Lebanon Crisis Shows Hues of Iraq

By Khody Akhavi

"WASHINGTON, May 14 (IPS) - Almost every country in the world has had a civil war, but rarely has a nation survived a second one.

The outburst of violence that erupted on the streets of West Beirut last week now threatens to rip apart the small patchwork state, with analysts here and in Lebanon saying that the events over the next days will determine whether the fighting will push the country over the precipice of sectarian bloodshed, or whether a lull in violence will bring the political actors to the negotiating table........

Clashes continued throughout the country on Tuesday between opposition forces led by Hezbollah and government supporters who are aligned with Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and parliamentary majority and Future Movement leader Sa'ad Hariri. And the fighting, according to journalists on the ground, is beginning to take on the polarising sectarian hues of Iraq.

"This is more and more becoming a Sunni-Shi'a conflict. It really does feel like Iraq," said journalist Nir Rosen in a conference call with analysts and reporters at the New American Foundation.

"Sunni militias, backed by the Future Movement, formed over the last year, and have been a complete failure, perhaps because they were fighting for money. They just disappeared and caused a great sense of betrayal and shock among Sunnis," said Rosen, adding that the perceived victimisation of Sunnis had instigated more radical circles in Tripoli to fight against the "apostate Shi'a", that they appeared "eager to start this battle", according to Rosen.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah remains a popular political movement and is widely lauded for its "resistance" against Israel; it is the group's raison d'etre. The Lebanese and U.S. government have tried unsuccessfully to curb the number of weapons and militias in the country. But even with the U.S. putting international pressure on Hezbollah and Iran, and providing "practical assistance" to the Lebanese Army to deal with domestic security threats, as U.S. President George W. Bush said to reporters Monday, Hezbollah has drawn the red lines. So far, the army hasn't crossed them.

The last few days has also witnessed a certain degree of collusion on the streets between the Lebanese Army -- considered the only impartial institution capable of uniting the country -- and Hezbollah. Rosen, who is currently in Beirut and accompanied Shi'a Amal fighters as they battled on the streets, described Hezbollah fighters acting "hand in hand" with the army on the commercial strip of Hamra Street in West Beirut. Most of the targets captured by Hezbollah and their allies were subsequently turned over to the army.

"They are not trying to change the demographic balance in Beirut, it is to make a show of force to let rival militias know [Hezbollah] could have a real political coup," said Rosen. "Hezbollah's main concern is to keep weapons; it doesn't have much interest in running things in Lebanon."......."

Obama vs. The Lobby

No matter how much he grovels, it's never enough

By Justin Raimondo

"Poor Obama. No matter how much he tries to placate the Israel lobby, they just won't take yes for an answer. The Lobby has been after him for months, trying to dig up "evidence" that someone with the middle name of "Hussein" is necessarily an enemy of Israel. The best they could come up with so far were the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's jeremiads, which didn't have much of an effect at the polls, as the North Carolina and Indiana primary results – and subsequent national polls – attest.

Yet Obama still keeps trying to appease the Lobby. He's purged staff members who so much as looked cross-eyed at the Israelis, such as one poor adviser who meekly suggested that talking to Hamas might not be such a bad idea. He was out faster than you can say Mearsheimer and Walt........."

Why Bush must recognise the Nakba

A Good Piece

By Sandy Tolan, professor and author

"......What the president will not hear is the Palestinian story.

He will not be told that one side's "War of Independence" is the other side's "Nakba", or "Catastrophe".

And no one is likely to mention that Israel's heroic survival was, to the Arabs, a dispossession in which 750,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes.

Here then, is a brief Nakba primer for the US president, a chronicle of the untold to accompany him on his visit to Jerusalem.

Creating the Nakba

In the spring of 1948, waves of fear gripped Arab Palestine following the April 9 massacre of more than 120 unarmed Palestinians by extremist Jewish militias in the village of Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem. Thus, even before the war officially began, Arab villagers were fleeing for safer ground, fully intending to return when the fighting stopped.

Later that month in Galilee, Yigal Allon, commander of the elite Jewish brigade known as the Palmach, implemented a plan to spread more fear among the local Arabs. Allon would later write that he gathered Jewish leaders "who had ties with the different Arab villages, and I asked them to whisper in the ears of several Arabs that giant Jewish reinforcements had reached the Galilee and were about to clean out the villages ... [and] to advise them, as friends, to flee while they could ... the flight encompassed tens of thousands. The stratagem fully achieved its objective."

The next month, May 1948, a similar campaign took hold in the village of Na'ani, according to local Arab and Israeli sources, when a Jewish neighbour rode into town on horseback shouting: "The Jewish army is coming! You must leave or you will all be killed!" The villagers fled en masse, many going a few miles north to the Arab town of Ramle. There, they hoped, it would be safe. Two months later, on July 12, Israeli forces overwhelmed local Arab defenders and occupied the refugee-choked Ramle (now the Israeli city of Ramla) and neighbouring Lydda (now Lod). The same day they began expelling the Arabs of the two towns.

According to the memoirs of Yitzhak Rabin, then a young Israeli major, the orders came directly from Isreal's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Three days later, Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary, "there are 30,000 refugees moving along the road between Ramle and Lydda ... they are demanding bread ... "

Deaths of children

The people of Ramle and Lydda had left in haste and packed little, unprepared for a long hike across stony ground of cactus and Christ's thorn in mid-summer temperatures that reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). Decades later, old men and women in refugee camps would recall, above all else, their thirst and how they attempted to quench it with stagnant water found in old wells and, in some cases, with their own urine.

John Bagot Glubb, the British commander of the Arab Legion, would write that "nobody will ever know how many children died".

Sixty years later, the Nakba lies at the core of the Palestinians' identity and of their view of history and justice. Official US ignorance of that, passed down through generations and embodied in Bush's visit only to the Israeli side, has, unsurprisingly, angered Palestinians. "It is a slap in the face," Diana Buttu, a prominent Palestinian analyst in the West Bank, told The New York Times, adding that the US is essentially saying: "You have no history and your past does not matter."


But more than the insult or even stupidity of such a one-sided position is the tactical bungling of an administration that wants to be seen as a fair arbiter of a long-standing dispute. That is pretty hard to do, if all you can see is one side's pain and glory."

Obama says he'll reshape US foreign policy. But can he?

The presidential hopeful opposed the Iraq war and spoke sense about Iran, but expect business as usual on the Middle East

Jonathan Steele
The Guardian, Wednesday May 14 2008

"......Although he repeatedly outlines a general principle that the US should talk to every important player without preconditions, he does not apply this in the Middle East. In 2006, Obama blamed Hizbullah for the war with Israel and did not join the appeals for Israel to accept a ceasefire. Last month he criticised Jimmy Carter for talking to Hamas. "We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel's destruction," he said.

Past presidents have greater freedom than future presidents, apparently. So the big questions remain: does Obama really want to change US foreign policy and can he, if he does? Having a black person in the Oval Office, and especially one with an understanding of US imperialism, would have a colossal international impact in itself. But would this merely result in even greater disappointment once the months go by and US policy stays the same? In my kishkas I feel Obama is our best hope. In my mind I prepare for business as usual."

A Guardian Video: Meet the Bakrs ... a middle-class family from Gaza

"In the third of five films from Gaza, multimedia reporter Clancy Chassay talks to the Bakrs about life under the Israeli blockade, juggling jobs, school runs and clinical depression "

'We are almost dead. We have no money, nothing'

In the third part of our series on Gaza, Rory McCarthy talks to Ahmad Abu Me'tiq, who lost his wife and four of his children in an Israeli air strike

Rory McCarthy in Beit Hanoun
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday May 14 2008

".......Abu Me'tiq, 70, said he had received no direct apology from the Israeli military and no offer of compensation for the loss of his wife Meyasar, 40, and his children Rudeina, six; Salah, four; Hana, three; and year-old Mes'id. Their deaths add to the growing and striking toll of children killed in the conflict in Gaza. This year alone at least 44 Palestinian children have been killed, according to a count at the end of April by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The UN has put the figure at 53 children dead and 177 children injured so far this year.

Despite talks about a ceasefire the death toll on both sides continues to rise. At least 312 Palestinians, more than half civilians, have been killed this year, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. On the Israeli side six soldiers and six civilians have died......"

A Red Carpet For Führer Bush's Arrival in Israel.......
To Celebrate 60 Years of Slaughter of The Palestinians......
And Their Ethnic Cleansing.......

Canada’s Ignorant Prime Minister

Comment by Khalid Amayreh

"Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently made outrageously ignorant comments on the plight of the Palestinian people.

He claimed that criticism of and opposition to the Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the Palestinian people amounted to “anti-Semitism.”......

Obviously, Harper was trying to curry favor with Jews by appearing more Israeli and more Zionist than many Israelis themselves are.

But in truth, he is harming Jews, because it is not a sign of true friendship to encourage one’s friends to walk along the path of evil as Israel has manifestly been doing for decades......

Canada, a country that used to pride itself on its commitment to the rule of international law and regard for human rights and dignity, should stop this blind fanatical and unrestricted support for Israel and instead adopt a balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Canada should tell Israel that killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza, knowingly and deliberately, is wrong; that starving and tormenting and killing innocent people in order to weaken Hamas is wrong; that withholding critically-needed fuel and electricity supplies, let alone food and other consumer products, amounts to a crime against humanity.

Unfortunately, instead of doing what is morally right, Canada is cheering Israel’s criminality and evil behavior, very much like the Führer of the White House who called Israel’s certified war criminals “men of peace,” ignoring the fact that they have tons of innocent blood on their evil hands.

Well, birds of a feather flock together. "

Gates: US will teach Iran a lesson

Press TV

"US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has revealed that Washington plans to engage in a number of 'exclusive' activities against Iran.

"We're being very aggressive in going after the networks in Iraq, and the individuals who are interfering or supplying weapons from Iran," said Gates Tuesday.

"We have a number of other activities under way. We take it very seriously. But at this point our activities are focused pretty exclusively inside Iraq,'' he added......"

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

This is a significant poll and it strongly refutes the claim of the puppet (pro-US, pro-Israel) Arab regimes that the current struggle in Lebanon is sectarian in nature.

The question is:

Do you believe that the current Lebanese crisis is caused by a sectarian strife or an external intervention?

With over 7,800 responding so far, 87% believe that it is caused by external intervention.

Disturbing Stirrings - Ratcheting Up For War on Iran

by Stephen Lendman

Global Research, May 12, 2008

"Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn't mean they'll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched......

That was then; this is now. On May 3, Andrew Cockburn wrote on CounterPunch: "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret 'finding' authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, (is) 'unprecedented in its scope.' " The directive permits a range of actions across a broad area costing hundreds of millions with an initial $300 million for starters. Elements of the scheme include:

-- targeted assassinations;

-- funding Iranian opposition groups; among them - Mujahedin-e-Khalq that the State Department designates a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO); Jundullah, the "army of god militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan; Iranian Kurdish nationalists; and Ahwazi arabs in southwest Iran;

-- destabilizing Syria and Hezbollah; the current Lebanon turbulence raises the stakes;

-- putting a hawkish commander in charge; more on that below; and

-- kicking off things at the earliest possible time.

These type efforts and others were initiated before and likely never stopped. So it remains to be seen what differences emerge this time and how much more intense they become......."

A deadly miscalculation in Lebanon

By Sami Moubayed
Asia Times

"As a test of strength, the Lebanese government and its Saudi Arabian backers received a bloody nose in the confrontation with Hezbollah in Beirut. The government woefully underestimated Hezbollah's reaction to having its communications - spy - system interfered with. And the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, with its convincing display of military superiority, made another clear statement: leave our arms alone......

That sums it up. Nasrallah will not allow anybody to touch the arms of Hezbollah and is willing to fight to maintain his status, and that of his party, in the Arab-Israeli conflict. His supporters argue that as a pragmatic leader, and a cunning statesman who excels in psychological warfare, he does not want to rule Beirut.

He is neither interested nor politically able (although it would be easy, in military terms). He realizes that the confessional system of Lebanon is too complicated for such a task, and said it bluntly last Wednesday, "If they told us to come take over, we would say 'no thank you'."

Had he wanted a real coup, he would not have transferred control to the Lebanese army, nor would he have laid down his arms in Beirut. He would have invaded and stormed the homes of Jumblatt and Hariri and arrested both of them, along with Siniora, and set up a new government, to his liking, and to that of Iran. But that is an illogical scenario that would never pass.

What he did last week in Beirut was show his power - flex his muscles - and tell the world, "I am still here. Still in control and still powerful - or as some would say, king - in Lebanese politics."
It was a rude wake-up call to all those who imagined he would never go this far to bring his message to the region and the international community. "

Analysis: Lebanese army will not step in before Hizballah fights pro-government forces to the finish

"DEBKAfile’s military sources report: After six days of fighting between government loyalists and Hizballah leave close to a 100 dead and 200 wounded, the Lebanese army’s demand that all combatants lay down their arms will go unheeded until the Shiite terrorists decide they have achieved their goals.

Hizballah is now focusing on the northern Tripoli region and the central mountains east of Beirut in line with those goals after deciding there is no need at this stage to topple the pro-Western Siniora government:

1. The northern port of Tripoli is important to Hizballah and Syria - both as the largest pro-Syrian Sunni stronghold in Lebanon and as a supply hub for incoming Iranian arms for Tehran’s Shiite proxy. The arms are unloaded from Iran freighters at the Syrian ports of Latakiya and Tartous and trucked to Tripoli.

2. Hizballah has a strategic interest in crushing the Druze militias of the anti-Syrian pro-government Walid Jumblatt, which control the Chouf mountains east of Beirut. Over and above this goal, DEBKAfile’s military sources stress that, after capturing most of Beirut last Saturday, Hizballah has focused on isolating and disarming the Sunni supporters of the Siniora government.

After a series of fierce clashes, Hizballah slapped down an ultimatum for Jumblatt: Pull your militiamen out of their bases and hand over your heavy weapons i.e. cannon, mortars, heavy machine guns, RPG’s and explosives, to the Lebanese army, or face the consequences. Hizballah then brought in heavy artillery, with Syrian help, and set about pounding Druze mountain positions. It is hard to see them holding out for long before Hizballah seizes control of the hills which command the entire Beirut plateau.

After the Druze militias fall, Hizballah may be expected to focus on vanquishing majority leader Saad Hariri’s Sunni forces in Sidon. This would isolate the only armed force left in Lebanon, the Christian Phalangists led by Samir Geagea.

In the face of the Iranian surrogate army’s lightning conquest of Lebanon, US president George W. Bush’s statement in Washington, on the even of his Middle East trip, that the United States would not let Syria and Iran undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty comes very much after the fact. His offer to help Siniora by strengthening his armed forces is equally belated. The Lebanese army is by now more an operational arm of Hizballah than an armed force that serves the government."

انها ليست حربا طائفية

انها ليست حربا طائفية

عبد الباري عطوان

"الشرخ اللبناني يتسع يوما بعد يوم، والطرف المنتصر يعزز مواقعه علي الارض، واعداد الضحايا في ازدياد مستمر، وبينما تتضاءل في الوقت نفسه فرص الحل، لان قنوات الحوار مسدودة، والوسطاء شبه عاجزين، لان الاوراق التي يملكونها ضعيفة، والقرار ليس في يد العرب وجامعتهم، وانما في خارج المنطقة برمتها.
الحسم العسكري الذي لجأ اليه معسكر المعارضة أربك جميع الاطراف، لبنانية كانت او اقليمية، من حيث سرعته اولا، وانهيار الطرف الآخر بسهولة غير متوقعة، ودون اي مقاومة تذكر، لوجود خلل كبير جدا في موازين القوي، ولعنصر المفاجأة ثانيا.
تحالف محور الاعتدال العربي يصر علي إلباس الأزمة الحالية في لبنان ثوبا مذهبيا، ويجيش امبراطوريته الاعلامية الجبارة، باذرعها التلفزيونية الضاربة، للتأكيد علي انه صراع سني ـ شيعي، وتعبئة المحيط العربي السني لنصرة اشقائهم المغلوبين علي امرهم في لبنان.
طبيعة التحالفات علي الارض تناقض هذا المفهوم كليا، فتكتل المعارضة الذي يتزعمه حزب الله يضم من السنّة اكثر مما يضم معسكر الموالاة، بينما ينقسم المسيحيون والدروز بالتساوي بين المعسكرين. والشيء نفسه يقال ايضا حتي عن الطائفة الأرمنية.
الصراع هو بين من يقف في معسكر الولايات المتحدة الامريكية، ومن يقف في معسكر مقاومة مشاريعها في الهيمنة، ودعم العدوان الاسرائيلي علي الأمة العربية. فالسني الطيب وفق التصنيف الامريكي، وبالتالي دول محور الاعتدال، هو من يؤيد السياسات الامريكية ويعادي ايران وحزب الله وحركات المقاومة في فلسطين، و الخبيث هو من يؤيد المقاومة في فلسطين والعراق. والمعيار نفسه ينطبق علي الشيعي والمسيحي والأرمني والكردي والآشوري والكلداني والصابئي والي آخر التقسيمات العرقية والطائفية في المنطقة العربية والعالم الاسلامي.

نري حرصا مفاجئا ولدرجة الهوس ، من قبل دول محور الاعتدال العربي علي السنّة في لبنان، والسنّة هنا هم انصار السيدين سعد الحريري وفؤاد السنيورة، وهو حرص مقدر وحميد، ولكن اليس من حقنا ان نسأل اين كانت هذه النخوة، و الحمية السنّية ، عندما كانت جثث ابناء الطائفة السنّية تلقي في شوارع بغداد مقطوعة الرؤوس، ومثقوبة الجماجم؟
اليس من حقنا ان نسأل اين كانت هذه الحمية السنّية ومليون ونصف مليون سنّي من ابناء قطاع غزة لا يجدون الطعام والدواء والوقود والملابس وقطع الغيار وأبسط المتطلبات الحياتية، وفوق كل هذا وذاك مجازر اسرائيلية مستمرة من قبل طائرات تقصف من السماء، ودبابات تطلق حمم صواريخها من الارض؟ ثم اين كان هؤلاء العرب الحريصون علي بيروت عندما اجتاحتها القوات الاسرائيلية عام 1982، ودمرتها مرة اخري في غزو تموز (يوليو) العام قبل الماضي؟
....
....."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
Birthday "candles":

Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, .....

By Emad Hajjaj

Hamas condemns the Holocaust

We are not engaged in a religious conflict with Jews; this is a political struggle to free ourselves from occupation and oppression

By Bassem Naeem
(minister of health and information in the Hamas-led Palestinian administration in Gaza)
The Guardian

"As the Palestinian people prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba ("catastrophe") - the dispossession and expulsion of most of our people from our land - those remaining in Palestine face escalating aggression, killings, imprisonment, ethnic cleansing and siege. But instead of support and solidarity from the western media, we face frequent attempts to defend the indefensible or turn fire on the Palestinians themselves.......

Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust but find themselves punished for someone else's crime. But we are well aware and warmly welcome the outspoken support for Palestinian rights by Israeli and Jewish human rights activists in Palestine and around the world.

We hope that journalists in the west will begin to adopt a more objective approach when covering events in Palestine. The Palestinian people are being killed by Israel's machine of destruction on a daily basis. Nevertheless, we still see a clear bias in favour of Israel in the western media.

The Europeans bear a direct responsibility for what is befalling the Palestinians today. Britain was the mandate authority that handed over Palestine to Israeli occupation. Nazi Germany perpetrated the most heinous crimes against Jews, forcing the survivors to migrate to Palestine in pursuit of safety. We, therefore, expect the Europeans to atone for their historic crimes by restoring some balance to the inhuman and one-sided international response to the tragedy of our people."

Lebanon: the army's role

The Lebanese army has remained scrupulously neutral during clashes between government and opposition. But can it last?

By Dilip Hiro
The Guardian

"It is tempting to see the current violence in Lebanon as a fight between Shia and Sunni, and as a preamble to a civil war. Tempting but inaccurate.

While the Shia in Lebanon are almost unanimous in their support of Hizbullah and its ally, Amal, the Sunnis and Christians are divided in their opposition to Hizbullah.

And Hizbullah has made a clear distinction between the Washington-backed coalition government of prime minister Fouad Siniora, and the military led by General Michel Suleiman. While fighting the Sunni and Druze militias belonging to the parties in the government, Hizbullah is cooperating with the army, handing over the captured areas in Beirut, the Shouf mountains and Tripoli to the regular armed forces of Lebanon......"

Bush Tour Diminished by Hezbollah Show of Force

A Good Analysis by Jim Lobe

"WASHINGTON, May 12 (IPS) - While this week's trip by President George W. Bush to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt was never conceived as a triumphant "victory lap" around the region, the swift rout of U.S.-backed forces by Lebanon's Hezbollah Friday has provided yet another vivid illustration of the rapid decline in Washington's influence in the Middle East during his tenure.

The events in Lebanon will no doubt cast a long shadow over Bush's tour, which begins Tuesday. After all, it was only three years ago that he hailed the "Cedar Revolution" there as vindication of the kind of democratic transformation of the region that he insisted the invasion of Iraq was designed to launch......

"The politics on the ground are absolutely miserable," Jon Alterman, a Middle East specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) here, told the New York Times Sunday. "It's hard to remember a less auspicious time to pursue Arab-Israeli peacemaking than right now. U.S. power and influence are at low ebb in the region," he added......

Apart from Israel, to which Bush has been by far the most indulgent president in the Jewish state's history, he is likely to get his warmest -- if most anxious -- reception when he meets with the assembled Sunni leaders, many of whom are as concerned about Shi'a Hezbollah's show of force as is Israel......

"These Sunni militiamen proved a complete failure, and America's proxies in Lebanon barely put up a fight despite their strident anti-Shiite rhetoric," noted Nir Rosen, a regional expert at the New America Foundation who described Hezbollah's offensive as "the death throes of the Bush plan for the 'New Middle East'."

"Now it is clear that Beirut is firmly in the hands of Hezbollah, and nothing the Americans can do will dislodge or weaken this popular movement, just as they cannot weaken the Sadrists in Iraq or Hamas in Gaza," he said......

Indeed, some analysts believe the weekend's events may add to the gradually growing clamour by hawks in and outside the administration to take military action -- if only, for now, limited strikes on weapons factories and training sites inside Iran allegedly used by the Revolutionary Guard to train "terrorists" in Iraq, Lebanon, and the PT -- to "put Iran in its place".

"The next couple of days may be critical," said one former senior Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer with expertise on the region, who added that any decision to "strike will actually motivated by an irresistible urge, stemming from pure frustration over continuing American impotence throughout the region, just to 'do something'...even though the actual positive gain in this case would be minimal, while the downside risks are enormous." "

Remembering 1948 and looking to the future

A Good Piece

By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 13 May 2008

"......As the noted Israeli historian and staunch Zionist Benny Morris put it in 2004, "a Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them." He went on, "there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing."

But if one is not prepared to openly justify ethnic cleansing, there's only two real options: to deny history and take comfort in an airbrushed story that paints Israelis as brave, divinely inspired pioneers in a desert devoid of indigenous people and beset by external enemies, or to own up to the consequences and support the enormous redress needed to bring justice and peace......

Over 80 percent of the Palestinians now besieged and starved in the Gaza Strip are refugees from towns now in Israel. But what Palestinians could never be forced to part with -- and this we do celebrate -- is our attachment to our homeland and the determination to see justice done.

Palestinians all over the world are commemorating the start of our ongoing tragedy, but we are also looking forward. We are at an important turning point, where two things are happening at once. First, despite ritual declarations of international support, the prospect of a two-state solution has all but disappeared as Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are caged into walled reservations by growing Israeli settlements and settler-only roads -- a situation that resembles the bantustans of apartheid South Africa.

Second, despite Israel's efforts to keep Palestinians in check, the Palestinian population living under Israeli rule is about to exceed the five million Israeli Jews. Today there are 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and another 1.5 million Palestinians who are nominally citizens of Israel. Sometimes called "Israeli Arabs," Palestinians in Israel are increasingly restive about their second class status in a Jewish state that regards them as a hostile fifth column. While Palestinians in Israel call for equal rights in a state of all its citizens, some Israeli Jewish politicians threaten them with expulsion to the West Bank, Gaza Strip or beyond.

Official projections show that by 2025, Palestinians, due to their much higher birth rate, will exceed Israeli Jews in the country by two million and though few in the international community have woken up to this reality, a surgical separation between these populations is impossible.

Israeli leaders understand what they are up against; Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said last November: "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished."

This struggle has already begun as more and more Palestinians, recognizing that statehood is unrealistic, debate and adopt the one-state solution, offering Israelis and Palestinians equal rights in the land they share. Last year, I was part of a group of Palestinians, Israelis and others who published the "One State Declaration." Inspired partly by South Africa's Freedom Charter, we set out principles for a common future in a single democratic state. Most Israelis, unsurprisingly, recoil at comparisons with apartheid South Africa. The good news for them is that the end of apartheid did not bring about the disaster many feared. Rather, it was a new dawn for all the people of the country."

Because The Pharaoh Has No Balls......

Gaza residents queue overnight for cooking gas

Rami Almeghari writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 13 May 2008

"As the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip enters its 11th month, the population's living conditions further deteriorate, with scores of people in different parts of the coastal region lining up in front of gas stations to receive provisions of cooking gas, a scarce commodity over the past four weeks......

Since June of last year, following the democratically-elected Hamas' routing of Fatah forces, Israel imposed a crippling closure on the Gaza Strip and in October began to cut off essential supplies like fuel and food items. In January of this year, it further tightened its measures. Israel says that its actions are meant to stop the firing of homemade rockets onto nearby Israeli towns.
Israel recently blamed Hamas for the fuel and cooking gas crisis, saying that the party manufactured the crisis by refusing fuel and gas shipments that Israel sends through the Nahal Oz fuel terminal in eastern Gaza. Israel closed the terminal almost four weeks ago, in the wake of a cross-border attack that claimed the lives of two Israelis.

But Mahmoud al-Khozendar, the deputy-director of Gaza's Petrol Station Owners Association, refuted the Israeli claims, saying that no effort was spared to alleviate the humanitarian burden caused by the siege.

"This is a big lie, because in the terminal of Nahal Oz, there is a space for 900 tons of liquid petrol gas, but they send nothing. Our stations do not stop them from bringing gas, but they send nothing. Also, we have already withdrawn all fuel from Nahal Oz, and the Israeli people know that there is nothing in Nahal Oz and they can send [fuel], but up until now they haven't sent a liter of gasoline, diesel or cooking gas."......

Late January of this year Israeli Prime Minister stated that "We will not let the residents of Gaza lead a comfortable and pleasant life" so long as rockets are fired from the Strip, adding, "As far as I am concerned, all of Gaza's residents can walk," referring the collective punishment measures imposed by Israel on the people of Gaza.

Such is Israel's cynical treatment of Gaza, where 80 percent of the population depend on humanitarian food aid and anemia amongst children is pervasive and the health care system is on the verge of collapse."

When Bush Speaks of Democracy… It's Hypocrisy

Al-Manar

"13/05/2008 Democracy is the system of rule by the people, but in the eyes of George W. Bush, it is the system of rule by Washington and Tel Aviv; everything else is mere totalitarism; a system which in many countries, particularly Arab countries, basks in Washington's political attention.

One and a half years earlier, more than one and a half million people took to the streets to demand Fouad Saniora's resignation. More than 18 months of protests and sit-ins didn't reach the ears or the consciousness of this unconstitutional prime minister.
If this is not violation to the principle of democracy then what is?

Of course, democracy the Bush way.
"By the way it's in Israel's interest that the Lebanese democracy survives," Bush told Israel's Channel 10 on Monday. The American President was speaking ahead of a meeting with the head of another Washington-style democracy leader, Ehud Olmert, to mark the 60th anniversary of usurping Palestine and massacring half of its people.

Bush said he planned to consult with regional leaders during his trip to the Middle East this week in order to coordinate efforts to support Saniora's government and implement U.N. resolutions supporting Lebanon's sovereignty.

"It is critical that the international community come together to assist the Lebanese people in their hour of need," said Bush, who leaves Tuesday on a five-day trip to occupied Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

"The Lebanese people have sacrificed much for the sake of their freedom, and the United States will continue to stand with them against this latest assault on their independence and security," he said in the statement.

"If Bush is limiting the Lebanese people to one group, that is the ruling bloc, and disregarding the other group which constitutes more than two-thirds of the population, then this is hypocrisy. It's true that the Lebanese people have sacrificed for their freedom, but their freedom was fulfilled when Israel was forced out of Lebanon in 2000 under the strikes of the resistance and the steadfastness of the resistance community, after 22 years of US backed occupation and oppression," political analyst Mohamad Yusuf told Al-Manar site.

At the U.N., U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called for the Security Council to hold formal discussions on Lebanon as soon as possible. "We believe there should be action in the Security Council on the situation in Lebanon," Khalilzad told reporters. "

Carlos Latuff: Apartheid: then and now

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

Carlos Latuff: Another Hezbollah victory

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

West Bank journalists detained by PA intelligence

Report, PCHR, 12 May 2008

"The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the detention of three Palestinian journalists and a columnist by the Palestinian General Intelligence Service (GIS) in Bethlehem and Qalqilya towns in the West Bank on Thursday, 8 May 2008. PCHR believes that such arrests constitute an attack on press freedoms and the right to freedom of expression, which are ensured by the Palestinian Basic Law and international human rights instruments.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR and the testimony of cameraman Aseed 'Abdul Majeed 'Amarna, 23, at approximately 12:00 on Thursday, 8 May 2008, 'Amarna was photographing a march organized in Bethlehem on the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (the uprooting of the Palestinian people from their land in 1948). When the march arrived in al-'Azza refugee camp, north of the town, a person wearing civilian clothes approached 'Amarna. He ordered him to stop photographing and to accompany him. When that person knew that 'Amarna was photographing for the al-Aqsa Satellite Channel of Hamas, two other persons came and confiscated the camera. The three persons then pushed 'Amarna into a military vehicle and transported him to the headquarters of the GIS in Bethlehem. According to 'Amarna, he was sporadically interrogated about his work until 23:00. After 'Amarna had shown the interrogators a court ruling acquitting him of previous charges related to his work, and after the Head of the Palestinian Journalists' Union, Na'im al-Tubassi, had intervened to ensure his release, 'Amarna was eventually released at 23:30, but he was ordered to refer to the GIS on Sunday, 11 May 2008. The interrogators seized his camera......

PCHR strongly condemns these attacks and:

1) Expresses utmost concern over the recurrence of violations of the right to freedom of expression and press freedoms, and calls for providing protection to journalists and the media to be able to work freely.

2) Stresses that the right to freedom of expression is ensured by the Palestinian Basic Law and international human rights instruments."

Photostory: Total occupation, a journey around Hebron

Eddie Vassallo writing from Hebron, occupied West Bank, Live from Palestine, 12 May 2008

"With 400 hard-line religious settlers packed tightly amidst more than 160,000 Palestinians in the center of Hebron's Old City, violence is not a probability, it is a given. Add to that the nearly 2,000 Israeli troops assigned to "protect" the settlers -- a loose term given the near total impunity enjoyed by the settlers whose daily abuse of their Palestinian neighbors is unimaginable -- and you can begin to understand how peace is a little more than a word in this part of the West Bank.

After touring some of the devastation wrought by Israel's "separation barrier" the previous day and witnessing the dissected refugee town of Deir al-Barid where children are forced to scramble through a fetid and dangerous sewage system as their only means of access between their homes and school, I felt certain little remained to shock me. I was wrong.

As I was to witness -- in Hebron, occupation is total......."

Lebanon's Sunni bloc built militia, officials say

The Future movement used a security firm to assemble a private force, officials say. But the fighters were no match for the Shiite group Hezbollah.

By Borzou Daragahi and Raed Rafei, Special to The Times
May 12, 2008
Los Angeles Times

"BEIRUT -- For a year, the main Lebanese political faction backed by the United States built a Sunni Muslim militia here under the guise of private security companies, Lebanese security experts and officials said.

The fighters, aligned with Saad Hariri's Future movement, were trained and armed to counter the heavily armed Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah and protect their turf in a potential military confrontation.

But in a single night late last week, the curious experiment in private-sector warfare crumbled.

Attacked by Hezbollah, the Future movement fighters quickly fled Beirut or gave up their weapons. Afterward, some of the fighters said they felt betrayed by their political patrons, who failed to give them the means to protect themselves while official security forces stood aside and let Hezbollah destroy them.

"We are prepared to fight for a few hours but not more," said one of the Sunni fighters in the waning moments of the battle. "Where do we get ammunition and weapons from? We are blocked. The roads are blocked. Even Saad Hariri has left us to face our fate alone."

The head of a conventional private security firm in Beirut, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Sunni force was "not really ready."

"You can't just spend millions of dollars to build an army in one year," he said. "They have to be motivated and believe in something. They have to be willing to die.".......

After the Future movement fighters gave up, Hezbollah handed them over to the Lebanese army, freeing itself of caring for prisoners while preventing the captured fighters from reentering the battle for at least a few days.

At a hospital near the scene of some of the heaviest fighting, a Future movement fighter employed by Secure Plus wandered stunned in his pajamas with his two sons, who also served in the Sunni militia. His sons had suffered minor wounds after being beaten up by Hezbollah fighters.

Once he realized that Hezbollah's victory was inevitable, he and his sons tried to escape their rivals' clutches by staying home. But to no avail; Hezbollah knew where they lived.

"I didn't leave my home," he said. "They came for us.""

Hezbollah's street fight just a first step

By Mona Alami
Asia Times

"BEIRUT - At least 38 people were killed and 30 injured in the recent gun battles pitting opposition Shi'ite Amal and Hezbollah fighters against members of the Sunni Future Movement, which is part of the majority March 14 alliance in government. As the opposition's militia clamped down on government headquarters, the balance of power seems to have been shifted permanently in the Land of the Cedars.......

"This is nothing short of a new phase in Lebanese politics," said political scientist Amal Saad Ghorayeb, author of Hezbollah: Politics and Religion. "The government's decision [to remove airport security head Shoucair and denounce the party's private communication network] was unprecedented, and de-legitimized the party's right to resist. I do not see, however, the conflict prevailing for more than a few days," she said. "I expect it to come to a quick resolve, due to the obvious disequilibrium in the balance of power."

The political scientist stated that Hezbollah's proven military superiority will pressure the majority into a compromise. "It is inevitable - the government will have to resign," she said. Saad Ghorayeb predicts that an interim consensus government will call for early parliamentary elections, a longstanding demand of the opposition.

As fighting subsides and the opposition asserts its control over the city's western areas, the implications of the events unfolding in Beirut will certainly reach beyond the country's boundaries. "This will lead without a doubt to a drastic reconfiguration of the political order and might pave the way to a revision of the Taef accords, in order to correct the system's imbalances," said Ghorayeb."

Real News Video: "Bomb Syria" Woolsey advises McCain

"Eric Margolis: Former CIA head James Woolsey heads group of neo-con advisors to John McCain

Monday May 12th, 2008

John McCain has recruited several members of "The Committee on the Present Danger" as foreign policy advisors, including former CIA head James Woolsey. Do Woolsey's viewpoints represent McCain's vision for America and the world? "

Franklin Lamb: Welch Club, Allies Lose in Lebanon

Al-Manar

"12/05/2008 Prominent American journalist and Director of the "Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace" institution Dr. Franklin Lamb labeled losers and winners in Lebanon in the wake of recent developments in the country.

Dr. Lamb said that "the main losers obviously are the Bush administration, Israel and their Welch Club allies. Personal losers are Amin Gemayel, barely still the "leader" of the Phalange Party, as he talks tough and tries to rally his 'forces'…from Paris. Samir Geagea has pretty much nudged him aside and is reportedly casting his dark gaze toward Saad Hariri who may be planning to retire from politics and help with the very big family business. After the parties meet with President Bush next week, a 'shaking out' process may begin.

Dr. Lamb added that "Walid Jumblatt is another loser since his provocations, taunts, and Welch Club cheerleader role to take on Hezbollah left him at its mercy both in the Mountains and in his Beirut home… asking the army to occupy and secure his Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) HQ."

Another loser, Dr. Lamb added is Fouad Saniora. "Prime Minister Fouad Saniora loses more of his waning influence and status. One of his main problems is that he is increasingly seen as a Bush administration puppet. Not least of his worries this morning, as he prepares to avoid being dumped by Bush next week, is the ringing endorsement he received yesterday from Secretary of State Rice, without bringing herself to mention Saniora by name," Dr. Lamb wrote.

On the other hand, Lamb determined the winners as follows: Lebanon's Christian population allied with General Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Hezbollah, Amal and their Sunni, Druze and international supporters. He described Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's position as "the strongest it has ever been, not just in Lebanon but throughout the region". Lamb called on Hezbollah and its allies to prove what the ruling bloc has failed to prove. "Now Nasrallah has to prove that his side is ready, willing and able to live up to its own expectations…If Nasrallah is the man who makes this happen, history will judge his actions to have been a revolution, not a coup, and a long-overdue one at that."

"Now", Lamb concluded, "Nasrallah has to prove that his side is ready, willing and able to live up to its own expectations, and speed is of the essence -- If Nasrallah is the man who makes this happen, history will judge his actions to have been a revolution, not a coup."

In the mean time, British daily "The Independent" reporter Robert Fisk began his report with the expression "another American humiliation." He compared between Saniora's government and that of Iraqi PM Nuri el-Maliki's. "The cabinet of Fouad Saniora sits in the old Turkish Serail in Beirut, with the same authority as the Iraqi government in Baghdad's green zone", Fisk said."

Ruling Bloc, its Armed Militias Towards Collapse

Al-Manar

"12/05/2008 The ruling bloc is seriously confused and its armed militia is very close to collapse in front of National Opposition supporters. Fierce fighting has erupted in most areas of Mount Lebanon between Walid Jumblatt’s militia and opposition supporters as calm returned to the capital Beirut that is under total control of the Lebanese army.

Opposition supporters in Mount Lebanon forced out Jumblatt’ Progressive Socialist Party militiamen from several areas mainly, Shemlan, Aytat, Kabr Chmoun, Dafoun, Ein Enoub, Bsaba, Deir Koubel, Souk el-Gharb, Baysour, Yetloun, Gaboun, Kafr Amyah, Tallet Shatra and the 888 hill......

SANIORA AND TEAM TO REVOKE BLACK DECISIONS MONDAY

Fouad Saniora announced that his ministerial team will hold a meeting upon the return of his acting Foreign Minister Tareq Mitri from an Arab meeting in Cairo. The unconstitutional cabinet will revoke its decision to remove airport security Chief Brigadier General Wafiq Shqeir and to consider Hezbollah’s communications network illegal. Saniora’s decisions, although warned against them even by some in his bloc, have led to the recent developments in Lebanon.

In the meantime, opposition sources told Al-Manar that revoking the decisions will not end a state of civil disobedience, pending the implementation of article 2 of the settlement it proposed; to start national dialogue. The ruling bloc is divided on Saniora’s move Monday. Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea and some other “March 14” members don’t want dialogue, whereas Walid Jumblatt seems eager to end this matter. For his part, MP Saad Hariri is still waiting for instructions from Saudi Arabia which, according to sources, stopped Saniora from tendering his resignation on Friday.

Collapsed Hariri couldn’t make the visit to the Saudi embassy, so he dispatched his aide Mohamad Shatah who met with Ambassador Abdul Aziz Khoja. The source told Al-Manar that Riyadh was close to agree on Saniora’s resignation, but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interfered and stopped the process. She assured Saniora and promised his big Arab support during the ministerial meeting in Cairo Sunday as well as international backing Monday.

What’s next?

The fast fall of the ruling bloc is for sure and a new political era will start; an era that will have its repercussions on the regional stage, for sure. "

The Prime Directive

U.S. war plans targeting Iran are all about "protecting" Israel

By Justin Raimondo

" It looks like the War Party is victorious, at least according to Philip Giraldi [This was posted Here on Palestinian Pundit] writing on The American Conservative blog:

"There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Quds-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action."........

Of course, the reason could be because it's not true, but my sources are telling me that this isn't just "speculation and buzz" – it's for real. War is imminent. The markets sense it, too, which is why the price of oil keeps climbing to record levels.

Giraldi has more:

"The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran. The U.S. demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups. There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon. The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the U.S. ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups. The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles."

A decision to go to war, sub rosa back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran using the Kurds (probably the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which has close ties to Iran) as intermediaries, missile strikes near Tehran, the dissent of Robert Gates: all of this is very big news. Yet not a word is reaching the general public........."

Israel's celebration remains a Palestinian catastrophe

Neither side will ever agree on the narrative of the conflict, and the prospects for peace in the Middle East are slim

By Ahmad Samih Khalidi
The Guardian, Monday May 12 2008

"As Israel celebrates the 60th anniversary of its establishment, an inescapable counter-reality lingers over the occasion that is inextricably twinned with it. It is the nakba or catastrophe, the 60th anniversary of the destruction of Arab Palestine in 1948.

Despite a public discourse that often claimed the opposite, the Zionist movement set out to build a Jewish state in Palestine with a Jewish majority. This could only come about at the expense of the local inhabitants, the vast majority of whom were Palestinian Arabs - both Muslim and Christian. From this perspective, neither the Zionists' intentions nor the reactions of the Palestinians are at issue: Israel could not have been built as a Jewish state except on the ruins of Arab Palestine......

As things stand, and in a situation where the vast majority of Israelis are impervious to the horrors of the occupation and shielded from its consequences, and where Palestinian aspirations are being dissipated by the daily changes on the ground and the PA's own failures, it is hard to avoid the fear that the next shift in attitude is going to be the product of yet another cataclysm.

At the one end of the spectrum of possibilities is an open-ended and continuous spiral of conflict. At the other is a new set of relations between Arab and Jew, and new forms of association on the land of Palestine that go beyond the dying paradigm of a two-state solution towards different formulae for power-sharing, partition or sovereignty. One century after the first Zionist incursion into Palestine, and 60 years after the great determining event of 1948, it would take a brave soothsayer to predict which course will prevail."

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Story - Lebanon's army - 11 May 08

Part 1



Part 2



"The Lebanese army has taken control of Beirut and Tripoli to end fierce fighting between Hezbollah-led opposition fighters and supporters of the government. But the army has been accused of defying the country's government and bowing to Hezbollah's demands. Inside Story asks if the army is now playing politics and taking sides."

Al-Jazeera Video: Violence flares in city of Tripoli, Lebanon - 12 May 08

"Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from the north of Beirut, where Lebanese army troops have been deployed in the city of Tripoli, to end the fierce fighting between pro and anti government supporters. Thousands of people have fled their homes and several were reportedly killed. "

“But what if nobody takes notice?”

A Good Piece

By Alastair Crooke, Conflicts Forum, May 11, 2008

"“But what if nobody takes notice?” is the question posed by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha in an article in the recent New York Review of Books concerning the putative ‘shelf agreement’ being discussed between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert. A ‘shelf agreement’ is an exercise in outlining some principles for the settlement of the Palestinian issue, rather than to attempt a full solution. It is a document, the culmination of the Annapolis process, intended not for implementation; but rather immediately to be set aside — on the ‘shelf’ — whilst all parties, Bush, Abbas and Olmert declare the document to represent a huge triumph — whilst shamelessly waving this Chamberlinesque ‘peace in out time’ paper before their electorates in order to ‘help’ in their respective elections, or to cement legacies.........

But reality is different: In the region — beyond the Ramallah hothouse — there is no “what if?” The failure of the two-state solution is expected, and discounted, as thinking has evolved in a different direction: The cheer-leaders among Europeans desperate to ‘rescue’ it are stuck in denial from this perspective.....

Even if the Israeli Prime Minister belatedly were to recognise that its policy ultimately has not served Israeli interests, the theft and fragmentation of Palestinian lands, without let-up over forty years — as even a child understands — makes any meaningful independent Palestinian state now virtually an impossibility. Palestinians have understood this for a long time......

There is perhaps a fine irony here: As Israel has contributed to the self-destruction of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh movement, by undermining its credibility and by continuing with the settlement project; so too, perhaps, has Fateh slipped a suicide pill to Israel. Israel’s and America’s blindness to the sea-changes taking place in the region — or the contempt with which they are viewed — may stem in part from their overly close association with the ‘moderates’ in Fateh.

Israel has become so accustomed to Palestinian negotiators running to talks with Israel — irrespective of the deaths of Palestinians or new announcements of further illegal settlement construction — that Israel and the US Administration take the “Palestinians desperate for any hope” narrative so seriously that they believe that an Israeli ‘signal of peace’, however cynical its motive, is enough to placate the region — and to allow Israel and the US the quiet with which to continue with their plans.

But if this is what they think, then it is little wonder that the West so regularly misreads the ground in the region: Not all Palestinians are ‘desperate’ for hope from Israel. Far from it, many are making ready against the possibility of conflict.

The feeling among Islamists, many secularists, Christians, and a number of states is of being at the cusp of fundamental change. Change is coming; and the region will not again be what it is today: This major current does not foresee the coming era to be the one that Europe or the US envisages; but something very different. Islamic movements and states such as Syria and Iran increasingly are concerned to judge the evolving strategic shifts accurately. This is more important to them than to make some tactical and short term political accommodation with western powers — no one wants to be caught on the wrong side of events........"

Blast kills Gaza teacher in front of her children. Is it a Genocide Yet?

By Donald Macintyre in Khan Younis
The Independent, Monday, 12 May 2008

"The UN is demanding an investigation into how the Israeli military killed one of its Palestinian school teachers by blasting open the front door of her Gaza home with explosives in the presence of three of her children.

Wafer Shaker al Daghma, 34, a teacher at a local UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) elementary school, was killed last Wednesday as she stood preparing to open the wooden door of her home to the troops. According to UNRWA and relatives who found her body, the military used an explosive device on the door which blew most of her head from her body. They then confined the traumatised children – aged from two to 13 – for five hours while the body lay outside the door of the room where they were held.

Although the soldiers finally left the house – in darkness because of a blackout – at around 9pm, Mrs al Daghma's 13-year-old daughter Samira was too terrified to go outside for help for another two hours because of the continued presence of Israeli armoured vehicles outside her home........

Samira al Daghma said yesterday that after entering the house the soldiers had kept her, her sister Roba, four, and brother Qusay, two, in the room. "They did not let us out. There was one soldier at the door of the room. I asked him: 'Where is my mother?' He was speaking in Hebrew and I didn't understand him."

She said that when the soldiers finally left, she crawled with her siblings to a room on the eastern side of the house. "There were still tanks outside our house and if I had gone out they would have seen me. I tried to call my father on my mother's Jawwal [cellphone] but there was no line. I lifted the carpet and saw a bit of my mother's clothes. She was not moving. I did not see her head."......"

Watch Out Hizbullah!

A Delegation of Eunuchs From The "Arab League" is Coming to Lebanon Within 24 Hours....
Take Heart Siniora, Help is On The Way! How Do You Like Your Tea?

Report: Ethnic cleansing continues in Jaffa

Report, Arab Associatoin for Human Rights, 11 May 2008


Photograph: Palestinians leaving Jaffa during the ethnic cleansing of 1948

"The war that began in 1948 to purge Jaffa of its Arab residents has never ended and continues to this day. In 1948 it was waged by force, and today they use legal and economic means. The state claims that these are the rules of the market, in full knowledge that they will work against the Arab population."
-- Attorney Hisham Shabaita, a social activist and Jaffa resident

"......According to the Palestinian residents, however, the issuing of these orders actually reflects a desire to evict them from the neighborhood, which in recent years has become a magnet for wealthy Jewish buyers. They believe that the issuing of the eviction orders cannot be divorced from a process terms the "development of Jaffa" by the Tel Aviv Municipality. This process, which is currently at its peak, actually amounts to a plan to "judaize" Jaffa, i.e. to attract as many Jewish residents as possible to the area, which is currently perceived by the Jewish public as an "Arab" city -- despite the fact that, in statistical terms, this is inaccurate.......

In practice, the "development" of Jaffa has resulted in a growing number of Arab residents leaving the area as real estate prices have soared following the development process. Conversely, a growing number of prosperous Jewish residents have moved into the neighborhood. The local Palestinian residents have good cause to believe that this was the original intention behind the program. Those involved must have been aware that the development of the area would lead to a rise in real estate prices, and that this would eventually leave the Palestinian residents with no choice but to leave the area. Attorney Hisham Shabaita, a social activist and Jaffa resident who is employed at the Law Clinic of Tel Aviv University, commented: "The state claims that these are the rules of the market, in full knowledge that they will work against the Arab population."

The suspicions of the Palestinian residents are corroborated by the fact that most of the alleged legal violations attributed to the Palestinian tenants (the cases of squatting and building additions alleged by Amidar) were committed 20 to 30 years ago. In light of this, the Palestinian residents find themselves wondering why Amidar has only now remembered to enforce the law!.......

According to the committee, the Palestinian residents of Jaffa face a constant threat, and the current eviction orders are just part of an overall plan on the part of the authorities to judaize Jaffa on the pretext of legal violations. Most of the Palestinian residents link the latest eviction orders with the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in 1948 in Jaffa and elsewhere. The difference between the two periods is the tool used. While in 1948 the Palestinians were evicted from their homes by force, 60 years on the authorities are now trying to evict the Palestinians -- who have since become citizens in the Jewish state -- by economic and legal means. For these residents, ethnic cleansing did not end in 1948. It continues to this day, albeit by different means. The process being implemented in Jaffa (and in other locations in Israel) amounts to the "quiet transfer" of the Palestinian residents.

This report documents the danger of eviction facing the Palestinian residents of the Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa and reveals the true motives behind this process."

Click Here to Download Whole Report (pdf)

***
A Comment: The Ajami district in Jaffa is where I was born in 1945. My family was ethnically cleansed, just like the people you see in the photo above, from their home in Jaffa.

Forget the two-state solution

By Saree Makdisi
(professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA and the author of "Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation")
May 11, 2008

Los Angeles Times

"There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget the endless arguments about who offered what and who spurned whom and whether the Oslo peace process died when Yasser Arafat walked away from the bargaining table or whether it was Ariel Sharon's stroll through the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that did it in.

All that matters are the facts on the ground, of which the most important is that -- after four decades of intensive Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories it occupied during the 1967 war -- Israel has irreversibly cemented its grip on the land on which a Palestinian state might have been created......

Most Israelis are not yet reconciled this position. Some, no doubt, are reluctant to give up on the idea of a "Jewish state," to acknowledge the reality that Israel has never been exclusively Jewish, and that, from the start, the idea of privileging members of one group over all other citizens has been fundamentally undemocratic and unfair.

Yet that is exactly what Israel does. Even among its citizens, Israeli law grants rights to Jews that it denies to non-Jews. By no stretch of the imagination is Israel a genuine democracy: It is an ethno-religiously exclusive state that has tried to defy the multicultural history of the land on which it was founded.

To resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, Israeli Jews will have to relinquish their exclusive privileges and acknowledge the right of return of Palestinians expelled from their homes. What they would get in return is the ability to live securely and to prosper with -- rather than continuing to battle against -- the Palestinians.

They may not have a choice. As Olmert himself warned recently, more Palestinians are shifting their struggle from one for an independent state to a South African-style struggle that demands equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion, in a single state. "That is, of course," he noted, "a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle -- and ultimately a much more powerful one."

I couldn't agree more."

No Time to Celebrate

"May 8, 2008: twenty Jews are arrested in a civil disobedience action disrupting a celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary, at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco, CA. "

غزة بيروت أولا

غزة 14 - 6 -2007

بيروت 9 - 5 - 2008
متى الضفة ؟

Vice Premier: We must view Lebanon as 'Hezbollah state'

"Vice Premier Haim Ramon on Sunday said that Lebanon must be viewed as a "Hezbollah state," after the Shiite guerilla group seized control over the Lebanese capital over the weekend.

"Lebanon has no government. It is a fiction, there is only Hezbollah," Ramon said during the weekly cabinet meeting. "Hezbollah is directly responsible for everything that happens [in Lebanon], and the organization completely controls the state."....."

Lebanon does not want another war. Does it?

Despite everything that has happened in the past few days, the people have no appetite for yet more civil conflict

By Robert Fisk in Beirut
Sunday, 11 May 2008

" went to cover a demonstration in West Beirut yesterday morning – yes, please note the capital W on "West" – and then I get a text from a Lebanese woman on my mobile phone, asking if she will have to wear a veil when she returns to Lebanon. How do I reply? That the restaurants are still open? That you can still drink wine with your dinner?

That is the problem. For the war in West Beirut is not about religion. It is about the political legitimacy of the Lebanese government and its "pro-American" support (the latter an essential adjective to any US news agency report), which Iran understandably challenges.

A few days ago, I went to view an exhibition – here, in Beirut – of posters of the terrible 15-year civil war which cost the Lebanese and Palestinians 150,000 lives. It was called "Signs of Conflict: Political Posters of Lebanon's Civil War, 1975-1990", and I came to the conclusion that there would never be a civil war in Lebanon again. How could a people who were prepared to show such outrageous placards re-fight this hopeless conflict? But, am I not seeing almost identical posters in the streets of West Beirut?......."

The Lebanese Army.......
Honor......Sacrifice.......Faithfulness........

Sugar with your Tea, IOF?

هدية مصر لإسرائيل في ذكراها الستين ـ د. عبد الله الأشعل

Contributed by Fatima

السفير د. عبد الله الأشعل : بتاريخ 10 - 5 - 2008

"استعدت الأوساط الصهيونية فى العالم لإحياء الذكرى الستين لقيام إسرائيل وشكلت لجانا ليكون هذا الاحتفال لائقا بدولة زرعت على جثث شعب وفرضت نفسها علي جسد أمة ودخل السرطان فى هذا الجسد رغم كل المقاومات وراح السرطان ينخر فى هذا الجسد حتى أصبح سلوك الجسد سرطانيا, أى يأكل بعضه بعضا وتهاجم أعضاؤه أعضاءه الأخرى. وكان واضحا أن حارس هذا الجسد العربي هو مصر ولكن العملية الجراحية التى أجريت لها على مستوى القرار واستأصلت منها على هذا المستوى معايير التمييز بين ما ينفعها وما ينفع الفيروس المهاجم لها, ونقصد بها اتفاقية السلام عام 1979, قد تفاعلت وآتت أكلها وكنت أشعر دائما أن الخضوع المصري الكامل لنزوات إسرائيل والحديث فى نفس الوقت عن دور مصرى تسمح به إسرائيل لمصر وحالة الذل التى يشعر بها كل المصريين لا تكفى, وإنما تفكر مصر فى مكافأة إسرائيل بمناسبة ميلادها الستين وبلوغها سن النضج, وهى التى تتمنى وتسعى بكل شر لمصر وللمصريين وأسعدها كثيرا أن ترى هؤلاء الأعداء الأشرار الضحايا فى الواقع يسقطون ضحايا رغيف الخبز بدلا من الاستشهاد ودفاعا عن الكرامة ضد إسرائيل. ولم يخب ظني فقد ادخرت الحكومة الهدية الكبرى وهى الغاز الذى يضخ إلى إسرائيل مع بدء الاحتفال بعيدها الستين, فى الوقت الذى تعانى فيه أحياء فى العاصمة ومدن وقرى فى مصر من الحرمان من الكهرباء والغاز وتستورد مصر أنواعا من الغاز , وتمارس إسرائيل ضد غزة إبادة من كل صنف بما فى ذلك قطع الطاقة والكهرباء التى تزودها مصر بمقومات إنتاجها. والطريف أن الغاز يباع لإسرائيل بربع تكلفة إنتاجه أى أن مصر تدعم المواطن الإسرائيلي بخمسة دولارات فرق سعر البيع عن تكلفة الإنتاج مضروبا فى 2 مليار متر مكعب كل عام أى 10 مليار دولار سنويا أى 200 مليار دولار خلال مدة العقد وهو عشرون عاما. بل إن المبلغ يضرب مرة أخرى فى 9 دولارات الفرق بين تكلفة الإنتاج وسعره فى السوق العالمي اليوم أى أن مصر تدفع لإسرائيل نقدا ما يساوى 28 مليار دولار فى العام أى 560 مليار دولار خلال العشرين عاما القادمة.
هذه الصفقة مسكونة بآلاف الأسئلة الحرجة أقلها التواطؤ مع العدو الصهيوني من قوت الشعب المصرى وهذه جريمة تحتاج إلى توصيف قانونى جديد بعد أن تلاشت الجرائم العظمى من قاموس التعامل بين مصر وإسرائيل.
فأيهما قدم الهدية الأجمل والأكثر فائدة :مصر أم أمريكا, التى اكتفى مجلسا الكونجرس فيها بتهنئة إسرائيل وشعبها على الصمود فى وجه البرابرة, ولكن الكونجرس الأمريكى يعلم أن ما قدمته مصر مضاف إلى ما قدمته واشنطن لأنه لولا واشنطن وعلاقات مصر الإستراتيجية معها لما قدمت مصر هذه الهدية التى لا تقدر بثمن. هل يمكن أن تفسر لنا الصفقة تصريح أولمرت, الذى نقلته كل الصحف العبرية, وهو يوبخ وزيرة خارجيته التى قررت منع أبو الغيط من دخول إسرائيل, وأنه شديد الامتنان لمبارك ويريد له طول البقاء, ولا يدرى ماذا كانت إسرائيل ستفعل لو لم يكن طوال هذه الفترة على رأس مصر. وما دامت تلك هى مشاعر القيادة السياسية المصرية إزاء إسرائيل فماذا سيقول التاريخ بعد زوال إسرائيل إن عاجلا أو آجلا. رحم الله الزمن الذى كان الاستماع فيه إلى إذاعة إسرائيل من جرائم أمن الدولة. "