in today's WSJ that gives the lie to all the hasbara that Netanyahu, Oren, Friedman, etc have been putting out...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:33 AM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

August 20, 2009

Salafist extremists lash out at Hamas

Scott Sanford of Jihadica has helpfully collected and summarized some of the early reactions from salafi extremists to last Friday's confrontation between Hamas and the salafist Jund Ansar Allah group...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:32 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

August 17, 2009

Huckabee's pro-settler stance part of bigger US shift

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is in Israel this week. He's making a point of touring many of Israel's (illegal) settlements in East Jerusalem and the rest of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:40 PM | Fulltext link (19 comments)

August 15, 2009

Hamas cracks down on Islamist extremists in Rafah

At noon prayers yesterday in a mosque in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, a salafist (Islamist extremist) preacher called Abdul-Latif Musa made a fiery appearance surrounded by heavily armed...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:48 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

Fateh Rev. Council list

Ma'an has now published a list of "all 81 newly elected members of the [Fateh] movement's 130-member strong Revolutionary Council", tallying for which finished in Bethlehem this evening. I thought...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:06 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

West Bank Palestinians and Golan Syrians at joint camp

I was intrigued to see the news from Maan that a summer camp has brought some 350 Palestinians from the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and from inside Israel, along...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:50 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Jewish-Israeli Knesset member gassed-- by IOF

The leftist MK Dov Khenin took part in Bil'in's weekly anti-Wall demonstration yesterday, and along with all the other protesters-- Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals-- he was subjected to the truly...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:57 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

The definitive word on 'confidence building measures'

... comes from Ezzedine Choukri in this great piece in Al-Ahram Weekly. (HT: Abdulmoneim Said Aly at MEI on Thursday.) Choukri's piece is an excellent illustration of the thinking by...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:48 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 14, 2009

My IPS piece on results of Fateh conference

... is here. Also archived here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:33 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

August 12, 2009

Read this...

...beautiful blog post about the (British) Commonwealth War Graves Commission's cemetery in Gaza. The author of the In Gaza blog, Eva from (I think) Canada, gives us many poignant photos...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:33 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Fateh conference results very unclear

The mainstream western "script" on the results of the Fateh conference that is slowly winding up its affairs in Bethlehem this week is that it was a resounding success, that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:06 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 11, 2009

Agha, Malley, and some other ideas

Hussein Agha and Rob Malley have continued the slightly bizarre "madcap chase" around the arena of Israeli-Arab peacemaking that they launched with this recent essay in the NYRB, by publishing...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:26 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

Peacemaking with Israel-- the Gulf Arab dimension

My latest news analysis for IPS is just out. (Also, here.) The title the IPS editor gave it was Saudi Arabia May Not Follow Obama’s Plan. Not a bad summary...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:11 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 10, 2009

New (and illegal?) visa restrictions from Israel

The smart Palestinian writer Toufic Haddad has noticed that the Israeli authorities, which control all movement in and out of the occupied Palestinian territories, have recently started issuing new visas...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:34 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

Palestinian Israelis: Equality quest continues

Some 20% of Israel's citizens are ethnic Palestinians-- that is, Palestinians who in 1948 managed to remain (and are descendants of those who managed to remain) in or near their...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:42 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 09, 2009

Kites and Gaza's children

You may remember the recent story about the UN and various local organizations in Gaza organizing a mass children's kite-fly that, by sending 6,000 kites into the sky at once...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:20 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

August 08, 2009

Fateh, Hamas updates

I've been Quakering for the past few days. No time to update the blog. Now, I'm updating myself with what went on in the Fateh conference and the world in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:57 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 05, 2009

Fateh conf stormy; Saudi king upset with Abbas

So yesterday, Abu Mazen and his cronies finally got the Fateh conference together in Bethlehem. Today, even the official spinmeister, Nabil Amr, had to describe the proceedings as "stormy." Actually,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:13 PM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

August 04, 2009

Is this gnome running US Mideast diplomacy?

It turns out there's a popular figure in some portions of US popular culture called "the underpants gnome." The underpants gnome has a "business plan" that consists of three phases....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:47 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 03, 2009

Fateh conference update #2

Al-Quds al-Arabi has some good, substantial news articles about the continuing saga of preparations for Fateh's 6th general conference, due to open tomorrow in Bethlehem. It seems the conference is...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:18 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 02, 2009

Countdown to Fateh conference?

Xinhua has shown its emerging agility in reporting on Palestinian-Israeli developments by apparently getting hold of a copy of the "political report" that Mahmoud Abbas's leadership will be presenting to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:20 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 25, 2009

Two great new resources on Palestine

Okay, they're very different, but here they are: 1. This beautiful essay by African-American poet and author Alice Walker: Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters "the horror" in Rwanda, Eastern Congo...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:21 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

IPS piece on Fateh's crisis

IPS published my piece on Fateh's leadership crisis yesterday. It's here, also archived here. The news peg for this was, obviously, Farouq Qaddoumi's public launching last week of the accusation...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:30 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

July 24, 2009

59 Gazans still missing from war, presumed under rubble

Ma'an news agency had this disturbing report today, in which it listed the names of 59 Gazans still missing since last december's Israeli assault on the Strip, and presumed still...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:20 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

July 23, 2009

My Nation piece on Fateh/Hamas, fulltext on web

So here I've been, quietly waiting for The Nation to put the fulltext version of my May piece about internal Palestinian politics up onto their website... and I didn't realize...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:59 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

East Jerusalem / West Jerusalem

Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now did a great post on their blog recently showing how wildly inaccurate PM Netanyahu was when he claimed, Sunday, that Palestinians can buy...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:24 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

July 22, 2009

How occupations end

We here in Washington DC currently have a front-seat view of how a country undertakes the ending of the military occupation by its ground forces of another country's territory. Today,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:15 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

July 18, 2009

D. Makovsky and M. Sfard on the Palestine Question

On Wednesday, I went to two intriguing discussions in Washington about different aspects of the Palestine Question. The first was a seven-person round-table discussion on the US Institute of Peace's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:42 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 16, 2009

Hamas's diplomatic openings

I have a lot more to blog about Hamas. Including this news report that Tom Pickering, a former US Under-Secretary of State and ambassador to the UN, met with Mahmoud...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:37 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

July 07, 2009

Palestinian elections? Not the first priority

I see that my friend Marc Lynch-- and perhaps some other people-- have gotten a little excited over the new statement by PA/Fateh/PLO head Mahmoud Abbas that he is "ready"...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:34 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

Women in the war zone: Gaza

Kudos to the BBC for publishing an agonizing (and agonized) short interview with Tihani Abed Rabbu, described as "bereaved mother' in Gaza. Scroll down here to find it. (But can...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:05 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

June 30, 2009

Iraq: An occupation recedes

Congratulations to my Iraqi friends on the occasion of the significant (if not quite total) withdrawal of US military occupation rule from your cities and towns that has been taking...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:54 AM | Fulltext link (72 comments)

June 25, 2009

Meshaal responds to Obama, Take Two

Hamas head Khaled Meshaal has now told the whole world what he told me (and a little before me, Joe Klein) on June 4. Namely this (from Al-Jazeera): "We appreciate...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:15 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

How effective is Obama's Palestine policy?

I have been among the many criticizing Obama for moving WAYS too slowly on Arab-Israeli and specifically Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking. However, evidence is now emerging that his "slow and steady" approach...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:05 PM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

June 24, 2009

Me in the CSM, on bringing in Hamas

The piece I wrote on this topic Monday is now on the CSM website. As JWN readers might guess, I had a lot more I wanted to say about this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:10 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

US, Syria, Iran, Hamas

The Obama administration has decided to return a US ambassador to Syria, the WaPo's Scott Wilson reports today. This is a long overdue move-- see below. However, the timing of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:08 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

June 19, 2009

Jimmy Carter's new role

My latest IPS news analysis on this topic is here, and also archived here. It includes the mini-scoop that yesterday, just one day after returning to the US from his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:33 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

June 18, 2009

Meshaal interview transcript

I have now finished transcribing the recording I made of my June 4 interview with Hamas head Khaled Meshaal, and am happy to make it available here. I just compared...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:11 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 17, 2009

Nathan Brown weighs in on Fateh

I sent the piece on Fateh that I posted here yesterday to Nathan Brown, a longtime Palestinian-affairs analyst who teaches at George Washington University here in DC, and he was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:00 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

June 16, 2009

Rabbani comments on the Fateh post

Here are the comments Mouin Rabbani made on what I posted here today: On the whole I agree with you - particularly your debunking of the five myths. Some additional...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:41 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Fateh's woes an obstacle to diplomacy

Many Israelis and their supporters just love to argue that they "have no partner for peace" on the Palestinian side. (And therefore that, with "deep regret", an Israeli government that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:56 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

Carter in Gaza: Meets Haniyyeh

Here's the Ma'an version: De facto Palestinian Prime Minister Isma’il Haniyeh said on Tuesday he would support any real proposal to establish an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:41 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Carter in Gaza

Jimmy Carter has been in Gaza today, having crossed from Israel through the horrendous concrete processing-point at Erez. He is due to meet with elected Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneyya...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:30 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

June 13, 2009

The results of free and fair elections

All this commentating in the American media about whether the Iranian powers-that-be have negated the results of the election held there yesterday prompts me to ask about the Palestinian parliamentary...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:43 PM | Fulltext link (59 comments)

June 09, 2009

Mitchell includes Syria, Lebanon

It's now confirmed. US peace envoy George Mitchell, now on his fourth trip to the Middle East, will travel to both Syria and Lebanon this week. He met this morning...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:43 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 05, 2009

Longer Meshaal

A longer version of my interview with Khaled Meshaal yesterday is here. Also here. It covers the most important points he made on current issues in Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking, as well...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:55 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Meshaal reaction on Foreign Policy website

It's here. Good exposure, I think. But now I have so much more writing up to do! (Also, I'll try to get a few more reactions from Syrian friends to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:33 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

June 04, 2009

Meshaal on Obama speech: Good, but--

A couple of hours ago I finished an hour-long, on-the-record interview here in Damascus with the head of Hamas's political bureau, Khaled Meshaal. I started, not surprisingly by asking his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:57 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

May 21, 2009

Why Israel's 'natural growth' claim is dishonest: Four reasons

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Tuesday, Secretary Clinton unequivocally called on Israel to halt all construction activity connected with its settlement project in the occupied West Bank. She said, First,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:03 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 20, 2009

Abbas losing support from Fateh

Mahmoud Abbas is supposed to be the head of the Fateh movement, as well as of the PLO (!) and the US-supported Palestinian Authority (PA.) Yesterday, Abbas swore in a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:14 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

May 13, 2009

Uzi Arad and other aspects of Netanyahu's Washington visit

Richard Sale had an excellent post on Pat Lang's blog yesterday, in which he surveyed some of the key problems in the relationship between Pres. Obama and Israeli PM Benjamin...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:55 AM | Fulltext link (33 comments)

After Hamas's Hudna, what?

On Monday, I blogged some excerpts from the informal interview I had with the close-to-Hamas scholar and media mogul Dr Azzam Tamimi, earlier in the day. He read the blog...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:56 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

May 12, 2009

Dayton on his Palestinian army's prospects

Interesting that the one recorded think-tank in Washington where US general Keith Dayton, who's been training the PA's armed forces for the past 2.5 years, goes to speak is the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:03 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

May 11, 2009

An informed view of Hamas policy

Today, I was able to have a fascinating short talk with Dr. Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian-British thinker and media mogul who was the author, most recently, of Hamas: A history...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:46 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

May 10, 2009

Meshaal on the Palestinian state alongside Israel; Nunu on the tahdi'eh

Al-Hayat had an interesting article today (Arabic), combining reports of Hamas's positions from their correspondents in both Damascus and Gaza... (HT: the spouse.) From Damascus, the Hayat people report that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:49 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Palestine/Bantustans

Some time ago I did scan-- from, I believe, one of the volumes of the TRC report-- a map showing the fragmented nature of the apartheid plan's Bantustans. So here,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:22 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 09, 2009

Palestine: The archipelago 'map', spaciocide, etc.

I imagine that by now most JWN readers have seen the thought-provoking nautical representation (shown below) by French cartographer Julien Bousac of the land mass that is (as of now)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:42 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

My piece in The Nation on Hamas

... is in the May 25 edition of the magazine. It's here-- but sadly most of it is behind a subscribers-only paywall. So I guess you'll need to go buy...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:02 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

May 05, 2009

NYT interviews Meshaal

Today's NYT carries an important (though unfortunately severely truncated) account of an interview that Taghreed al-Khodary had with Khaled Meshaal in Damascus recently. Meshaal spelled out more clearly than ever...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:24 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

May 02, 2009

New reports on press and other freedoms

I meant to mention this AFP report in my last post, but I'm tired so the brain is working a little groggily at this point. It says this: Press freedom...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:13 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

April 29, 2009

Obama opens timid discussion with Congress on Hamas

The Obama administration has launched a tiny first discussion with Congress over the issue of dealing with Hamas. Administration officials did this, according to this piece in Monday's LA Times...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 27, 2009

Videos from the recent Georgetown University CCAS conference

... are now up on the website, here. This is a fabulous resource. I shall certainly be coming back to it again and again. Many of the presentations were extremely...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:07 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

April 26, 2009

Ahmadinejad: "Whatever decision they (Palestininians) take is fine with us"

ABC's This Week program today featured an extended interview, conducted apparently last Wednesday, with Iran's President Ahmadinejad. (A/N) Here's the full transcript, and (H/T to Nader) here's a new link...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 05:56 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

April 19, 2009

Threats to East Jerusalem Palestinians, Youtubed

Clayton Swisher has two super short pieces on Al-Jazeera English about the threats to the Palestinian communities in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan. In the first...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:44 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

April 18, 2009

Mitchell revs up mission

It's been almost three months since, at that January 22 event at the State Department, Sec. Clinton announced the appointment of former Senate Majority leader George Mitchell as "special envoy...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:39 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

April 17, 2009

My IPS piece on Gaza three months on

... is here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:32 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

Gaza, three months on

On January 18, Israel and Hamas each separately announced its decision to halt the hostilities they had been engaged in since December 27. That un-negotiated, parallel ceasefire remains fragile and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:58 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

April 11, 2009

IPS analysis on re-emergence of one-state idea

... It came out yesterday here. Also archived here. My own main position on one state vs. two states is one of agnosticism. Not least because I'm not a direct...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:07 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

April 08, 2009

Laila el-Haddad's Palestinian Passover story

The talented Gaza-born journo Laila el-Haddad has been trying to go home to visit her parents, taking her two adorable-- and fwiw US-born-- children with her. Yousuf must be about...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:54 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

April 06, 2009

Obama's rockin' first world tour-- and call for action

He's been doing so well, and it's churlish of me not to have mentioned it before. (I've been busy.) But oh man, it really feels great no longer to have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:13 PM | Fulltext link (100 comments)

April 05, 2009

More on Hamas and the PA

In the presentation I gave at the Georgetown conference Friday afternoon, one of the main issues I was exploring was the notable shift the Hamas leadership had made, sometime between...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:26 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

My recent talk at the Palestine Center

... is now up on their website, here. I've watched the first one-third of it, and noticed that at about 9m50s I mis-spoke, saying "counter-intelligence" instead of "counter-insurgency" when describing...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:57 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

April 04, 2009

Highlights from the Georgetown Univ. conference on Palestine

I was extremely privileged to be one of the speakers in the conference the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies held Thursday and Friday on "Palestine and the Palestinians Today." (If...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:58 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

April 03, 2009

My IPS analysis on the Lieberman bombshell

... is here. Also here. On a related note, we have this from the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Information center: Dr. Salah Al-Bardaweel, the spokesman of Hamas's parliamentary bloc in the PLC,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:07 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

March 30, 2009

Land Day: A key date for Palestinian Israelis

Today is Land Day, a date that is observed by Palestinian citizens of Israel (and Palestinians everywhere) to commemorate a notable confrontation on March 30, 1976, in which Palestinian Israelis...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:31 AM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

March 27, 2009

IPS piece on including Hamas in the diplomacy

My latest IPS piece on issues around including Hamas in the diplomacy was published today (and also archived here.)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:27 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 26, 2009

Why only Hamas can save a 'Jewish state' (if it wants to)

My own view on the Hamas question, which has now been interestingly raised in the US by Henry Siegman's Group of Ten, is actually that only Hamas can deliver a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:47 PM | Fulltext link (42 comments)

US security mandarins urge action on Palestine peace

Two important op-eds in the major US MSM today. In this one in the NYT, Roger Cohen reports on a new initiative in which ten significant American national-security mandarins have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:35 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

Bantustan Days, Part 8: Two more Hamas MPs (since arrested)

On March 2, I had the opportunity to conduct a short interview in Hebron with local parliamentarians Dr. Azzam Salhab, a professor of religion at Hebron University, and Nizar Ramadan....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:06 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

MP Daraghmeh arrested March 19

When I published my February 22nd interview with Palestinian parliamentarians Ayman Daraghmeh and Mahmoud Musleh here yesterday I failed to note that Daraghmeh was one of the four duly elected...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:23 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

March 25, 2009

The Jerusalem/Refugee tradeoff

Just a propos of the Jerusalem question and its rising importance, I remembered something Yossi Alpher said when I had lunch with him in Ramot Hasharon three weeks ago... It...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:46 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

Short piece on J'lem on 'The Nation' website; DC talks next week

I have a short piece on Jerusalem on The Nation's website today. I'll be working on one more short piece for the website and a couple of longer pieces for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:11 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Bantustan Days, Part 7: Two Hamas parliamentarians

On February 22, I conducted an interview with two parliamentarians from the Hamas-affiliated 'Change and Reform' bloc. They were Mahmoud Musleh, elected to one of the five constituency-based seats elected...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:47 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Bantustan Days, Part 6: Mustafa Barghouthi

Mustafa Barghouthi was born in Jerusalem in 1954. He followed his, at the time, better-known cousin Bashir Barghouthi, into the Palestinian Communist Party (which Bashir B. was for a long...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:55 AM | Fulltext link (26 comments)

Bantustan Days, Part 5: A PFLP parliamentarian

Khalida Jarrar is a senior activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the longtime Palestinian wing of the Arab Nationalist Movement that was founded by the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:50 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Bantustan Days, Part 4: The in-Fateh opposition

To understand some of the internal problems inside Fateh, I found it really helpful to go along and talk to Qaddura Fares, a veteran Fateh activist in his mid-forties who...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:47 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 23, 2009

Jewish American opinion evolving on Palestine

The progressive Jewish lobbying group J Street has published the results of a new nationwide poll it conducted of Jewish Americans between February 28 and March 8. The poll had...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:58 PM | Fulltext link (54 comments)

March 22, 2009

Bantustan Days, Part 3: Sadness of a peace negotiator

Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:57 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 21, 2009

Jerusalem's Israeli mayor on US fundraising trip

The recently elected Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, is heading to the US this week on a fund-raising tour that will bring him to New York, Boston, Los Angeles,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:27 PM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

"Gaza first" on the horizon?

With respect to the Egyptian-Palestinian-Israeli triangle as it manifests regarding Gaza, I'd add the following general notes: 1. Egypt and Hamas share a strong interest in preventing Gaza's 1.5 million...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:18 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

March 19, 2009

Palestine Question now absent from Obama's agenda

The Palestine Question now appears to have fallen off Pres. Obama's agenda. In his early days in office he took some impressive steps toward principles-based and constructive engagement in the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:46 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

March 18, 2009

Israelis' Nakba-deception exposed

My life as a writer frequently involves my sense of time spooling around itself in interesting ways. After arriving back in the US after my recent trip to the Middle...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:36 AM | Fulltext link (77 comments)

March 16, 2009

Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange--

... could well be near, it seems? I'm assuming Marwan Barghouthi will be part of it. Also, all the PA parliamentarians detained as hostages/ bargaining chips right after Shalit's capture....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:37 PM | Fulltext link (45 comments)

Not exactly Bantustans

In a lot of my recent blogging about the situation in the extensive gulag of "open-air prisons" in which the West Bank's 2.5 million Palestinians have been forced to live...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:19 PM | Fulltext link (107 comments)

March 15, 2009

Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem: Not a Christmas Story

1. Bethlehem One morning at the end of February I spent 90 minutes hanging out in the office of Bethlehem mayor Victor Batarseh. Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestine, that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:32 PM | Fulltext link (24 comments)

March 14, 2009

Pogrund, 'Left' Zionism, belief, recognition

On March 3, I had an intriguing discussion in Jerusalem with Benjamin Pogrund, a bluff Jewish guy in his late sixties who "represents", in the way he thinks and argues,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:46 PM | Fulltext link (59 comments)

March 12, 2009

The meanings of Jerusalem

Jerusalem is a city that has many different meanings to many different people, in many different contexts. It is a home-town to some, a much-loved but now unattainable birthplace for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:25 AM | Fulltext link (60 comments)

March 11, 2009

Palestine: Why WBF/FO won't work

I'm continuing to pull together and crystallize the many things I learned on my just-concluded trip. My big bottom line is an enhanced understanding of why the still-current US approach...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:24 AM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

March 10, 2009

Fayyad update

I was traveling Sunday and thus missed this important piece in Sunday's Haaretz by Akiva Eldar and Ami Issacharoff that says, The United States will only recognize a future Palestinian...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:53 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

March 09, 2009

Readings of 'Oslo', and some eroding Israeli taboos

In a small hotel in East Jerusalem last week, I met a Norwegian aid worker with many years of experience working in occupied Palestine, who told me the following story:...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:51 PM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

Fayyad interview; and the meaning of his resignation

Is Salam Fayyad—a Palestinian economist who was ‘parachuted’ into the position of Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister under strong US influence in June 2007—now following in the footsteps of Iraq’s...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:36 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

March 07, 2009

Salam Fayyad resigns

The PA's 'emergency'-installed PM Salam Fayyad has submitted his resignation to (date-expired) PA President Mahmoud Abbas. People close to Fayyad indicated to me when I was in Ramallah ten days...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:12 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 06, 2009

My IPS analysis on Jerusalem developments

... is here. Also here. Since you can't currently comment here, why don't y'all go over and comment over at the second of those locations. My view is that Jerusalem...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:08 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Resources on East Jerusalem

I just finished writing my weekly news analysis for IPS, which is on the situation of the Palestinians in Jerusalem and the potential for that become a huge new issue....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:27 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 05, 2009

A short movie and a good book

Check out the great short movie made by 'Waltz with Bashir' animator Yoni Goodman about the situation of civilians in Gaza during the recent war. One thing that people working...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:35 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

March 03, 2009

Bantustan Days, Part 2

Saturday morning I went to Bethlehem. Took the mini-bus from just outside the Old City of Jerusalem. It trundles you south along a route which slowly gives you broad vistas...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:06 PM | Fulltext link (26 comments)

March 01, 2009

Another day in Jerusalem, with some walking

More blustery and foul, rainy weather in Jerusalem today. In the morning I did great back-to-back interviews with Naomi Chazan and Yigal Kipnis. Naomi's the Chair of the Meretz Party,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:41 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

February 28, 2009

Palestinians continuously under threat: Jerusalem and Gaza

The best one-stop shop for regularly updated information about the continual, multi-layered assaults that the Israeli government has been sustaining against the Palestinians of the occupied West Bank (including East...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:24 PM | Fulltext link (36 comments)

Bantustan Days, Part 1

... Or, 25 interesting things about Ramallah and its environs. 1. Whole areas of the Greater Ramallah area now loom like "Dubai on a hilltop", with clusters of large high-rises...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:35 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

February 27, 2009

My IPS piece on Israel's lurch to the right, and peace prospects

... is here. Also here. It contains some key points from my recent interview with Ramallah PM Salam Fayad....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:56 AM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

February 26, 2009

A walk in West Jerusalem

I woke to sun, blue skies, and a light breeze here in Jerusalem today. My first appointment was with Daphna Golan, a veteran leader of the Israeli peace movement who...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:56 AM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

February 25, 2009

M. Totten on Israel junket-- and in JWN comments

Interesting to see that the comments board here recently attracted an interesting and well-written comment from emerging young blogger Michael Totten, who's just completed a short junket to Israel paid...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:18 AM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

February 23, 2009

Amnesty's great campaign for Israel-Hamas arms embargo

Huge kudos to Amnesty International for having pulled together a well-researched and intelligent report on the international arms suppliers who were complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:26 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

CSM article about need for Hamas-Fateh reconciliation

... is here. (Also archived here.) As you can see, I wrote it in Amman, before I came here to Ramallah. Since I've been here I've done a lot of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:17 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

February 22, 2009

The rule of what?

I had an interesting morning. First, it being a normal workday here in Ramallah, I went to conduct a 90-minute interview with two members of the Palestinian Legislative Council which...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:01 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 20, 2009

IPS news analysis on intra-Palestinian, prisoner exchange, and ceasefire issues

My weekly piece on major developments in the peace (or no-peace) diplomacy on Arab-Israeli issues is here. Also here. Title: Peace Talks on Hold Amid Dual Power Struggles. Tragic. News...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:44 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 18, 2009

Intra-Pal reconciliation meet postponed?

I just heard from a well-informed friend here in Ramallah that the Cairo-hosted Palestinian reconciliation talks scheduled to open Feb 22nd will be postponed. Sad if so....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:59 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

In Ramallah

I've never stayed for very long in Ramallah before. I generally preferred to stay in East Jerusalem and then as necessary traverse the ghastly Qalandia crossing point between there and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:42 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

February 16, 2009

Israel-Hamas prisoner talks, intra-Palestinian reconciliation, etc

Ha'aretz, Reuters, and others are now reporting that Israel seems close to presenting a prisoner-exchange proposal involving Hamas-held Israeli POW Gideon Shalit and a large number of Palestinian prisoners and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:04 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 14, 2009

Ceasefire stabilization agreement close?

The Egyptian-mediated negotiations between Hamas and the outgoing government of Israel now seem close to achieving agreements on (a) stabilizing the Gaza ceasefire, and possibly also (b) a prisoner exchange...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:25 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

February 07, 2009

Zahar in Egypt; timing of ceasefire?

Gaza-based Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud Zahhar, who was named Foreign Minister in the all-Hamas government in summer 2007, today emerged from his "secure location" in Gaza to cross into Egypt....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:00 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

February 05, 2009

Gaza ceasefire-consolidation talks update

I've been busy recently: I've been in New York with editors and (separately) the new grandbaby... Also, preparing for my next reporting trip to the Middle East, which starts this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:10 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

February 01, 2009

Obama, act now for peace and humanity!

When Israel was still bombing Gaza full-bore, back until two days before the end of George Bush's presidency, president-elect Barack Obama said he did not want to adopt any kind...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:43 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

January 28, 2009

If there is a viable two-state solution in Israel/Palestine...

... then my judgment is that it will lie somewhere between the cluster of 'plans' that emerged between December 2000 and mid-2003-- the 'Clinton parameters', 'Geneva Accord', and 'Nuseibeh-Ayalon Plan',...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:28 AM | Fulltext link (27 comments)