As Israeli politics shift rightward, It is time for a paradigm shift in how we think about the Middle East, writes Richard N Haass.

Given Orla O’Neill (Letter Irish Examiner, April 11), puts such great store in what Amnesty International has to say, it is reasonable that she also pays attention to what it has to say about the Palestinians whose delusions she panders to.

Desmond FitzGerald (Letters, November 2) presents a grossly misleading view of Israeli and Palestinian society.

While people like Zoe Lawlor (Irish Examiner, Letters, October 29) are busy deflecting attention away from the failings of Palestinian society and blaming Israel, I wonder why she has nothing to say about the Palestinian state that would come about if people like her get their way.

Following on from Dr Ronit Lentin, it’s appalling and tragic whenever children are killed. (Letters, 24 Oct 24).

Dr Kevin McCarthy, referring to the killing of Jewish settlers, Eiran and Naama Henkin, in the occupied West Bank on October 1, rightly states that there is nothing heroic about murdering parents in front of their children.

Israel has set up roadblocks in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, and deployed soldiers in cities across the country, to combat the worst surge of violence in months.

The demonisation of the Palestinian people by Desmond Fitzgerald continues unabated (Letters, October 8).

It’s remarkable how selective apologists for the myth of a Palestinian state are about what offends them.

Defying US president Barack Obama, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Washington to warn Congress about the risks of a possible nuclear deal with Iran in a speech that has imperilled ties between the two allies.

While I agree with Edward Horgan (Letters, January 28) that “perpetrators of genocide are often not held to account”, his comment that “many people are justifiably opposed to crimes against humanity committed by Israel against Palestinians” is disturbing.

It is not surprising that Israel has criticised the Dáil decision to recognise the right of right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.

President Barack Obama offered the help of the United States in negotiating a ceasefire to end escalating violence between Israel and Hamas.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said it is more urgent than ever to avoid another Israeli-Palestinian war that could spill into the Middle East and called on both sides to agree a ceasefire.

Google spokesman Nathan Tyler said that Google had decided to change the name of the Palestinian Territories to just Palestine in its products.

The principal of a secondary school in Kerry has rejected claims made by an Israeli journalist of antisemitism and pro-Palestinian bias in the school.

Israel has become the first nation to miss a UN review of its human rights record without giving a reason.

Benjamin Netanyahu seems poised for re-election as Israel’s Prime Minister because of the failure of his opponents to unite behind a viable candidate against him .

The Fatah party of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has staged a massive rally in the Gaza Strip, the first such gathering in the territory since the Islamist Hamas group took control there in 2007.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the international community of double standards.

Israel’s response to the Palestinians’ new UN status is to deprive and humiliate which may maintain the status quo but will sabotage chances of long-term peace, writes Ian Buruma

Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon has said that Israel is not happy about the international response to the plan for settlements in east Jerusalem, but “it’s not the end of the world”.

The United Nations has voted overwhelmingly to recognise a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians still face enormous limitations: they do not control their borders, airspace or trade, they have separate and competing governments in Gaza and the West Bank, and they have no unified army or police.

The 193-nation UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution last night to upgrade the Palestinian Authority’s observer status at the UN from “entity” to “non-member state”, implicitly recognising a Palestinian state.

The United Nations voted overwhelmingly today to recognise a Palestinian state, a long-sought victory for the Palestinians but an embarrassing diplomatic defeat for the United States.

Democratic uprisings across the Arab world and the Palestinians’ bid for UN membership sparked hope and excitement at last year’s meeting of world leaders.

Fourteen members of the United Nations Security Council pointed a collective finger at the United States for blocking condemnation of Israel’s stepped-up settlement programme in Palestinian territory.

The Obama administration should rethink its commitment to the fight in Afghanistan, according to American politicians furious with Afghan president Hamid Karzai for saying his country would back Pakistan in a war with the United States.

THE Security Council took its first official step yesterday to consider the Palestinians’ request for UN membership.

LESS than two weeks ago America and its friends — including Ireland — marked the tenth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack that country has faced.

FRANTIC diplomatic efforts gathered pace yesterday as the Palestinians rode roughshod over Israeli and US opposition and pressed their bid to demand full UN membership for a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian president is to ask the UN Security Council next week to endorse his statehood bid, a step that would risk a threatened US veto in the council.

ISRAEL’S interior minister gave final authorisation to build 1,600 apartments in disputed east Jerusalem and will approve 2,700 more apartments in days, officials said yesterday, detailing a plan that could complicate diplomatic efforts to dissuade Palestinians from declaring statehood at the United Nations.

IT has been argued by thousands of human rights protestors, including Trocaire, in recent years that Ezra Nawi is merely a pacifist protestor in the mould of Mahatma Gandhi who has been unfairly prosecuted and convicted by the Israeli courts when he attempted to halt the Israeli Defence Forces demolition of Palestinians’ homes in South Hebron in July 2007.

THE Middle East peace process lay in tatters yesterday after Washington admitted defeat in its efforts to secure an Israeli freeze on settlement building, the Palestinians’ condition for resuming talks.

Washington’s new proposal for reviving Middle East talks was presented to Israel’s Cabinet.

Dozens of senior Palestinians backed President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to negotiate with Israel as long as it builds in West Bank settlements.

Dozens of senior Palestinians today backed President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to negotiate with Israel as long as it builds in West Bank settlements.

The US prepared today to plunge into a new round of Middle East peacemaking, bringing Israeli and Palestinian leaders together for face-to-face talks for the first time in nearly two years.

US president Barack Obama wants to sharply limit Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the botched naval raid that is straining American and Israeli relations with allies around the world.

IN my first year at Queen’s in Belfast, no subject exercised the monthly meetings of the students’ union more than the name of the hall where our meetings were held.

JUST as the international community, almost with a single voice, angrily condemned the murder of nine peace protestors – or Hamas sleepers as Israel would like us to believe – Israel shrugged off the condemnation with indignation and considerable arrogance.

HUNDREDS of Palestinians, Israelis and foreign activists – engulfed by clouds of tear gas fired by Israeli troops – demonstrated to mark the fifth anniversary of weekly protests against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier.

Israel has today begun work to re-route a section of its West Bank separation barrier to restore land to a village that has become a flashpoint of Palestinian opposition to the enclosure.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to swap territory near the Gaza Strip and West Bank in exchange for settlement blocs in the West Bank, the Haaretz newspaper claimed today.

ON November 20 you published a letter from Zion Evrony replying to an article regarding Benjamin Netanyahu’s Shannon stopover.

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will approve more construction in West Bank settlements before considering a halt to building work, officials say.

ISRAELI and Swedish officials have responded furiously to a Swedish newspaper article that suggested Israeli troops killed Palestinians and harvested their organs.

THE situation in Gaza is truly tragic. Tragic because it is causing the deaths of hundreds and injuring thousands.

Warplanes pressing one of Israel’s deadliest assaults ever on Palestinian militants dropped bombs and missiles on a top security installation, a mosque, a TV station and dozens of other targets across the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip today.