Yousef Munayyer: We’ve seen it time and again. Pollsters frequently query Palestinians and Israelis asking them about their views, priorities and ambitions and then present their responses as a sort of map of the political landscape that shows which path to peace is possible.
Yousef Munayyer: Jeffery Goldberg is clearly irked by the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to defend Zionism in mainstream American discourse today. He seems to take it personally, as if that’s his job or something.
Yousef Munayyer: It’s unclear when it died, but it’s most definitely dead. The Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” was born with a fatal flaw, and its defects have been on full display in recent weeks as Israel conducted yet another war on Gaza, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) sought – and won – upgraded status at the United Nations last week against the will of the United States and Israel.
Yousef Munayyer: More than 160 Palestinians and 5 Israelis are dead, and as the smoke clears over Gaza, the Israelis will not be more secure and Palestinians’ hopes for self-determination remain dashed. It is time for a significant re-evaluation of the American policies that have contributed to this morass.
Panel I – Revolution: Where It Came From and Where It Is Heading, Panel II – Palestinian National Strategy: Evaluating and Re-Evaluating, Panel III – Covering the Uprisings: Perspectives, Biases and the role of the Media, Panel IV – U.S. Foreign Policy toward a Revolutionary Region: Opportunities and Responsibilities
Yousef Munayyer: Why is the “peace process,” which so many American Presidents have invested time in, dead? Answers to this question could fill volumes of history books but a recent episode from this week serves as a perfectly illustrative microcosm of the larger problem.
Yousef Munayyer: How will the Israeli/Palestinian question evolve over the next ten years? It is hard, actually impossible, to predict the future. However, it is possible and important to analyse trends and extrapolate trajectories given well-established facts.
Yousef Munayyer: At the recent Democratic National Convention, the party platform being adopted was slightly different from the 2008 version when it came to Israel and Palestine. A sentence, with boilerplate language on the status of Jerusalem, had disappeared. Then hilarity ensued.
Yousef Munayyer: Yes, Mitt Romney’s ‘analysis’ of the economic disparities between Israelis and Palestinians was racist on multiple levels. ”There is just something about those Jews; they are so good at making money.” Most people in the modern world would dismiss such a statement as anti-Semitic. But when the presumptive Republican candidate for president insinuates the same in the pursuit of pandering for pro-Zionist support it seems excusable.
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