Israel’s Arabs Are the Answer | Newsweek World

Olmert’s Lament
Kevin Peraino 6/13/2009 12:00:00 AM
As the sun rose over New York City on Thursday, June 4, Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister of Israel, lay anesthetized on a Manhattan operating table. A cancerous tumor on his prostate had recently grown in size. His doctors had "all kinds of suspicions" about it, Olmert explained when we met at his house outside Jerusalem shortly before the surgery. Olmert, 63, looked terrible. He told me he hadn't been working out lately. He had put on a paunch, his eyes had a glassy quality and he had a persistent cough. I asked whether he was feeling any symptoms. "I sometimes feel tired," he said. "But there are so many reasons for being tired." Olmert explained that he had settled on a new, robotic-assisted surgery designed to avoid damaging key nerves. An aide later said that the goal was to limit the risk that the operation would harm Olmert's ability to "function as a man."
Leader of the Pack
Christopher Dickey 5/18/2009 12:00:00 AM
When a king and a U.S. senator cruise the Dead Sea shoreline on big bikes, these would-be easy riders need yield to no one. But as King Abdullah of Jordan and Sen. John Kerry of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee roared through the desert landscape last weekend on a break from the World Economic Forum, the question hanging in the air like the bitter haze above the salt sea was all about green lights and red lights on the road to Middle East peace.
ISRAEL
Politics Takes a Right Turn in Jerusalem
Lally Weymouth 2/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
Israel's Prime Minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, sat down last week for a long interview with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth—his first with the foreign media since he was asked by President Shimon Peres to form Israel's next government. Currently, it looks like he'll have to cobble together a narrow right-wing coalition, after opposition leader Tzipi Livni refused to join him in a broad national-unity government. Excerpts:
POINT OF VIEW
Revive The Saudi Peace Plan
Abdul Rahman H. Al-Saeed 2/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
History is filled with crises that have become occasions for progress. This moment in the Middle East is just such an opportunity—precisely because events there look so bleak. In Gaza, hope for a better future (for Palestinians and Israelis) has been replaced by collective punishment. Was this avoidable? Absolutely.
LETTERS
A Bloody Battle
2/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
The deadly clashes in Gaza drew impassioned responses from readers on both sides of the issue. Arguing that Hamas is not solely at fault, one said, "Gaza has been made a prison by the Israelis." Another defended Israel's action, saying, "There is no moral equivalent between terrorism and self-defense."
INTERNATIONAL
‘We Believe We Can Achieve Something’
Lally Weymouth 1/31/2009 12:00:00 AM
During the World Economic Forum at Davos, tensions that have been brewing for weeks between Israel and Turkey broke out into the open. After fiercely debating the Gaza offensive with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stalked offstage, vowing never to return to Davos. NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth spoke with Erdogan. Excerpts: