It’s the end of an era. Gamal Helal, the longtime Arabic translator to four presidents and six secretaries of state, wrapped up his last day at the State Department on Thursday.
Arabic translator for four presidents calls it a career
Tag Archives: israelis
Gadhafi talks of U.N. ‘inequality,’ conspiracies at U.N. debut
Moammar Gadhafi’s debut appearance at the United Nations was bound to be memorable, but his long and rambling diatribe Wednesday is one that few will forget. The Libyan leader was introduced as “king of kings” by his countryman Ali Terki, the president of this year’s U.N
Obama prods Israel, Palestinians to restart talks
President Obama on Tuesday prodded Israel and the Palestinian Authority to get moving on talks aimed at a permanent resolution of their decades-old conflict. “Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations.
Netanyahu rules out freeze on Israeli settlements, source says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a complete halt of Jewish settlements will not happen, according to a parliament source. Netanyahu said at a closed-door Knesset committee meeting that Israel would agree only to a partial reduction of housing construction and for a limited time, not the year the United States would like, said a government official who was not authorized to speak about the meeting and did not want to be identified.
State Dept.: Policy against new Israeli settlements stands
The State Department is sticking with a strict no-new-settlements policy toward Israel, its spokesman said Thursday, but he held out the possibility that Israelis and Palestinians might eventually take a different path. “The position that the secretary has stated remains our position,” spokesman P.J. Crowley said at his daily briefing
Behind Hamas’ Own War on Terror
Eyebrows were raised around the world Aug. 14 when Hamas security forces in Rafah swiftly, and brutally, destroyed an al-Qaeda-inspired group that had proclaimed the southern Gaza town an “Islamic emirate.” After all, Hamas is listed by the U.S
Israel strips ‘catastrophe’ of nation’s birth from books
Israeli textbooks for Arab school children will no longer say that Arabs refer to the period surrounding the birth of Israel as al-Nakba, or "the catastrophe," Israel’s education minister said Wednesday. In a statement explaining the decision, Gideon Sa’ar said there is “no reason” for the birth of Israel “to be presented as a ‘catastrophe or shoah.'” After Israel was created in 1948, a war broke out between the Israelis and Arabs, and some 700,000 Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes. Arabs commemorate the displacement every year with Nakba Day
Israeli Settlers Versus the Palestinians
In a hilltop suburb South of Jerusalem called Efrat, Sharon Katz serves a neat plate of sliced cake inside her five-bedroom house, surrounded by pomegranate, olive and citrus trees that she planted herself. She glances out the window at the hills where, she believes, David and Abraham once walked. “We are living in the biblical heartland,” she sighs.
Poll: Half of Israelis back bombing if needed to stop Iran nukes
Roughly half of Israelis support bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities if international efforts fail to stop the Islamic republic from developing nuclear weapons, according to a Hebrew University poll released Sunday. Some 52 percent of Israelis say the country should bomb Iran’s nuclear reactor, while 35 percent are against, the poll found
Why the U.S. Should Start Talking to Hamas
Halfway through my interview with Khaled Mashaal, about an hour after Barack Obama’s Cairo speech, I realized that the leader of Hamas was calling the Israeli people, and their leaders, Israelis. That seemed new. The usual term of art used by Islamic militants is “Zionists” or worse.