Five hundred Israeli academics and intellectuals recently signed a petition supporting the Palestinian statehood bid: so will the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly decide whether ‘Palestine’ becomes fact or stays fiction - and what kind of fact or fiction? Dr Harry Hagopian explores the background to the much-written-about upcoming UN vote.
Though their leaders may be at political odds with each other, a group of Israeli and Palestinian students learned that they can communicate through art.
The Middle East and North Africa area remains a vast and heterogeneous region of turbulence, confusion, hope, dread, reform, stand-off, contradiction, expectation, frustration, life and death.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, are jointly hosting a conference on Christians in the Holy Land next week.
Israeli political leaders should heed opinions articulated by Jewish-American actor Leonard Nimoy and others, appreciating that a just solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is as much in their interest as it is in that of Palestinians, says Harry Hagopian. Otherwise, if a Palestinian gamble for virtual statehood is met by the usual Israeli intransigence, the outcome could become more deleterious for both peoples let alone more volatile for the Arab Spring.
Human rights groups have criticised Israeli armed forces for firing on unarmed protesters at borders with the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon.