Tag: Abbas


  • Poll: Abbas enjoys support of young Palestinians – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

    Poll: Abbas enjoys support of young PalestiniansNearly 40 percent of young Palestinians say they would vote for Palestinian presidents secular Fatah faction, with only 10 percent backing Hamas.

    via Poll: Abbas enjoys support of young Palestinians – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

    This is very important as a step toward statehood. As I suspsected all along, the young are more pragmatic, less focused on revenge for all the injustices, and more aware of how Palestinian national aspirations can really be attained.…

  • Clinton Opens New Round of Mideast Peace Talks

    From Fox Five News today.  See the film clip.

    via Clinton Opens New Round of Mideast Peace Talks

    WASHINGTON – Marc Gopin from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University joined us with more.

    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton formally opened the first direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in nearly two years on Thursday, imploring the parties to ignore the long history of failed negotiations and make needed compromises to forge an agreement.

    At a ceremony in the State Department’s ornate Benjamin Franklin room, Clinton said the Obama administration was committed to forging a settlement in a year’s time. But, she stressed that the heavy lifting must be done by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

    “We will be an active and sustained partner,” she said. “But we cannot and we will not impose a solution. Only you …

  • Palestine is open for business! by Ziad Asali

    This is an important piece on what  pragmatically can and should be supported right now to prepare for and achieve Palestinian independence.

    WASHINGTON, DC – Almost everything about the second Palestine Investment Conference held in Bethlehem in early June, which I had the honour of attending as a member of President Barack Obama’s official delegation, was encouraging.

    The Conference, which was designed to promote private sector development, was held at the elegant and modern Convention Center facility in Bethlehem from 2-3 June. President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed around 2,000 participants including Palestinian and Arab business people from around the world, impressive entrepreneurs from Gaza, and many international institutional representatives and investors. The message, summed up by the Quartet Envoy Tony Blair was simple: Palestine is open for business!

    While the first Investment Conference in 2008 focused on large development and public-private partnership initiatives, this Conference focused properly on small to medium-sized

  • IT IS WHAT YOU DO THAT DEFINES YOU: A RE-ASSESSMENT OF DIPLOMACY IN THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

    There is a desperation at work in the sad excuse for negotiations underway between Israel and Palestine. This is the latest:

    PA rejects Olmert’s offer to withdraw from 93% of West Bank

    By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent, and Reuters

    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday rejected an Israeli peace proposal, which included withdrawal from 93 percent of the West Bank, because it does not provide for a contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

    Nabil Abu Rdainah, Abbas’s spokesman, told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan showed a “lack of seriousness.”

    Under the proposal, Israel would return to the Palestinians 93 percent of the West Bank, plus all of the Gaza Strip, when the Palestinian Authority regains control over the Gaza Strip, which the militant group Hamas seized from forces loyal to Abbas in June 2006.

    Olmert presented Abbas with the

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