CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
November 19, 2008 | Corina Knoll, Knoll is a Times staff writer.
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.
WORLD
November 4, 2009 | Richard Boudreaux
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.
WORLD
December 21, 2009 | By Jeffrey Fleishman and Amro Hassan
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.
WORLD
January 23, 2010 | By Edmund Sanders
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.
NEWS
July 27, 1994 | NORMAN KEMPSTER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
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.
WORLD
September 1, 2004 | Laura King and Tami Zer, Special to The Times
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.
WORLD
February 18, 2008 | Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff Writer
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.
WORLD
January 24, 2009 | Paul Richter and Henry Chu
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.
NEWS
January 24, 1998 | MARJORIE MILLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
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.
WORLD
August 22, 2008 | Ashraf Khalil, Times Staff Writer
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.