\”We talk a lot about the symptoms for this phenomenon but not enough about the causes of violence,\” said Gideon Fishman, head of Haifa University\’s Minerva Center for the Study of Youth. \”If we do not explore the causes, nothing will help — neither more policemen nor more punitive measures.\”
A year after Yasser Arafat\’s death, Palestinians are developing a new myth around their historic leader: Arafat did not die from natural causes but was murdered, most likely by Israel.
Now an Israeli Arab politician has joined the conspiracy bandwagon.
A small group of American Jewish leaders that came to Israel recently is determined to put the issue of Israel\’s Arab minority higher on the American Jewish agenda.
The Tabach family left the settlement of Gadid last week, ahead of the Israeli withdrawal. Settlers who hadn\’t evacuated as of Monday were given 48-hours notice to leave, on threat of eviction.
On the eve of elections, scheduled to begin May 29, Hezbollah is trying to retain its pose as the ultimate guardian of Lebanese interests vis-á-vis Israel, stoking a flare-up along the border with Israel last week.
As Syria formally pulled its troops out of Lebanon last month, the Lebanese and the Syrian chiefs of staffs gave speeches to mark the occasion. The words they used were flowery, but their faces were grim.
Hamas, the Muslim fundamentalist movement and Palestinian terrorist organization, may soon become a decisive force not only in the struggle against Israel but in the Palestinian political establishment.
Four months after he was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas is fighting for his political life — and possibly for the survival of the peace process.
Syrian President Bashar Assad is confused and worried. The heat is on, and it\’s not clear he can take it.
Israel points a menacing finger at Syria for hosting terrorists, accusing it of enabling last Friday\’s deadly terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, which has been blamed on the Damascus-based Islamic Jihad.
Assad has said he wants to renew peace talks with Israel, but at the same time he wants to please his backyard radicals. In addition, anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon is sizzling; the United States and France are pressing Syria to withdraw from Lebanon; the United States is growing impatient with Syria\’s tolerance of Palestinian and Iraqi terrorists; Assad wants to appease the United States without losing his face with Arab hardliners; and Syria\’s longtime ally, Egypt, is toying with \”democracy,\” while Assad\’s own internal reforms are stuck.
So which way can he go?
Never before had the small church in the Galilee village of Mughar held so many important visitors as it did recently. Even the Vatican\’s representative in Israel, Monsignor Pietro Sambi, was there.
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