Shimon Peres

By Marwan Bishara in Imperium on June 2nd, 2010

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The Israeli military operation against the humanitarian Gaza convoy has provoked an outcry around the world and within Israel itself.
 
Five leading headlines from this morning's edition of the daily newspaper Haaretz illustrate the frustration.

Ari Shavit's 'Fiasco on the high seas', Reuven Pedatzur's 'A failure any way you slice it', Yossi Sarid's 'Seven idiots in the cabinet', and Gideon Levy's 'Operation Mini Cast Lead' - Israel's code name for its bloody war on Gaz

By Marwan Bishara in Imperium on March 15th, 2010
Photo by EPA

Over the last several months, Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, and Barack Obama, the US president, have led the campaign praise for Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, despite his extremist views.

Peres, for long Netanyahu's political nemesis and considered the architect of the 1993 Oslo Peace Process along with Mahmoud Abbas, commended the right-wing Likud leader's stance on peace as "brave and real".

The Obama administration spoke in a similar tone, noting and praising Netanyahu's acceptance of the principle of a two-state solution and Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, celebrated the unprecedented 'limited temporary freeze on settlement'!

The message from Israel and the US has been clear: Give Netanyahu a chance. He means business. 

Netanyahu, who boasts of knowing US power politics better than most since his tenure in New York as ambassador to the UN, seems to have outsmarted his US counterpart.

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on November 22nd, 2009
Photo from AFP
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is making a one-day stop in Brasilia, Brazil on Monday for meetings with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It will be the third meeting between the two leaders, and the first time for an Iranian president to come to Brazil. The visit comes just a few days after Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas dropped in for official visits with Lula. This has led to speculation, which I touched on in a previous post, about Brazil perhaps trying to take a more active diplomatic role in the peace process in the Middle East.
 
Lula seems to relish the idea.  And he is not trying to damper the expectations, just the opposite. In fact, on Sunday, he said this:
 
By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on November 16th, 2009
Photo by Reuters

There are some interesting diplomatic dynamics from Brazil in relation to the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and relations between Iran and the United States.

Consider these travel schedules:

ISRAEL: President Shimon Peres visited Brazil last week – Nov. 10 through 15 – making stops in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Peres’ visit marked the first time an Israeli head of state visited Brazil since Zalman Shazar did so in July 1966. (The visit barely registered on international radar screens, or in Brazil for that matter, as on Peres' first night in Brazil the country saw a nationwide power outage that cut electricity to nearly 90 million people.)

Nevertheless, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Peres in Brasila. Afterwards the foreign ministry sent out a press release trumpeting the fact both countries signed a cinematography co-production agreement.

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