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Abbas turns tables in peace talks with UN move
By Daoud Kuttab It is not clear whether it was by design or by accident that there is a one-month period between the scheduled date of the fourth Palestinian prisoner release by Israel and the end of the nine-month Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Regardless, Palestinians recognized that the month of April provided them with a unique opportunity to be unshackled from the commitments…
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Palestinians want real change for peace talks to proceed
By Daoud Kuttab The delay of the release of the fourth tranche of Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s bait that it will do so only if the Palestinians agree to extend the talks has failed to get a bite from Palestinian negotiators. The Palestinians have repeatedly said that the agreement at the start of the nine-month negotiations was…
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Palestinian Leader Joins UN Treaties and Continues Talks
By Daoud Kuttab Modern technological development has brought with it the term multitasking, a term that replaced the popular “Can you chew and walk at the same time.” Palestinian negotiators are now facing the tough challenge of applying to join various UN agencies while, at the same time, agreeing, to continue peace talks until the end of…
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British minister opposes arming Syrian rebels
By Daoud Kuttab AMMAN, Jordan — Hugh Robertson, Britain’s minister of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, has opposed calls to arm the Syrian rebels, instead insisting that all sides need to return to the negotiating table. “Generally speaking if you want to end a war, arming both sides is not the way to do it,†he…
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Palestinians stand firm on prisoner release
By Daoud Kuttab When Palestinian leaders agreed to suspend their efforts to join various United Nations agencies last summer, the United States assured them that all 104 long-term Palestinian prisoners held by Israel would be released. This was not the first time that the United States had made such a promise. At the 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh summit, attended…
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Senior Fatah Leader links Israeli prisoner release to UN push
By Daoud Kuttab A leading Palestinian official has said that the end of March, rather than the end of April, could be the date that the Palestinian leadership moves to join United Nations agencies. “Our agreement was clear,†Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview. “In return for Israel releasing all…
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Reality Check Forces the Search for a New Post-Dispensational Theology
By Daoud Kuttab A search is on among Christian evangelists to find a new theology that can take the place of the discredited dispensational theology, which many are unable to defend in light of the realities on the ground. The most critiqued part of dispensationalist theology is blindly assigning support for the state of Israel in the…
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Abbas returns to warm welcome after resisting US pressure
By Daoud Kuttab Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received a hero’s welcome in Ramallah after returning from what was billed as a tough summit in Washington with US President Barack Obama. Abbas was hailed as having stood his ground in the Oval Office meeting, resisting strong pressure from the United States to budge on at least two publicly…
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Nazareth election beginning of end for Israel’s Communist Party
By Daoud Kuttab The loss of the Nazareth mayoralty in the March 11 recall elections marked the beginning of the end of the Israeli Communist Party in Israel. Ramez Jaraisi, the mayor for nearly four decades, lost to Ali Salam, who won more than 61% of the city’s votes. Israeli Communist leaders in Nazareth accepted defeat and issued a statement six…
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Christian Zionism criticized at evangelical conference
By Daoud Kuttab Christian Zionism, which cites the Bible to support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, received heavy criticism at a conference organized by Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem the week of March 10 and attended by Al-Monitor. Theologians from Europe and North America as well as Palestinian speakers presented lectures full of biblical references at the third Christ at the Checkpoint conference questioning the…