Middle East Peace

The faces onstage were unfamiliar and so was the language, but students at Franklin High School in Highland Park didn't appear to mind as they gathered in the courtyard Tuesday to watch Hadag Nahash, an Israeli hip-hop-rock-funk group, perform songs entirely in Hebrew.

Every Friday, Mohammed Khatib's forces assemble for battle with the Israeli army and gather their weapons: a bullhorn, banners -- and a fierce belief that peaceful protest can bring about a Palestinian state. A few hundred strong, they march to the Israeli barrier that separates the tiny farming community of Bilin from much of its land. They chant and shout. A few teenagers throw stones. Khatib helped launch the weekly ritual five years ago in an attempt to "re-brand" a Palestinian struggle often associated with rocket attacks and suicide bombers.

An underground barrier to prevent tunneling by smugglers along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip has been dubbed a "wall of shame" by Arab writers and politicians who charge that Cairo is siding with Israel in isolating the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the seaside enclave. Construction on the 100-foot-deep steel wall began a few weeks ago, but the Egyptian government didn't publicly acknowledge the project until the weekend. Officials defended the effort against accusations that it was an affront to Palestinians by the government of President Hosni Mubarak, which opposes Hamas, the militant group ruling Gaza.

As U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell wrapped up his Mideast trip Friday with little to show for his efforts to kick-start peace talks, the Obama administration was signaling a growing pessimism that Israelis and Palestinians would return to negotiations any time soon. In his first visit since November, Mitchell met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. But officials on both sides said little progress was made toward restarting talks that collapsed a year ago. Even as Mitchell was holding meetings in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, President Obama expressed doubts that Israeli and Palestinian leaders were ready to make the compromises needed to engage in a "meaningful conversation," he told Time magazine.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein took a victory lap through Congress and the White House on Tuesday to celebrate the end of hostility between their countries. But the harsh realities of the Middle East quickly changed the focus to continuing disputes such as those between Israel and Syria.

Shattering a nearly six-month lull in suicide bombings by Palestinian militants, two attackers blew themselves up Tuesday less than a minute apart aboard a pair of crowded buses in the southern desert city of Beersheba. At least 16 passengers were killed and nearly 100 were injured by the blasts, which scattered charred metal, glass shards and body parts across a palm-lined boulevard.

It was a festive night for the teenage squatters in this renegade hilltop camp. A rabbi was on his way, and they were cranking up a generator, stringing light bulbs and arranging benches, turning what had been a Palestinian family's barn into a synagogue. Suddenly the group fell silent. An Israeli soldier and a policeman had trudged up the slope and were demanding to know who was in charge. No one would tell them. After a few tense minutes, the uniformed intruders left.

During a grinding 18-month stretch in the 1990s, U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell crossed the Atlantic more than 100 times in a dogged search for peace between Northern Ireland's Protestants and Catholics. Even though he is a Catholic, Mitchell convinced Protestant Unionists of his evenhandedness, eventually reaching the Good Friday agreement in 1998 to help settle the 800-year dispute. "He's got this incredible patience to sit there until the deal is done," said Ross K.

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's on-again, off-again, on-again invitation to Washington's Holocaust Memorial Museum has ignited a firestorm of debate in Israel, as might be expected in a Jewish state where 20% of the people are Holocaust survivors or their offspring.

Fears that Russia might sell advanced weaponry to Syria kicked up a mini-storm of concern in Israel on Thursday. Syrian President Bashar Assad, in Russia for talks with President Dmitry Medvedev, has been campaigning to acquire weapons systems that include long-range surface-to-surface missiles, according to Russian media reports. The news of Assad's reported ambitions prompted immediate hand-wringing among Israeli officials and analysts.

As U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell wrapped up his Mideast trip Friday with little to show for his efforts to kick-start peace talks, the Obama administration was signaling a growing pessimism that Israelis and Palestinians would return to negotiations any time soon. In his first visit since November, Mitchell met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. But officials on both sides said little progress was made toward restarting talks that collapsed a year ago. Even as Mitchell was holding meetings in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, President Obama expressed doubts that Israeli and Palestinian leaders were ready to make the compromises needed to engage in a "meaningful conversation," he told Time magazine.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday urged Palestinians and Israelis to plunge into negotiations over the most difficult issues dividing them as a way of breaking an impasse in peace talks. Clinton said negotiations on major issues, such as the borders of a future Palestinian state or the status of Jerusalem, would help defuse the dispute over the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank that has obstructed progress toward peace. "Resolving borders resolves settlements," Clinton said at the State Department.

Cruising down this disputed four-lane highway, with all its twists and turns, is like taking a road trip through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You pass the walls and barriers that keep Palestinians from accessing Highway 443 as it slices through their land. Then there are the hazardous corridors where Israeli drivers have been shot and killed. On one side is an Israeli settlement mushrooming on a hill. Turn the other way for a glimpse of an Israeli detention center for Palestinian prisoners.

An Israeli government plan to build nearly 700 homes for Jewish families in Palestinian-dominated East Jerusalem drew fire Monday from the Obama administration, which called the plan a hindrance to relaunching peace talks. "The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, calling on Israelis and Palestinians to return to U.S.-brokered talks. "Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally preempt, or appear to preempt, negotiations."

An underground barrier to prevent tunneling by smugglers along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip has been dubbed a "wall of shame" by Arab writers and politicians who charge that Cairo is siding with Israel in isolating the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the seaside enclave. Construction on the 100-foot-deep steel wall began a few weeks ago, but the Egyptian government didn't publicly acknowledge the project until the weekend. Officials defended the effort against accusations that it was an affront to Palestinians by the government of President Hosni Mubarak, which opposes Hamas, the militant group ruling Gaza.

Israel imposed a 10-month moratorium Wednesday on approvals for new homes in Jewish settlements across the West Bank. But it appeared unlikely that the restriction, applauded by the Obama administration, would be enough to coax the Palestinians back to U.S.-brokered peace talks. The unilateral decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked a retreat from the pro-settler policies his right-wing Likud Party has pursued for more than three decades in and out of government. In a televised speech, he called it a "painful step" aimed to "encourage resumption of peace talks with our Palestinian neighbors."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today in a move to rescue shrinking Middle East peace prospects and regain the confidence of Arab nations angry that Washington has not pressed Israel harder to stop building settlements. The meeting with Mubarak was the latest in a series of sensitive talks Clinton has held with Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders during a six-day visit to the region. Arab capitals have grown exasperated over Israel's settlement activity and are expressing doubt whether the Obama administration can create grounds for a new round of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

Every Friday, Mohammed Khatib's forces assemble for battle with the Israeli army and gather their weapons: a bullhorn, banners -- and a fierce belief that peaceful protest can bring about a Palestinian state. A few hundred strong, they march to the Israeli barrier that separates the tiny farming community of Bilin from much of its land. They chant and shout. A few teenagers throw stones. Khatib helped launch the weekly ritual five years ago in an attempt to "re-brand" a Palestinian struggle often associated with rocket attacks and suicide bombers.

Embarrassed by what it called "a disgraceful disciplinary aberration," the Israeli military announced Friday that it would punish soldiers who staged a pro-settler demonstration during their swearing-in ceremony at Jerusalem's Western Wall. Thursday's protest reflected fears by right-wing nationalists that the conservative-led government would eventually yield to U.S. pressure to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and evict Jewish settlers from the West Bank. The young soldiers, who were being sworn in to an elite infantry unit, the Kfir Brigade, held up banners declaring their refusal to obey orders to enforce any such decision.

In a vote likely to complicate U.S. efforts to revive Middle East peace talks, the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday endorsed a report calling on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations of alleged war crimes by their forces or face further international inquiries and possible prosecutions. The action in Geneva by the 47-nation council was a sharp setback for Israel, which had labored to discredit the month-old U.N. report. The council's vote could force Israel to defend itself for months or perhaps years -- in diplomatic forums, if not criminal tribunals -- as U.N. bodies grapple with highly charged fallout from last winter's conflict in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.