Worth Reading...

Eyad Al-Sarraj: Gaza's Agony (Foreign Policy)

A year after the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are still waiting for President Obama's deeds to match his rhetoric in the Middle East.

Joe Stork: Obama and Human Rights in the Middle East: Suggestions for Act Two (Arab Reform Bulletin)

United States President Barack Obama has used all the right words to underscore his view that human rights concerns are a core element of his Middle East policy. The Obama administration’s promotion of human rights with abusive Middle Eastern governments, however, has been ambiguous and, in some cases, negligent, raising concern that the United States is still operating in a universe of double standards when it comes to confronting serious human rights violations by important allies.

Akiva Eldar: Only an idiot would say Israel has frozen settlement activity (Haaretz)

Two months after the government decision on November 26 to freeze construction in Jewish settlements for 10 months, you'd have to be blind, an idiot, or a member of the Yesha Council of settlements to use the term "freeze" to describe the real estate situation in Judea and Samaria.

Meron Benvenisti: The Inevitable Bi-national Regime (Israel Occupation Archive via ATFP)

[B]i-nationalism is not a political or ideological program so much as a de facto reality masquerading as a temporary state of affairs. It is a description of the current condition, not a prescription.

Juan Cole: Ignoring Gaza's humanitarian crisis (Salon)

When a relief plane for Doctors Without Borders isn't allowed to land by U.S. military authorities at the airport in Port-au-Prince, there is an outcry. But Israeli military authorities will not allow any relief planes at all to land in the Gaza Strip (the Israelis destroyed Gaza's airport in 2001).

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