Six months after the Obama administration scuppered Palestine’s bid for UN recognition saying negotiations with Israel should be the path, Americans are returning to the debate about what diplomacy can achieve. Slate organized the sold-out debate on 10th January – speakers’ advance positions are here. In the posting Daniel Kurtzer’s presents his strategy for a negotiated two-state deal

In a interview with AP, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal (or Meshal) speaks in favour of two-state soution and the ‘tsunami’ power of non-v iolent popular protest. The interview took place in Cairo where Hamas and Fatah are having unity talks

In an assessment of Hamas at 24, Ramzy Baroud ponders the dilemma for an organisation whose popularity depends on showing the symbols of resistance but which also wants to come in from the cold . Reuters reports Hamas is in talks to join the PLO.

Jonathan Chadwick, who has been involved in Az Theatre’s ten year project ‘Gaza Drama’, marvels at the resilience, resourcefulness and recycling of people in Gaza, decries the prevalent deafness and damaged bodies of the children and notes the growing wealth of Gaza’s elite

Hamas security police have arrested two journalists and broken up Palconnect, a Palestinian social media conference due to take place in Gaza December 4 – 6. (1 and 2) There is not the publiciry outside the Arab media that there was when a British journalist was detained for a month last year (3 and 4)

The Palestinian impasse – a people divided by territory, strategy and political affiliation, the refusal of outside governments to do business with Hamas – was not resolved by last week’s Cairo meeting of the Hamas and Fatah leaders; but the words and body language were more positive than usual.

The extraordinary story of Gilad Shalit’s release, the key role of peacenik Gershon Baskin, the earlier moments when Shalit might have been freed had not Netanyahu imposed impossible conditions and the ‘contract’ whereby all Israelis do military service in return for rescue if captured is told by Ronen Bergman999999999

The IDF want to release some Fatah prisoners to bolster Abbas’s weakened Palestinian Authority against Hamas. But Netanyahu and his close advisers are determined to maintain pressure on Abbas as punishment for his unilateral bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state.

In the most comprehensive of the commentaries on the prisoner swap, Uri Avnery looks at what this moment in Israeli politics – where government, armed forces and public were united against the right wing, settlers and ultra-religious – could mean for acceptance of Palestinian statehood, though the deal was Netanyahu’s attempt to scupper it

The announcement on Tuesday that Netanyahu had done a deal with Hamas in which Gilad Shalit, held for 5 years by Hamas, would be exchanged for 1000 of the Palestinians held by Israel led to rejoicing in Israel and mixed feelings in Palestine. Doing the calculations are Maan News (1 ,2) Dimi Reider (3) Larry Derfner (4) Ebaa Rezeq (5) and BICOM (6)

Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband observes the stunted children, overcrowded schools, power cuts and wrecked buildings in Gaza, and deplores the irrationality of the inertia of all political agencies

Since his capture in 2006, Gilad Shalit has been an emblem of the impotence of Israel and intransigence of Hamas. Now the prisoner swap will bring rewards for many of the players (including Egypt) – but not Abbas or high-profile Palestinians whom Israel wants to hang on to. Reports from Al Arabiya and Haaretz

The Arab Awakening has broken all the rigidities of regimes round the southern and esstern Mediterannean. In this (abbreviated) essay, Tony Klug clesely examines the options now facing Israel and the Palestininans – including Hamas which must, he says, ‘openly purge its Covenant of its virulently anti-Semitic content’

At a conference in Tehran, Hamas leaders restate their view that Palestinian statehood can only follow Palestinian liberation, 1. Showing great consistency over the years, Khalid Mishaal, in a long interview in Palestine Studies in 2008, describes his tutelage in radical politics and Islam and his beliefs now. His views on violence were not mentioned

One of a slew of Wikileaks about Israel reveals that not only does the IDF use drones to kill militants – and many civilian bystanders – but it has kept the US Ambassador to Israel well-informed of their tactics

Ynet publishes an alarmist report of the success of the BDS campaign written by Giulio Meotti, who has written a book on Israel’s victims of terrorism. An interview with him about the book is posted 2nd. 3rd is a report of the protest at the Proms on Thursday night, and lastly a piece written before the Proms protest by Jewish classical music blogger Jessica Duchen arguing for boycotting the Israel Philharmonic

South African Shafiq Morton found much of his critique of Zionist blindness was no longer controversial. The sticking point for his readers was Hamas;despite experience with the ANC of the gap between demagoguery and practical negotiation they could not hear the nuance.

France’s President has made another intervention in the Middle East with a promise to get Hamas to release Shalit – a possibility which Ehud Barak thinks Netanyahu is blocking

Obama’s speech underscored ‘that self-government under Israel’s brutal occupation and blackmail is an illusion and it might be better to dissolve the Palestinian Authority that sustains this illusion’ writes Ali Abunimah

The American Congress responded to PM Netanyahu as a supine people once responded to their out-of-touch Arab dictators – with appeasing applause – writes Dima Khatib. They must all know you can’t choose who represents the other side