Inkgrrl's Roadmap Roundup: 2004-12-17

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on Israel and its neighbours, courtesy of Inkgrrl.

TOP TOPIC

• Opportunities for peace are always present despite ongoing conflict in the region. Since Colt’s wonderfully done Winds of War has scooped many of the key news events in and around Israel of late, this Roundup will focus more on possibility, conjecture, and acts of hope than on cold, hard body counts.

Topics Today Include: Good News In Spite Of It All, One Religious Challenge To Another, Music Soothes Not Only The Savage Breast, The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend, Israeli-Egyptian Relations Warming Up, and Conspiracy Theory Much?

ISRAEL

• In the realm of possibility, two steps forward, one step back… while some parties in both the Palestinian and Israeli camps indicate a willingness to move toward reconciliation, others will continue to fight for the impossible, no matter what the cost in blood or tears shed ultimately shed as a result of their squabbles.

• Ariel Sharon has declared the coming year to be an unprecedented opportunity for peace with the Palestinians.

• It would seem that some American Christian churches are willing to put their money where their mouths are - not necessarily good news for Israel or for peace and understanding.

• In last Saturday’s Good News post, reader Nikita pointed us to a wonderful website called Israel2c, telling us about such things as a new Israeli fruit hybrid called a pomelit has been shown to lower cholesterol, and a breakthrough by an Israeli researcher who has discovered the cause of bad breath.

THE PALESTINIANS

• Speaking of conjecture, where there's a terrorist, there's a conspiracy theory to justify his existance (or lack thereof) - there’s a buzz amongst the Palenstinians to discover what really killed Arafat? Besides old age, a failing liver? That portait up in the attic that finally saw daylight?

• The Palestinian National Conservatory of Music sounds a bright tone for Palestinian children throughout the Middle East.

• In an interesting callback to the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords, Jimmy Carter is slated to supervise the Palestinian Authority’s elections on January 9th.

SYRIA & LEBANON

• Lest we forget those who have suffered anywhere, there are always the duties of memory as served by photography to remind us - Josee Lambert, a Canadian photojournalist and human rights activist, has put together a book of her documentary work in Southern Lebanon appropriately titled, “They Called Them Terrorists.”

• Lebanon remembers that the enemy of my enemy is my friend - opponents of the Syrian-backed government unite in common cause, despite their mutually antagonistic history.

EGYPT & ELSEWHERE

• Egypt’s long-standing ban against public protests has been broken by an anti-Mubarak demonstration calling for an end to his 23-year reign as President.

• Not all liberal literates in Egypt have been silenced by the last decade’s rising tide of Islamo-fascism, as proved by one brave woman’s bid for the Presidency.

• A push to raise the economic possibilities in the region saw fruition this week as Egypt and Israel sealed a $500 million dollar annual trade deal the US has been pushing for.

• Despite many Egyptians’ anger over the release back to Israel of Azzam Azzam, the swap of the Israeli Druze for a group of Egyptian students is another sign of the warming trend between Israel and Egypt.