As we demonstrated at the White House last Monday calling for an end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, we could hardly have imagined President Barack Obama would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize four days later.
While the award came as a surprise, it is somewhat understandable. We have met and conversed with peace activists from around the world over the last year, and we've observed a palpable, nearly desperate, universal hunger (obviously shared by the Nobel Committee) for a more peaceful, less militaristic U.S. foreign policy.
WASHINGTON - Just two months ago, many western commentators were jubilant that Mahmoud Abbas, the U.S.-supported head of both the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the interim Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), was making a comeback and reducing the influence in Palestinian society of the Islamist movement Hamas.
But a series of events in recent weeks has sent Abbas's level of support from his people into a nosedive. The most serious has been the reaction among Palestinians to a decision Abbas or someone close to him made to postpone any further U.N.
JERUSALEM - Israeli security forces on Friday clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians near Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound as authorities limited access to the flashpoint site sacred to Muslims and Jews.
Eleven officers were injured and two Palestinians arrested, a police spokesman said after the scuffles, which came as Palestinians staged a one-day strike in defence of the compound they claim is threatened by right-wing Jews.
There is no chance of an early solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and people must "learn to live with it", the Israeli Foreign Minister warned yesterday.
"Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict... simply doesn't understand the situation and spreads delusions, ultimately leading to disappointments and an all-out confrontation here," Avigdor Lieberman said in a radio interview.
JERUSALEM - US Middle East envoy George Mitchell began a fresh trip to the region on Thursday aiming to push Israelis and Palestinians to agree to restart peace talks, but with few expecting a breakthrough.
The former senator was to meet Israel's president and foreign and defence ministers on Thursday ahead of separate talks on Friday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
On October 1, the Obama administration successfully pressured the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to drop its proposal to recommend that the UN Security Council endorse the findings of the
Goldstone Commission report. The report, authored by renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone, detailed the results of the UNHRC's fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict.
Damn the Iranians and full speed ahead. That was the U.S. policy in the Middle East. But the waters have proved treacherous, with torpedoes everywhere. Despite an initial
hopeful sit-down with Iranian negotiators, this won't be the October the White House wanted on the foreign policy front. By now, Barack Obama was supposed to have announced -- with ruffles and flourishes -- the beginning of Middle East peace talks, leading to a final status agreement by 2012.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - A controversial decision not to press a vote on a UN report on the Gaza war has angered many Palestinians and weakened president Mahmud Abbas amid US-backed peace efforts, observers say.
The Palestinians agreed to delay a vote on the damning report at the UN Human Rights Council on Friday after reportedly coming under pressure to do so by the United States and Israel, who said it would sink efforts to relaunch peace talks.
![Israel has missiles that could be converted to carry nuclear payloads [GALLO/GETTY]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/imagecache/article_image_thumb/files/article_images/ussilentonisraelinuclear.jpg)
Barack
Obama, the US president, has agreed to abide by a 40-year policy of
allowing Israel to keep nuclear weapons without opening them to
international inspection, according to a US newspaper.
In a report on Saturday, The Washington Times quoted three
unnamed sources as saying Obama had confirmed to Binyamin Netanyahu,
Israel's prime minister, that he would maintain the "don't ask, don't
tell" policy.
"Iran must comply with United Nations resolutions," declared President Obama. Iran is "as defiant as ever" says a chorus of corporate employees otherwise known as mainstream journalists. Really! Is Iran defiant for testing missiles for its military? What military in the world fails to test missiles? Is Iran defiant for reporting the construction of a "secret underground" uranium enrichment plant at least a year in advance of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obligations require it to?
