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IS IT THAT SIMPLE TO EXPLAIN, OR, JUST ONE SIDE OF THE STORY The Middle East conflict is framed as one of the most complex problems in the world. But, in reality, it's very simple. Israelis want to live in peace and are willing to accept a neighboring Palestinian state. And most Palestinians do not want Israel to exist. As Dennis Prager explains, this is really all you need to know. In 5 minutes, understand how Israel was founded, and how, since that auspicious day in 1948, its neighbors have tried to destroy it, again and again When I did my graduate studies at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University’s School of International Affairs, I took many courses on the question of the Middle East conflict. Semester after semester, we studied the Middle East conflict as if it was the most complex conflict in the world – when in fact, it is probably the easiest conflict in the world to explain. It may be the hardest to solve, but it is the easiest to explain.  In a nutshell, i...

Thousands of Turks gave their prime minister a hero's welcome as he returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos having denounced Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip. Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of "killing children on the beach" during a discussion on Thursday with Shimon Peres, the Israeli president. The Turkish leader then clashed with the panel's American moderator, who tried to cut him off. As Mr Erdogan quoted the opinions of academics that Israel had become a "raider state", the chairman sought to silence him. Visibly infuriated by this interruption, the prime minister walked off the stage, saying: "I will not come to Davos again". As he left, Mr Erdogan received a congratulatory hug from a beaming Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, who was also on the panel. Mr Erdogan's central complaint was that he received only 12 minutes to speak, compared with the 25 minutes allowed to Mr Peres. He stressed that thi...

To virtually incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroying their livelihoods, confiscating their lands, stealing their water and uprooting their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism is a disease of the mind, notes Zaid Nabulsi. I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it's difficult to ride without them when it's really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman, whom I knew was from Israel, tried to start some small talk by asking me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from. Suddenly, the most bewildered look was plastered on his face. "Where is Nablus?" he asked, "I've never heard of it." Then, after realizing that I knew he was bullshitting me, he pretended to remember, "Ah, Shkheim you mean? " With my insistence not to learn these ugly names that the...

"Oh, God! I have never seen such a terrible scene," cried Kayed Abu Aukal. The emergency doctor could not believe himself seeing the remains of what was days back Shahd, a full-fleshed 4-year-old Palestinian girl. She died when an Israeli shell was fired at the backyard of her home in the Jabalya refugee camp northern Gaza strip, where she was playing. When her parents attempted to rush to the rescue of their kid, who fell to the ground amid a pool of her blood, rains of Israeli bullets kept them a distance. For the next five days Shahd's which was left lying in the open left for dogs to tear out. "The dogs did leave one single part of the poor baby's body intact," said a tearful Abu Aukal. "We have seen heart-breaking scenes over the past 18 days. We picked up children whose bodies were torn or burnt, but nothing like this." For five days Shahd's brother, Matar, and cousin, Mohamed, tried in vain to reach her body. They were fired at by the ...

On Thursday it happened, conclusively - Operation Cast Lead turned insane. Attacking any densely populated city is a serious act at any time, but when Israel's international legitimacy is being ground to dust, such an attack is nothing but madness. Shelling a United Nations facility is something not to be done at any time, but doing it on the day when the UN secretary general is visiting Jerusalem is beyond lunacy. The level of pressure the Israel Defense Forces has been exerting on Gaza may be squeezing Hamas, but it is destroying Israel. Destroying its soul and its image . Destroying it on world television screens, in the living rooms of the international community and most importantly, in Obama's America. Israel is not Russia and Gaza is not Chechnya. Israel cannot deal with its enemies the way belligerent superpowers deal with theirs. Wars must be just and proportional. Without being just, Israel cannot triumph on the battlefield. Without a sound moral foundation any I...

The youngest terrorist in the world Age: 2 months before birth Name Not allowing him the opportunity to Zionist bullet Arabs name Citizenship:He was supposed to be Palestinians ِ Adress: From the mother's womb to the grave These data fetus, who was assassinated by Zionist hatred, we give to all the organs of American and British intelligence and international, so stop searching (the small terrorist was assassinated) Watch with us the pictures after the terrorist assassination With greetings of American democracy and the civilized world who are protecting the world from terrorists

Why does Israel have a right to exist, but Palestine doesn't? This is the question of our time. For 60 years Israelis have been stealing Palestine from Palestinians . There are maps available on the Internet and in Israeli publications showing the shrinkage over time of what was once Palestine into what Palestine is today — a small number of unconnected ghettos or bantustans. Palestine became "the occupied territory" from which Palestinians were ejected and Israeli settlements built for "settlers." Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are full of refugee camps in which Palestinians driven off their lands by Israeli force have been living for decades. Driving people off their land is strictly illegal under international law, but Israel has been getting away with it for decades. Gaza is a concentration camp of 1.5 million Palestinians who were driven from their homes and villages and collected in the Gaza Ghetto. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was created 6...

"For us, being cautious means being aggressive," one IDF officer told IPS , "When we suspect that a Palestinian fighter is hiding in a house, we shoot it with a missile and then with two tank shells, and then a bulldozer hits the wall. It causes damage but it prevents the loss of life among soldiers." Due to the significant loss of military lives in the Lebanon war, Israeli military planners took into account the effect on Israeli morale and support during the war on Gaza. "From the minute we entered, we've acted like we're at war. That creates enormous damage on the ground," the officer continued. In addition to so-called military targets, the IDF has bombed clearly marked UN buildings such as hospitals and several schools which has lead to many women and children - non-combatants - being massacred for doing nothing more than trying to shelter and hide from the fighting. These buildings were shelled even though the UN had clearly given the IDF...

" We are all Hamas, " screamed a scrawny Mauritanian, repeatedly, as he determinedly drew his face closer to a TV camera. Behind him, thousands more tunefully chanted similar words, chants that were heard in different Arabic dialects, in fact in many different languages all across the globe. Yet, Israel, somehow is claiming victory in the media war, which it calculatedly unleashed weeks before its most violent attack on Gaza yet. Thousands have been reportedly killed and wounded in little more than a week, starting Dec. 27, in the tiny stretch of land (roughly 140 square miles), yet densely populated Gaza Strip of 1.5 million people. " Whenever Israel is bombing, it is hard to explain our position to the world," said Avi Pazner, former Israeli ambassador to Italy and France and "one of the officials drafted in to present Israel's case to the world media," according to The Jewish Chronicle. "But at least this time everything was ready and in...

Photographic evidence has emerged that proves that Israel has been using controversial white phosphorus shells during its offensive in Gaza, despite official denials by the Israel Defence Forces. There is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians, causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorus against civilians is prohibited under international law. The Times has identified stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells from high-resolution images taken of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) artillery units on the Israeli-Gaza border this week. The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made WP munition. The shell is an improved version with a more limited dispersion of the phosphorus, which ignites on contact with oxygen, and is being used by the Israeli gunners to create a smoke screen on the ground. The rounds, which explode into a shower of burning white streaks, were first identified by The Times at the weekend when they we...

Holocaust Denied " When the truth is replaced by silence ," the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, " the silence is a lie ." It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC . But Russia's incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemeral we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why. They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, "Israel's right to exist." They know the opposite to be true : that Palestine's righ...