By Ilan Ziv and Daoud Kuttab*

In 1993, following the signing of the Oslo accords, we collaborated on a joint Israeli-Palestinian documentary. By giving video cameras to three Palestinians and three Israelis, we set out to document the first year of the implementation of the ” peace process”.

Our “Peace Diaries” unfortunately became a record of the early violence that followed the signing of the Israeli /Palestinian accord. Among the scenes was the first suicide bombing in a small town, Afula, in the North of Israel and the killing of 29 Palestinian worshippers in a Hebron mosque by a Jewish settler. Continue Reading »

Yasser Arafat interrupted two television programs in the past week to make a simple point. It is difficult to uphold a unilateral cease-fire. Speaking from a prepared text to the Palestinian people on the occasion of Eid al Fitr Arafat reiterated the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to a cease-fire. Arafat’s impromptu comments to his people in Arabic on Palestinian TV were very telling. “Hold you fire even if the Israelis shoot at you,” he said in Arabic. A week earlier on Israel’s first channel Arafat was asked if he can promise the Israeli public that there will be no more suicide bombings.” We need to work together with you to be able to do that,” he told the Israeli interviewer. Continue Reading »

Ramallah – The unilateral cease-fire call by four armed Palestinian resistance groupings reflects the main contradiction of approaches between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority. Israel wants these organizations crushed while the Palestinian leader wants them coopted.

Israel considers Hamas, Jihad, and recently, the Fatah Tanzim to be terrorist’s organizations. And in Israel’s eyes they must be annihilated. Unable since the late 80s to crush these Palestinian militant organizations, Israel has been trying since the Oslo Agreement to have the Palestinian National Authority to do this difficult job. Continue Reading »

The mission of retired general Anthony Zinni, the new U.S. peace envoy to the Middle East, became more difficult after the weekend’s bloody suicide bombings and retaliatory shootings between Israelis and Palestinians. But if someone is looking for reasons for this upsurge of violence — and for the way out of it — one needs to take one step forward, not two steps back.

Let’s start with a look at the mistaken Israeli attempt to end the violence in the occupied territories without simultaneously working on a political solution. All foreign envoys to the region, as well as Israel’s own Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, have been encouraging Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to begin negotiations with Palestinians aimed at finding a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Continue Reading »

The mission of retired general Anthony Zinni, the new U.S. peace envoy to the Middle East, became more difficult after the weekend’s bloody suicide bombings and retaliatory shootings between Israelis and Palestinians. But if someone is looking for reasons for this upsurge of violence — and for the way out of it — one needs to take one step forward, not two steps back.

Let’s start with a look at the mistaken Israeli attempt to end the violence in the occupied territories without simultaneously working on a political solution. All foreign envoys to the region, as well as Israel’s own Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, have been encouraging Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to begin negotiations with Palestinians aimed at finding a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Continue Reading »