“Born at the Dawn of a New State: Two Men's Lives Reflect Divergent Fortunes of Jewish, Palestinian Peoples”, Griff Witte, Washington Post, May 8, 2008

"Sixty years ago, Dror Gurel and Nabil Zaharan were born into a land at war. Sons of middle-class families, they entered the world during the same week and along the same stretch of sun- splashed Mediterranean coast. Gurel was born in Jewish Tel Aviv; Zaharan's mother gave birth just down the road, in Arab Jaffa. Yet it was a third birth that week that, more than anything, has shaped their lives. Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, and Gurel and his family have spent the years since trying to build the Jewish state into a military and economic powerhouse. Gurel's father, an engineer, helped design the barracks, training grounds and ammunition depots of Israel's defense. The son, also an engineer, has constructed shopping centers and high-rises that have become emblems of affluence. Zaharan, meanwhile, has spent his life dreaming of a place he lost but never knew, and wishing for a Palestinian state that may never be. He prays for his family's safety amid nightly Israeli army incursions, and hopes his children will find work despite a crippling siege. The trajectories their lives have taken reflect the vastly different fortunes of two peoples who, to this day, remain in conflict over the same ancient land. Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary Thursday with a nationwide party; Palestinians will solemnly commemorate what they call al-Naqba, 'the catastrophe'..."
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"Israel marks 60th anniversary with pride, uncertainty", Associated Press, May 8, 2008

"Israel staged its 60th birthday bash with fireworks, air force flyovers and a great sense of pride Thursday, but also with uncertainty about its future and doubts about prospects for peace with the Palestinians...Israel at 60 is a paradox of exuberance and despair - a country enduring near daily rocket attacks from militants while producing scientists who have pioneered Wi-Fi and instant messaging. Six decades after rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish state is still plagued by threats from abroad and an identity crisis at home. Its 41-year occupation of Palestinian territories has invited international condemnation. Yet Israel is a thriving democracy that has provided a haven for the world's Jews. Independence Day is a 'celebration of the possible,' said Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi. 'It means taking the dream out of the realm of the ideal and into the realm of the concrete, and that in turn means living with a certain amount of disappointment.'...In the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians staged events to remind the world that Israel's creation has been their 'nakba,' or catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands were uprooted during the 1948 war over Israel's creation, and some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants are scattered across the region today..."
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"Priority: Statehood", Daoud Kuttab, Washington Post , May 12, 2008

"In the spring of 1948, my father, George Kuttab, and his brother Qostandi fled Musrara, a Jerusalem neighborhood just outside the walled city, after their sister Hoda's husband was killed in front of her and their children. When Dad used to tell us about the Naqba, the catastrophe that befell Palestinians in 1948, he never talked politics or hatred. He would laugh as he told us how his brother secured their home near Damascus Gate. To assure his mother and brother that the house (in what is now Israeli west Jerusalem) would be safe, my uncle joked that he had double-locked the door, turning the heavy metal key twice. He took that key with him to Zarqa, Jordan, expecting to be able to use it again one day. As Palestinians look back on the 60 years since they became refugees and Israelis celebrate the 60th anniversary of their statehood, it is important to take stock of Palestinian aspirations..."
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"Encountering peace: next year in Palestine", Gershon Baskin, The Jerusalem Post, May 5, 2008

"Sixty years! Rising from the ashes and faced with six decades of struggle and war, Israel certainly has a lot to be proud of. Not only is Israel one of the world's largest producers of news and interests around the world - given our size and the problems we face -but Israel has emerged to be a leading nation in so many fields-agriculture, water technology, high-tech, medical treatment and research, bio-technology, communications, and more. Recently, even Israel's film industry has attracted international attention and fame. I look forward to our Independence Day celebrations every year. I am proud and pleased that we have this day to celebrate...I will be very happy to see the day when the Palestinians have their own Independence Day to celebrate. That day, too, will be a celebration for Israel and for Zionism...The fate and future of these two peoples depends on their ability to find a way to live side-by-side in peace-in two separate states..."
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"Mideast conflict: need for a new perspective", Ziad Asali, Arab News, May 5, 2008

"...Israelis and Palestinians live in the same land with divergent national narratives, and both want and need sovereignty and self-determination...The two-state solution, for all its faults, is the only way out of the cycle of violence and hatred that has plagued Israel and the Palestinians since 1948. It is up to both peoples to decide whether they will allow themselves to be driven by extremist agendas, or to pursue what is plainly in their national interests. Their past trespasses against each other, both real and imagined, have to give way to the recognition that Israelis and Palestinians clearly now need exactly the same thing: An end of conflict based on two states...At 60, Israel is a technologically and politically sophisticated state with a diverse population and vibrant economy. Israelis deserve a peaceful country with security and economic progress. Palestinians deserve no less."
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"Delivering the Third Miracle", Gadi Baltiansky, Middle East Bulletin, May 9, 2008

"David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, once said that anyone who wishes to be realistic in Israel must believe in miracles. Two miracles have already taken place in Israel: the miracle that prompted the establishment of the state and the miracle that has sustained it for the past 60 years. Now, we-the realistic people-are waiting for the third miracle...Unfortunately, the Israeli-Arab conflict was more foreseeable than either of the miracles embodied in the founding and sustaining of Israel. To claim that Zionism was the return of a people without a land to a land without a people was to make assertions without factual basis. Hundreds of thousands of Jews returning to a populated land were not likely to be greeted by the locals with open arms and "gifted" the land that had been worked for generations. The conflict that developed over this land is natural. But so, too, could be the resolution to the conflict, following a battle that has gone on for three generations. This must be the third miracle..."
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