RAMALLAH: The performance of the Palestinian Authority during the past 17 months has been impressive. It has managed against the odds to restore order in the West Bank to a degree not seen in many years. And it has confronted and disarmed nationalist and Islamist groups. Corruption is also not as rampant as it was …

WASHINGTON, DC: Now that the scare over the “swine flu virus (H1N1) has subsided around the world, governments, international organizations and ordinary people are taking stock to determine whether the response was proportionate to the actual danger. There is some concern that certain governments took this potentially grave threat so seriously that their response went …

RAMALLAH: Somewhere outside Tel Aviv last week two busloads of Israelis were taken on a tour of their history. It is a history many of them will have heard a version of before, but few will have heard the one presented to them on this trip through long-destroyed indigenous Palestinian villages in the greater Tel …

Obama is coming to Cairo! What a refreshing change! I’m not just referring to the rather extraordinary popular mood in streets noted in the more recent past for an anti-US stance. Part of the refreshing change is in my email inbox. Instead of the usual flood of mail from the endearing rich widows in Sierra …

BERKELEY: No one questions the usefulness of “low finance: the ability to use checks, banknotes, and credit cards rather than having to cart around chests of silver, scales, and reagents to assay purity, and needing armed guards to protect the silver – and more guards to watch the first set of guards – has obvious …

A quiz for history buffs. Twenty years ago – on June 4, 1989 – three events shaped a fateful year. Which do you remember most vividly, and which most changed the world? a) The bloody denouement of the protests on Tiananmen Square. b) The death of Iran’s revolutionary cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. c) The Polish …

TEL MOND, Israel: Last week, one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisors referred to Barack Obama’s ideas for resolving the conflict as “childish notions . This was his somewhat childish way of expressing what many are feeling: Obama is an enthusiastic romantic who attributes minimal significance to historic obstacle, religious impediments and political fixations. To a large …

Your choice of Egypt, Mr President, to address the Muslim World, has pleased millions of Egyptians who view this decision as a sign of respect to the role their country played in the history and civilization of the region. Most Muslims – and Egyptians as well – are looking upon your presidential term with hope …

NEW YORK: North Americans of my generation grew up with the 1970’s children’s record “Free to Be…You and Me, on which Rosey Grier, an immense former football star, sang “It’s Alright to Cry. The message: girls could be tough, and boys were allowed not to be. For almost 40 years, that era’s Western feminist critique …

BEIJING: Future history books, depending on where they are written, will take one of two approaches to assigning blame for the world’s current financial and economic crisis. One approach will blame lax regulation, accommodating monetary policy, and inadequate savings in the United States. The other, already being pushed by former and current US officials like …

CAIRO: Mr. President Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America. I write this letter before your visit to my country, Egypt, on June 4. I write to you first as an Egyptian, Arab, Muslim citizen; second as part of the Egyptian ‘intelligentsia’; and third as the representative of an opposition party in …

We all wronged Israel when we accused it of attacking Egypt’s candidate for the top post at the UNESCO. Here we have one of the most intransigent Israeli Prime Ministers and certainly the most deceptive, committing before President Hosni Mubarak, to stop the Israeli campaign against our candidate for UNESCO, an organization founded in 1946 …

LONDON: Individual elections do not always enhance democracy – a useful reminder that the ballot box is only one part, albeit a central one, in any free, plural society. Of course, there are also magnificent examples of elections that strengthen both the stability and the institutions of a community. We have just witnessed an example …

I am departing from my usual analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict as I profoundly feel that these are neither ordinary times, nor ordinary circumstances. The challenges and opportunities that Israel faces today will undoubtedly lay the ground for its future coexistence both in the Middle East and as an ally to the West. With new …

WASHINGTON, DC: US President Barack Obama s recently revealed counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is likely to precede a more aggressive campaign in northwest Pakistan, as illustrated by the decision to send thousands of additional troops to the AfPak region by the end of the year. In a different area of US-South Asian engagement, …

When news of Iran’s new missile test first made headlines last week, Tel Aviv’s supporters immediately mobilized on screen and off, saying the payload was capable of not only hitting Israel, but southern Europe as well. The timing does work in Israel’s favor. Three days earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu called on Barack Obama to provide his …

JERUSALEM: In recent years, peace builders have recognized the need for interfaith discussion. It is no longer difficult to find a medium for dialogue. Churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, as well as a myriad non-profit organizations, offer programs centered on dialogue between members of different religious traditions. Yet many of these well-intentioned initiatives succumb to …

DOHA/BEIRUT: Pope Benedict’s visit to the Middle East last week has accentuated the need to improve relations between Muslims and Christians at multiple levels. Despite sharing a common Abrahamic lineage, both faith communities have a chequered history of relations going back to the Crusades. While the Quran recognizes Christians and Jews as “people of the …

CAMBRIDGE: What if political leaders around the world could improve school achievement and job readiness, reduce crime, and extend healthy life expectancy – but the results would not be seen until after they left public office? Would they have the political courage to act now in the best long-term interest of their people? Or would …

WASHINGTON, DC: In June 2006, I led a series of workshops for Palestinian journalists in Ramallah, West Bank. I was shocked to discover how party bias influenced their reporting. Five months earlier, the Hamas movement had won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in the West Bank and Gaza, and the divide between the Hamas and …

SAN FRANCISCO, California: For many Muslim Americans, the mainstream presentation of their diverse voices seems lost in a vacuum dominated by simplistic stereotypes depicting them as fundamentalists or perpetual suspects. Thankfully, Link TV has provided this group with a multicultural platform to creatively showcase their voice in their annual “Link TV: One Nation, Many Voices …

KUALA LUMPUR: The ongoing debate over the right of an Islamic convert to unilaterally convert his or her underage children underscores the importance of the public role of religion in a pluralistic society like Malaysia. The Cabinet of Malaysia recently developed the policy that when one partner converts, any children not considered legal adults should …

HELSINKI: One early result of today’s global recession is that many donor governments are trimming their foreign aid programs. Before taking office, President Barack Obama had promised a doubling of American foreign assistance, from $25 billion to $50 billion, but since then Vice-President Joe Biden has warned that this commitment will probably be achieved more …

There s a sigh of relief that President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it through their first official meeting with no apparent harm done to US-Israel comity. But their careful language about shared threat perceptions and deep historic ties does little to disguise the obvious: there are interesting and difficult challenges ahead …

LONDON: In a prominent hadith, the Prophet Mohamed said: “If disorder threatens, take refuge in Yemen. The Prophet was referring to the prosperous and civilized Yemen. But today disorder and radicalization in Yemen are beginning to infect Saudi Arabia, and thus the safety of the world’s largest oil producer. The Prophet’s hadith about Yemen has …

NEW YORK: American foreign policy has failed in recent years mainly because the United States relied on military force to address problems that demand development assistance and diplomacy. Young men become fighters in places like Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan because they lack gainful employment. Extreme ideologies influence people when they can’t feed their families, …

BEIJING: Climate change is a serious challenge to humanity and sustainable development, which requires both proactive responses and concerted effort by the international community. China attaches great importance to tackling climate change. In 2007, it established the National Leading Group on Climate Change (NLGCC), headed by Premier Wen Jiabao. That same year, China issued its …

NEW YORK: As Pakistan atrophies in its existential crisis, a fundamental question about the nature of the country is coming to the fore: Are the country’s citizens Pakistanis who happen to be Muslims, or are they Muslims who happen to be Pakistanis? Which comes first, flag or faith? It is not a question that many …

I have always been proud of being a Palestinian Christian, born and raised in Bethlehem, the holiest town in all Christianity. Even before the start of the first intifada, when I was 10 years old and before knowing about Christianity and Islam, I knew that two of my uncles were in Israeli prisons along with …

CAMBRIDGE: In the wake of last year’s global financial meltdown, there is now widespread recognition that inadequate investor protection can significantly affect how stock markets and economies develop, as well as how individual firms perform. The increased focus on improving corporate governance has produced a demand for reliable standards for evaluating governance in publicly traded …