Encountering Peace: Get ready for internationalization
Jan. 26, 2009

Gershon Baskin , THE JERUSALEM POST

Senator George Mitchell, the newly appointed Obama Administration Special Envoy to the Middle East will arrive this week in Israel and Palestine. He will present his credentials to get an update on the status of the negotiations, focusing on the aftermath of the war in Gaza. Mitchell is not new to the region or to serving as an official mediator of conflicts for an American president.

Encountering Peace: The sun will come out tomorrow – or maybe not
Jan. 13, 2009
Gershon Baskin , THE JERUSALEM POST

This may have really been a “war of no choice,” however I am completely convinced that the policies implemented over the past years have led us directly to the point where we perhaps had no choice.

In 1995 a senior member of the Palestinian police force in Gaza with the rank of brigadier-general who was working in the office of the military liaison between the IDF and the Palestinian police invited me to visit him in Gaza. A.H. was one of the first Palestinian security personnel to arrive in Gaza after Oslo. He had lived most of his life outside of Palestine and for years was a fighter in the Palestinian Liberation Army, first in Jordan and later in Lebanon. As a military man, he took an instant liking to the IDF officers that he met in the early days of the preparations for the PLO takeover of Gaza and he befriended many of them.

Dear friends,

As we watch the Gaza bloodshed with horror, appalled at how the crisis is spiralling further out of control, one thing is clear — this violence will only lead to further civilian suffering and an escalation of the conflict.