This Blog is intended for use by students in the Islamic Middle East course at Northfield Mount Hermon School and guest students and teachers from other participating schools.
Ehud Olmert, Israel’s “lame-duck” Prime Minister, says Israel should pull out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the price for peace with the Palestinians. What’s ironic about this is that Olmert cut his political teeth in the Likud Party, where he was a protege of former Prime Minister (and Likud Party founder) Ariel [...]
Syria, a majority Sunni country tightly ruled by a family belonging to a minority non-Sunni sect (the Alawis), may be entering another unstable phase.
Robert F. Worth, “Car Bomb Kills 17 Near Intelligence Office,” New York Times, September 28, 2008
More on Syria
1982 Hama Uprising
Story at the BBC
IME Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Go to the article in The Nation, Sept. 3, 2008
See also Isabel Kershner’s piece posted several months ago on this blog.
Israel has annexed land adjacent to its security fence as security zones to protect Israeli settlements.
Story at BBC
More on the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Lebanon’s Hizbullah has opened a shrine in Nabatiye to its recently deceased commander Imad Mughniyah. Mughniyah, a high ranking member of Hizbullah, died on February 12 in a car bomb attack in Damascus that Hizbullah blamed on Israeli agents. Mughniyah was implicated in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner which was diverted to Beirut [...]
Israeli P.M. Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have held talks in Jerusalem aimed at moving the peace process forward.
Story from the BBC with links to historical benchmarks in the process and other resources (such as borders, the status of refugees, and water)
IME Course Study Guide for the Arab-Israeli conflict
Go to story, links, and map
IME course guide to the Arab-Israeli conflict
Iranian born Israeli peace activist Abie Nathan has died. Among other things, he founded the “pirate” radio station “Voice of Peace,” famous for its call-sign: “From somewhere in the Mediterranean, this is the Voice of Peace.”
More at BBC
Palestinians are losing their enthusiasm for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and instead are turning their attention more and more to the idea of a binational single state shared with Israel.
Story from the BBC
See also
Course study guide on the Arab-Israeli Conflict
BBC Middle East