Europe

"It was World War I that changed the calculus. When the Ottomans joined the war on the side of Germany, the Allied Powers – Britain, France and Russia – decided to dismantle the Ottoman empire. Even then, there was little interest in the Zionist plan – despite intense Zionist lobbying."

"While a failed peace process and the continuation of the violent insurgency is in strategic best interest of Eritrea as that could, in due course, drain Ethiopia economically and demoralizes its military, it entails a hefty price paid by the helpless Somali civilians who die as a result."

"Both Hamas and Fateh leaders have been weakened considerably as a result of the internal fighting. For Hamas the experience of running a government, even a reduced one, has had a humiliating result. Fateh’s arrogance, which failed to allow it to honestly and fairly deal with a rising competitor, has also learned a lesson or two in the past two years."

"Olmert's negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, enshrined last November in the Annapolis process, were doomed to failure from the start...."

"...public relations are the main motive driving the current Israeli leadership's interest in the ongoing process, which will continue in spite of the possible absence of Olmert. At the same time, it will continue to fail to produce results."

"How strange and sad it is that we have allowed the right-wing dogmas of market absolutism, libertarianism, “the invisible hand” and “trickle down” to cause us to forget the founding principles of our republic, and to forget the lessons learned from a difficult history since that founding."

"The relation of policy and its reportage is clear in the preparing of Americans for a war with Iran, and then priming them into a maybe we will maybe we won’t indecision. Each time heated talk about Iran cools slightly, the price of gasoline declines. Until the next surge of fanatic babble that claims Iran will nuke Israel and exterminate all Jews, at which point the price goes up again."

"Since Israel occupied eastern Jerusalem in 1967, the Israeli government extended the municipal borders of Jerusalem to the east, north and south and officially, but unilaterally, annexed, enlarged, united and declared the city "the eternal capital of Israel," incorporating in the process a large Palestinian population within its boundaries, but squeezing them out by an accelerating expansion of the Jewish colonial settlement, tightening the residency and building laws and taxation policies, and "Wall"ing them in into isolated and separated Palestinian cantons or walling them out of their native city altogether."