Headlines for May 26 - June 1

A Stand For Justice


Israel Prepping to Block Next Gaza Flotilla
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel prefers a diplomatic move to thwart the flotilla expected at the end of June, but if necessary would exercise force against anyone who tries to disobey the navy's orders and head to Gaza's shore.


Egypt permanently opens Gaza border crossing
Rami Arafat, 52, was among the earliest arrivals. He said he hoped to catch a flight out of Cairo on Sunday to Algeria for his daughter's wedding.

"All we need is to travel like humans, be treated with dignity, and feel like any other citizens of the world who can travel in and out freely,'' Arafat said. He said he believed the relaxing of travel restrictions "will guarantee more support from all Arabs and Palestinians for the new Egyptian regime.''
Free at last, free at last.


Arrests made at Jerusalem march



Gaza flotilla organizers mark raid anniversary
"The Gaza shore has to be free. That's why we are sailing there," said Vangelis Pisias, a Greek organizer, said at a news conference on the Mavi Marmara, a ferry that was boarded by Israeli commandos before dawn on May 31, 2010. Nine activists died in the botched commando operation, with each side accusing the other of starting the violence


Jewish worshippers, soldiers clash in West Bank
The Israeli military says soldiers have forcibly removed dozens of Jewish worshippers who refused to leave a holy site inside a Palestinian city in the West Bank.

An estimated 1,600 worshippers entered the city of Nablus early Monday for nighttime prayers at a site believed to be the tomb of the biblical Joseph. The visit was coordinated with the military and Palestinian security forces.


UN: Israel should end eviction of Palestinians from their homes
Israel should end the forced eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the occupied Palestinian territories, the UN humanitarian emergency coordinator said Tuesday


Top Palestinian negotiator: Israel destroying two-state solution



One Year from Gaza Freedom Flotilla, Another on the Horizon
The United States government refused to conduct an investigation into the death of American citizen Dogan, instead stating that the U.S. would rely on Israel’s investigation into its own actions. The United States even refused to cite Dogan’s death in the recently released State Department’s annual Human Rights report on Israel, the first time the violent death of an American citizen in the West Bank or Gaza has not been acknowledged in this report. This is what happened when Israel attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, killing 34 Americans and wounding scores more. The US did nothing. Same with when Israel killed Rachel Corrie in 2003. Israel kills Americans with impunity.


'Spain will recognize Palestinian state on 1967 lines'
The Palestinian Authority announced on Thursday that Spain has decided to recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines before September. A spanish diplomat told Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath that Spain would support making the state of Palestine a UN member. Excellent news.


Settlers burn ancient olive trees in Tel Rumeida
The fire affected sixteen ancient olive trees, some more than a thousand years
old, in an area of almost two dunum (one-half acre). The soldiers from the post
nearby yelled at the CPTers to leave the field, but CPTers called out to them
that they were on land belonging to the Abu Haikel family, who had invited them
to be there. When the CPTers continued to take pictures, the soldiers took no
further action.


CPT releases video about Israeli intelligence incursion in At-Tuwani
On Monday May 23, Israeli intelligence entered At-Tuwani, escorted by about fifteen soldiers. In the operation the Israeli military invaded a local leader's house, demanded that villagers stop their nonviolent resistance and threatened violent retaliation if the Palestinians persist asserting their rights to the land.


Obama pushes Europe not to support Palestinians' U.N. statehood bid
A week after ratcheting up pressure on Israel's government to restart peace talks with Palestinians, President Obama launched a campaign to persuade European leaders not to endorse a separate Palestinian bid for statehood. But his appeal to Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, won only a noncommittal response. The United States ought to stop doing Israel's bidding, heed the wonderous words in George Washington's Farewell address.


Hamas: Russia pledges to back Palestinian bid for state recognition
A partner of the United States, the EU and the United Nations in the Middle East "quartet", Moscow has made a point of calling for the inclusion of Hamas in diplomacy, hosting its leaders and saying isolating it is counterproductive.


Arab League to seek U.N. seat for Palestinian state
The Arab League's peace process committee, meeting in Doha, said it would request membership for the state of Palestine at the U.N. General Assembly's meeting in New York in September.


Abbas sees no hope for talks and is firm on U.N. path
The Palestinian president said on Saturday there were "no shared foundations" for peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seeking U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood was his only option.


Obama's new security staff may approve attack on Iran
The conclusion is that between the end of June and Gates' retirement, and the end of September and Mullen's retirement, the danger that Netanyahu and Barak will aim at a surprise in Iran is especially great, especially since this would divert attention from the Palestinian issue. As the Supreme Court explained to Moshe Katsav's lawyers, some plans for summer vacations might be canceled.


Bad News From The BBC - Part 1: 'Replete With Imbalance And Distortion'
One of the main headlines on the BBC news homepage earlier this month read, 'Violence erupts at Israel borders'. Israeli soldiers had shot dead at least 12 protesters and injured dozens more. BBC 'impartiality' decreed that the brutal killings were presented almost as an act of nature, a volcanic eruption that simply happened.


Free software campaigner Richard Stallman cancels Israel lectures due to Palestinian pressure
The funding for his trip came from the Palestinians who invited him to lecture for them, Stallman wrote in a letter explaining the cancellation. He said that they were not pleased that he had been scheduled to lecture at Israeli universities as well, and so withheld funding for his trip.


Why did I disrupt
Do you know that our Congress gave 29 standing ovations to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he spoke in the Capital on Tuesday, May 24? I couldn't watch this hero's welcome for a man who supports the continued building of illegal settlements, won't lift the siege of Gaza, and refuses to negotiate with the new Palestinian unity government. During the talk, when Netanyahu was praising young people rising up for democracy in the Middle East, and I took my cue to stand up from my seat in the Capitol Gallery, unfurl a banner, and shout, "No More Occupation! Stop Israeli War Crimes! Equal Rights for Palestinians!"
Immediately, I was tackled, gagged and violently shoved to the floor by other members of the audience, many of whom were still wearing their badges from the AIPAC conference this past weekend. Keep at it. Don't ever let these bastards win.


Prayer, politics collide on midnight pilgrimage
Nablus was a militant hotbed in the years of the Palestinian uprising last decade. The city's Palestinians and the residents of nearby settlements, considered hard-line even by many other settlers, view each other with deep animosity.

To secure the Jewish worshippers, the military takes up positions in nearby buildings. Keep those settler psychos in ISRAEL. Keep kicking the hornet's nest and you WILL get stung, geniuses.


NYT’s Friedman doubts sincerity of Netanyahu’s standing ovations
"You know, as far as American Jews, you know – you know, to me, the question, Fareed, is yes, Bibi Netanyahu, because of political reasons and campaign donations and AIPAC's influence, can get standing ovations in the U.S. Congress anytime they want, seven days a week, 24/7. How many standing ovations do you think he could get at the student government at the University of Missouri? At Stanford? At Harvard? At the University of Virginia? At the University of Texas? If you went to those student governments, they're the future. They're the future of voters. They're the future people who will maintain the strategic relationship with Israel. And there, I can tell you, as anyone who goes to college campuses knows, that people don't get Israel, what Israel is doing right now. They – some are alienated. Some – more – and this is a bigger part, more just – you know, I don't know. It's messy. I don't want to get involved in this at all."


What Bibi Gains by Misrepresenting Obama's Middle East Policy
Why on earth would Bibi Netanyahu choose to be so boorish and provocative? Because he can be. He has the U.S. Congress in his pocket, a fact made obvious by the applause tsunami that attended his speech to a joint session (and by the fact that an astonishing 68 Senators and 286 Representatives attended the American Israel Public Affairs Committee banquet the night before he spoke




Donor Bread (Money) and Congressional Circuses



TV anchor under fire for 'Arab discrimination' comment during Netanyahu's Congress speech
Dozens of viewers complained about a comment added by Yonit Levy of Channel 2 television after her simultaneous translation of Netanyahu's statement that out of 300 million Arabs in our region, "less than one half of one percent are truly free, and they're all citizens of Israel."

Dozens of viewers complained about a comment added by Yonit Levy of Channel 2 television after her simultaneous translation of Netanyahu's statement that out of 300 million Arabs in our region, "less than one half of one percent are truly free, and they're all citizens of Israel."


'The smallest minds and cowardliest hearts': Is Congress clapping for apartheid?



Coldplay endorses 'Freedom for Palestine' single on Facebook page
British music giants Coldplay have endorsed an upcoming musical collaboration called "Freedom for Palestine," released as a single by the War on Want and One World foundations. Excellent.



Canada takes strong pro-Israel line at G8 summit
Canadians better wise up - you are living in an(other) Israeli-occupied territory.


Israeli Culture Minister storms out of film, calls it too pro-Palestinian
Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat ,who attended the opening of a film festival in Israel's south, left before the screening began, claiming the film presents a one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ignores the suffering of the residents of the south of Israel.


The Book of Netanyahu by Philip Giraldi



Great American Patriots
What makes this more remarkable still is that this foreign leader whom they were cheering so boisterously and continuously just completed a public, ugly conflict with the American leader and has a long record of demonstrated indifference to American interests; yet the super-patriots of the American Right sided so brazenly and publicly with this foreign leader over their own country's President.


Roadside bomb in Lebanon wounds 6 UN peacekeepers
A roadside bomb ripped through a U.N. convoy carrying Italian peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Friday, wounding six of them in the first such attack since 2008, officials said.


Inside The United States' Secret Sabotage Of Iran
in the last year, much has become known about intelligence operations in Iran, says Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who is now an analyst with the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.

"There's little doubt that there's a covert war under way against Iran," he says. "There are at least two players in it: the United States and Israel."


Israel minister: Strike on Iran could be necessary
Chicken Little at it again.


‘Land Swaps’: Is There Enough Land To Swap?
“You could find the equivalent of 2.5% of the territories, but when people in Israel talk about it, they are talking about keeping 6% to 10%. Finding that kind of land inside Israel just can’t be done,” said Tel Aviv University geographer Gideon Biger, editor of the “Encyclopedia of International Boundaries.”...

Swapping areas populated by Arabs is, however, already an accepted principle by many in Israel. Yisrael Beiteinu, the third-largest political party in the Knesset, is proposing freeing up land for swaps and strengthening the Jewish majority in Israel by incorporating Arab areas close to the Green Line, such as the city of Umm al-Fahm, into a future Palestinian state.


"What's yours is ours, and what's theirs is yours". That's some generosity. What a bunch of shysters.


Head to Head / Arabeh Mayor Omar Nasser, do you agree with Netanyahu that Arabs live better here than elsewhere?
Is there a democratic country in the world where there are unrecognized villages? In Israel there are. Is there a country in the world where there are laws that allow for admissions committees to prevent citizens from living in certain communities? In Israel there are. Is there a country with a true democracy where a bill like the Nakba Law can be passed or where citizenship can be revoked, including citizenship of tens of thousands of Palestinians from East Jerusalem? Is there a democratic state that rules over another people as Israel does over the Palestinians?


Waging War Gets Easier by Philip Giraldi
The authorization also expands the understanding of what constitutes an “enemy” since anyone can be so designated. The new rule will be that an enemy is anyone so identified by the president because of his or her “hostility” towards the United States. That also means that there will be no judicial process for those accused and they can safely be whisked off to Guantanamo Prison for further processing or not as the case might be. The new law is not yet in place but there is every indication that the president will sign it. Its first victim is likely to be suspected Hezbollah official Ali Mussa Daqduq even though Hezbollah had nothing to do with 9/11. Five Republican senators have already demanded that Daqduq be tried at Guantanamo rather than in a federal court. Hezbollah too? Well, we are Israel's bitch.


As Bibi Slouches Toward September
he had an ugly head-butt with President Obama at the White House, but this just reinforces his street cred, solidifies his coalition and dispirits his critics. Besides, while the run-in ruffled feathers in the administration, it was Obama who ended up running to AIPAC to clear the air.

For icing on the cake, he put Democrats on the defensive. They were forced to play catch-up, with Harry Reid publicly rebuking Obama and congressional Democrats leaping to their feet every few sentences throughout Bibi’s grant-no-quarter speech so as not to appear disloyal.

Who says Israel doesn't have any control over America? What's this lobby you speak of?... Quite interesting the last few paragraphs. So you finally fear the retribution, do you? After years of making sure America is dragged into your BS, NOW the chickens are coming home to roost. And Americans, like me a few years ago when I first caught wind of the truth of all of this are going to be PISSED. Good luck with it.


Don’t Make Us Choose
No one wants to choose between the President and the Prime Minister, between America’s interest and Israel’s. No matter who is in the White House, no matter who is in charge of the government in Jerusalem, Jews here like to see consensus, a smooth connection, the enunciation not just of shared values, but a shared approach to geopolitical challenges.

Really?


FM warns against involvement in Gaza flotilla
"I strongly urge those wishing to deliver humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip to do so through established channels," Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said on Sunday.


David Cameron resigns as patron of the Jewish National Fund
The JNF was originally set up to buy land in Palestine to establish Jewish settlements before the creation of the state of Israel. Now it is a global charity which describes itself as the "caretakers of the land and people of Israel", specialising in planting forests. Critics say it expropriated land belonging to Palestinians and has obliterated pre-1948 Arab villages by planting forests and parks. The JNF is involved in the demolition of Bedouin villages in the Negev desert as part of an afforestation plan.


Blair: Obama anxious about Israel's fate
Blair described Obama's initiative – rejected by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu – as "an attempt to fill a vacuum which he sees as dangerous, particularly dangerous for Israel in the run–up to September," when the assembly is expected to take up the issue of Palestinian statehood during the U.N.'s annual meeting.


Republicans Use Israel To Attract Jewish Voters — And Jewish Money
At the recent annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, pro-Israel activists found themselves courted both by Republicans critical of Obama’s Israel policy and by Democratic lawmakers seeking to distance themselves from the president.




Who Cares in the Middle East What Obama Says? By Robert Fisk
There was an interesting linguistic collapse in the president's language over those critical four days. On Thursday 19 May, he referred to the continuation of Israeli "settlements". A day later, Netanyahu was lecturing him on "certain demographic changes that have taken place on the ground". Then when Obama addressed the American Aipac lobby group (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) on the Sunday, he had cravenly adopted Netanyahu's own preposterous expression. Now he, too, spoke of "new demographic realities on the ground." Who would believe that he was talking about internationally illegal Jewish colonies built on land stolen from Arabs in one of the biggest property heists in the history of "Palestine"? A great read by seasoned journalist Robert Fisk.


South Hebron Hills Reflection: Healing the Trees
I know in my head that Israeli settlers who live across the valley from At-Tuwani sometimes sneak down at night and chop down the villagers’ olive trees. But seeing the wounded trees myself cuts more deeply. The breaks are jagged, branches twisting off the trunk, the silver-green leaves curling in the dust. Ten trees have been hacked off, an attempt to chop down Palestinian life in the South Hebron Hills.

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