West Bank

"Sitting on the bus which is ticking to explode writing my last poem. " --Eliaz Cohen Suicide bombings are not the usual stuff of poetry, but Eliaz Cohen, a leading figure in a religious poetry scene flourishing in Israel, writes about the conflict in language as beautiful as reality can be ugly. Amid the drone of warring words, he offers a different voice, challenging political and religious convention. "Hear O Lord," the recently published bilingual collection translated into English by Larry Barak is Cohen's literary chronicle of the last turbulent decade (it's subtitled "Poems From the Disturbances of 2000-2009")

JERUSALEM - Israel's government is scrambling to find ways to save some of the unauthorized West Bank settlements it once promised to dismantle, including some that are built partly on private Palestinian land. The new strategy seeks to retroactively legalize some outposts and, in other cases, relocate Jewish settlers to nearby land that is not privately owned, in effect creating what critics say would be the first new West Bank settlements in years. The approach by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government appears designed to avoid the need to carry out high-profile military evictions of settlers in order to appease conservative lawmakers, who have accused Netanyahu of betraying the settlers' cause.

An atheist blogger rants about the idiocy of religion and its adherents, and forms Facebook groups in which he declares himself God and orders his followers to smoke marijuana. Here, we call this kind of thing the new normal. But in parts of the Muslim world, it can get you executed -- and in the West Bank, where a mild-mannered barber was recently arrested on heresy charges for "insulting the divine essence," it's posing a serious test for the Western-backed regime that would presumably rule a Palestinian state, if one ever comes into being.

  Ayman and Rahma abu Hussein can't help but feel they are moving up in the world. The database engineer and his wife just bought their first home, and it's large enough for both of their children to have their own rooms. There's a Hyundai parked outside and a flat-panel TV hangs in the living room, one of many new appliances decking out the place. But the Abu Husseins are up to their ears in debt. Their upward mobility, like that of thousands of other Palestinians, came tied to something that was once rare in the West Bank: mortgages and consumer credit.

Palestinian officials accused Jewish settlers of setting a West Bank mosque on fire early Monday, an attack that could reignite violence as frustration grows over stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. No one claimed responsibility and no arrests were made, but Palestinians said the incident bore the hallmarks of attacks by settlers angry over the talks and a moratorium on settlement construction that recently expired. The attack came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to convene his Cabinet on Tuesday to discuss renewing the West Bank building freeze for two months to keep Palestinians from quitting the U.S.-brokered talks.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fumbled in Jerusalem last month when she hailed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to temporarily freeze West Bank settlement construction as "unprecedented," thereby suggesting it was somehow optimal. The 10-month freeze is far from ideal, because it allows completion of nearly 3,000 housing units and 28 public buildings already underway in the West Bank, and it doesn't include development in contested East Jerusalem. Still, it is important to acknowledge that this is is an unprecedented step for the right-wing Netanyahu, who has built a career out of opposing concessions to the Palestinians or negotiations for a separate state.

Two Israeli policemen were shot to death Sunday while traveling in their vehicle near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and authorities said they suspected a Palestinian attack. It was the first fatal shooting of an Israeli in the West Bank since April. Such incidents are rare because the Israeli army controls much of the traffic in the Palestinian territory. Security checks are especially rigid along Highway 90, a main north-south route, where Sunday's shooting occurred.

The Israeli border police waited till the morning Torah reading was over. Then, after six Jewish families were given time to remove their possessions, a pair of front-end loaders pounded their modest dwellings into twisted wrecks on a bare plateau overlooking the Jordan Valley. A few young men climbed atop a makeshift synagogue nearby, intent on resisting, but scrambled to safety before it too was demolished.

A family of five Jewish settlers, including three children, was stabbed to death Friday night near the West Bank city of Nablus, ending a relative lull in deadly violence in the Palestinian territory. Two other small children escaped harm by hiding as unknown attackers apparently sneaked into the family's home with a knife and killed the parents and children, ages 12, 3 and 3 months. It was the deadliest such attack against Jewish settlers in the area since 2002. Israeli military officials immediately declared the Itamar settlement and surrounding Palestinian villages to be a closed military zone, setting up roadblocks and launching a massive search for the attackers.

Born in a refugee camp in this restive West Bank city, Ammar Arafat threw his first stone at 13. At 15, he was jailed for scaling the fence at an Israeli military camp with explosives under his shirt. Upon release, he took up arms again and landed back in prison. Freshly out of jail for the second time, Arafat, 20, is mulling his next move. But nowadays, he has traded in his explosives vest for a designer military jacket with shiny Armani buttons. A more mature Arafat said he wants to enroll in college, find work as a Palestinian police officer and build a stable life.

Palestinian baker and activist Khader Adnan captured headlines recently for a 66-day hunger strike that led him to the brink of death. His ordeal began in the dead of night on Dec. 17, 2011, when Israeli soldiers broke down the door of his West Bank home. Adnan was arrested before his terrified wife and daughters, and was reportedly abused verbally and physically upon detention and later in interrogation. Adnan was never tried but instead faced administrative detention. Israeli prosecutors presented secret evidence to a military judge, who then ordered a four-month detention.

With a fire extinguisher in his hand and a cellphone pressed to his ear, principal Sameeh abu Rameelh battled an electrical fire in his Jerusalem high school's computer lab while pleading with the fire department to come to his aid. But when the emergency dispatcher heard that the school was in Kafr Aqab, separated from the rest of Jerusalem by a 36-foot-high concrete wall, he told Abu Rameelh that firetrucks wouldn't cross Israel's separation barrier...

Palestinian leaders voiced outrage Tuesday over a new report that Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank rose 20% last year. The report released by the Peace Now group also says that building on East Jerusalem land seized during the 1967 Middle East War was at the highest level in a decade. The study by the Israeli group, which is opposed to settlement construction, found that Israel began construction on more than 1,850 West Bank units in 2011, up from 1,550 in 2010. During much of 2010, Israel observed a partial moratorium on new West Bank construction, which reduced building starts that year.

For months many Israelis shrugged off the mosque burnings, the uprooted Palestinian olive trees and even the death threats against Jewish leftists. But when young settlers this month vandalized army bases and stoned Israeli soldiers, the question of Jewish terrorism turned into a national emergency. The recent flare-up in settler violence has puzzled many because it comes when there are no peace talks that might lead to land concessions, Palestinian attacks in the West Bank have dropped to new lows, and Israel is led by a conservative government that is expanding settlement construction.

A 45-foot-high artificial Christmas tree towers over Manger Square, and downtown Bethlehem is festooned with sparkling decorations. There's even a picture of a saxophone-playing Santa Claus. But Nabil Giacaman, co-owner of a souvenir shop called Christmas House, isn't feeling the holiday spirit. The third-generation woodcarver, who sells handmade likenesses of baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary, sees as many as 200 tour buses arrive every day from Israel to visit the Church of the Nativity, just a few steps from his store.

In November 1947, shortly after the United Nations voted for partition of the Holy Land into separate Arab and Jewish states, Chaim Weizmann was cited by the New York Times as saying that "the most important work now was to build Palestine. " What? To build Palestine? Yes, in 1947 the word "Palestinian" — if it meant anything at all — referred to Jews living in Palestine. The Palestine Post (now the Jerusalem Post) was the Jewish English-language newspaper. The Palestine Orchestra (now the Israel Philharmonic)

It is not too late for President Bush to become a great statesman. He must go to the West Bank and say, "Mr. Sharon, tear down that fence." Paul F. McElherne La Canada Flintridge

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an unusual public criticism of Israel, said Wednesday that its plan to destroy dozens of Palestinian homes in Arab East Jerusalem was "unhelpful" and contrary to Israel's obligations under a U.S.-backed peace plan. Clinton, closing her first foray into Middle East peacemaking, said the implications of the decision to raze the homes for an archaeological project "go far beyond" the 88 homes affected by Israel's plans.

Tristan Anderson visited Israel and the West Bank in 2009 with his girlfriend, a Jewish American activist, to participate in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and see the Mideast conflict firsthand. The Oakland man left with brain damage, partial paralysis and blindness in one eye after being hit in the head with a high-velocity tear-gas canister during a protest against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Nilin. Now Anderson, 40, and his parents are pressing the Israeli government to pay for his rehabilitation and 24-hour care in a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit.

After a successful Palestinian bid to join the U.N. cultural agency, UNESCO, Israel said Tuesday that it would retaliate by issuing tenders for about 2,000 new housing units on land it seized during the 1967 Mideast War. After meeting with his top advisors, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would order construction of apartments in the Jerusalem area and the West Bank settlements of Gush Etzion and Maaleh Adumim. Officials said about 1,650 units would be built around Jerusalem and the rest in the West Bank.