Palestinians

UNITED NATIONS — If there is one thing you can count on at the United Nations, it's that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict never goes away. The struggle for land between Arabs and Jews has been the lone constant in the United Nations' 66-year history, outlasting other major political crises of the 20th century, from the ending of the colonial era and the Cold War to the eruption of modern genocides in Europe, Asia and Africa. This week the dispute will again take center stage as Palestinian Authority...

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians gathered here Wednesday to commemorate the day they call al-Naqba, or the catastrophe, when the state of Israel was born in 1948. They heard their leaders repeat an old promise that someday, somehow, the scattered people would return. They posed for pictures, too, to prove that the Palestinians are still here, that they will not be forgotten. This was the 65th anniversary of al-Naqba , and the day unfolded according to the script. In Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, they sang folk...

Your March 31 editorial "Israel's New Government" talked a lot about what the Israelis must do to continue to have support from the United States. What I found lacking was a discussion of what the Palestinians must do to have acceptance by Israel and the United States for a two-state solution. If peace is to come in that troubled region, both the Palestinians and the Israelis have to make concessions and bear responsibilities. Pressure should not be put just on Israel alone, as the editorial attempted to do. For a two-state solution to become...

BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials say wave of bombings in Baghdad raises overall daily death toll to at least 29. More from The Washington Post : Afghans wary of Pakistan's new leader Palestinians c urb Israeli reporters' access to occupied territories Zambia's ‘King Cobra' rattles business Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa's bold stand for peace is admirable ["Arabs Need to Talk to the Israelis," op-ed , July 17]. But when he speaks of Palestinian refugees who live in deplorable conditions, I wonder whether he means the many Palestinians who live in the Persian Gulf emirates -- including those in his own Bahrain -- without citizenship? He certainly doesn't mean the 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. JORDAN GAZIT Washington

The Oct. 26 picture of Israeli soldiers standing over praying Palestinians, along with the first half of the Associated Press article it accompanied, about a clash with Israeli police at a mosque, distorted the sequence of events of the day before. Readers absorbing the picture and the first five paragraphs would have the perception that Israel initiated the conflict at the mosque. In reality, Israel responded only to Palestinians "hurling stones and plastic chairs," and it was trying to stop the rioting and protect this holy site.

JENIN, West Bank — A black flag hung Tuesday over the Freedom Theater in the Jenin refugee camp , where tearful young Palestinians mourned the sudden death of their Israeli teacher, a prominent actor and director slain a day earlier by a masked gunman in a nearby alley. Juliano Mer Khamis, the son of a Jewish mother and Arab father, was the founding director of the youth theater, a project he saw as a mission to bring cultural revival to a community scarred by years of violence and occupation.

The Post ran a large, front-page picture in the Sept. 22 newspaper of a tussle between Israeli undercover police and a Palestinian demonstrator and another picture of an armed Israeli soldier kicking away a burning tire . With such coverage of the demonstrations in the occupied territories, The Post gave the impression that there was widespread violence when, as the article on Page A12 related, these demonstrations in favor of statehood were...

It was surely one of the most heart-wrenching — and controversial — news photos of the past year, and maybe many years. The image of a Palestinian man, his head thrown back in grief as he cradled the shrouded body of his infant son, set off a fierce war of words between Israeli and Palestinian factions when newspapers and Web sites published it in November. Palestinian supporters saw the photo, taken by an Associated Press photographer, as evidence of the Israeli military's aggression against...

If the Palestinians were "invented," as Newt Gingrich said [ "Gingrich: Palestinians an ‘invented' people," news story, Dec. 10], so, too, were the Saudi Arabians, Jordanians and Syrians. The country boundaries for these people were mostly invented by the British and French following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Much of the current Middle East, in fact, is a fairly arbitrary creation of Western powers. This is partly why the West is so resented in the region.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Tens of thousands of Palestinians marked the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement during the war over Israel's 1948 creation, marching in the streets and in some parts of the West Bank clashing with Israeli security forces. Every May 15, Palestinians hold rallies to commemorate the "nakba," or "catastrophe" — the term they use to describe the displacement, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the fighting.

JERUSALEM — On the surface, the Arab League's improved peace initiative offers Israel everything it ever dreamed of — normal relations with an entire region that has long objected to the very existence of the Jewish state, and even the chance to keep some war-won land. But two weeks after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry persuaded Arab leaders to reissue their 2002 offer with new incentives, Israel is maintaining a striking silence, and critics are accusing Prime Minister Benjamin...

CAIRO — A leading Palestinian official says rival groups Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a national unity government in three months. Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed said both sides agreed on a timetable that begins with creating laws to govern elections. Al-Ahmed spoke in Cairo after he met with a Hamas delegation led by Moussa Abu Marzouk. Tuesday's meeting was brokered by Egyptian intelligence officials. The Hamas militant group controls the Gaza Strip, while the...

JERUSALEM — Israel's military has grounded a fleet of high altitude surveillance drones after one was downed over the Mediterranean Sea. The military says it intentionally crashed the unmanned aircraft late Saturday because of a malfunction. The military would not say how many aircraft were grounded. The planes will stay down during an investigation. An Israeli defense official said the drone was the Israeli-made Heron 1, which flies at high altitudes and can stay in...

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The congratulatory messages flooded Oday Aboushi's Twitter page for a few days after he was drafted by the New York Jets two weeks ago. Many were happy to see the hometown kid from the New York borough of Staten Island starting his NFL career close to his family and friends. It was the other tweets, first dozens and then hundreds, from places such as Dubai and Saudi Arabia that made the enormity of the situation really sink in. As a...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The Palestinians haven't elected a president since 2005, but now they are finally getting a chance to do so — virtually — thanks to a hit reality TV show. "The President" is broadcast weekly on Maan TV, a popular independent Palestinian TV station. It offers contestants a chance to address the Palestinian people on what they would do on a variety of subjects if elected president. They are grilled by a panel of politicians, professors and...

Regarding Jackson Diehl's Aug. 15 op-ed column, " Is a third intifada afoot? ": It was disappointing that, instead of offering a genuine analysis of whether Palestine is justified in seeking recognition from the United Nations, Mr. Diehl chose to perpetuate a narrative that is all too common in this country: that any violence that occurs in Israel or the Palestinian territories is the fault of Palestinians and that Palestinians create the...

JERUSALEM — Israel has given preliminary approval to build nearly 300 housing units in a West Bank settlement, a spokesman said Thursday, bringing a Palestinian rebuke and possibly complicating U.S. efforts to relaunch Mideast peace talks. The approval came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Israel's chief negotiator in Rome. The negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni played down the new housing approval. Maj. Guy Inbar, a military spokesman, said 296 homes in the...

BEIJING — China's premier has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remove obstacles to restarting talks with the Palestinians, as Beijing seeks to bring its growing international influence to bear on the Middle East peace process. Greeting the Israeli leader at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made no direct mention of his meeting two days earlier with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads his...