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Of all the questions surrounding Israel’s decision to lock down the Gaza Strip, the recent case of seven Gaza-based Fulbright Scholars presents a particular curiosity.
The issue became an international controversy in June when it was revealed that the State Department had canceled their scholarships because of the Israeli government’s refusal to let the students leave Gaza for their scheduled visa interviews at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.
After the cancellations were made public, the State Department quickly reversed course and started publicly pressuring Israel to let the students out. Israel eventually agreed to let four of the students leave Gaza for their interviews but refused three others on unnamed security grounds.
Undaunted, Washington flew in specialized fingerprinting equipment and conducted the visa interviews for the remaining three at the Erez border crossing.
All three students received U.S. visas; one of them, Fidaa Abed, a 23-year-old accepted to study computer science at U.C. San Diego, even made it out of Gaza and boarded a U.S.-bound plane from Jordan.
Then something changed.
On Aug. 5, the State Department abruptly canceled the visas for the remaining three Fulbright students. Abed found out when he touched down in Dulles airport in Washington.
A security officer pulled him aside. “He told me, ‘I’m sorry, I just received a fax telling me your visa was revoked,’ ” Abed said.
Abed pleaded in vain for more information, but was put on the next plane back to Amman. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said the visas were revoked after the U.S. “received additional information” about the students from Israel.
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A showdown is brewing in the Mediterranean waters off the Gaza Strip.
Early Friday morning, a pair of boats carrying an international array of activists will set sail from Cyprus with the intention of landing in the Gaza Strip. Their cargo isn't much: a load of hearing aids and several thousand balloons to pass out to children.
But organizers say the symbolic importance could set a precedent that shakes up the current status quo in Gaza.
"The idea is to go and break the siege," said participant Jeff Halper, in a phone interview from Cyprus. "Israel claims there's no occupation anymore. If that's the case then there should be no problem with us going to Gaza. And if they do prevent us, then it proves that there's still an occupation."
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Three years ago, Israel implemented Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" plan and withdrew from the Gaza Strip, removing 21 Jewish settlements. The government acted unilaterally, saying that there was no Palestinian partner with whom to work. Most Israelis supported the move, feeling the Israeli civilian and military presence in the crowded Palestinian territory was more trouble than it was worth and that withdrawing from it would put Israel on more practically and morally defensible grounds. For many Israelis, leaving Gaza was good riddance, a relief. For the settlers, it was a personal and communal disaster.
Today, some of those who supported the plan feel the move was at best pointless. Others believe it has backfired entirely. The plan, as archived on the Knesset website, states that "the Gaza Strip shall be demilitarized and shall be devoid of weaponry" and that it will "lead to a better security situation, at least in the long term". Sharon and other officials had warned that Israel would respond harshly to any Kassam rocket fire after the disengagement. Last week home-front command officials warned that the city of Ashdod too should prepare for rocket attacks, as they continue to improve in range.
On Wednesday, former settlers marked the third anniversary of the withdrawal. Gathering as close as they could get to the Gaza Strip, they congregated near the Kissufim crossing with some of the razed communities within view. Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council, said they still felt the pain of the deliberate destruction of thriving Jewish communities and anger not only at the "moral crime" but the "folly and terrible results of the expulsion." Some settlers have begun registration for 20 groups that will reestablish the communities when the Israeli Defense Force returns to the Gaza Strip, which they believe is an inevitable security imperative.
  
A poll conducted among the former Jewish settlers found that 55% of them needed psychological treatment and a similar number say their physical and emotional health has suffered since the withdrawal. Some 42% believe the disengagement changed attitudes among the family's youths about service in the IDF, lowering motivation to serve. As many as 70% find their financial situation worse, unemployment among former settlers is three times the national average and 15% are dependent on friends and family for financial support. The government has failed in its treatment of the settlers of Gush Katif, say 98% of the respondents.
Three years later, Shosh Slutzky, formerly of the settlement of Ganei Tal, tells Israel radio she was still angry: "I still cannot wave the Israeli flag on Independence Day."
— Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem.
Photos: sign, 'We returned to Gush Etzion, we will return to Gush Katif too'; Children wave orange Gush Katif flags. Below: Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan speaking at the rally. Credit: Yishay Hollender, Yesha Council. click to enlarge.
By Ashraf Khalil in Chicago
My adventures as an Arab American journalist crossing in and out of Israel have already been documented here.
But even for someone who goes in expecting delays, aggressive questioning and the occasional strip search, my experience on Sunday leaving the Gaza Strip through the Eretz border crossing was a shock.
About 18 months ago, Israel completed construction of a massive automated inspection terminal at Eretz.
The size of a warehouse, a bewildering high-tech cattle pen built with one primary goal: to ensure that everyone coming out of Gaza gets their bags and their body thoroughly screened long before they ever get in a room with an Israeli.
Dozens of automated doors and gates open and close before you; disembodied Israeli voices tell you where to stand, when to walk into various scanning devices and when to open your bags, display them to the cameras and place them on conveyor belts.
The terminal was built...
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By Ashraf Khalil in Gaza City
Last week I took a vacation to Egypt to visit family, the first time I’d been back to Cairo since I was posted to Jerusalem in February.
My relatives peppered me with questions about life in a country next door that they know they’ll never visit.
What’s Al-Aqsa Mosque like? Have you crossed through the wall? How do “our cousins” (one of the more polite local euphemisms for Israelis) treat you at checkpoints?
Two uncles asked me what was the Palestinian, especially the Gazan, opinion on Egypt.
I hesitated.
“Well, do you want the honest answer or the diplomatic one?”
They wanted honesty, so I gave it to them.
“Ya amo (uncle), the Palestinians think that Egypt is an equal partner in the siege of Gaza and the suffering of the people there. Actually 'partner' is the wrong word. They think Israel and America are partners and Egypt is taking orders from them.”
Technically, there is a host of diplomatic commitments — some dating back to the original Camp David accords — that govern the status of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and the Sinai. But on the ground, there’s nothing to keep Egypt from unilaterally opening the border, something Cairo has done before to let in emergency medical cases.
At other times, the Gazans have initiated their own unilateral border openings, blowing open the border wall in January of this year and flooding into the northern Sinai for almost two weeks.
But the general status quo for more than a year has been Egyptian soldiers helping to turn Gaza into a massive boiling prison.
“If you were a lifelong Gazan,” I asked my uncles, “what would your opinion of Egypt be?”
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By Ashraf Khalil in Gaza City
The evidence of last year’s power shift in Gaza (Hamas in, and the Fatah faction very, very out) is apparent in lots of big and small ways. Green Hamas flags are everywhere, of course, and the black-clad security guys keeping order in the streets are more likely to be sporting bushy beards.
But every now and then, it sneaks up on you in more subtle ways.
Yesterday, my colleague Rushdi and I met with Faisal Abu Shahla, a doctor who heads a major medical assistance charity. As soon as we walked in his office, we noticed the pictures of the late Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the wall. It was clear this was one of Gaza’s dwindling patches of Fatah ground.
Abu Shahla identified himself as "the former director general of all hospitals in Gaza." Then he introduced several middle-age guys sitting on his office couch, sipping tea and smoking. There was a former director of administrative services and a former chief of engineering for the health ministry.
Quickly we realized we were in a room full of senior Ministry of Health guys who were purged for their Fatah connections after Hamas took over Gaza last summer.
The last man on the couch was a ministry of health doctor who had managed to keep his job. "He’s hasn’t become a ‘former’ yet," Abu Shahla joked.
This doctor responded with a morbid, but deeply funny, joke. He quoted an Arabic proverb normally spoken when passing a graveyard, a phrase designed to emphasize the fleeting nature of our time on this earth.
“Entu al sabiqoon, wa nahnu al lahiqoon,” he said, grinning.
Loose translation: “It was your turn and soon it will be ours.”
Despite constant talk of war, U.S. officials have tried to reach out to the Iranian people in an attempt to get past the animosity between Washington and Tehran.
 But Iranian officials have also been on a diplomatic offensive, reaching out to ordinary people in the Middle East as well as, more modestly, to Americans.
Known for his good looks, polite manners and kindly attitude toward the media, Iran's silver-haired foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammed Ali Hosseini has emerged as a frequent public face on his government’s policies.
In a lengthy interview in his office Wednesday, he described Americans as a peace-loving people who "hate violence" and are suffering because of the mistakes of their leaders. He said he believed economic pressures, the military entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American public opinion would prevent war from breaking out between Iran and the United States. "The U.S. and the Zionist regime, thanks to the increasing economic, political, security and military crises in which they are stuck, are not logically in a position to tolerate the expenses of another massive and far-reaching crisis," Hosseini said.
He continued: Public opinion in the world will not permit [President] Bush to exacerbate the pains and tragedies already inflicted on the nations of the region and the American people. Nowadays, the polling surveys carried out among U.S. elites, thinkers and, by and large, the American people, show they hate violence, further battles and anarchy. The surveys indicate that the Americans are seeking genuine peace, stability and security.
But he warned: If there is a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it will be out of control and with unpredictable consequences. Thus, anyone with minimum rationality and political logic does not dare to step on this path.
Hosseini, 47, is a physicist by training and a career diplomat. A native of Tehran, he studied in India before joining Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 20 years ago. He’s a family man, with a wife and three children. He sat down for an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times about Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. relations and turmoil in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, which have became contested terrain in the Cold War between Washington and Tehran.
Some of his answers were blunt. Asked why Iran won't suspend its controversial uranium-enrichment program for a temporary period to calm world fears and bolster Iran's diplomatic standing, he replied that Iran has "so far complied completely with its international and legal commitments and that compliance accredits our diplomatic standing."
But usually he was far more expansive, explaining Iran's positions on a number of topics, including the packages of proposals and counterproposals being bandied about by Iran and world powers to get talks started on Iran's nuclear program.
LAT: Would you consider the European "freeze-for-freeze" proposal in which Iran would stop adding new uranium-enrichment centrifuges in exchange for no new sanctions during a period of negotiations? Why or why not? MOHAMMAD ALI HOSSEINI: Both the 5+1 incentives package and the Iranian package have valuable elements in common. If we concentrate on the common ground in the two packages, we can initiate a very serious dialogue. If diplomacy can deepen and consolidate the commonalities in the packages and create a mechanism toward confidence-building talks, without a doubt, the talks will help peace and stability in the world. Otherwise the misleading and aimless preconditions are somehow wasting time and cannot lead to settle any problems. Furthermore, there is not such a thing [as freeze-for-freeze] written in the incentives package.
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The city of Ashkelon has been in the headlines lately, and not for its pretty beaches. The city of 110,000 has sadly joined Israel's southern front line as rockets fired from the Gaza Strip improve in range and technology.
Last week, a rocket hit a shopping mall in city; the dozens of injured treated at the Barzilai Medical Center.
It turns out the hospital grounds contain a remarkably interesting bit of history: a site holy to certain Shiite Muslims, thousands of whom have come to pray there over the years. Ashkelon itself has 5,000 years of recorded history, but when the hospital was first built in 1961, nothing indicated that the hill out back was anything special.
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This one is not for readers with delicate stomachs. Consider yourselves warned.
Much has rightly been made of the myriad deprivations suffered by residents of the Gaza Strip because of the 10-month-long economic siege of the territory imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took control last summer.
Merchants have run short of everything, from auto parts to diapers; an alarming percentage of the population now lives on international aid; and all but emergency surgical procedures are put on the back burner because of shortages of most medical supplies.
Now comes a new sign of Gaza's desperate state — one that should disturb fans of the Mediterranean beaches in Israel and Egypt.
A new United Nations report states that public utilities officials in Gaza have pumped millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Mediterranean over the last three months.The shortage of fuel and constant power cuts make it impossible to treat the sewage, the report states: Full sewage treatment requires 14 continuous days of uninterrupted power supply which cannot occur due to daily power cuts and insufficient fuel to operate power-supplying and back-up generators."
According to the report, the sewage flows northward toward the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.
— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
Photo: Coming soon to a beach near you. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Shortly after four Palestinian siblings and their mother died Monday in the midst of an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials began disputing claims that a tank shell had struck the Abu Mutiq family home. See 6 killed in Israeli raid on Gaza.
Today Israel released footage meant to bolster its claim that the home was destroyed by a secondary blast--caused when the air force fired on two militants carrying explosives and approaching Israeli troops.
Here's the video, so take a look and let the debate commence.
—Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
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The tragic images on display today were all too familiar for residents of the Gaza Strip: the crumbled remains of a family home, the wailing relatives outside the hospital and the tiny white-shrouded corpses.
Equally familiar were the war of words and dueling accusations that ritually follow tragedies like today's explosion that killed a mother and four of her young children.
Palestinian officials placed the blame on "Israeli aggression." Israeli officials blamed the willingness of Palestinian militants to attack from areas crowded with civilians and laid ultimate blame on Hamas and other Gazan militant factions.
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The Iranian government has officially and regularly decried former President Jimmy Carter since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
But it looks like some within official Iranian circles are willing to let bygones be bygones, especially now that Carter has defied the Bush administration by meeting with the Palestinian militant group and Iranian ally, Hamas.
Iran's animosity toward Carter stretches back decades. He was, after all, the U.S. commander in chief who toasted deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi months before a popular 1978 uprising against his rule, briefly offered the monarch sanctuary in America and dispatched an ill-fated rescue team to free American diplomats and embassy employees being held hostage in Iran.
But politics makes for strange bedfellows.
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Former U.S. President Carter whirled into Cairo today with his Middle East roadshow, calling the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza “abominable” while adding that there are “officials in Israel quite willing to meet with Hamas” and that may happen “in the near future.”
 His white eyebrows bright in the spotlight, Carter spoke to students and faculty at the American University here after talks with President Hosni Mubarak and a separate three-hour meeting with Hamas officials. The Bush administration and Israel have set rules not to talk to the militant Palestinian group but, Carter said, “I consider myself immune” from such restrictions.
He added that he wasn’t acting as a negotiator or mediator, but hoped that he “might set an example to be emulated” by others. The former president’s meetings with Hamas officials in recent days have outraged Israelis, but Carter was undeterred, even suggesting that his recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," was aptly named because apartheid “is the exact description of what’s happening in Palestine now.”
He played to a mostly appreciative audience, except for one American student from Amherst who suggested that by meeting with Hamas, Carter was giving legitimacy to terrorists. A murmur went through the crowd. Carter paused, and said: “My daughter was (once) arrested in Amherst.”
Laughter.
The former governor from Georgia said he told Hamas officials that “the worst thing” they’re doing to their cause is firing rockets into Israel, which he called "abominable and an act of terrorism.” Before the college student could grin in agreement, Carter did the mathematics of bloodshed. He said that for every Israeli killed in the conflict, 30 to 40 Palestinians die because of Israel’s superior military and “pinpoint accuracy.”
He then slipped back into diplomatic mode: ‘I’m not blaming one (side) or the other. . .Any side that kills innocent people is guilty of terrorism.”
It was almost 30 years ago that Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin made peace at Camp David. In the current crisis, the former president took a moment to remember those times. He drew applause when, with a jab at the Bush administration, he mentioned that he didn’t wait until his final days in office to try to find a way to peace.
Carter said he had “an almost brotherly love for Anwar Sadat.” But Sadat and Begin didn’t get along. Carter recalled that until the last minute it was uncertain whether there would be a deal. He remembered autographing photographs for Begin’s grandchildren. He delivered them to the prime minister cabin's at Camp David. Begin flicked through the photos and read the names of the children out loud. Carter said Begin had tears in his eyes.
Begin turned to Carter and said: “Let’s try again” to make peace.
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Jimmy Carter with his wife, Rosalynn. Credit: Associated Press.
Palestinian cleric issued a fatwa condoning the killing of Egyptian forces if they prevent Gazans fleeing the Israeli siege from crossing into Egypt. Needless to say, it has elicited quite a stir in Egypt, according to a news report in the Egyptian al-Masry al-Youm daily.
The Grand Sheik of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, dismissed the fatwa as divisive. It came as the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza has driven Palestinians towards the Egyptian border.
Egypt has begun stepping up security measures for fear that its border would be breached again by Gazans.
In January, hundreds of thousands of Gazans broke through the Egyptian border after Hamas militants blew open the wall leading to Egypt.
Egypt is in a tough position. The violence at its doorstep is putting its national security in jeopardy.
Deadly violence erupted Wednesday between Hamas militants and Israel, leaving three Israeli soldiers and at least 20 Palestinians dead The latest confrontations are expected to halt Egyptian efforts aimed at mediating a cease-fire between the two parties.
“There can be no discussion of a truce in the midst of these crimes,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri reportedly said.
—Noha El-Hennawy in Beirut
Photo: Palestinian children take part in a protest against the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip at the Rafah border point between Egypt and Gaza on April 10, 2008. Credit: SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images
Usually, the tone of the reporters' voice is enough. Radio phrases such as "fierce combat," "heavy exchange of fire" or "grave incident" are harbingers of trouble. Long-trained in reading between the lines of journalistic nuances, Israeli ears quickly note the omission of the "no casualties among our forces" and know this can only mean one thing: A soldier has died.
American soldiers in Iraq fight and die thousands of miles from home, but Israel's front lines are on its doorstep. And for all its fragmentation, Israel remains a small country with small-town-like family and social ties. Most get their daytime news from one of two radio stations, and bad news travels fast in a country where nearly everyone knows someone in the army.
So, military fatalities are not formally announced until the immediate family has been informed. Information is withheld temporarily, not for "Good Morning Vietnam" kind of reasons, but to spare families from learning this from the media. "The family has been notified" is the familiar media phrase that spells reassurance for many; but the final public relief, or grief, comes with the publication of the name.
Wednesday was one such day. The 7:00 radio reports raised suspicion, by 10:00 there was little room for doubt. At 11:51 it was cleared for publication that three soldiers had been killed in Gaza. Then came the news flashes with the first name at 13:31, the second at 16:34 and the third at 17:39. An Israeli-born demanding a combat assignment-or-bust, a Bedouin tracker and an ideological new immigrant; "the story of Israel at 60," said Minister Yitzhak Herzog. This morning, Hadassah Uvdati spoke on Army Radio of her son Matan, among yesterday's dead. 24 hours, full circle.
Prominent Israeli novelist David Grossman's new book, "Isha Borahat Mibesora," (Woman flees tidings), is the story of a mother who has a bad premonition about her soldier son and embarks on a journey throughout the country rather than being tormented by the anguish of awaiting the bad news at home. Grossman had a wish that the book he was writing would protect his sons during their army service. It didn't. His son Uri was killed in 2006 on the last day of the second Lebanon war.
—Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem
Former President Jimmy Carter visited the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Monday and decried the rockets launched regularly by militants in the nearby Gaza Strip as "a despicable crime."
Carter, who penned the 2006 book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," has received a decidedly mixed response in Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was too busy to meet with the Nobel Peace Prize winner and one Sderot resident reportedly yelled at Carter, "Mr. President, we are not apartheid here!"
But the day's events were somewhat overshadowed by reports that Israeli security had refused to coordinate with Carter's Secret Service detail.
The issue quickly developed into dueling denials, with nameless Israeli officials claiming no request for security cooperation was made and nameless U.S. officials saying the request was made but ignored.
Meanwhile, the stateside reaction continues to build to Carter's Middle East tour -- particularly his plans to meet with leaders of the militant group Hamas in Damascus later this week.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he opposes meeting with Hamas officials, but said it wasn't his place to criticize Carter. Republican presidential candidate John McCain issued a statement calling the idea "a grave and dangerous mistake."
— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
Photo: U.S. President Jimmy Carter, right, listens to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, center, as he looks at homemade rockets that were fired at Israel at the police station in the southern Israeli city of Sderot today. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter deplored Palestinian militants' attacks on Israel as a "despicable crime" as he toured a rocket-battered town on Monday. Credit: Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press
The Jimmy Carter Middle East Goodwill Tour continues to generate pretty much the opposite of goodwill among supporters of Israel.
Carter arrived in Israel today for several days of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. In an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Carter acknowledged that he plans to meet with senior leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas this week in Syria.
That prospect has the blog-o-sphere at a full-boil, with perspectives running from supportive to outraged to surrealist.
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Barbed wire, cement and negotiations may not be enough to stop a flood of Palestinians if Hamas decides to again breach its Gaza border with Egypt. The Egyptian government is reportedly sending troop reinforcements to the northern Sinai to prevent a possible replay of January’s chaos when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crossed into Egypt.
Tension around the border intensified recently when Khalil Al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader, said: “I expect that what will happen next will be greater than what happened before, not only against the Egyptian border but against all the crossings.”
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said it was "astonished" by such comments.
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For a man generally regarded as one of the nicest people ever to hold the office, former President Carter has developed a talent for getting people angry. Carter became persona non grata among supporters of Israel when his “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” was published in 2006.
 Carter arrives in Israel Sunday as part of a controversial Middle East diplomacy tour. After several days of meetings here with Palestinian and Israeli politicians, he moves on to Damascus, Syria, amid growing speculation that he will break a major U.S. and Israeli taboo by meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.
The Carter Center hasn't confirmed the meeting, but a Hamas official told the Associated Press that Carter's representatives had requested the appointment.
Either way, the response has been swift and harsh.
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While Israel is trying to keep a low profile about its latest series of catastrophe drills, the Lebanese are accusing the Jewish state of beating the drums of war.
Top Hezbollah officials said that the military exercises next door, which continued for the second day today, were a sign that Israel was preparing for the next war after its "humiliating defeat" in the summer 2006 war.
The Shiite militant group's deputy leader, Sheik Naeem Qassem, told a rally in south Beirut on Sunday: These drills are part of preparations for war because Israel is always in a warlike situation … These drills are part of plans for something in the future, probably it could be far off, but it is a preparation for war.
Hezbollah's main supporter, Iran, described the Israeli home front defense drills as "provocative actions." Mohammed Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Tehran today: "The war game was performed to boost the low spirit of the Zionist regime's troops. But the nature and raison d'etre of the Zionist regime is terrorism and intimidation. Regrettably, whenever one U.S. official visits Israel, the Zionist regime's officials are emboldened to behave aggressively."
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It has been 21 months since Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit was abducted by Gaza Strip militants in a cross-border raid.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to respond to accusations that his government wasn’t doing enough to get Shalit back.
“I can only assess the situation according to the success rate—which currently stands at zero,” said the soldier’s father Noam Shalit at a rally.
Olmert later responded at a press briefing that, “I can understand where (the father’s) emotions are coming from,” but swore that the government was “doing its utmost” to secure the soldier’s release.
The retrieval of captured soldiers, living or dead, is a hugely emotional issue in Israeli society. Public opinion has previously supported wildly disproportionate prisoner swaps. In 2004, Israel released 430 Arab prisoners in exchange for a kidnapped Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers.
Abducted June 25, 2006, Shalit’s whereabouts are said to be unknown. But Israeli forces have shown multiple times that they have extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the tiny Gaza Strip, fueling speculation that they know where Shalit is, but can’t attempt a rescue without risking his life.
Shalit’s name pops up regularly in rumors about possible swaps. The most commonly floated scenario involves an exchange for Marwan Barghouti, a popular and charismatic Palestinian leader currently serving multiple life sentences for planning attacks in Israel.
— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
Photo: Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Credit: Israeli Foreign Ministry
Like a candidate canvassing the neighborhood, Sen. John McCain paid a call on the Amar family Wednesday in their yellow stone house on Sinai Street.
"He came in, shook hands, talked at eye level and was not condescending," Aliza Amar said. "He walked in with simplicity, as if he lives around here."
He doesn't. The all-but-certain Republican nominee for the White House stopped in Israel during a seven-day overseas trip to affirm his friendship with the Jewish state and his solidarity with its most besieged citizens...
...The newspaper Haaretz periodically ranks the candidates on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "best for Israel." The latest rating by its panel of eight experts gave McCain 7.75 points, Clinton 7.5 and Obama 5.12.
"As far as Israel is concerned, and in the view of the candidates' current positions, no one is better than McCain," Haaretz columnist Amir Oren wrote this week...
Click here to read more.
— Richard Boudreaux in Sderot, Israel
Photo: John McCain (right) and Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday. McCain is in the region as part of congressional delegation. Credit: Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
During three months of foundering peace talks overshadowed by violence, the U.S.-backed Palestinian leadership in the West Bank has lost popular support and is now viewed as less legitimate than the Islamic government of rival group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. That's according to a poll released Monday.
The survey is the latest sign that the Bush administration's effort to shore up secular Palestinian leaders and isolate Hamas is failing. That effort, part of a strategy to stabilize the Middle East through an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, includes diplomatic support and promises of economic aid to the West Bank.
Polling data collected in the West Bank and Gaza this month show that Hamas, which rejects peace talks and continues to fight Israel, has gained sharply in popularity since December, reversing a two-year decline.
To read more, click here.
— Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem
Photo: Palestinian children are seen during a Hamas rally in the Jebaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip. Credit: ALI ALI/EPA
Politics and violence, it seems, infuse every aspect of life in Israel and the Palestinian territories — including soccer.
A early-round playoff match for the State Cup on Tuesday between the Beitar Jerusalem and Ahi Nazareth soccer clubs became the latest focal point for Israeli-Palestinian tensions. The fans of Nazareth, an Arab club, drew heavy criticism in Israel last week after a Palestinian gunman killed eight religious students Thursday in a shooting spree at a Jerusalem yeshiva.
The next day, Ahi Nazareth fans booed and heckled through a pre-match moment of silence for the victims. The scene recalled another ugly moment last fall when Beitar Jerusalem’s notoriously right-wing fans booed through a moment of silence for the anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination.
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In what can be interpreted as a sign of progress in indirect talks between Hamas and Israel, Hamas on Monday denied any progress and Israel denied the talks were even taking place.
"There is no cease-fire agreement with Hamas, and nor are there direct or indirect talks," said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
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The mood was ugly outside the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem Thursday night. Inside the seminary lay the bodies of eight students, along with the body of the Palestinian gunman who killed them.
Outside, a right-wing activist complained to me that the U.S. was preventing Israel from simply killing or exiling all the Palestinians. Even the cooler heads in the crowd said there was no hope ever for a negotiated peace and that the government should end all negotiations with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
But one young man, whose friend had escaped the attack by diving under a parked car, proposed a solution so startling that I had to track him down later and confirm that I heard him right.
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The aftermath of the bloodiest attack in Israel in two years continues to ripple through the region. In West Jerusalem, thousands commemorated the shooting deaths of the eight young Jewish seminary students in what became a national day of mourning.
In the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber, the family of 25-year-old Alaa Abou Dheim held their own somber service for the man who Israeli police say opened fire in the library of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva Thursday night. Abou Dheim was killed on the scene, and several of his family members were arrested within hours. Abou Dheim's family is stunned and confused, saying they didn't see this coming and the young man appeared calm just hours before the attack.
In Lebanon, the attack was hailed by religious leaders during several Friday sermons. "The heroic operation in Jerusalem proved that jihadists in Jerusalem were capable of striking tough blows to the Zionists," said Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's most senior Shiite cleric.
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 Once again, Syria is proving to be the "black sheep" of the Arab world.
After years of waiting, it's finally Damascus' turn to shine as host of the annual Arab League Summit. But now come worries that Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt and Jordan, might ruin the party.
The so-called "moderate Arab states," backed by the U.S., want to punish Syria for trying to regain control over its smaller neighbor, Lebanon. For the past three months, Saudis have blamed Syrians for repeatedly blocking the election of a Lebanese president.
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To no one's surprise, pan-Arab television news networks such as Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera flooded the airwaves Saturday and Sunday with gruesome images from Gaza, where an Israeli operation to stop to rocket attacks on southern Israel has left scores of Palestinians dead.
But it was somewhat surprising to see how little attention Iraqi news channels gave to the Palestinians' plight. The crawlers scrolling at the bottom of the screen gave regular updates on Palestinian casualties. But the big news by far is the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iraq.
Some in The Times' Baghdad Bureau sardonically suggested to me that after five years of violence in Iraq, they are unmoved by the suffering of the Palestinians.
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A decision to make Israel the guest of honor at the upcoming Paris book fair has angered Muslim countries around the world. On Saturday, Iranian authorities announced that they would boycott the five-day book fair.
Iran wasn't the first country to opt out of the fair. It may not be the last.
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As the border with the Gaza Strip was being sealed off, the Egyptian state-owned media launched a campaign apparently seeking to overturn public sympathy for the Palestinians. Since Egypt started to regain control over its border, preventing Palestinians from coming in, newspapers have become harsh, with front-page news about Palestinians shooting at Egyptian soldiers, weapons smuggling, terrorism and reports of false currency in the Sinai and threats to national security.
The new content replaces headlines that showed sympathy with the Palestinians, stressing President Hosni Mubarak's statements that Egypt would not let the Palestinians starve. However, 10 days later, a change of heart has become crystal-clear.
Rosa al-Yousef, a state-owned paper known as the most vocal mouthpiece of the regime, has spearheaded the anti-Palestinian campaign. "Egypt is generous and patient but its patience has limits," warned a front-page headline that appeared after skirmishes the Egyptian-Palestinian borders earlier this week. The paper even questioned whether Gaza had a humanitarian crisis, hinting that Gazans were well-off.
"It is not true that the siege imposed on Gaza caused a serious humanitarian crisis that eventually led to the Palestinian flood [into Egypt]," wrote Abdullah Kamal, Rosa-al-Yousef's editor-in-chief and a staunch proponent of Mubarak's regime. "Each [Gazan] comer spent an average of US$260 in three days....the total spending during that period [where the Gazans broke through Egypt] reached US$ 220 million. These figures raise real questions about the financial situation in the Gaza Strip."
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Israel's Army Radio broadcast an unusal exchange between Yossi Belisha, an Israeli, and Jamal Khudari, a Palestinian, during a call-in debate Monday about Israel's cutoff of fuel and other essential supplies to the Gaza Strip. Israel imposed the blockade last Thursday in response to near-daily Kassam rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled territory. The broadcast came during a lull in the rocket fire, before Israel agreed late Monday to a temporary easing of the blockade.
Belisha lives in Sderot, the Israeli town hit hardest by the rockets. Khudari lives in Gaza City, which has suffered most from power blackouts caused by the fuel cutoff. Here are excerpts from their on-air debate hosted by Army Radio's Razi Barkai.
Barkai: Describe life today where you are.
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Around three thousand Palestinian pilgrims remain stranded along the Egyptian borders with Gaza as the Egyptian government refuses to let them out through the Rafah border crossing. Palestinians have been moved to temporary camps in Al-Arish town, which lies around 30 miles from the border crossing. According to news reports. Palestinians languish in poor shelters with broken windows and worn-out mattresses.
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The Israeli accusations that Egypt was not doing enough to prevent weapon smuggling across its borders has recently caused a storm of fury in Cairo. Earlier this week, the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni accused Egypt of doing a "terrible" job in securing the borders with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
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Entering and leaving the state of Israel has always been an adventure for me. As an Arab American, the usual security routine always seems to be jacked up an extra 10%. And flashing the journalist ID sometimes makes matters worse.
In 2001, I crossed into the Gaza Strip from Egypt to cover the Palestinian reaction to Ariel Sharon’s election as Israel's prime minister. Several days later, when I was ready to leave, the Israelis had indefinitely closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
I was working freelance at the time and paying all my own expenses, so hanging around in Gaza running up hotel bills while waiting for Rafah to reopen wasn’t an option. My only choice was to cross into Israel and make my way overland to Taba, then into Egypt.
The problem: I had been issued a Gaza-only visa.
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Hamas and Fatah each have abused Palestinians’ rights since facing off in a mini civil war in the Gaza Strip this summer.
So says Amnesty International, which today accused the rival Palestinian factions of what it called “flagrant disregard for the human rights of the civilian population already worn down by decades of Israeli occupation, military campaigns and blockades.”
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Border closures that followed Hamas’ violent takeover in the Gaza Strip have depleted supplies of everything from cement to cigarettes. Parents hoping to buy gifts for their children to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan are finding slim pickings.
Ramadan ends Friday or Saturday with the traditional feast, called Eid al Fitr, that typically includes gifts for children. Popular items such as sweets and clothing are in short supply as a result of the shutdown in shipments through the main cargo crossing from Israel, which has been sealed since mid-June. Israel cited security reasons in closing the Karni crossing, but it has permitted limited shipments of basic foodstuffs and medicine through other crossings.
Most merchandise sold in Gaza comes from Israel, though a lot of the candy is produced in places like Turkey and imported through the Jewish state. For the first time in memory, many Gaza shoppers are unable to find favored chocolates. Parents go store to store in search of children’s shoes and clothing, but what is left in the depleted stocks is months old and unfit for the fall season.
The withered economy has left few people with money to shop with, anyway. The markets, usually jammed with buyers near the end of Ramadan, are uncrowded. A sign of the hard times is that it’s remarkably easy to find parking next to the main market on Omar al-Mukhtar Street, one of Gaza’s main boulevards.
— Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City and Ken Ellingwood in Jerusalem
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