Pulitzer-prize winning author Alice Walker, who wrote "The Color Purple," is traveling to Gaza along with other female activists to highlight the devastation of the Israeli offensive on Gaza's residents. ...more

March 8, 2009

In recent days, some have questioned whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was making a big mistake in appointing so many "special envoys," such as George Mitchell, to handle key trouble spots, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think they are right to question Clinton about this plethora of envoys. But I don't think the problem is that she has too many; it's that she doesn't have enough. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she may need at least a half-dozen envoys. Actually, this conflict is now broken into so many different pieces it may take a whole State Department of its own to resolve it. ...more

February 5, 2009

A few hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared victory in the Gaza Strip, the hawkish contender to succeed him paid a visit to wounded soldiers and insisted that the enemy had not been defeated. ...more

January 26, 2009

One week after the war with Israel and Hamas stopped - each side declaring a unilateral cease-fire - Gaza remains in a kind of stupor. There are numbers, of course, to describe its misery - 4,000 homes destroyed, 21,000 badly damaged, 100,000 people homeless, according to several aid agencies - but they do not tell the full story. ...more

January 25, 2009

Israeli soldiers flashed the victory sign Sunday as they began withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. Shell-shocked Palestinians emerged from shelters and counted their dead. As a tenuous cease-fire took hold, however, few people on either side predicted an end to the cycle of violence that has endured for generations. ...more

January 19, 2009

The hard part is still to come. Almost every significant issue between Hamas and Israel remains unresolved despite a unilateral cease-fire by Israel that went into effect before dawn Sunday in Gaza and Hamas' later announcement that it would halt fighting for one week. ...more

January 19, 2009

Hamas offered Israel an immediate weeklong truce Sunday, hours after Israel silenced its guns and grounded its aircraft, but the Islamic militant group conditioned long-term quiet on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the territory. ...more

January 18, 2009

Militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza fired salvoes of rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, defying a unilateral cease-fire called by Israel and threatening to reignite three weeks of violence that medics say has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians and turned Gaza's streets into battlegrounds. ...more

January 18, 2009

Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire Saturday in its 22-day offensive that turned Gaza neighborhoods into battlegrounds and dealt a stinging blow to the Islamic militants of Hamas. But Israeli troops will stay in the Palestinian territory for now and Hamas threatened to keep fighting until they leave. ...more

January 18, 2009

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Newsweek-The Post's Lally Weymouth that the conflict in Gaza is not a fight of Israelis against Palestinians but a case in which Israel represents moderates in the region, including the Palestinian Authority. Here are some excerpts: ...more

January 12, 2009