Let us pray that the people of Gaza, Palestine are able and willing to come out in the tens if not hundreds of thousands to cheer on the runners in the first marathon to be run over the full 42 kilometre length of the Gaza Strip, Inshallah.
I believe that if the weather is nice it will be a beautiful site for people to see the men, women and children of Palestine encouraging the runners on.
May 5th to feature first ever full-length marathon in Palestine
According to the Edmonton Journal:
The race, organized by United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), will take place on May 5 with the aim of raising funding for the UN refugee agency's Summer Games programme which is held every year in the Hamas-run territory.
The route runs from the northern town of Beit Hanun and heads south along the coastal road until it ends in Rafah, a sprawling city on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, said Gemma Connell, an UNRWA employee who is organizing the event.
"Anyone that's ever worked in Gaza has thought about doing a marathon here because it is exactly 42.2 kilometres (26 miles) long," she told AFP.
Although only a handful of people are expected to run the full 26-mile route, more than a 1,000 local children and young people will take part at various stages along the way, running in a relay format, she said.
Showing posts with label Israel and Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel and Palestine. Show all posts
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Palestinians waste weaponry and momentum with new barrage
Gaza militants launched over 100 missiles; Debka.com
It is really time for Palestinian Youth to take to the streets and reclaim their country from the self-destructive warlords currently in charge. While the whole world watches and huge swaths of the free, democratic areas are yearning for more democratic revolutions to support (admit it, Tunisia felt good and Egypt was a temporary nirvana), for some reason Palestinians want to go against the trend and incite violence and war.
I've written it before and I'll say it again: If a million Palestinian women, children and men walk into Jerusalem without a weapon among them, they will have their country within months, and a nation with such strong foundations will prosper and be long-lived.
Debka reports 110 rockets and mortar rounds were launched from Gaza on Friday and Saturday, while Jpost claims 70 were counted. Hamas missile attacks rarely achieve anything significant militarily (10 Israelis were injured the past two days, plus the usual property damage) and they damage the cause politically. It's time to make the IRA move and bury these obsolete, nation-destroying weapons, and fully embrace an open, transparent and fully democratic election process.
Towards a peaceful, loving and prosperous Palestine!
Inshallah
Debka.com story on Gaza missile attack on Israel
Jerusalem Post article on missile attack from Gaza
Aljazeera English-language news
It is really time for Palestinian Youth to take to the streets and reclaim their country from the self-destructive warlords currently in charge. While the whole world watches and huge swaths of the free, democratic areas are yearning for more democratic revolutions to support (admit it, Tunisia felt good and Egypt was a temporary nirvana), for some reason Palestinians want to go against the trend and incite violence and war.
I've written it before and I'll say it again: If a million Palestinian women, children and men walk into Jerusalem without a weapon among them, they will have their country within months, and a nation with such strong foundations will prosper and be long-lived.
Debka reports 110 rockets and mortar rounds were launched from Gaza on Friday and Saturday, while Jpost claims 70 were counted. Hamas missile attacks rarely achieve anything significant militarily (10 Israelis were injured the past two days, plus the usual property damage) and they damage the cause politically. It's time to make the IRA move and bury these obsolete, nation-destroying weapons, and fully embrace an open, transparent and fully democratic election process.
Towards a peaceful, loving and prosperous Palestine!
Inshallah
Debka.com story on Gaza missile attack on Israel
Jerusalem Post article on missile attack from Gaza
Aljazeera English-language news
Saturday, January 29, 2011
New Era in Mideast means renewed hope for Palestinians
One can only imagine that the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people have been revitalized in recent days as the status quo in the Middle East experiences such upheaval.
The power of nonviolent protest must be increasingly evident to the leaders and common folk of Palestine. Ideally this opportunity will lead to a new Israel-Palestine peace plan.
The power of nonviolent protest must be increasingly evident to the leaders and common folk of Palestine. Ideally this opportunity will lead to a new Israel-Palestine peace plan.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Palestine sees glimmer of hope in Olympic team
Even a hardened cynic would have to see the value in Palestine joining the Olympic spirit. Four athletes now, and if peace prevails, maybe fourteen in 2012 and even more by 2016.
Here is story about the Palestine Olympic Team at the 2008 Beijing Olmpics in China.
Peace 2 All,
Yuya
Palestinian makes small splash
By Rosie DiManno, TheStar.com
BEIJING
Hamza Abdo is an athlete with a country but no passport.
The uniform on his back is donated. His ticket to Beijing was provided by a charitable arm of the International Olympic Committee. His competitive Games experience here will last – if a personal best – all of 25 seconds, one heat in the 50-metre men's freestyle swim.
The 17-year-old is Palestinian.
What decades of wrangling and disaccord have not been able to secure, the IOC has tacitly provided: sovereignty and statehood.
On Friday, a team of four athletes will march into the Bird's Nest Stadium behind the Palestinian flag. There is a national anthem, though it won't be heard at these Games because no Palestinian participant will be on top of the podium, or anywhere close to it.
And yet, Abdo says of his sojourn thus far as an Olympian, "This period has been the best time of my life."
He is a handsome, quick-witted youth, exhibiting all the fine qualities the Games are supposed to personify: hunger to excel, eagerness to challenge self and others, purity of purpose.
He is adamantly non-political.
But he is also an Arab boy from East Jerusalem, raised under the shadow of occupation, if not in the occupied territory that calls itself Palestine.
"The main target here is to prove that Palestine exists, to have a flag among all the other flags of the world," he said.
To some, it may seem offensive that Palestinians have been embraced as members of the Olympic family – their first delegation invited to Atlanta in 1996, athletes actually competing only since 2000 in Sydney. It was a radical faction of the PLO, Black September, that desecrated the Olympics in Munich in 1972, taking members of Israel's team hostage, 11 of them ultimately killed in what many recall as the first incident of international terrorism.
Abdo knows none of that. "What happened in Munich?" he asks, the genuine ignorance writ large on his face.
"We don't speak of Munich to our athletes," said Abdo's coach, Ibrahim Tawil, who is old enough to remember. "If the Israelis have a bad memory, I will say only that we have many more of them, from 1948."
There is no point in arguing the relativism of his statement. Tawil is of a generation that could not raise the Palestinian flag without fear of imprisonment.
Better simply to acknowledge and applaud the effort it took for Abdo and his teammates to get here, under the auspices of the Olympic Solidarity Committee. At least one member of the squad, 5,000-metre track entrant Nader Masri, is not even sure yet whether Israeli authorities will allow him to return, since he will have to cross back into occupied territory. Masri left six months ago to train. His wife has since given birth to their first child, a baby he's yet to see.
"At least, living in Jerusalem, we know we can get back in through Jordan," said Tawil. "How Nader's story will end, I cannot tell. It is a very miserable situation."
Abdo's story begins as a 4-year-old splashing in a small neighbourhood pool. He took to swimming like the proverbial fish to water. But he has remained a small fish in a small pond – a 17-metre pool, actually. That's the length of one lap in the YMCA facility where Abdo has trained for years.
There are no Olympic-sized pools in East Jerusalem. And funding is insufficient to rent the 50-metre pool in West Jerusalem more than a few times a week.
In Beijing for the last 35 days, Abdo has thrived under the tutelage of expert Chinese coaches, physiotherapists and nutritionists. But it's all that chlorinated water that most delights.
"It's like the difference between being in a pond and being in the sea."
Full article from:
17 year old Palestinian Hamza Abdo, swimmer in Beijing Olympics
more links:
Wikipedia Page on Palestine at the Olympics since 1996
Palestine at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing
Israel sends 43 athletes to Beijing, largest team ever
Palestinian refugees homeless 60 years late; Elon challenges UNWRA methodology
Jewish International group advises against Iran attack in Monthly Review magazine
Windpower Investing, Alternative Energy Stocks
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Music Promotes Peace in Palestine
Overture to peace in the West Bank
Article from TheStar.com -
Visiting musicians help give Arab youth the power of music at `Violinist' camp
July 05, 2008
Oakland Ross, Middle East Bureau
The Toronto Star
AL-FARA, West Bank–Take a limestone prison that once held Palestinian political detainees, add about 100 Arab children, furnish them all with musical instruments, sprinkle in 23 music teachers, most of them Europeans.
Let these ingredients simmer for five sunny summer days in the West Bank – and what do you get?
A somewhat wobbly performance of a Mozart Divertimento, followed by a properly wistful rendition of Pachelbel's Canon, all accompanied by a passel of earnest but happy young Palestinian faces, not to mention a proud parent or two.
In other words, you get just what Ramzi Aburedwan was hoping for.
"To bring them all together – this is really something," said Aburedwan, 29, prime mover behind a five-year-old Palestinian artistic endeavour called Al-Kamandjati, Arabic for The Violinist. "This year, the evolution has been tremendous."
This year, Aburedwan brought his summer music camp for impoverished Palestinian kids to this former political prison in Al-Fara, a small town outside Nablus in the northern West Bank.
An accomplished violist, Aburedwan recruited nearly two dozen musicians from various countries – including the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy – who are donating time and talent to help raise the level of music in a part of the world more closely associated with bombs and political bluster.
The instructors included an oboist and a flautist from L'Ensemble Orchestrale de Paris, a violinist formerly of the London Symphony Orchestra, an Australian conductor who now teaches music in Italy, and a German musicologist currently resident in Marseille.
You could call them Musicians Without Borders.
"These kids in five days of lessons are going to get farther than they would in 12 weeks of one-lesson-a-week," said Peter Sulski, a Boston-born violinist who divides his time between Massachusetts and London – and now the West Bank.
"I'm a community activist when it comes to music. I've long believed in music as a force for good."
In fact, all the children – who range in age from 7 to 16 – study music year-round, enrolled in programs Al-Kamandjati offers at a newly renovated building in Ramallah, de facto capital of the West Bank. The organization also offers music training in the Gaza Strip and in Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon.
In the West Bank alone, about 300 youth study music in ongoing programs offered by Al-Kamandjati, which also distributes musical instruments without charge, thanks to funding from a variety of donors, both Palestinian and foreign.
Only the most highly motivated of those students were invited to the camp at Al-Fara, which unfolded within the low-rise, stonewalled chambers and courtyards of what used to be an Israeli jail and is now a recreational facility operated by the Palestinian Ministry of Sports and Youth.
Aburedwan said his father once was incarcerated here, and he remembers coming to visit, accompanied by his grandmother. But that was then, and this is music.
"It has been great, beautiful," said Rasha Dolani, 14, from the West Bank city of Jenin. "I want to be a great pianist."
Maybe she will be, although few, if any, of the children who study at Al-Kamandjati are likely ever to earn a living from their instruments.
That is not the point.
"Mostly, it's something else," said Sulski. "The idea is to strengthen their minds, their sense of cultural history, so that they can become a force for the future."
Still, it may seem odd that Arab children – heirs to a rich musical legacy of their own – should be schooled on Western instruments in a Western musical tradition.
Franz Dartmann, a German musicologist who is working on a new curriculum for Al-Kamandjati, said the distinctions between different musical styles are less important than the power of music itself.
"It's a bridge," he said. "It's another kind of music they can learn, and they learn it with pleasure."
That they do, as was apparent during an open-air concert the students performed on the final afternoon of their five-day summertime adventure.
Gusts of wind played havoc with the sheet music, but the players soldiered on, performing in ensembles, duets or individually for an audience of family, teachers and friends.
For a time, it was almost possible to forget the concert was taking place in the Middle East, home to what might well be the world's most stubborn conflict.
"If we all have something in common, it is music," said Aburedwan. "I just want to bring some hope and share something that I believe in so much."
Full article at Palestine Music program Promoting Peace
Suggested Browsing:
New Indie Canadian Singer-Songwriter Yuya
Alternative Energy Investing, Solar Power Company Websites
Renewable Power Investing, Wind Energy Stocks
Geothermal Power Links, Geothermal Energy Company Investing
The Toronto Sound - New Canadian Modern Rock Music
A Green Realtor Blog - Eco Realty Links
BeesTreesFrogsElephants.com - Nature and Ecology Blog
Article from TheStar.com -
Visiting musicians help give Arab youth the power of music at `Violinist' camp
July 05, 2008
Oakland Ross, Middle East Bureau
The Toronto Star
AL-FARA, West Bank–Take a limestone prison that once held Palestinian political detainees, add about 100 Arab children, furnish them all with musical instruments, sprinkle in 23 music teachers, most of them Europeans.
Let these ingredients simmer for five sunny summer days in the West Bank – and what do you get?
A somewhat wobbly performance of a Mozart Divertimento, followed by a properly wistful rendition of Pachelbel's Canon, all accompanied by a passel of earnest but happy young Palestinian faces, not to mention a proud parent or two.
In other words, you get just what Ramzi Aburedwan was hoping for.
"To bring them all together – this is really something," said Aburedwan, 29, prime mover behind a five-year-old Palestinian artistic endeavour called Al-Kamandjati, Arabic for The Violinist. "This year, the evolution has been tremendous."
This year, Aburedwan brought his summer music camp for impoverished Palestinian kids to this former political prison in Al-Fara, a small town outside Nablus in the northern West Bank.
An accomplished violist, Aburedwan recruited nearly two dozen musicians from various countries – including the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy – who are donating time and talent to help raise the level of music in a part of the world more closely associated with bombs and political bluster.
The instructors included an oboist and a flautist from L'Ensemble Orchestrale de Paris, a violinist formerly of the London Symphony Orchestra, an Australian conductor who now teaches music in Italy, and a German musicologist currently resident in Marseille.
You could call them Musicians Without Borders.
"These kids in five days of lessons are going to get farther than they would in 12 weeks of one-lesson-a-week," said Peter Sulski, a Boston-born violinist who divides his time between Massachusetts and London – and now the West Bank.
"I'm a community activist when it comes to music. I've long believed in music as a force for good."
In fact, all the children – who range in age from 7 to 16 – study music year-round, enrolled in programs Al-Kamandjati offers at a newly renovated building in Ramallah, de facto capital of the West Bank. The organization also offers music training in the Gaza Strip and in Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon.
In the West Bank alone, about 300 youth study music in ongoing programs offered by Al-Kamandjati, which also distributes musical instruments without charge, thanks to funding from a variety of donors, both Palestinian and foreign.
Only the most highly motivated of those students were invited to the camp at Al-Fara, which unfolded within the low-rise, stonewalled chambers and courtyards of what used to be an Israeli jail and is now a recreational facility operated by the Palestinian Ministry of Sports and Youth.
Aburedwan said his father once was incarcerated here, and he remembers coming to visit, accompanied by his grandmother. But that was then, and this is music.
"It has been great, beautiful," said Rasha Dolani, 14, from the West Bank city of Jenin. "I want to be a great pianist."
Maybe she will be, although few, if any, of the children who study at Al-Kamandjati are likely ever to earn a living from their instruments.
That is not the point.
"Mostly, it's something else," said Sulski. "The idea is to strengthen their minds, their sense of cultural history, so that they can become a force for the future."
Still, it may seem odd that Arab children – heirs to a rich musical legacy of their own – should be schooled on Western instruments in a Western musical tradition.
Franz Dartmann, a German musicologist who is working on a new curriculum for Al-Kamandjati, said the distinctions between different musical styles are less important than the power of music itself.
"It's a bridge," he said. "It's another kind of music they can learn, and they learn it with pleasure."
That they do, as was apparent during an open-air concert the students performed on the final afternoon of their five-day summertime adventure.
Gusts of wind played havoc with the sheet music, but the players soldiered on, performing in ensembles, duets or individually for an audience of family, teachers and friends.
For a time, it was almost possible to forget the concert was taking place in the Middle East, home to what might well be the world's most stubborn conflict.
"If we all have something in common, it is music," said Aburedwan. "I just want to bring some hope and share something that I believe in so much."
Full article at Palestine Music program Promoting Peace
Suggested Browsing:
New Indie Canadian Singer-Songwriter Yuya
Alternative Energy Investing, Solar Power Company Websites
Renewable Power Investing, Wind Energy Stocks
Geothermal Power Links, Geothermal Energy Company Investing
The Toronto Sound - New Canadian Modern Rock Music
A Green Realtor Blog - Eco Realty Links
BeesTreesFrogsElephants.com - Nature and Ecology Blog
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Fatah and Hamas talk truce; Abbas, King Abdullah, want Arab League role
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — Saudi King Abdullah and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday agreed that the Arab League should oversee truce talks between Fatah and Hamas, a Palestinian diplomat said.
"The two sides agreed that all inter-Palestinian dialogue should take place under the supervision of the Arab League," Palestinian representative to Riyadh Jamal Shobaki told AFP.
King Abdullah and Fatah leader Abbas also discussed the status of US-backed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians during Sunday's meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, Shobaki added.
Abbas last week called for dialogue with Hamas, which ousted his loyalists from Gaza in June last year, breaking with his previous policy of rejecting any opening until the Islamists cede control of the territory.
Hamas responded favourably to Abbas's overture, raising hopes of reconciliation between the two sides although prospects of a peace deal with Israel before the end of the year look increasingly unlikely.
Saudi Arabia brokered an agreement between Fatah and Hamas in early 2007 that led to the formation of a Palestinian unity government but unbridled tensions between the two sides led to fierce fighting which resulted in the Gaza takeover only months later.
Abbas was late Sunday to travel to Cairo for talks on Monday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Shobaki said.
Arab leage role in Fatah-Hamas reconciliation talks
Fatah, Hamas: Senegal reconciliation talks reignite 'mutual respect'
By Reuters
Talks between Fatah and Hamas in the Senegalese capital Dakar this weekend had restored "an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect" between the Palestinian factions, a statement signed by both sides said on Sunday.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, offered his services in March as a mediator between the two parties, which clashed a year ago when Islamist Hamas militants ousted power from Fatah in the Gaza Strip in bloody coup.
A statement following the talks, which began on Friday, said Senegal would resume contact with both sides to organise future meetings with the aim of "reconciling the Palestinian family".
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"The Palestinian representatives ... thank the mediator for managing to restore an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, which allowed them to discuss the fundamental interests of the Palestinian people," said the communique signed by Hikmat Zeid for Fatah, Emad Khalid Alamy for Hamas and Senegal's Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio.
Senegal's state news agency APS reported on Saturday that Wade had met individually with the Palestinian delegations. "The mediation would take place in seven stages," a presidential spokesman said.
Hamas ended more than 40 years of the more secular Fatah's ascendancy with a victory in parliamentary elections in 2006. Hamas fighters went on to rout Fatah forces and take over the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman based in the Gaza Strip, said the daily arrest and torture of its members in the West Bank by security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah "did not prepare the atmosphere for dialogue."
"Hamas has taken steps (towards dialogue) and the president of the authority and Fatah movement in the West Bank are demanded to take similar steps to prove seriousness and concern and good intentions," he told Reuters.
Full article at: Hamas - Fatah talks restore trust and respect
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"The two sides agreed that all inter-Palestinian dialogue should take place under the supervision of the Arab League," Palestinian representative to Riyadh Jamal Shobaki told AFP.
King Abdullah and Fatah leader Abbas also discussed the status of US-backed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians during Sunday's meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, Shobaki added.
Abbas last week called for dialogue with Hamas, which ousted his loyalists from Gaza in June last year, breaking with his previous policy of rejecting any opening until the Islamists cede control of the territory.
Hamas responded favourably to Abbas's overture, raising hopes of reconciliation between the two sides although prospects of a peace deal with Israel before the end of the year look increasingly unlikely.
Saudi Arabia brokered an agreement between Fatah and Hamas in early 2007 that led to the formation of a Palestinian unity government but unbridled tensions between the two sides led to fierce fighting which resulted in the Gaza takeover only months later.
Abbas was late Sunday to travel to Cairo for talks on Monday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Shobaki said.
Arab leage role in Fatah-Hamas reconciliation talks
Fatah, Hamas: Senegal reconciliation talks reignite 'mutual respect'
By Reuters
Talks between Fatah and Hamas in the Senegalese capital Dakar this weekend had restored "an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect" between the Palestinian factions, a statement signed by both sides said on Sunday.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, chairman of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, offered his services in March as a mediator between the two parties, which clashed a year ago when Islamist Hamas militants ousted power from Fatah in the Gaza Strip in bloody coup.
A statement following the talks, which began on Friday, said Senegal would resume contact with both sides to organise future meetings with the aim of "reconciling the Palestinian family".
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"The Palestinian representatives ... thank the mediator for managing to restore an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, which allowed them to discuss the fundamental interests of the Palestinian people," said the communique signed by Hikmat Zeid for Fatah, Emad Khalid Alamy for Hamas and Senegal's Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio.
Senegal's state news agency APS reported on Saturday that Wade had met individually with the Palestinian delegations. "The mediation would take place in seven stages," a presidential spokesman said.
Hamas ended more than 40 years of the more secular Fatah's ascendancy with a victory in parliamentary elections in 2006. Hamas fighters went on to rout Fatah forces and take over the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman based in the Gaza Strip, said the daily arrest and torture of its members in the West Bank by security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah "did not prepare the atmosphere for dialogue."
"Hamas has taken steps (towards dialogue) and the president of the authority and Fatah movement in the West Bank are demanded to take similar steps to prove seriousness and concern and good intentions," he told Reuters.
Full article at: Hamas - Fatah talks restore trust and respect
Unrelated Links:
Windpower Investing, Renewable Energy Stocks
2008 Pepsi North America Cup online info
Geothermal Energy Stocks, Geothermal Power Investments
Solar Power and Alternative Energy Investing Websites
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Jews, Muslims, Christians combine for Palestine Christmas concert
Music soars in the land of sadness
article from: TheStar.com
Palestinian violist unites musicians of all faiths for Christmas concert in tiny Christian outpost
December 23, 2007
Oakland Ross; Middle East Bureau
TAYBEH, West Bank–The concert commenced at 7 sharp, here in the last entirely Christian community in the Holy Land, an illuminated rosary of limestone houses and Christmas lights strung across the high Samarian Hills, 20 kilometres northeast of Jerusalem.
Lit by a bevy of crystal chandeliers, classically trained musicians gathered in the town's Latin Patriarchal Church, flanked by an altar, a glowing electric space heater and an audience of about 60 expectant souls.
After being warmly welcomed by David Khoury, mayor of Taybeh – who speaks English with a Massachusetts accent, the result of 30 years in political exile – the players raised their instruments, traded glances, then plunged into the initial offering on the evening's baroque program, the allegro first movement of Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto in F-major for Flute and Orchestra.
And, lo, it was Christmas time in the Holy Land. The spirit of the season seemed to radiate through the church and into the streets beyond, for Christmas without music wouldn't really be Christmas at all.
"We are the last and only entirely Christian village in the Holy Land," proclaimed Father Raed Abusahlia, parish priest at Latin Patriarchal, speaking shortly before the concert began.
"We were evangelized by Jesus Christ Himself."
Partly for that reason, an unlikely group of fine musicians – including Christians, Jews and Muslims – ventured through the darkness and winter cold last Wednesday to converge on this hilltop town to perform a Christmas concert of baroque music against a backdrop of sadness and war – sadness because Christians are fleeing the Holy Land in disturbing numbers and war because this is the Middle East, where armed conflict seems as deeply embedded in the rocky soil as olive trees, religion and tombs.
But on this night there was song, and it was song that brought a Canadian visitor here, on a winding, starlit drive through deep canyons and over lofty ridges, past an Israeli military checkpoint and into Taybeh, an ancient community where Jesus once sought refuge from his enemies.
In biblical times, the town was Ephraim. It was renamed Taybeh in 1187 by Salahaddin, the legendary Kurdish warrior who once captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
Taybeh was inhabited by Christians then and it is inhabited by Christians now, although their numbers are dwindling.
During the 1960s, Taybeh's population reached a high of about 3,400. It has since declined to 1,300 or so, and it continues to fall.
"There is not enough work, not enough money," said Norma Jasser, an elegant, 40-something mother of six who attended the concert with her brood.
"If anyone has the chance to leave, they will do it."
Palestinian Christians face the same trials that afflict the territories' Muslim majority – the economic hardship, political instability and reciprocal violence that are the wages of a 60-year conflict with neighbouring Israel.
And so the Christians leave.
But now it is Christmas time and Christians are celebrating in Taybeh and in many other towns scattered through the Holy Land.
This winter, for the third year in a row, many of them have been blessed by the gift of music, thanks to an ambitious series of concerts organized by a 28-year-old Palestinian musician named Ramzi Aburedwan.
Founder of a charitable Palestinian society – called Al-Kamandjati, which is Arabic for The Violinist – Aburedwan oversees a philanthropic program that provides musical instruments and training to hundreds of Palestinian children.
Three years ago, he launched a Christmas series of baroque concerts that swelled this year to nine scheduled performances – most of them presented in Christian churches, seven in the Palestinian territories and two in Israel.
The players include Palestinians, Europeans and Americans. They are Muslims, Jews and Christians.
Their surnames range from Machour to Ho, Nguenang to Barghouti, Karamintzas to Hewitt Jones – a thoroughly catholic group, in the secular sense of the word.
Financial and logistical support was provided by bodies that include the general consulate of France in Jerusalem, the Goethe-Institut in Ramallah and the Barenboim-Said Foundation, established by famed conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said.
But this is the Middle East, where political tensions intrude upon everything.
Not even the music of baroque composers Vivaldi, Georg Philip Telemann or Giovanni Battista Pergolesi are immune – and nor is the violist Aburedwan.
Last Sunday, he was stopped at Erez Crossing by Israeli border officials, who refused to let him travel from Israel into the Gaza Strip for a Christmas concert there, saying he lacked the proper documents.
Meanwhile, a dozen musicians accompanying him – all Palestinians in this case – were cleared for the same trip.
Aburedwan was later detained for two hours at the Israeli police station in the nearby town of Sderot before being released, but he was still not allowed into Gaza.
In protest, Aburedwan's fellow musicians refused to carry on without him; the concert scheduled for that evening at the Latin Church in Gaza City had to be cancelled.
"The Israelis said I was illegal," Aburedwan later said. "It's discriminatory, racist. They cut people off from people."
An accomplished violist, Aburedwan had recovered much of his composure and all of his artistry for the 90-minute concert in Taybeh.
The audience that night included a trio of nuns in blue habits and white wimples, as well as a cross-section of the village's population, mostly bundled into heavy winter coats and scarves against the chill bite of winter in the West Bank.
Built in 1968, the modern church boasts an airy interior, featuring a huge mosaic that depicts Jesus arriving in Ephraim, as well as vivid paintings of St. George slaying the dragon and a winged St. Michael in combat with Satan.
At the end of the concert, the audience rose to its feet and demanded an encore.
Abusahlia pleaded with the players to repeat the final piece of music in the evening's program – the rousing rondeau from the Ariane and Bachus Suite by Marin Marais.
The players obliged, and later several of the string players performed an impromptu outdoor program of familiar Christmas carols, performing on the stone stairs at the church's entrance, beneath the moonlight and a silent chorus of stars.
Later still, the audience members and musicians gathered for drinks and Arab finger food at a reception room in the presbytery, its interior decorated in the style of a Bedouin tent.
"Thank you for making our Christmas holiday joyous," Mayor Khoury told the musicians, summing up the sentiments of all the concertgoers.
"Thank you for everything.
"Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"
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article from: TheStar.com
Palestinian violist unites musicians of all faiths for Christmas concert in tiny Christian outpost
December 23, 2007
Oakland Ross; Middle East Bureau
TAYBEH, West Bank–The concert commenced at 7 sharp, here in the last entirely Christian community in the Holy Land, an illuminated rosary of limestone houses and Christmas lights strung across the high Samarian Hills, 20 kilometres northeast of Jerusalem.
Lit by a bevy of crystal chandeliers, classically trained musicians gathered in the town's Latin Patriarchal Church, flanked by an altar, a glowing electric space heater and an audience of about 60 expectant souls.
After being warmly welcomed by David Khoury, mayor of Taybeh – who speaks English with a Massachusetts accent, the result of 30 years in political exile – the players raised their instruments, traded glances, then plunged into the initial offering on the evening's baroque program, the allegro first movement of Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto in F-major for Flute and Orchestra.
And, lo, it was Christmas time in the Holy Land. The spirit of the season seemed to radiate through the church and into the streets beyond, for Christmas without music wouldn't really be Christmas at all.
"We are the last and only entirely Christian village in the Holy Land," proclaimed Father Raed Abusahlia, parish priest at Latin Patriarchal, speaking shortly before the concert began.
"We were evangelized by Jesus Christ Himself."
Partly for that reason, an unlikely group of fine musicians – including Christians, Jews and Muslims – ventured through the darkness and winter cold last Wednesday to converge on this hilltop town to perform a Christmas concert of baroque music against a backdrop of sadness and war – sadness because Christians are fleeing the Holy Land in disturbing numbers and war because this is the Middle East, where armed conflict seems as deeply embedded in the rocky soil as olive trees, religion and tombs.
But on this night there was song, and it was song that brought a Canadian visitor here, on a winding, starlit drive through deep canyons and over lofty ridges, past an Israeli military checkpoint and into Taybeh, an ancient community where Jesus once sought refuge from his enemies.
In biblical times, the town was Ephraim. It was renamed Taybeh in 1187 by Salahaddin, the legendary Kurdish warrior who once captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
Taybeh was inhabited by Christians then and it is inhabited by Christians now, although their numbers are dwindling.
During the 1960s, Taybeh's population reached a high of about 3,400. It has since declined to 1,300 or so, and it continues to fall.
"There is not enough work, not enough money," said Norma Jasser, an elegant, 40-something mother of six who attended the concert with her brood.
"If anyone has the chance to leave, they will do it."
Palestinian Christians face the same trials that afflict the territories' Muslim majority – the economic hardship, political instability and reciprocal violence that are the wages of a 60-year conflict with neighbouring Israel.
And so the Christians leave.
But now it is Christmas time and Christians are celebrating in Taybeh and in many other towns scattered through the Holy Land.
This winter, for the third year in a row, many of them have been blessed by the gift of music, thanks to an ambitious series of concerts organized by a 28-year-old Palestinian musician named Ramzi Aburedwan.
Founder of a charitable Palestinian society – called Al-Kamandjati, which is Arabic for The Violinist – Aburedwan oversees a philanthropic program that provides musical instruments and training to hundreds of Palestinian children.
Three years ago, he launched a Christmas series of baroque concerts that swelled this year to nine scheduled performances – most of them presented in Christian churches, seven in the Palestinian territories and two in Israel.
The players include Palestinians, Europeans and Americans. They are Muslims, Jews and Christians.
Their surnames range from Machour to Ho, Nguenang to Barghouti, Karamintzas to Hewitt Jones – a thoroughly catholic group, in the secular sense of the word.
Financial and logistical support was provided by bodies that include the general consulate of France in Jerusalem, the Goethe-Institut in Ramallah and the Barenboim-Said Foundation, established by famed conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said.
But this is the Middle East, where political tensions intrude upon everything.
Not even the music of baroque composers Vivaldi, Georg Philip Telemann or Giovanni Battista Pergolesi are immune – and nor is the violist Aburedwan.
Last Sunday, he was stopped at Erez Crossing by Israeli border officials, who refused to let him travel from Israel into the Gaza Strip for a Christmas concert there, saying he lacked the proper documents.
Meanwhile, a dozen musicians accompanying him – all Palestinians in this case – were cleared for the same trip.
Aburedwan was later detained for two hours at the Israeli police station in the nearby town of Sderot before being released, but he was still not allowed into Gaza.
In protest, Aburedwan's fellow musicians refused to carry on without him; the concert scheduled for that evening at the Latin Church in Gaza City had to be cancelled.
"The Israelis said I was illegal," Aburedwan later said. "It's discriminatory, racist. They cut people off from people."
An accomplished violist, Aburedwan had recovered much of his composure and all of his artistry for the 90-minute concert in Taybeh.
The audience that night included a trio of nuns in blue habits and white wimples, as well as a cross-section of the village's population, mostly bundled into heavy winter coats and scarves against the chill bite of winter in the West Bank.
Built in 1968, the modern church boasts an airy interior, featuring a huge mosaic that depicts Jesus arriving in Ephraim, as well as vivid paintings of St. George slaying the dragon and a winged St. Michael in combat with Satan.
At the end of the concert, the audience rose to its feet and demanded an encore.
Abusahlia pleaded with the players to repeat the final piece of music in the evening's program – the rousing rondeau from the Ariane and Bachus Suite by Marin Marais.
The players obliged, and later several of the string players performed an impromptu outdoor program of familiar Christmas carols, performing on the stone stairs at the church's entrance, beneath the moonlight and a silent chorus of stars.
Later still, the audience members and musicians gathered for drinks and Arab finger food at a reception room in the presbytery, its interior decorated in the style of a Bedouin tent.
"Thank you for making our Christmas holiday joyous," Mayor Khoury told the musicians, summing up the sentiments of all the concertgoers.
"Thank you for everything.
"Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Israel and Palestine agree to talk peace, create Palestinian State
Israel and Palestinians okay peace and statehood negotiating plan
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
Opening a high-stakes Mideast peace conference, President Bush announced a joint agreement among Israeli and Palestinian leaders Tuesday to reach a peace pact by the end of 2008. Negotiations would begin within weeks to establish "a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security," he said.
The agreement was reached after weeks of intense negotiations and it was not clear until Bush stepped to the podium in the majestic Memorial Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis that the two sides would come together on how to move forward on the path toward peace.
"Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is the key to realizing their own, and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state," Bush said.
"Such a state will provide Palestinians with the chance to lead lives of freedom, purpose and dignity. And such a state will help provide Israelis with something they have been seeking for generations: to live in peace with their neighbors."
The first peace talks are to be held Dec. 12, Bush said, and are to continue biweekly after that.
Bush was followed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said in prepared remarks that any Mideast peace deal should ensure that Palestinians have East Jerusalem as their capital, and he also calls for a halt to Jewish settlements in disputed lands.
Bush spoke before representatives of more than 50 nations and organizations that he had summoned to Annapolis for a daylong conference aimed at restarting the stalled peace process.
"The task begun here in Annapolis will be difficult," Bush acknowledged. "This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it."
"The time is right, the cause is just, and with hard effort, I know they can succeed," he said.
Said Abbas: "Let us make peace of the brave, and protect it for the sake of our children and your children."
At the same time, the Palestinian leader gave no indication that his side was willing to concede on any of the flashpoint issues that have derailed previous peace efforts: the status of disputed Jerusalem, refugees, the borders of an independent Palestine and Israeli settlements.
"I have the right here to defend openly and with no hesitation the right of my people to see a new dawn, with no occupation, no settlement, no separation wall, no prisons with thousands of prisoners, no assassinations, no siege, and no roadblocks around villages and cities," Abbas said.
He called for a peace that "includes a halt to all settlement activities including natural growth, reopening the closed Jerusalem institutions, removing settlement outposts, roadblocks, and releasing prisoners, and facilitating our authority's tasks of imposing order and sovereignty of law."
And Abbas also said that it was his "duty" to say that the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides want to claim as their capital, must be central to any deal. "We want East Jerusalem to be our capital, and to have open relations with West Jerusalem, and to allow all believers from all faiths to practice their rituals and to reach sacred places without unfairness and on the basis of what is guaranteed by international and human laws," he said.
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
Opening a high-stakes Mideast peace conference, President Bush announced a joint agreement among Israeli and Palestinian leaders Tuesday to reach a peace pact by the end of 2008. Negotiations would begin within weeks to establish "a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security," he said.
The agreement was reached after weeks of intense negotiations and it was not clear until Bush stepped to the podium in the majestic Memorial Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis that the two sides would come together on how to move forward on the path toward peace.
"Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is the key to realizing their own, and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state," Bush said.
"Such a state will provide Palestinians with the chance to lead lives of freedom, purpose and dignity. And such a state will help provide Israelis with something they have been seeking for generations: to live in peace with their neighbors."
The first peace talks are to be held Dec. 12, Bush said, and are to continue biweekly after that.
Bush was followed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said in prepared remarks that any Mideast peace deal should ensure that Palestinians have East Jerusalem as their capital, and he also calls for a halt to Jewish settlements in disputed lands.
Bush spoke before representatives of more than 50 nations and organizations that he had summoned to Annapolis for a daylong conference aimed at restarting the stalled peace process.
"The task begun here in Annapolis will be difficult," Bush acknowledged. "This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it."
"The time is right, the cause is just, and with hard effort, I know they can succeed," he said.
Said Abbas: "Let us make peace of the brave, and protect it for the sake of our children and your children."
At the same time, the Palestinian leader gave no indication that his side was willing to concede on any of the flashpoint issues that have derailed previous peace efforts: the status of disputed Jerusalem, refugees, the borders of an independent Palestine and Israeli settlements.
"I have the right here to defend openly and with no hesitation the right of my people to see a new dawn, with no occupation, no settlement, no separation wall, no prisons with thousands of prisoners, no assassinations, no siege, and no roadblocks around villages and cities," Abbas said.
He called for a peace that "includes a halt to all settlement activities including natural growth, reopening the closed Jerusalem institutions, removing settlement outposts, roadblocks, and releasing prisoners, and facilitating our authority's tasks of imposing order and sovereignty of law."
And Abbas also said that it was his "duty" to say that the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides want to claim as their capital, must be central to any deal. "We want East Jerusalem to be our capital, and to have open relations with West Jerusalem, and to allow all believers from all faiths to practice their rituals and to reach sacred places without unfairness and on the basis of what is guaranteed by international and human laws," he said.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak enthused by Syrian attendance at Peace Summit
artisle from JPost.com
Barak: 'High chance' summit will succeed
yaakov katz and gil hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 23, 2007
Syrian participation at the Annapolis peace summit next week would be a positive step that could "open the door" for full-fledged peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
"I hope that Syria and Saudi Arabia come to the summit," Barak said in an interview with the Post ahead of his trip to the US Saturday night to attend next week's Middle East summit at the Annapolis Naval Academy.
While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the "key issue" on the summit's agenda, Barak said "it will be good for Israel" if Syria participates.
Barak is scheduled to meet with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday to discuss regional security issues. Barak was in Washington in October for talks with Gates and US defense chiefs.
"In principle it is important to keep the door open for the Syrians so that when the time comes we will be able to negotiate with them," he said.
Barak said he planned to do everything in his power to ensure that the summit would be successful. He has met in recent months several times with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad and was a proponent of the decision to allow 500 armed Palestinian policemen to deploy in Nablus.
While Barak said there was a "high chance" that the summit would be successful, defense officials have warned that it is possible Palestinian terror groups will escalate their terror activity before, during and after the summit.
"There is a high chance that it [the summit] will succeed," he said. "It will begin the process. The real test will be when we discuss the core issues when the talks begin after the summit."
Barak said he did not believe a "wave of terror" would erupt in Israel if the summit failed. But he warned "inaction" could prove more dangerous than action. "All dialogue is important and we have a moral responsibility - from a security and diplomatic point of view - to find a peaceful way," he said.
Barak added that Israel did not plan on skipping over the first stage of the US-backed road map peace plan, which calls on the Palestinians to dismantle terror infrastructure in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"We are keeping for ourselves the right to operate and to fight terror," he said in reference to the Gaza Strip. "The first stage of the road map needs to be implemented. This is what is holding Gaza back."
Meanwhile Thursday, a group of hundreds of Jewish university students began what they billed as a "three-day march" around and through Jerusalem to encourage Olmert to make an agreement to divide the city in Annapolis.
They marched Thursday to the Western Wall and they will hold a rally in front of the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday night. The students said they would continue marching despite the rain and even if it would snow.
"If the summit addresses the need for compromises in Jerusalem, we will have succeeded, but if it ends in mere slogans, then we have failed and the extremists will only become stronger," said Nir Yanovsky, one of the leaders of the march.
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Barak: 'High chance' summit will succeed
yaakov katz and gil hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 23, 2007
Syrian participation at the Annapolis peace summit next week would be a positive step that could "open the door" for full-fledged peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
"I hope that Syria and Saudi Arabia come to the summit," Barak said in an interview with the Post ahead of his trip to the US Saturday night to attend next week's Middle East summit at the Annapolis Naval Academy.
While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the "key issue" on the summit's agenda, Barak said "it will be good for Israel" if Syria participates.
Barak is scheduled to meet with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday to discuss regional security issues. Barak was in Washington in October for talks with Gates and US defense chiefs.
"In principle it is important to keep the door open for the Syrians so that when the time comes we will be able to negotiate with them," he said.
Barak said he planned to do everything in his power to ensure that the summit would be successful. He has met in recent months several times with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad and was a proponent of the decision to allow 500 armed Palestinian policemen to deploy in Nablus.
While Barak said there was a "high chance" that the summit would be successful, defense officials have warned that it is possible Palestinian terror groups will escalate their terror activity before, during and after the summit.
"There is a high chance that it [the summit] will succeed," he said. "It will begin the process. The real test will be when we discuss the core issues when the talks begin after the summit."
Barak said he did not believe a "wave of terror" would erupt in Israel if the summit failed. But he warned "inaction" could prove more dangerous than action. "All dialogue is important and we have a moral responsibility - from a security and diplomatic point of view - to find a peaceful way," he said.
Barak added that Israel did not plan on skipping over the first stage of the US-backed road map peace plan, which calls on the Palestinians to dismantle terror infrastructure in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"We are keeping for ourselves the right to operate and to fight terror," he said in reference to the Gaza Strip. "The first stage of the road map needs to be implemented. This is what is holding Gaza back."
Meanwhile Thursday, a group of hundreds of Jewish university students began what they billed as a "three-day march" around and through Jerusalem to encourage Olmert to make an agreement to divide the city in Annapolis.
They marched Thursday to the Western Wall and they will hold a rally in front of the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday night. The students said they would continue marching despite the rain and even if it would snow.
"If the summit addresses the need for compromises in Jerusalem, we will have succeeded, but if it ends in mere slogans, then we have failed and the extremists will only become stronger," said Nir Yanovsky, one of the leaders of the march.
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
USA hosting November 27 conference on Palestinian statehood in Annapolis, Maryland
US confirms Middle East peace conference on Israel and Palestine
Egypt, Turkey coming to Mideast Peace Conference in US
Iran and Syria veto candidates for Lebanese President, endangering Washington’s Middle East conference
Tony Blair in talks with Saudi Arabian King regarding USA Israel-Palestine conference
Mideast Peace Plan including Asia West Parliament proposed for Syria
Arab League meeting Cairo to plan Israeli – Palestinian conference
Sweden invited to USA-hosted Middle East Peace gathering
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Egypt, Turkey coming to Mideast Peace Conference in US
Iran and Syria veto candidates for Lebanese President, endangering Washington’s Middle East conference
Tony Blair in talks with Saudi Arabian King regarding USA Israel-Palestine conference
Mideast Peace Plan including Asia West Parliament proposed for Syria
Arab League meeting Cairo to plan Israeli – Palestinian conference
Sweden invited to USA-hosted Middle East Peace gathering
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana says Mideast peace possible by end of 2008
article from www.Haaretz.com
Solana: Israeli-Palestinian peace deal possible by the end of 2008
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies
An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement could be in place by the end
of next year, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem.
"My impression is that the whole process is doable, it can be done. Everyone has to work so the process ends up well," he said.
Earler, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said he told Solana that "the foundation for the post-Annapolis negotiations with the Palestinians be recognition of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people".
Differences over the issue emerged this week when Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Palestinians would not accept Israel as a "Jewish state," a definition that could enable Olmert to argue against the right of return for refugees in a final deal.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad echoed Erekat's statement on Wednesday. "We do not accept conditions of this type, not at all," he said on Al Arabiya television. However, Olmert told Solana that the matter was non-negotiable.
Livni, for her part, agreed with Solana that the upcoming international Annapolis peace summit was an opportunity for the peace process to move forward.
She said, however, that what was important about the meeting was "the day after."
The success of the parley, she went on, lay in the fact that it could re-launch an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has been dormant for the past seven years, since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
Livni also stressed that the Palestinians needed the support of Arab countries, who are expected to be present at Annapolis, "for the sake of the peace process."
"These countries must not dictate terms, or place obstacles in the way of
negotiations, but instead support bilateral Israeli- Palestinian talks," she said.
Arab countries were not present at the last serious attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at Camp David in the summer of 2000.
That summit fell apart as the sides were unable to agree on how to resolve core issues, and the Palestinian uprising broke out a few months later.
Solana met earlier with Olmert, who briefed him on preparations for the Annapolis meeting.
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Solana: Israeli-Palestinian peace deal possible by the end of 2008
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies
An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement could be in place by the end
of next year, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem.
"My impression is that the whole process is doable, it can be done. Everyone has to work so the process ends up well," he said.
Earler, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said he told Solana that "the foundation for the post-Annapolis negotiations with the Palestinians be recognition of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people".
Differences over the issue emerged this week when Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Palestinians would not accept Israel as a "Jewish state," a definition that could enable Olmert to argue against the right of return for refugees in a final deal.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad echoed Erekat's statement on Wednesday. "We do not accept conditions of this type, not at all," he said on Al Arabiya television. However, Olmert told Solana that the matter was non-negotiable.
Livni, for her part, agreed with Solana that the upcoming international Annapolis peace summit was an opportunity for the peace process to move forward.
She said, however, that what was important about the meeting was "the day after."
The success of the parley, she went on, lay in the fact that it could re-launch an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has been dormant for the past seven years, since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
Livni also stressed that the Palestinians needed the support of Arab countries, who are expected to be present at Annapolis, "for the sake of the peace process."
"These countries must not dictate terms, or place obstacles in the way of
negotiations, but instead support bilateral Israeli- Palestinian talks," she said.
Arab countries were not present at the last serious attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at Camp David in the summer of 2000.
That summit fell apart as the sides were unable to agree on how to resolve core issues, and the Palestinian uprising broke out a few months later.
Solana met earlier with Olmert, who briefed him on preparations for the Annapolis meeting.
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