Peace

Reuters | – “Norwegian Muslims form a human shield around a synagogue in Oslo, offering symbolic protection after an attack on a synagogue in neighboring Denmark. Gavino Garay reports.” Reuters: “‘Human shield’ wraps around Oslo synagogue”

Iraq

Iraq: Sunni Sheikh Killed trying to Mediate between Shiite, Sunni Extremists

contributors

By Erin Evers | (Human Rights Watch) In Latifiyya, a small town 20 miles south of Baghdad, fighting has been raging since long before the armed conflict that erupted when the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) took over Mosul. For at least two years state security forces and government-backed militias have been battling Sunni […]

art and photography

Beaten over call for co-existence: French artist’s religious graffiti

contributors

RT | – “French grafitti artist ‘Combo’ got beaten for a graffiti of himself in Arabic clothes with the world ‘coexist’, with symbols of three different religions instead of some of the letters.” RT: “Beaten over call for co-existence: French artist’s religious graffiti”

Christianity

How Jesus’ Message of Peace & Non-Violence Got Lost

contributors

By Mairead Maguire | (Nobel Peace Laureate) BELFAST (IPS) – I recently visited Assisi, the home of St. Francis and St. Clare, two great spirits whose lives have inspired us and millions of people around the world. St. Francis, a man of peace, and St. Clare, a woman of prayer, whose message of love, compassion, […]

Israel

Fierce Entanglements require Dialogue: Israeli-Palestinian conflict rooted in their different stories about the World

contributors

By Donald Ellis When I was in Israel for a year on a Fulbright conducting research I interviewed Israelis, Palestinians, and Israeli Arabs. I asked them to talk about their ideas with respect to peace. The Israelis invoked the language of security, the Israeli Arabs spoke of fairness, and the Palestinians of historical justice. Clearly, […]

Featured

Far Right Extremist Avigdor Lieberman says Swedish Recognition of Palestine will Strengthen Extremists

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole There was a time when people like Avigdor Lieberman were not welcome in Israeli politics, or, indeed, in Jewish circles in the United States. Dogged by accusations of corruption (though acquitted in the Israeli courts) and widely considered a racist and flamethrower, Lieberman has emerged as Foreign Minister, a powerful cabinet post. […]

Israel

This day in History: Madrid Arab-Israeli Peace Conference (a Process that Netanyahu later Boasted of Derailing)

contributors

The Madrid peace conference convened October 30, 1991, hosted by President George H. W. Bush and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, aimed at initiating a peace settlement between Israel and the Arabs. Bush senior warns that if Israel and Palestinians don’t make peace, sooner or later “weapons of mass destruction” could be deployed in the Middle […]

Israel

I refuse to serve – the lonely conscience of Israel’s refuseniks

contributors

By Ahron Bregman, King’s College London via The Conversation In 1988, I was in Kathmandu in Nepal when I found out that war was raging in the occupied territories; it would soon become known as “the intifada”. And when, in a small corner shop I spotted in one of the papers a picture of an […]

Apartheid

Open-Ended Ceasefire reached in Israel/ Gaza: But how Long will it Last?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Israel on the one side and Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the other have announced an open-ended cease-fire brokered by Egypt, the terms of which are similar to those of 2012. Mass celebrations broke out among war-weary Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians could argue that they have won some concessions. […]