Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

What is Zion if not the Temple Mount? - Haaretz - Israel News
And what is Zion if not the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives and the Old City?” Conceding Jerusalem and its holy places, many fine people already understood then, is neither legitimate nor moral. Such a decision cannot be binding on the State of Israel or the Jewish people.

Belief and the Ballot - TIME

Being in opposition allows the PJD to build its base without appearing to be doing the monarchy’s bidding. It may be true that the Moroccan regime has postponed constitutional reform that would signal clear commitment to democratization. Nonetheless, its strategy of accommodating, rather than attacking, political Islam should be closely followed throughout the Middle East and the West.

Gideon Levy, ethnographer of despair and rage, Haaretz
“For the first time in my life I see my mother suffering and I can’t help her. For 46 years, from the time I was born, such a thing never happened - that I couldn’t help my mother,” says the son sadly, after he tried in vain to take his mother from their home in east Barta’a to the government hospital in Jenin, a 20-minute drive during ordinary times, which haven’t been ordinary for a long time.

It’s possible that it was his mother’s time to die in any case, but why did it have to be such a humiliating death, on the floor of a van at the checkpoint? How many more such articles will still be written, and how many times will the Israel Defense Forces explain that “humanitarian cases” are allowed to pass through the checkpoint, an explanation that repeatedly contrasts with reality? On Monday three weeks ago, Kamela Kabha, 78, died that way at the Reihan (Barta’a) checkpoint, while her son Tawfik pleaded for her life.

Persuade the people - Haaretz

…so long as Israel keeps raising the separation wall and the Palestinians keep getting poorer - all the debates about principles for a peace agreement are pretty worthless