The Middle East: flickering dreams and the coming storm

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The concept of the two-state solution has been given unprecedented momentum by the Gaza War, and the belief that the cycle of violence simply must end. However, given the imminent assault on Rafah, it seems as far away as ever.

In the classroom, 11-year-old Tala dreams of being a doctor, while Lubna, her schoolmate, wants to be an architect.

"We embrace them, and we are already working on implementing them," Jordan UNRWA director of external relations Tamara Alrifai told RTÉ News. Of the 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, some 176,000 who originated in Gaza do not have the same rights as the others . After his visit to the school, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said it gave him ammunition to go back to his European Union counterparts to ask them, effectively, who in their right minds would starve such schools of funding?He had travelled from a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday to Cairo, where he met his Egyptian counterpart on Tuesday morning, before flying to the Al Airish military airport south of Rafah, and then on by road to the crossing itself, where he met...

At the Egyptian Red Crescent distribution warehouse, 45 minutes drive south of Rafah, Dr Lofti Gheith explained that Israel insists on four checks for every consignment, including an x-ray scan, meaning 15% of humanitarian aid gets rejected on the basis that it is either dual use or contains luxury goods which are not permitted.However, the banned list includes absolutely vital products, such as solar-powered water filters, CT scan machines and fridges for vaccines or diabetes drugs.

The increase in humanitarian aid, notwithstanding the rejected items, was a rare bright spot on a mission which was to combine the issue of relief efforts with an update on ceasefire prospects, and the question of how Irish - and other European - recognition of Palestinian statehood might enhance the path to two-state solution negotiations.

A senior source has said that optimism has gone into reverse, with relations between Qatar and Israel in particular deteriorating. During a news conference with Mr Martin on Wednesday in Amman, the Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi explained the reverse engineering of recognition:"We cannot go to the modus operandi of the past, where we work to an open-ended process that got us nowhere.

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