The United States is entirely correct to insist that there can be no justification for the deliberate and indiscriminate use of violence - i.e. terrorism - against civilian non-combattants in political conflicts. Yet in the Middle East it has honoured this principle mainly in the breach, and applied it in a manner at best laughable. Read more about Washington's Lethal Double Standards 

There is little doubt that the recent intense developments have placed our region at a turning point. The previous fragile status quo has collapsed. Read more about On current events 

There is no news today. Or rather the news today is full of stories about Yasir Arafat’s release from his Ramallah prison. This is variously being presented as a cause for jubilation among Palestinians, a personal victory for a ‘defiant’ Arafat, and a ‘success’ for US ‘diplomacy.’ Read more about There is No News Today 

We quite rightly call on the peoples of the world to renounce terrorism as a tactic to further their cause while, quite wrongly, we simultaneously undermine other peaceful, legal avenues where these same people can address their grievances. Read more about On the UN's abandonment of the Jenin inquiry 

Social anthropologists are always on the lookout for dominant ideologies, those structuring systems of ideas, beliefs, and attitudes that undergird and orient everyday thoughts and actions. Read more about Dangerous Assumptions: Insidious Ideologies and Necessary Questions 

The falsehood that Israel ever made significant withdrawals from the occupied territories or that the three and a half million Palestinians subject to its military rule ever enjoyed more freedom than any people corralled into tiny ghettos by an oppressor serves the same purpose as the thoroughly debunked myth that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made ‘far-reaching compromises’ at Camp David. Read more about 'Before our own eyes' 

Lately, we watch the news with one eye shut, the other wincing in anticipation of anguish. Though we mumble to ourselves: “It can’t possibly get worse” as the newscaster reports another dozen Israelis or Palestinians are dead, we dare not say it out loud for fear of tempting fate with such presumption. Read more about 'The best lack all conviction...' 

George Bush’s much-anticipated speech on how to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, weighed in at 1,867 words. By my count, more than one thousand words were devoted to criticizing and making demands of the Palestinians, while just 137 words dealt with what Israel should do. Read more about Bush's Speech - A Vision of Permanent War 

Israeli troops yesterday attacked the Ramallah offices of Palnet‚ the main Internet service provider in the West Bank. Patricia Smith reports from Beit Hanina. Read more about Israeli troops attack the main Internet service provider 

News about reforms in the Palestinian Authority (PA) come from Yasser Arafat’s headquarters, the only remaining section of the bombed out Mukata’a, the sixty-year old British built military compound in Ramallah, which has become an easy target for any Israeli offensive and a symbol for a nation under siege. Read more about Reform and the Palestinian media