As Libya burns Mid East peace hangs in balance

Israel launched air strikes in the Gaza Strip late Monday night, wounding at least 19 people. Tension is rising between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza. Israel says that the sites were targeted in response to 56 mortar shells and rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past week.

Meanwhile, the military escalation coincides with a closed door discussion at the UN Council for Human Rights in Geneva, where Israel has been accused of operating "ethnic cleansing" with its policy of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.
Gershon Baskin, co-CEO of the Israeli/Palestinian centre for Research and Information says that settlements are not the issue at stake when it comes to saving the peace process in the Middle East. He adds “neither the US nor Israel take the Un Human Rights Council too seriously, particularly given that it has a history of member states such as Libya, and we can all see what Gadaffi is doing to his people. Either way should the report come up for a vote before the Security Council it is likely that the US will just use its veto”. What is needed claims the academic, is “a rethinking of the Obama administration’s policy in the Middle East and the wider Arab world”.
Baskin points out that “Palestinian Authority President Abbas faced the Israeli nation on Saturday evening on Channel 2’s Meet the Press and answered every question Israelis have regarding the seriousness of the Palestinians regarding peace. To me, it is quite amazing that none of the Israeli newspapers wrote anything about the interview on Sunday morning. I am quite sure that if Abbas had spoken against peace it would have made headlines”.
He continues, “Israel’s isolation is growing. Dissatisfaction with Israel’s policies is even growing among world Jewry. Refusal to make peace along the 1967 lines with agreed territorial swaps is unacceptable. Palestinians have agreed to concessions which make the two-state solution possible and desirable. With leaders like Abbas on the Palestinian side, it is criminally irresponsible not to end the conflict”. Listen to Emer McCarthy’s full interview with Gershon Baskin: