Palestinian Elections

The Palestinian Authority well deserved the congratulations it received for conducting that credible a presidential election. The substantial majority won by Abu Mazen also was welcomed by all those who really count now. A superlative was used to describe the results by Yossi Beilin, former Israeli Minister of Justice. Let's hope that he counts for something now; and the other Israeli and Palestinian initiators of the Geneva Accord; and that their model solution of the problems in the way of a final peace can provide some ot the routes to follow if/when difficulties are encountered in the "road map" negotiations, which should now begin. I also hope the man in the slide below is well and got to vote.

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I took this photo in early June of 1968, almost exactly a year after the 6 Day War, when East Jerusalem (as well as the Gaza Strip, the Jordan West Bank and parts of Syria and Egypt) was conquered by Israel's Haganah Army; but when most people still expected only a brief occupation. Seen in front is the Dome of the Rock (also known as the Mosque of Omar, although that khalif did not build it, and it does not serve as a mosque). The Al Aqsa Mosque is behind me and the Western ("Wailing") Wall to the left. We are standing on the "Haram el Sharif"; also the "Temple Mount", since the ancient Jewish Temple, destroyed by not yet Roman Emperor Titus, had stood somewhere up there. Sovereignty over the place has been one of the main obstacles to a final accord (tackled by the Geneva Accord). Underneath the dome is the rock from which, by a Moslem belief, the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.