Israel roils under COVID-19 second wave

The state of Israel continues to grapple with a surging second wave of coronavirus infections that has set the country on edge, as different segments of Israeli society blame one another for the upsurge and argue about how best to deal with it.

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Mahmoud Abbas implicitly acknowledges Palestinian failures in UN speech

With the UAE and Bahrain breaking with that historical consensus, and other major Arab states lining up to follow, Abbas’ repetition of long-standing mantras about Palestinian demands being at the core of the conflict not only rang hollow, but only underlined the Palestinian leadership’s apparently complete and ongoing inability to adapt to the region’s changing realities.

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UAE’s and Bahrain’s normalisation of relations with Israel could be an opportunity for Palestinians

Israel’s normalisation agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed on 15 September, signify a potentially tectonic shift in the Middle East and represent perhaps the greatest advance towards peace there in 25 years… Predictably, they have also been condemned by those who measure success in the region not by the welfare of its population, including the Palestinians, but by how bad things are for Israel.

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Jordan Valley tale is all wet

The Jordan River has never run dry, and neither does the wellspring of stories about Palestinian grievances against Israel in the Jordan Valley, such as an article written by Andra Jackson which was printed in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald on September 5

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