Commentary and analysis of the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip from around the globe.

Obama off to good start in Middle East
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Obama's decision to appoint George Mitchell as the U.S. envoy to the region reflects a commitment to serious and impartial engagement that marks a welcome change from the bias and incoherence of the Bush administration's approach, writes Omar Dajani. Read more.

Mitchell's mission: saving the two-state solution
IMEU

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been tasked to listen and to help shore up the Israel-Hamas ceasefire during his week-long visit. But the signs point to a more ambitious agenda ahead: Saving the two-state solution, argues Nadia Hijab. Read more.

Fueling the cycle of hate
The Guardian (UK)

No matter how many times the Israeli government tries to blame Hamas for the latest Palestinian civilian deaths it simply cannot explain away the body count, especially that of the children, write Yigal Bronner and Neve Gordon. Read more.

Winning and losing in Gaza
The Nation

If the Gaza conflict brings the Palestinian struggle for self-determination to the top of the global justice agenda, it will be a major victory for Hamas, claims Richard Falk. Read more.

It's 'all about Hamas'
Agence Global

Irrespective of whether the Palestinian people have good or bad leaders or none, there are some basic principles of international law that must be applied to this conflict, posits Nadia Hijab. Read more.

Time running out for a two-state solution?
60 Minutes

While negotiations have been going on for 15 years, hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have moved in to occupy the West Bank. Palestinians say they can't have a state with Israelis all over it, which the settlers say is precisely the idea, reports Bob Simon. Read more.

Breaking Gaza's will: Israel's enduring fantasy
The Palestine Chronicle

As long as there are no witnesses to the war crimes committed in Gaza, Israel is confident that it can sell a fabricated story to the world that it is, as always, the victim, writes Ramzy Baroud. Read more.

Israel's war and Barack Obama's inauguration
Bitterlemons.org

There is a need for an inclusive approach - one that will encourage dialogue and negotiations among all parties to conflicts and that will put an end to the present approach, which is based on exclusion and boycott, argues Ghassan Khatib. Read more.

Rafah, a landscape scarred by Israel's war
The Independent (UK)

Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, probably suffered more than any other from the eight years of conflict before the start of Operation Cast Lead. But even on the short journey here, some of the new devastation was evident, writes Donald Macintyre. Read more.

Israel accused of war crimes over 12-hour assault on Pales- tinian village
The Guardian (UK)

Israel stands accused of perpetrating a series of war crimes during a sustained 12-hour assault on the village of Khuza'a, near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, last week in which 14 people died, reports The Guardian. Read more.


Will Israel's Gaza war spell the end of the Jewish state?
Agence Global

If Israel fails to destroy Hamas, is a two-state solution now possible? Both Palestinian and world public opinion is moving towards the one-state solution. And this is of course the end of the Zionist project, posits Immanuel Wallerstein. Read more.

When Israel expelled Palestinians
The Washington Times

Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? asks Randall Kuhn. Read more.

Israel is committing war crimes
The Wall Street Journal

Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes, says George Bisharat. Read more.


Gazans scramble to escape death
Haaretz (Israel)

It is hard to count all the dead. However, there are reports of entire families being killed, and of numerous persons from the same family being killed, especially in peripheral areas that are emptying of people, writes Amira Hass. Read more.

Drawing the lessons of Israel's Gaza war
Agence Global

Although Israel has still not halted its slaughter in Gaza, some consequences of its assault on the suffering, grossly over-crowded Strip may already be observed. More than ever, Israel has turned itself into a pariah in the Arab and Muslim world, argues Patrick Seale. Read more.

U.S. Weaponry Facilitates Killings in Gaza
Inter Press Service

The intimacy of the U.S.-Israeli military relationship, and the frequency with which Israel launches wars, means that the Israeli military also performs the function of testing newly-developed weapons systems in actual warfare, which is of value to both Israel and the United States, reveals Thalif Deen. Read more.

Debate: will Hamas Emerge stronger?
The Los Angeles Times

The full truth about the proportion of civilians killed and wounded will probably never be known. The Israeli military continues to bar foreign journalists from the Gaza Strip, ducking an Israeli high court ruling that journalists should be admitted when safety permits, George Bisharat debates. Read more.


Opening the gates of hell in Gaza
The Independent (UK)

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms", mourns Robert Fisk. Read more.


Has Israel's response exceeded its right to defend itself?
The San Francisco Chronicle

The exercise of self-defense must be necessary and proportional to the harm it seeks to redress, but Israel's bloodletting in the Gaza Strip fails this test in three respects, argues George Bisharat. Read more.


The Middle East's rogue regime
Agence Global

Until the Middle East manages to contain Israel's rogue regime by a regional balance of power, peace will remain out of reach, predicts Patrick Seale. Read more.

Hold Israel to the same standard of civilized conduct as other lands
The Sunday Times (South Africa)

Only when the powers that really matter tell Israel in unequivocal terms that the evil that it perpetrates is unacceptable will Tel Aviv wake up and realize that it has to behave in a manner expected of those who live in this century, posits Mondli Makhanya. Read more.


Whose blood is being spilled in Gaza, and why?
Haaretz (Israel)

As Israel has been preoccupied with Gaza throughout the entire week, nobody has asked whose blood is being spilled - and why, laments Gideon Levy from Tel Aviv. Read more.



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