In recent weeks, Israel has moved from relative inaction to a deepening involvement in Syrian affairs: it launched two air strikes last month, and at the same time fomented claims that Damascus had used chemical weapons. Meanwhile, statements from Israeli officials have tacked wildly between threats to oust Assad one moment and denials that Israel has any interest in his departure the next. Is Israel sending out contradictory signals to sow confusion, or is it simply confused itself?
A dream long nurtured by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians made refugees during the establishment of the state of Israel has become a concrete reality at a small makeshift camp atop a windswept hill. A dozen young men have set up the camp at a site in the Upper Galilee from which their grandparents were expelled more than six decades ago. Today, all that remains of the village of Iqrit, close to Israel’s border with Lebanon, is a Catholic church on the hill’s brow. But in 1948, the village was home to 600 Christian Palestinians.
With Europe’s most talented young footballers preparing for the kick-off of the under-21 championships, Israelis are celebrating the biggest footballing coup in their history. But criticism from global statesmen such as Desmond Tutu has bolstered the recent launch of a campaign by Palestinian groups and European and American solidarity activists for a sporting boycott of Israel, modelled on the international campaign that targeted apartheid South Africa.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s real agenda was always transparent: not Palestinian statehood, but what he termed “economic peace”. Last week the US indicated it was switching horses. John Kerry revealed an economic programme for getting peace talks on track. Some 300 Israeli and Palestinian business people were on board, he said, and would invest heavily in the Palestinian economy in a venture that was “bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything since the Oslo accords”.
