Three Inspiring Peace Stories By Jean-Paul Chami (Beirut, Lebanon) Since 2004 the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue (FDCD), has been carrying out many projects in the Middle East focusing on peace, dialogue, and reconciliation. During the past four years, one pivotal initiative has been a capacity building project for Iraqi NGOs working on conflict resolution [...]
Judge Richard Goldstone headed the Fact-Finding Mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s military assault on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009. In an Op-Ed in the Washington Post on 1 April 2011, he gave the impression that significant new facts have emerged which prove [...]
The 15th of May is a day of remembrance. Around the world, we remember the systematic displacement and massacre of the Palestinian people. In their honour, we take note of the necessity of safeguarding the sliver of impoverished land that has been left to the survivors. We pay tribute to those who have refused to [...]
As Lebanon enters its fourth month without a government questions are being asked as to why Michel Sulieman, Lebanon’s President is being perceived as not only hampering the government formation, but also seeking to further marginalise the Christians (members of his own sect). Lebanon’s complex political system requires any Government to be 50% Muslim and [...]
News during the last couple of weeks has rumbled in to shake an already rickety balance of world order. Perhaps one of the most disturbing images accompanying those headlines, though, was not that of more bruised and bulleted bodies. Rather, the image was of what the Associated Press termed a ‘jubilant crowd’. As though they [...]
Part I – Egypt Last week I was in Egypt, a country presently moved by optimism. The optimism reflects a high state of political consciousness. Almost everyone I met, be they workers (urban and rural), students, shopkeepers, and the ubiquitous taxi drivers know why their country is beset by problems. They can itemize the structural [...]
With his now infamous Washington Post op-ed , Richard Goldstone has publicly swallowed the excuse that has become so trite that it could serve as a tag line for the Israeli military: ‘it was a regrettable mistake’. The Israeli public relations team has cultivated a rhetoric so distorted that it is able, on the one [...]
