MIDEAST: Past Fails to Pass Barriers

A Swedish attempt to bridge conflicting historical narratives has failed to bring Israeli and Palestinian educators together in teaching the other side's views on history.

World Forum Boosts Education for Palestinians

Education in Palestinian areas and the longing for a homeland were given a major boost over the weekend through the World Education Forum (WEF). The four-day education conference Oct. 28-31 was held in cities across the West Bank and in Gaza, as well as Lebanon.

MIDEAST: The People Speak

The focus on people's movements in Palestine continues to gain momentum with growing non-violent demonstrations in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, and with a Palestine-wide call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

MIDEAST: Could Have Danced All Siege

"I'd planned to have my wedding party on a Thursday night, when more people could come, and stay later. But because the Dabke dancers weren't free then, I held it on a Tuesday," says Mohammed Ghronaim, 27, from Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

MIDEAST: Treasure House Under Threat

Few outside of Gaza would consider its history much beyond the decades of Israeli occupation. But Gaza is a historical treasure house. Many of those treasures are now in Israeli museums, and those that remain are becoming difficult to preserve due to the Israeli siege.

MIDEAST: This Peaceful Position Takes Courage

A former captain in the Israeli Air Force, previously an ardent Zionist who lost many members of his family in the Holocaust, has been labelled a psychopath and denounced by many Israelis for the moral stand he has taken against the Israeli occupation.

MIDEAST: Earning a Living in No Man’s Land

Crossing through the metal-caged tunnel that leads from the Israeli side of the border into northern Gaza towards the Palestinian checkpoint, several groups of young Palestinian men and boys can be seen scavenging through piles of rubble.

’12 Angry Lebanese’ Touch So Many More

Straddling the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea is Roumieh, Lebanon's largest and most notorious high-security men's prison. Crowded into its dank and depressing concrete cells are those convicted as religious extremists, murderers, mobsters and spies.

MIDEAST: But the Coffins Do Come In

Samir Tahseen Al-Nadeem died after waiting 35 days for an exit permit for treatment for his heart condition. He was 26. The medicines he needed could not get in. But the coffins do.

DEATH PENALTY: Arab Abolitionist Movements Seek Unity

Rights activists have called for nascent abolitionist movements of the Middle East and North Africa to coordinate their efforts to press Arab regimes to end capital punishment.

MIDEAST: Arabic Comes to Jewish Schools

"As a democracy Israel aspires to complete equality of all its citizens," said Dr. Shlomo Alon, head of the education ministry's Arabic and Islam education division as he launched a programme at the beginning of the new school year to make classes in Arabic compulsory in all Jewish public schools. But just a month later, the commitment to "complete equality" looks like it's taking a back seat.

LEBANON: Tourism Planted at a Barbed Border

The contours of a modern medieval castle stretch along the Wazzani River delineating Lebanon's border with Israel. A few metres away from the United Nations-mandated Blue Line, on Lebanon's first line of fire with Israel, a tourism project at an estimated cost of 20 million dollars is slowly taking shape.

MIDEAST: Israeli Police Given Protection for Killing

A peaceful morning is interrupted by the sounds of an Israeli helicopter circling overhead -- often a sign of trouble on the ground. Later Sunday the news broke -- a Palestinian man was shot dead in the village of Issawiya by Israeli paramilitary border police as he tried to enter Israel in search of work.

Peacemaking Raises Identity Fears

The fate of the just resumed Palestinian-Israeli peace-building efforts is being kept under a tight wrap by all parties. So far, so good.

MIDEAST: Israel Deports Peace Laureate

Irish Nobel Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire was deported from Israel Tuesday after spending more than a week in detention at Tel Aviv Airport as she attempted to fight the deportation order.

MIDEAST: Hungry in Gaza, More and More

"Sometimes, for a day or two we don't even have bread, nor flour to make bread. There's a store nearby that, when we are truly desperate, lets us take a bag of bread or something simple, on credit. I owe them a lot of money for the food I've brought from them, but I still can't pay them."

MIDEAST: Riots Grip East Jerusalem

Tension, the twisted carcasses of gutted vehicles, buses with smashed windows, smouldering dumpsters, streets riddled with rubber-coated steel bullets and empty cartridge cases, teargas, and air thickened with black soot from burning tyres marked the beginning of the fifth day Monday of continuous rioting in East Jerusalem.

MIDEAST: Homeless Bedouin Take On the State

The pukk...pukk ...pukk of a generator wired into the engine of a small truck punctures the silence of the desert. A man folds the bottom of his long yellow galabiya robe, tucking it into his blue jeans. He takes a plank of wood from the back of the truck and carries it over to a younger man who is sawing other planks.

IRAQ: After False Promises, the Heat Is On

Iraqis promised development with the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the arrival of the U.S. are now suffering lack of development as never before. And where it hurts every moment is through the collapse of power supply.

MIDEAST: Some Killing More ‘Moral’ Than Other

Controversy is building up over a 91-year-old man, his 17-year-old grandson and a 20-year-old neighbour, all farmers, who were killed by Israeli shelling and gunfire as they tried to tend their land 700 metres from northern Gaza's border with Israel.

MIDEAST: Dreaming of Fish, and Flowers

As the many colours of the fish and flowers slowly disappear from the Gaza landscape, the already grim prospects of the besieged residents begins to look even bleaker.