Skip to main content

Middle East: Peace? - without a solution?

On ABC Radio National's Breakfast program this morning:

"US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice touched down in Israel a short time ago after her unannounced visit to Beirut earlier in the day.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is prepared to accept the deployment of a European peacekeeping force in Southern Lebanon, provided it was robust and had a strong mandate.

Meanwhile Israel's peace movement appears divided over the conflict. Anti-war rallies held across Israel over the weekend were boycotted by the powerful anti-settlement group 'Peace Now'.

Even people on the left have been condemning the protesters for not caring about the value of Israeli lives. Shulamit Aloni is one of the country's leading human rights activists.

She's a former government minister and a founding member of the International Centre for Peace in the Middle East. She also took part in the largest peace demonstration in Tel Aviv last Saturday. She joins Breakfast from Israel.

Professor George Joffe is a lecturer at the Centre for International Studies at Cambridge University and he joins Breakfast from Cambridge."

Go here in order to hear the former Israeli Education Minister and the sober assessment of Professor Joffe on what needs to be done to bring about peace rather than a mere cease-fire.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland

Post a Comment
Read more