With the Middle East crisis at the forefront of media coverage and debate, Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni brought a unique perspective to the situation yesterday, speaking of his first-hand experience as a mediator between Israeli and Palestinian political parties.

“I have never encountered a process as complicated and complex as this one,” Zinni said.

Zinni, a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Professor, began his discussion in front of the packed HEC Auditorium with his worry that the Middle East peace efforts are being eclipsed by the current economic crisis and various other events.

Robert Malley, the program director for Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group in Washington, D.C., addressed a modest crowd inside Goldwin Smith’s Hollis E. Cornell auditorium yesterday evening.

Malley, who is widely regarded as an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, gave an insider’s perspective on the nature of the crisis and offered a uniquely anecdotal appraisal of the problems currently facing Israel, Palestine and the United States.

Unlike most Cornell students, I have witnessed the current debate on the Gaza conflict and the vandalism controversy from abroad. Based on the fragments I can understand from friends and The Sun, it looks as though we are confronting a set of issues much broader than ourselves, but in which we are nevertheless implicated. I want to provide the perspective of a student who cares deeply about our campus politics vis-à-vis the Middle East — but who is currently in the region.

As campuses across the United States reopen after winter breaks, the recent Gaza conflict has been on many people’s minds. This is particularly true at Cornell, which has substantial and activist communities of Jewish and Islamic faiths. Many of us here feel the anguish of the situation in the Middle East.

Some students, faculty and staff have requested that I take some sort of action, or make a public statement in Cornell’s name. These communications have caused me to think again about the role of universities — and university presidents — in events outside our campus but not outside of our hearts and minds.

Last night, approximately 100 students gathered for a discussion entitled “The 2008 Presidential Election and the Middle East,” which featured Prof. Ross Brann, Alice Cook House Professor-Dean and Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies.

From the very beginning of his lecture and throughout the discussion, Brann emphasized his non-political, strictly analytical examination of the Middle East region and the 2008 presidential election.

“I am not speaking as an advocate for either side,” he clarified.

Former Cornell President Frank Rhodes’s newest venture will bring him far from Cayuga’s Waters. Rhodes, who served as Cornell’s ninth president from 1977 until 1995, has been named to the board of trustees of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, according to the University.

The new school, which will open in less than a year, describes itself as benefiting “the region and the world.”

“KAUST is the realization of a decades-long vision of the Custodian of the Twoo Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud,” according to the school’s website.

The new school will train 250-350 graduate students in its first class with a faculty that may approach 400 members.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Arabs across the ideological spectrum, from secular-minded liberals to Muslim hard-liners, are denouncing a top Saudi cleric's edict that it was permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV stations that show "immoral" content.

Many expressed worry the recent comments by Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan — chief of the kingdom's highest tribunal, the Supreme Judiciary Council — would fuel terrorism, encouraging attacks on station employees and owners.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian militants on Tuesday fired three homemade rockets into southern Israel, the first such attack since a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza militants took effect last week.

Israel condemned the attack as a "gross violation" of the truce, but did not say whether it would retaliate.

The barrage wounded two people and capped a day of violence that presented the truce with its first serious test.

Just before midnight, Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell into an empty area in southern Israel. And in a pre-dawn raid, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Israeli settlement activity in exceptionally harsh language on Sunday, saying new construction projects on disputed land were having a "negative effect" on Mideast peace talks.

Rice made the comments during her latest attempt to prod Israelis and Palestinians toward a final peace deal by the end of the year.

After a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Rice said the U.S. remains committed to the target date. But she said Israeli plans to build thousands of homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem were hurting the negotiating atmosphere. Last week, Israel said it would build 1,300 new apartments in east Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Senior Israeli officials expressed support Monday for the transfer of Arab parts of Jerusalem to Palestinian control, offering a concession on one of the most contentious issues in the Mideast conflict. The offer appeared to fall short of Palestinian calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from key areas of the holy city.

The officials spoke as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to begin talks in Jerusalem to work out a joint document they hope to issue at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference next month. The meetings were closed.