Palestinian citizens of Israel have a vested interest in a peace agreement between their people and their state. They want to be regarded as full citizens of Israel, but at the same time do not want to give up their ability to impact the country’s policy towards the Palestinian people. They need to help bring back the Arab peace plan, and in the meantime will lick the Gazans’ open wounds, says the author.

It is worth asking ourselves whether the international presence in Afghanistan would be more effective with a more political formula, backed up by military actions, in the same vein as the one applied in Chad in 2004. Perhaps this is the model to support: assistance from the rear, leaving the leadership of the most arduous combat tasks to the country’s regular troops.

• Who is counting the dead in Afghanistan? Another war lost
  por Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

The author contends that the Bush Administration’s approach to the war on terror has relied too heavily on force, and that a deeper understanding of the true nature of Islamic radicalism indicates a mushroom phenomenon in the making. He proposes a realistic, multifaceted strategy, in which political and socio-economic approaches predominate, and force is only employed as a last resort.

Today, Spain places eighth place in the list of countries that export weapons. With what criteria have the sales to certain countries been authorized? Are there guarantees that they will not be used for unforeseen objectives? Have they taken into account the human rights situation? The Spanish government, which is in favor of multilateralism and peaceful conflict resolution, should show a real commitment to increasing the control and transparency of its arms exportation, the author argues.

• An Arms Race in Latin America?
  por José Luis Martínez

By and large the war in Afghanistan has been met with a chronic state of ambivalence by the international media after the onset of the war in Iraq. The situation grows direr every day and the author questions whether the objectives set forth by the U.S government are working or could have ever worked.

Muslims are the biggest ethnic group in the Philippines, and more than half of the population of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao is poor, and the area is thus a breeding ground for civil unrest. The author wonders whether the government can (and should) negotiate with a decentralized terrorist group like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and denounces President Arroyo’s brokering of deals in secrecy. He maintains that the lives of the Muslims must be improved, since economic and social development on Mindanao is necessary to achieve peace.

Russia attempts to come back to life by playing with the strength of its two geo-strategical instruments: oil and natural gas.

Al Qaeda is losing the support of prominent members of the Islamic clergy and former jihadists due to the acts that it has been carrying recently which, in their wake, have left destruction, misery, and an appalling number of people dead (especially in the Islamic world). This has wound up affecting the coherence of the organization’s ideological discourse. Does this mean that Al Qaeda is going to disappear as a result of the criticism that it has received from its former members? In the short and medium term the answer is, of course: no.

From Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Cambodia, Afghanistan and Colombia, a large number of countries have been –and continue to be– afflicted with serious conflicts over the control of natural resources (oil, diamonds, hardwood, cocoa beans, cocaine and opium). Although some conflicts have come to an end, others are still ongoing and it is possible that many more will arise in the future if the matter is not addressed, from both within and outside of the borders of the war-afflicted countries, in an efficient manner.

• Climate Change: A New Source of Armed Conflict
  por Mabel González Bustelo
• The dispute for African Oil
  por Eloísa Vaello Marco