Every May, Israelis and Palestinians hold warring days of remembrance – one for the day their country was born, the other for the day their nation suffered a nakba, or "catastrophe." But amid all the waving of the Israeli flags this year, an Israeli NGO has launched a smartphone app to commemorate the more than 400 Palestinian villages depopulated or destroyed in the wake of Israel’s founding.  iNakba puts those villages back on the map, allowing users to upload photos, videos, stories, and other data to paint a picture of the former landscape. 

Can learning about the opposing side’s suffering lead to reconciliation? Palestinian Professor Mohammed Dajani believes it can, prompting him to take a group of his students to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Israel is already an apartheid state, Palestinian officials have said in response to private comments made by the US Secretary of State John Kerry, who warned that failed negotiations would leave Israel like the old South Africa.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promised U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that the new government that will be formed following the Palestinian reconciliation will recognize Israel, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Friday. Psaki said that Abbas told Kerry that the future unity government with Hamas will be his government and represent his policies – it will recognize Israel, abide by past agreements and will renounce violence. "It's a positive thing," she said.

Professor Mohammed S. Dajani took 27 Palestinian college students to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland a few weeks ago as part of a project designed to teach empathy and tolerance.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s statements before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should not have surprised anyone. They simply expressed the frustration that many senior American officials have been voicing in private conversations over the past week about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The storm was unleashed because Kerry said out loud what he was thinking.

Hamas is having a hard time these days. Animosity with the military regime in Cairo has led to the closure of Gaza’s vital smuggling tunnels. According to Monocle, the tunnels act as a vital supply route and Hamas says the current impasse is costing the Gaza economy about $230 million a month.

Turkey is sending increasingly positive messages regarding a reconciliation agreement with Israel, as the March 30 local election nears. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told AFP on Wednesday that Turkey is interested in bringing the 2010 Mavi Marmara crisis to an end.