Robert Fisk: How can Blair possibly be given this job?

Here is a politician who has failed in everything he has ever tried to do in the Middle East

I suppose that astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction comes to mind. I simply could not believe my ears in Beirut when a phone call told me that Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara was going [...]

Chronicle of a Chaos Foretold

All my forewarnings have suddenly been actualised, all at once: Gaza has descended into total and utter chaos; Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has capitulated to Israel and to the United States without a shred of reservation; and the Palestinian democratic experiment, which was until recently an astounding success, has been smashed to pieces.
For years I [...]

Robert Fisk: After the Spaniards, who will be next to die in Lebanon?

Which United Nations contingent in southern Lebanon will be next? It is a ghoulish, terrible question after the car bomb attack that killed six Spanish soldiers of the 13,000-strong international army on Sunday evening, but one which the officers of the UN Interim Force - Unifil - are asking at their intelligence meetings. For the [...]

Rattling the Cage: Everything for Gilad, nothing for peace

I don’t know if it’s called national schizophrenia, or manic depression, or bipolar disorder, but whatever it’s called, Israelis have got it.
They will go to war at the drop of a hat, they will pass up any chance for peace without even thinking about it, they’ll get ready to bash the enemy’s face in no [...]

Settlers return olive trees stolen from Palestinian-owned grove

Residents of the West Bank settlement outpost of Adei Ad began replanting hundreds of olive trees on Tuesday that they had uprooted from Palestinian lands last week.
The trees were returned to their Palestinian owner, a resident of Kafr Karyut, at the insistence of the Civil Administration. After the farmer complained that some 300 of his [...]

Israeli Apartheid is the Core of the Crisis

It is unethical to blame Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem for events in Gaza. At the heart of the factional violence in Gaza and the political crisis in the Palestinian leadership lies the constant marginalization of a voice which poses an ethical challenge to an uncritically accepted presumption. Sadly, [...]

The Triumph of US / Israeli Policy in Palestine

Contrary to the many claims that the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip represents the failure of US and Israeli policies in Palestine, the violent civil infighting that has dominated the Gaza Strip over much of the last year and a half and that led directly to the Hamas coup of June 2007, marks yet [...]

Sharon’s dream

f Ariel Sharon were able to hear the news from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, he would call his loyal aide, Dov Weissglas, and say with a big laugh: “We did it, Dubi.” Sharon is in a coma, but his plan is alive and kicking. Everyone is now talking about the state of Hamastan. [...]

Fear of abandonment

Early this morning, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will set off on an urgent mission - to find Israel a nanny who can take over the job of dealing with the chaos in the Gaza Strip.
Until recently, the prevailing notion in Israel’s corridors of power rejected any international intervention in the security arrangements on its [...]

Man held for murder of Arab cab driver ruled unfit to stand trial

Julian Soufir, accused of murdering taxi driver Taysir Kariki in Tel Aviv in May has been ruled unfit to stand trial according to a psychiatric evaluation presented to the Tel Aviv regional court on Sunday.
The evaluation, which was written by three psychiatrists at the Abarbanel Hospital ruled that at the time of the murder [...]