Can Obama Change the Game on Middle East Peace?

No one should have been surprised that there was no meeting of minds between President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at their inaugural summit on Monday. Although the two men proclaimed a shared commitment to having Israelis and Palestinians live in peace, their views on how to get there remain substantially at odds. Now, as Obama puts the finishing touches on a new peace plan to be unveiled shortly — perhaps when he addresses the Muslim world from Cairo next month — the question facing the Administration is how to pursue its strategy with an unenthusiastic Israeli partner.

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Pope calls for reconciliation in Middle East

Pope Benedict XVI called on Israelis and Palestinian to put aside their "grievances and divisions" and work toward reconciliation in the Middle East during a speech in the West Bank. “Just and peaceful coexistence among the peoples of the Middle East can only be achieved through a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect, in which the rights and dignity of all are acknowledged and upheld,” the pontiff said Wednesday at a speech attended by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem.

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Fatah and Hamas: Heading for a Showdown in Lebanon

Stacks of portraits of Mahmoud Abbas stand unused, gathering dust in the office of his Fatah movement in Beirut’s Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. Posters of Abbas — president of the Palestinian Authority, leader of Fatah and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization — would normally hang in offices and on street corners throughout Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps

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