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“... in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is the continued refusal of President Abbas, who controls the purse strings, to pay the salaries of Hamas government employees. I was consistently told that if Abbas wanted to win the support of Gaza’s people all he would have to do is pay the civil servants ...”

“... Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy makes you squirm with embarrassment: at the bad acting, the bad writing, the falsity of the tones and tantrums even within the story, the ugliness and unkindness of the behaviour on display. Still, it’s authentic embarrassment, the real insidious thing, and it tempts us to believe the effect is intentional ...”

“... from North America and Europe speak easily of Palestinian ‘factions’, with Mahmoud Abbas, head of a state recognised by 134 nations, chairman of the PLO and president of the PA, no more important than anyone else. Karma Nabulsi, the scholar and one-time PLO officer, was among the first to predict this estrangement, which she dates to the ...”

“... the vote. Of those who voted, 99 per cent opted for Pakistan. The nationalist​ movement didn’t go away. Ten years ago I watched a rally in north-west Pakistan that was attended by thousands of people wearing red shirts. The event was organised by the Awami National Party (ANP), the direct political descendant of Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s movement: it is ...”

“... it is doing at the moment. In these circumstances, what are the real powers of President Mahmoud Abbas (Israel insists on using the demeaning title ‘chairman’ for him, as it did for Arafat), the newly elected Hamas-dominated PLC, and the government it has chosen, headed by Ismail Haniya? Not surprisingly they are quite limited, restricted as they are to ...”

“... forgotten that Reza Shah too was shunted around in exile, prevented from going where he wished to go. Forced off the throne by the Allies to secure access to Iranian oil during the Second World War, Reza Shah asked the British to let him go to Canada. Instead, they led him off to India, but in Bombay switched him to ...”

“... they ‘exist’ is difficult to understand, although the recently published memoirs of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) provide at least one important clue. It seems that, to people like himself and Arafat, the psychological need for recognition from ‘the Zionist movement’ was so great as to override almost all other considerations – especially those that ...”

“... Fatah, also feel that they have been completely abandoned by the Palestinian Authority. President Abbas, recently forced to deny rumours of his own resignation, has done little to counter accusations that the PA doesn’t really care what happens inside Gaza. Instead, he remains caught up in increasingly pointless talks with the intransigent Olmert, who is ...”

“... the election, Israel and the US immediately sought to delegitimise the result and embraced Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, who until then had been dismissed by Israel’s leaders as a ‘plucked chicken’. They armed and trained his security forces to overthrow Hamas; and when Hamas – brutally, to be sure – pre-empted this violent attempt to reverse the ...”

“... Rhetoric was the PLO Central Council voting to end security co-operation with Israel and President Abbas threatening to dismantle the PA. Reality was Abbas describing security co-operation as ‘sacred’ and saying that ‘the PA is our achievement and we will not give it up.’ Rhetoric was the official PA support for ...”

“... Christianity.’The evidence for survival was and is remarkably various. One example is the Cerne Abbas Giant, the 180-foot chalk figure with a thirty-foot erect phallus, dug deep into the chalk at what must have been an impressive cost in man-hours. A quarter of a mile away there lay, until the Reformation, one of the largest and richest abbeys in ...”

“... The prosecutor was unsure whether Palestine was a state, a necessary precondition for a case to go ahead. But Palestine’s upgraded status at the UN has resolved the issue, and if Palestine joined the ICC Israel could be prosecuted even though it is not a member, since the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed by any national on the territory of a ...”

“... at the point where Gaza, Israel and Egypt meet that would require Palestinian labour and goods to go through Israeli territory. Israel’s Interior Ministry retains full control over the issuing of Palestinian identity cards and all population data – births, deaths, marriages – and all Palestinians must continue to be registered with the ministry. There ...”

“... Even in infirmity, however, Arafat was a more formidable politician than his colleagues Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei, both of whom, as successive prime ministers in 2003, failed to impose themselves against his will. He then showed himself more able than men half his age, rapidly crushing an open challenge to his authority in the summer of 2004 by Muhammad ...”

“... To the Past we must go as a relief from To-day’s harshness,’ the Egyptologist Arthur Weigall wrote in 1923, as illustrated newspapers were bringing Tutankhamun back to life. The First World War was over, but its aftershocks rippled on. Golden treasure, a boy pharaoh and lost tombs in the Valley of the Kings offered readers an escape ...”