NEW YORK: Even before a new coalition could emerge, Israel’s latest election was historic. It marked the collapse of Labour, the party that can plausibly claim to have founded Israel and produced its most celebrated prime ministers, from David Ben-Gurion (as head of Labour’s predecessor, Mapai), through Golda Meir to Yitzhak Rabin. The last vestige …

CAIRO: The blast in Al-Hussein on Sunday indicates the fragile security situation in Egypt and shows how easy it has become to commit acts of violence. The Al-Hussein blast bears a striking similarity to the April 7, 2005 suicide bombing carried out by Hassan Bashandi when he blew himself up amid a group of foreign …

WASHINGTON, DC: I am delighted to be among the early contributors to the first blog postings on this new part of the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) website. The close relationship that my colleagues and I at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) have built with IPF is fundamental to what we, at ATFP, are …

PARIS: “Who lost Turkey? That question, often raised in the past, has been heating up in the aftermath of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s emotional outburst during the recent World Economic Forum 2009 in Davos, when he abruptly left a panel he was sharing with Israeli President Shimon Peres. And the Turkish question matters greatly, …

BEIRUT: The Gaza war was seemingly an inevitable conflict. The pre-war reality was unacceptable to any of the concerned parties. Hamas was not satisfied with a ceasefire that kept the tiny Gaza Strip isolated from the world. Palestinian suffering in besieged Gaza challenged Hamas claim of effectiveness as an elected government capable of providing for …

I didn’t realize the terrible amount of sidewalk encroachments or the gravity of the suffering of local residents in Maadi, until I was flooded with hundreds of letters, e-mails and telephone calls in response to last week’s column titled “Sidewalk for sale in Maadi . In the column, I discussed the conduct of (irresponsible) officials …

TUBINGEN: Many say that the world financial crisis could not have been foreseen. Perhaps not by financiers and economists, but others who were watching how markets were developing – often with dismay – were more than worried. As early as 1997, I warned about a repeat of the collapsed economic order of 1929-1933 in my …

The war in Gaza has demonstrated the futility of the prevailing Middle East paradigm: a cycle of violence and retaliation begetting more violence and more bloodshed. Setting aside the debate – was the recent Israeli action justified or unjustified, proportionate or disproportionate, humane or inhumane, no one – on either side of the conflict – …

CAIRO: In an eventful week Egypt witnessed two major strike actions and the Prosecutor-General suddenly ordered the release of jailed opposition leader Ayman Nour. The Pharmacists’ Syndicate’s tête-à-tête with the tax authority was triggered by the latter’s decision to overturn a 2005 agreement whereby pharmacies would pay a fixed tax of 15 percent. Without prior …

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates central bank said on Thursday it was working with the finance ministry to find a way to reduce interest rates charged by banks on corporate deposits, which have been rising in recent months. Central bank governor Sultan Nasser al-Suweidi did not give details of the plan, which he said could …

NEW YORK: Early this month, Kyrgyzstan’s president Kurmanbek Bakiyev went cap in hand to Moscow to ask for financial aid. To make his request more palatable, Bakiyev announced that he was demanding that the United States close its airbase in Kyrgyzstan, which resupplies NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Similarly, late last year, Iceland’s government asked …

TOKYO: A Chinese bestseller, entitled The Currency War, describes how Jews are planning to rule the world by manipulating the international financial system. The book is reportedly read in the highest government circles. If so, this does not bode well for the international financial system, which relies on well-informed Chinese to help it recover from …

JERUSALEM: It is now clear that Israel delivered a blow to Hamas during its three-week campaign that ended on Jan. 17, successfully targeting its weapons stores, training facilities and command posts. Israel has left Hamas to contemplate not only the hostility it has incurred on the part of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other …

NEW YORK: Few places in the world offer as daunting a set of challenges as South Asia. A narcotics-fueled insurgency threatens newly democratic Afghanistan. A resurgent Taliban in its tribal areas has destabilized Pakistan. The recent carnage in Mumbai has prompted another standoff between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. Each of these crises calls for urgent …

WASHINGTON, DC: It appears that George Mitchell, who has everyone s respect, has been dealt in the Middle East conflict as good a hand as US President Barack Obama has in the US economic crisis. The stakes are high, yet the players would like to continue the game in the good old ways. Just as …

AMMAN: As the world watches the anguish in Gaza continue, I am moved to reflect on the 10th anniversary of the death of my beloved brother, King Hussein, and my family s historic involvement in all stages of the tragedy of Palestine. For the Hashemite family, history is not a series of unconnected events, but …

Economic stimulus is the order of the day. This is as it must be, as governments around the world struggle to jump-start the global economy. But even as leaders address the immediate need to stimulate the economy, so too must they act jointly to ensure that the new de facto economic model being developed is …

CAIRO: Almost 50 years ago, President John F. Kennedy turned to America’s most respected journalist to tell the nation’s story to the world. Edward R. Murrow was the father of television journalism. His valiant reporting from wartime London during the Blitz galvanized the American public and won the gratitude of European leaders. His broadcasts about …

An article by Nicholas Eberstadt (“Curb the Population Myth , Daily News Egypt, Feb. 9, page 7) misrepresents the work and mandate of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. It also does not take into account the following points: First, freedom should not only be understood as economic freedom. In the context of human reproduction, …

COPENHAGEN: This December, global leaders will meet in Copenhagen to negotiate a new climate change pact to reduce carbon emissions. Yet, the way that it has been set up, it will inevitably fail. The best hope is that we use this lesson finally to deal with this issue in a smarter fashion. The United States …

EDINBURGH: People with higher intelligence test scores in childhood and early adulthood tend to live longer. This result has been found among people from Australia, Denmark, England and Wales, Scotland, Sweden, and the United States. In fact, it has been found within every population that has been studied. Indeed, the impact of intelligence on mortality …

SARAJEVO: No Westerner can erase the Islamic influences in Bosnia, and no Easterner can impose their own influences on our way of life. This statement, overheard at a Sarajevo coffee bar, explains the unique character and identity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite the conflict of the previous decade, it is still a unique case of …

TEL AVIV: “The voters , said Binyamin Netanyahu in his strange victory speech, during Israel’s bizarre post-election night, “have spoken. And so they have, in a multiplicity of self-contradictory voices. Welcome to the mad world of Israeli parliamentary democracy. The world’s most multifarious political system has just crashed-landed into a dead-end. A local joke claims …

CHICAGO, Illinois: For those of us alarmed by the recent civilian death toll in Gaza, our obligation as concerned global citizens has been to promote the end of the war, provide humanitarian aid and press Israel and Hamas to reach a sustainable ceasefire agreement. With these weighty issues surrounding us, it might seem frivolous to …

JERUSALEM: Israel’s election is a victory for centrism and national consensus. Indeed, that is the key to understanding not only the vote count, but also Israeli public opinion, the next government, and its policies. From experience, most Israelis have developed a worldview that combines traditional left-wing and right-wing thinking. On one hand, they want to …

MELBOURNE: Is the global financial crisis an opportunity to forge a new form of capitalism based on sound values? So French President Nicholas Sarkozy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair appear to think. At a symposium in Paris last month entitled “New World, New Capitalism, Sarkozy described capitalism based on financial speculation as “an …

CAIRO: It is not true that sidewalks are for public use and should not be sold. Now you can officially own the sidewalk in front of your home in return for a small “tip to the district council of your area of residence. This way, the sidewalk will become your possession and you can prevent …

War and violence always have a direct effect on elections. Wars account for dramatic shifts in voter preferences, and radical leaders and parties often poll much higher after a round of sharp violence than in normal times. Minority ethnic groups are therefore often able to sway the balance of power between major competing forces. This …

WASHINGTON: We pray for Obama. That, from a young immigration officer, the last Egyptian I spoke to before boarding my Cairo flight home, was not the first such comment during my four-day visit. The head bellman at the lovely Sofitel hotel, taxi drivers, Egyptian ministers, professors and pedestrians, recognizing us as Americans, expressed their great …

CAIRO: Ever since the Israeli war on Gaza began last month, a strange virus has taken hold of Egyptian society. This is not about biological warfare, but its effects can be far more insidious. All of a sudden those who felt strongly about the massacres taking place in Gaza and were vocal in their criticism …