The Corner Report

By NOOR ELASHI

The case perhaps most notably authorized by the Material Support Law, which was upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday, was that of the Holy Land Foundation, once the largest Muslim charity in the United States. My father, Ghassan Elashi, co-founded this charity, and after two lengthy, expensive trials, he’s now serving a 65-year prison sentence.

The panel was split 6-3, the valiant minority being Chief Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth B. Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts concluded that the Material Support Law is not too vague and does not violate the First Amendment, opposing the extensive arguments of constitutional law expert David Cole who, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, challenged the law in the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Breyer wrote the dissenting opinion, stating that the law could criminalize speech and association “only when the defendant knows or intends that those activities will assist the organization's unlawful terrorist actions.”

=> Read more!

"Obama is Once Again Cowering in the Face of Conservative Opposition"

By MARJORIE COHN

President Barack Obama has chosen Elena Kagan to fill the vacancy left by Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement. Sadly, Kagan cannot fill Justice Stevens' mighty shoes.

As the Rehnquist court continued to eviscerate the right of the people to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens filed principled and courageous dissents. For example, the majority held in the 1991 case of California v. Acevedo that although the police cannot search a closed container without a warrant, they can wait until a person puts the container into a car and then do a warrantless search because the container is now mobile. In a ringing dissent that exemplified his revulsion at executive overreaching, Justice Stevens wrote that “decisions like the one the Court makes today will support the conclusion that this Court has become a loyal foot soldier in the Executive's fight against crime.”

=> Read more!

We vote for Democrats, the argument goes, because sending a Republican to the White House means sending racist conservative neanderthals to the Supreme Court. A clinching argument right? What would John McCain do? But is that the right question to ask?

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Supreme Court appointments, BAR's own Freedom Rider Margaret Kimberley pointed out a couple weeks ago, are the clinching argument on behalf of every Democratic presidential candidate. Send a Republican to the White House, the alibi goes, and that Republican will send platoons of corporate-funded, anti-choice, authoritarian, warmongerng, racist, Constitution-shredding, pro-Federalist black robed goons to the federal bench, and one or two to the Supreme Court. Some alibis, like “the kid down the street does it all the time,” are true, but beside the point. The point is what kinds of judges do Democrats appoint? What kinds of judges is Barack Obama appointing?

Back in 2009 we examined the pre-Supreme Court career of Sonia Sotomayor, comparing it to the pre high court careers of the only two previous nonwhite Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Thurgood Marshall. It was evident that Sotomayor's legal career bore a lot more resemblance to that of Clarence Thomas [1] than to that of the illustrious Thurgood Marshall, who defended black people on death row in several states and campaigned for the undoing of Jim Crow laws for a quarter century.

Instead of some corporate-funded, anti-choice, authoritarian, warmongerng, racist, Constitution-shredding, pro-Federalist black robed goon, just who is President Obama sending to the Supreme Court? Who is Elena Kagan? She has little public record to go on, but what there is, is profoundly disturbing.

=> Read more!

By Jonathan Kagan

President Barack Obama said he wanted to honor the legacy of Associate Justice John Paul Stevens with his nominee. If so, he has chosen to honor it in the breach with a nominee who is likely to dismantle a significant part of Stevens’ legacy. As with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama has decided to nominate someone who is demonstrably more conservative than the person she is replacing on some issues –potentially moving the Court to the right.

=> Read more!

By Sam Bahour - March 28, 2010, 2:27PM

In 2010, Jews in Israel and around the world will celebrate Passover beginning on March 30th. Passover is the seven-day holiday of the Feast of Unleavened Bread commemorating the ancient Hebrews' escape from enslavement in Egypt. (In Israel, March 30th is also Land Day: the day when Palestinians commemorate and protest the confiscation of their lands by the Israeli government; but that's another story.)

As I'm learning, the Passover holiday begins with the Seder, a traditional ceremonial meal. Its centerpiece is a special Seder plate containing six symbolic foods. Each has its own significance in the retelling of the story of the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt. The stack of three matzos, or unleavened bread, a kind of cracker made of plain white flour and water, has its own separate plate on the Seder table.

For each of the six traditional items on the Seder plate (as per Wikipedia and the Chabad website) --listed here by its Hebrew name--I note its traditional symbolic role and offer an additional, alternative interpretation. I hope my alternative can help Jews around the world, and especially in Israel, connect with a broader perspective on the meaning of Passover right here, right now, in the land that became the eventual endpoint of that ancient exodus.

Maror and Chazeret -- Bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitterness and harshness of the slavery which the Jews endured in Egypt. Slavery: severe curtailment of one's freedom. Today, one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza are tasting the bitterness of unfreedom, hermetically sealed in their encircled enclave with no end in sight. Sixty percent are under the age of 16. The Jewish citizens of Israel have hardened their hearts to this reality and they have expected the rest of the world's Jews to do likewise. For how long will you wait for Palestinians to vanish?

=> Read more!

Al Ahram

Tel Aviv's recent rhetoric is further proof that Israel cannot exist outside the cycle of perpetual war, writes Ramzy Baroud*

The Israeli military may be much less effective in winning wars than it was in the past, thanks to the stiffness of Arab resistance, but its military strategists are as shrewd and unpredictable as ever. The recent rhetoric that escalated in Israel suggests that a future war in Lebanon will most likely target Syria as well. While this doesn't necessarily mean that Israel intends on targeting either of these countries in the near future, it is certainly the type of language that often precedes Israeli military manoeuvres.

Deciphering the available clues regarding the nature of Israel's immediate military objectives is not always easy, but it is possible. One indicator that could serve as a foundation for any serious prediction of Israel's actions is Israel's historical tendency to be in a perpetual state of war. Peace -- real peace -- has never been a long-term policy.

=> Read more!

The National

By Wafa Issa

DUBAI -- The Israeli prime minister would be at the top of the wanted list if the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, is behind the killing of a senior Hamas official who was found dead in a hotel in the city last month, the chief of Dubai Police said today.

Lt Gen, Dahi Khalfan Tamim told The National: “Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to assassinate [Mahmoud] al Mabhouh in Dubai. We will issue an arrest warrant against him."

He did not, however, assert that Mossad was definitively responsible for the killing.

Lt Gen Tamim had said the method used to kill Mr al Mabhouh, was a “Mossad method” but did not elaborate.

He added that Mossad “has carried out operations” in the past using similar procedures. Dubai Police had also earlier said only that the involvement of Mossad could not be ruled out.

Livni served as Israel's foreign minister during the country's war in Gaza earlier this year [REUTERS]

A British court reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Israel's former foreign minister on charges relating to Israel's 22-day war on Gaza, before apparently withdrawing it after it was found she was not in the country.

Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima party, had been expected to travel to London this week for an event organised by the Jewish National Fund, followed by meetings with British government officials.

Livni cancelled the visit two weeks before the event was due to take place.

=> Read more!

The UN rests this premise: the rights of all people to equal treatment under the law.

By William A. Cook

Consider the consequences of the Israeli PR blitz that is now blanketing the world as its defiant answer to the United Nations’ authorized investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity by the state of Israel, known as the Goldstone Report. Ironically, the existence of the United Nations as an internationally accepted body charged with protection of all world citizens through its Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the continued acceptance by its members of the Geneva Conventions, resulted in part from the actions of the Nazi state against the Jews.

Now the Jewish state of Israel, in a manner analogous to their situation in occupied Europe, have been charged with crimes against a people who have no state and no defense except international law as incorporated by the UN through the International Court of Justice. Should the Israeli blitz effectively neutralize the actions of the 192 nations that constitute the UN by forcing the United States to veto any action that would result from the Goldstone Report, it will have removed the rule of law from the international arena. Israel will have made it clear that it is subject to no law but its own.

=> Read more!

[Ma'anImages]

BETHLEHEM – Israeli military bulldozers destroyed houses in two West Bank communities on Wednesday and Thursday, leaving approximately 130 Palestinians homeless, United Nations (UN) sources told Ma’an.

In the village of Umm Al-Kher, south of the city of Hebron, Israeli bulldozers, accompanied by some 60 soldiers destroyed Palestinian homes near the Karmel settlement. Workers employed by the Israeli military removed the furniture from the structures before the demolitions. As a result, 95 people were left homeless, including a woman who had recently given birth.

The UN sources added that the Red Cross and UNRWA (the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees) have provided the Palestinians in Umm Al-Kher with tents and other forms of assistance.

=> Read more!

Amateur video footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows bodies of the victims of the US raid on Sukariya

Syria has lodged a formal complaint to the UN Security Council over a helicopter raid alleged to have been carried out by the US military on a village near the Iraqi border, Syria's state news agency has said.

A letter, sent on Tuesday to Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, also asked the Security Council to prevent an infringement of Syrian sovereignty happening again.

"Syria draws attention to this aggressive act and expects the UN Security Council and member countries to assume their responsibility by preventing a repetition of this dangerous violation," the letter read.

=> Read more!

International law says refugees have the right to return to their homes of origin, and receive real property restitution and compensation for the losses and damages they've suffered. The UN General Assembly set forth the framework for resolving the Palestinian refugee case in UN Resolution 194 (III) which provides: repatriation for those refugees "wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors," or compensation for those choosing not to return. On November 22, 1974, Resolution 3236 clarified the right to return as an "inalienable right". therefore, neither Mahmoud Abbas nor any political party or group has the authority to "compromise" any refugee's inalienable right to return to his or her home and land.

By Akiva Eldar and Avi Issacharoff

RAMALLAH - Perhaps it was the daytime fast and abstention from smoking during the holy month of Ramadan, and perhaps it was the conversation about the exhausting negotiations with Israel that caused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to press the white button at least three times in the course of last Wednesday's interview.

Sa'id, his personal assistant, enters without a word, pulls out the packet and lights a cigarette for the president. Abu Mazen's relaxed mood does not hint at all the troubles bombarding him from inside and out.

=> Read more!

Samak's appearance on a cooking show after taking office was deemed unconstitutional

Samak Sundaravej, Thailand's prime minister, has been found to have broken the Thai constitution by hosting a cooking show - seen as moonlighting while in public office.

Samak and his entire cabinet must resign over the scandal, Thailand's constitutional court said on Tuesday.

=> Read more!

Global Research, September 2, 2008

Justice Robert H. Jackson Conference:
Planning for the Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals
Massachusetts Law School
September 13-14, 2008
Andover, Massachusetts

By Prof. Francis A. Boyle

Since the impeachable installation of George W. Bush as President in January of 2001 by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Gang of Five, the peoples of the world have witnessed a government in the United States that has demonstrated little if any respect for fundamental considerations of international law, human rights, and the United States Constitution.

What the world has watched instead is a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the integrity of the international and domestic legal orders by a group of men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian and Straussian in their perception of international relations and in their conduct of both foreign policy and domestic affairs. Even more seriously, in many instances specific components of the Bush administration’s foreign policies constitute ongoing criminal activity under well-recognized principles of both international law and U.S. domestic law, and in particular the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, as well as the Pentagon’s own U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 on The Law of Land Warfare (1956), all of which apply to President Bush himself as Commander-in-Chief of United States Armed Forces under Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.

=> Read more!

A Palestinian group has laid out a new strategy for ending the Israeli occupation that breaks with the old worn out ways of thinking -- the old paradigms of "peacemaking" and "state building" that have allowed Israel to avoid its responsibilities as an occupying force while continuing to occupy more and more land and at the same time completely obscuring the reality of its occupation on the world stage. The group consisted of 45 Palestinians from all walks of life. The strategic plan is laid out in a document called “Regaining The Initiative: Palestinian Strategic Options To End Israeli Occupation.” The document is posted at www.palestinestrategygroup.ps. Sam Bahour outlines the work in the article below.

By Sam Bahour

Palestinians have been historically outmaneuvered, politically neutralized, and made totally dependent on international handouts. Or have they? A newly released Palestinian strategy document which outlines strategic political options gives witness to a renewed breath of fresh air in the Palestinians’ struggle for freedom and independence.

Those who have dealt the Palestinians out of the equation for the future of Palestine need to take a closer look at history and at the struggle of this great people. Palestinians recognize better than most the dangers that are posed by the current powder keg of internal disunity and foreign intervention into their livelihoods. Palestinians know better than anyone else that the current state of affairs generates tremendous fear as their struggle for freedom and independence is set back by decades. Yet, at defining times in their history Palestinians have always reclaimed the initiative and carried on, like any oppressed and struggling people are wont to do.

=> Read more!

By Jonathan Cook in Migron, West Bank

Yehudit Genud hardly feels she is on the frontier of Israel’s settlement project, although the huddle of mobile homes on a wind-swept West Bank hilltop she calls home is controversial even by Israeli standards.

Despite the size and isolation of Migron, a settlement of about 45 religious families on a ridge next to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, Mrs Genud’s job as a social worker in West Jerusalem is a 25-minute drive away on a well-paved road.

Mrs Genud, 28, pregnant with her first child, points out that Migron has parks, children’s playgrounds, a kindergarten, a daycare centre and a synagogue, all paid for by the government -- even if the buildings are enclosed by a razor-wire fence, and her husband, Roni, has to put in overtime as the settlement’s security guard.

=> Read more!

What is the Keating Five?

For anyone not aware of the Keating Five, here’s a very simple summary:

Charles Keating owned a savings and loan in California. He was illegally using the money of his bank’s customers to give loans to himself and friends that they didn’t have to repay, and to speculate on risky real estate investments, which was strictly forbidden by U.S. law (the latter was one cause of the Great Depression).

When the feds found out what was going on and launched an investigation into Keating and his company, Keating called five U.S. Senators whom he had wined, dined, and lavished with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations and personal gifts for years.

=> Read more!

Public Law 93-148
93rd Congress, H. J. Res. 542
November 7, 1973
Joint Resolution

Concerning the war powers of Congress and the President.

Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SHORT TITLE

SECTION 1.
This joint resolution may be cited as the "War Powers Resolution".

PURPOSE AND POLICY

SEC. 2.
(a) It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicate by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.
(b) Under article I, section 8, of the Constitution, it is specifically provided that the Congress shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution, not only its own powers but also all otherpowers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
(c) The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

=> Read more!

Oslo has entered its final, tragic-comic stage. The onus now is to ensure Olmert's planned dénouement does not become a reality, writes Mustafa Barghouti*

Anyone who followed the Annapolis talks won't be surprised by the features of Olmert's current project. It seeks to set in stone the two- pronged strategy Israel has been pursuing since Oslo: to divide and procrastinate final status issues until they are made redundant by time and de facto realities, and to invoke security as a pretext for refusing to abide by commitments. Any mention of security refers exclusively to Israel's security, the idea being to formalise the peculiar principle that holds that those under occupation are responsible for ensuring the security of their occupiers.

=> Read more!

Israel continues to burrow beneath the foundations of the Aqsa Mosque in the heart of East Jerusalem, reports Khaled Amayreh

A network of tunnels beneath the Aqsa Mosque, dubbed by the Israeli media as "tourist sites", has already caused conspicuous cracks in superstructure of the Haram Al-Sharif esplanade which houses many historical sites, including the Dome of the Rock.

"I have no doubt the Israeli government has the will and desire to destroy the Aqsa Mosque. They only want to do it in a way that would make the demolition look as if it was a result of natural causes," said Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, head of the Supreme Muslim Council which oversees the Jerusalem Sanctuary, considered the third holiest place in Islam. "Everything they do here shows they are hell-bent on destroying this Islamic shrine. It is time that Muslim peoples, Muslim governments and Muslim organisations across the world move to stop this blasphemy. Maybe tomorrow it will be too late."

=> Read more!

GAZA, Palestine -- Two siege-breaking boatloads of international human rights advocates will leave the Gaza Strip on Thursday afternoon, bringing with them seven Palestinians who have been unable to leave due to the Israeli blockade.

Among the Palestinians leaving is 10-year-old Saed Mosleh from Beit Hanoun who lost his leg due to Israeli shelling. Saed is leaving Gaza with his father to seek medical treatment.

“I can’t believe we’re finally able to leave for medical treatment,” said Khaled Mosleh, Saed’s father. “This is a miracle of God.”

=> Read more!

Ariel Sharon's "Orwellian nightmare"

By Fred Schlomka August 2008

As the eyes of the world are on the Liberty Ships approaching Gaza, a massive segregated road project in the Greater Jerusalem area is quietly approaching completion. Israel is about to unveil the realization of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s dream of Palestinian ‘transportational contiguity’, in lieu of contiguous territory. Route 1, currently shared with Palestinians, connects Jerusalem to the eastern settlement of Ma’ale Adumim (pop. 35,000).

This four-lane highway leads to the Dead Sea and also whisks settlers to Jerusalem in twenty minutes through the ‘E1’ development area.
Since Sharon’s ultimate goal was to remove Palestinian traffic from settler roads, he came up with the ingenious plan to build a separate road network for exclusive Palestinian use, with no connection to the settler roads, only bridges and underpasses.

The crown jewel of this Orwellian nightmare, renamed the ‘Fabric of Life Roads’, is currently being readied for use and will complete the territorial separation between the north and south West Bank. Several new steep and narrow roads snake through the hills south of E1 from the Palestinian enclaves of Azariya (Bethany), Adu Dis and adjacent villages. They all merge into a single two-lane road that dips under Route 1, curving around the northeast edge of Jerusalem. The road will soon be extended to enter Ramallah, completing the entire segregated road network through the E1 area.

=> Read more!

Mary Hughes-Thompson is one of the non-violent international activists who sailed to Gaza from Cyprus on two wooden ships to break Zionist Israel's illegal siege on the 1.5 million Palestinains living there

Monday 25 August 2008

Dear friends,

It was a day of smiles and a day of tears for me here in Gaza City. Another early press conference, followed by a visit to the hospital which has seen most of the carnage created in Gaza by Israeli bombs and rockets. The doctor related some of the difficulties faced by the population of Gaza. That 50 chldren have died because Israel refused to let them enter Israel for treatment. The reason given by Israel? The mothers were under 35 years old and could be terrorists. So the children died. He told us that so far 242 people have died during the siege because of Israel's refusal to allow them to get the treatment they need. And that there have been 300 deliveries at checkpoints, resulting in 69 babies dead.

=> Read more!

Reuters

The boats are carrying 40 activists,
200 hearing aids and 5,000 balloons

Fri 22 Aug 2008, 7:16 GMT
By Michele Kambas

LARNACA, Cyprus (Reuters) - International activists departed from Cyprus by boat on Friday in an attempt to run an Israeli sea blockade on 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The 44 activists sailed from the port of Larnaca in two wooden boats at 9:50 a.m. (7:50 a.m. British time). Hailing from 14 countries, they said they expected to reach the shores of Gaza, patrolled by the Israeli navy, on Saturday.

=> Read more!

Ninth Circuit rules effluent does not defile sacred space. Forest Service argued skiing on treated sewage "a compelling government interest."

The San Francisco Peaks are visible from many parts of the Southwest's Four Corners and have been sacred to at least 13 recognized Native American tribes for at least as long as Europeans have been in the country. Northern Arizona University Professor Miguel Vasquez described the argument that only a part of the Peaks are affected by the planned spraying of up to 1.5 million gallons a day of effluent for snowmaking as "equivalent to saying it's O.K. to piss in St. Peter's as long as you only do it in one corner." (Photo: Calvin Johnson / Save the Peaks Coalition)

by: Leslie Thatcher, t r u t h o u t | Interview

The San Francisco Peaks of Northern Arizona "are sacred to at least 13 formally recognized Indian tribes ... and this religious significance is of centuries duration."(1) In February 2005, the US Forest Service issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision approving a proposal to make artificial snow using treated sewage effluent at the Snowbowl Resort located on Humphrey's Peak, the highest and - to the tribes - most holy of the San Francisco Peaks. That decision was appealed by the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the Havasupai Tribe, the Hualapai Tribe, the Yavapai-Apache Nation and the White Mountain Apache Nation. The Circuit Court ruled for the Forest Service. In February 2007, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court unanimously overturned the lower court's decision. On Friday, August 8, 2008, the en banc majority of the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that "using treated sewage effluent to make artificial snow on the most sacred mountain of southwestern Indian tribes does not violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ('RFRA'). It also holds that a supposed pleading mistake prevents the tribes from arguing under the National Environmental Act ('NEPA') that the Forest Service failed to consider the likelihood that children and others would ingest snow made from the effluent."(2)

=> Read more!

Talansky lawyers seeking Israel testimony without U.S. repercussions

By Ofra Edelman and Tomer Zarchin

JERUSALEM, Palestine _ State Prosecutor Moshe Lador and Jerusalem District Attorney Eli Abarbanel will meet Wednesday with Morris Talansky's Israeli lawyers in an effort to find a way to allow the American Jewish businessman to complete his testimony in one of the cases against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Talansky has already given his initial testimony and was cross-examined for several days about his claim that he gave Olmert some $150,000 over a period of several years. Last Thursday, however, he announced he would not return for the remainder of his cross-examination, which had been postponed at the request of Olmert's lawyers, because his testimony here could complicate his defense in a grand jury investigation now underway against him in the United States.

=> Read more!

Jackson Browne Browne is seeking more than $75,000 in damages

Singer Jackson Browne is suing US Republican presidential candidate John McCain for using one of his songs without permission.

Browne, 59, claims the use of hit song Running on Empty in an advert was an infringement of copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain.

The singer is seeking more than $75,000 (£40,000) in damages.

=> Read more!

New lobby rules mean more work for lawyers


By Jennifer Allen

Globe and Mail

Lawyers involved in lobbying are used to playing up their knowledge of who is influential, but now they also have to figure out who is a DPOH.

Perhaps the biggest change stemming from this summer's transition from the Lobbyists Registration Act to the much more far-reaching federal Lobbying Act is a new category of senior public officials called designated public office holders, or DPOHs.

=> Read more!

By JEFF HALPER

In another few days, I will sail on one of the Free Gaza movement boats from Cyprus to Gaza. The mission is to break the Israeli siege, an absolutely illegal siege which has plunged a million and a half Palestinians into wretched conditions: imprisoned in their own homes, exposed to extreme military violence, deprived of the basic necessities of life, stripped of their most fundamental human rights and dignity.

The siege violates the most fundamental principle of international law: the inadmissibility of harming civilian populations. Our voyage also exposes Israel’s attempt to absolve itself of responsibility for what is happening in Gaza. Israel’s claim that there is no Occupation, or that the Occupation ended with “disengagement,” is patently false. Occupation is defined in international law as having effective control over a territory. If Israel intercepts our boats, it is clear that it is the Occupying Power exercising effective control over Gaza. Nor has the siege anything to do with “security.” Like other elements of the Occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where Israel has also besieged cities, towns, villages and whole regions, the siege on Gaza is fundamentally political. It is intended to isolate the democratically-elected government of Palestine and break its power to resist Israeli attempts to impose an apartheid regime over the entire country.

=> Read more!

By Bill Van Auken
17 July 2008

The Bush administration’s contention that the president has the power to detain anyone, including US citizens, indefinitely without charges or trial by declaring them “enemy combatants” received judicial backing from a sharply divided appellate court in Richmond, Virginia Tuesday.

The 5-to-4 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit made it nearly certain that this assertion of dictatorial powers by the presidency will be part of the Bush administration’s dark legacy handed on to a future administration.

=> Read more!

REF.: 20.2008E
10 July 2008

In a continuation of their struggle for justice in the face of unlawful appropriation of their land, the people of Bil’in village yesterday commenced legal proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec against Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. The defendants are Canadian corporations registered in the Province of Quebec who have been involved in constructing, marketing and selling residential units in the illegal Jewish-Israeli settlement of Modi’in Illit in the occupied West Bank, on the land of the village of Bil’in.

=> Read more!

Painting : Iraqi artist, Jabel Al-Saria, 2006.

Iraq's most senior cleric voices opposition to a proposed security deal with the US, saying such a deal would threaten Iraq's sovereignty.

In a meeting with Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq Al-Rubaie on Tuesday, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani expressed his concerns over the security deal by calling it an excuse that will justify the presence of US forces in Iraq.

=> Read more!

Pakistan's former Army Chief, Retired General Mirza Aslam Baig, says the US is supporting the outlawed Jundullah group to destabilize Iran.

He said that the US is providing training facilities to Jundullah fighters--located in eastern areas of Iran--to create unrest in the area and affect the cordial ties between Iran and its neighbor Pakistan.

Baig added that Iran and Pakistan are under the siege of western conspiracies.

=> Read more!

Impeachment is a critical way to curb executive power gone amok. Without public support, presidents will continue to abuse their authority, Elizabeth Holtman tells us.

By Elizabeth Holtzman

According to a top aide, John McCain recently endorsed George W. Bush's right to wiretap American citizens without court approval, despite the clear requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Clearly, McCain has learned nothing from the past seven-plus years of Bush/Cheney assaults on the Constitution.

More troubling is that he doesn't seem very worried that his position will generate serious criticism. And apparently it has not. The lack of public outcry points to the likelihood that too many Americans are either confused about a President's prerogatives or have been persuaded by the years of Bush's constitutional abuses that a chief executive has the right to violate the law or subvert the Constitution in other ways.

=> Read more!

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS:
Article 13.
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.n.org/Overview/rights.html

21 Jun 08
Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison
(Hanan Ashrawi’s daughter, telling her story)

I am Palestinian - born and raised - and my Palestinian roots go back centuries. No one can change that even if they tell me that Jerusalem , my birth place, is not Palestine , even if they tell me that Palestine doesn't exist, even if they take away all my papers and deny me entry to my own home, even if they humiliate me and take away my rights. I AM PALESTINIAN.

=> Read more!

http://www.pchrgaza.org

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property by in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) 19 – 25 June 2008:

* 3 Palestinians killed by IOF in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
* 2 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF in Nablus.
* 18 Palestinians, including 5 children and 2 old men, were wounded by the IOF gunfire; 12 of them were wounded in Ne’lin village near Ramallah.
* IOF conducted 36 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
* IOF demolished 2 uninhabited houses and partially demolished 3 inhabited houses, in Qalqilya.
* IOF arrested 48 Palestinian civilians, including 14 children, in the West Bank. IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.
* IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property.
* IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property.
* An elderly Palestinian man was run down by an Israeli settler.
* Israeli settlers burned large areas of agricultural land in Bourin village, south of Nablus.
* Five Palestinian shepherds were injured by Israeli settlers in 2 separate attacks in Yatta village, south of Hebron.

=> Read more!

Conflicts between Palestinian factions are being allowed to overshadow the plight of Palestinians, says Ramzy Baroud*

A six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza was killed by Israeli fire on 12 June. "Medics say the girl was decapitated by a [tank] shell," Associated Press (AP) reported the next day. The Israeli military said the soldiers opened fire in retaliation against "militants launching rockets into Israel". AP dispassionately elaborated that, "Gaza militants fire rockets and mortars into Israel almost daily." The story of a few lines ended with another corroboration of the claims made by the Israeli military: "The shelling occurred near the border where militants fired 30 rockets into Israel on Tuesday."

"The future Palestinian state must be established according to Israel's security needs, including supervision of border crossings and the disarming of militants," reported Haaretz, referring to comments made by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. So much for sovereignty.

=> Read more!

As Iran seems reluctant to freeze its nuclear activities in return for technological and economic incentives, Western powers are preparing a fourth round of sanctions. Rasha Saad reviews the latest developments

By Rasha Saad

In an initial response to the European Union package of incentives, Iran said on Tuesday it would continue enriching uranium. The Iranian reaction defies attempts by major powers to pressure Tehran into stopping work which the West alleges could lead to building a nuclear bomb.

"We have repeatedly said that enrichment is our red line and we should enjoy this technology. The work will be continued," Deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Sheikhattar told reporters on Tuesday.

=> Read more!

By Chellis Glandinning

Surveillance of private calls and emails. Cameras documenting every move. No habeas corpus. Unimpeded entry into personal financial records. Voting machines changing election outcomes with the flick of a switch. Protest defined as terrorism. Many people hope that the loss of civil rights Americans have endured since the onslaughts mounted by Bush Administration II is a political reality that can be reversed through electoral will.

Established mechanisms of political power are, of course, the immediately available means for attempting change. Notions of citizens’ rights, freedom, and democratic participation are compelling paradigms that have consistently stirred the bravery of U.S. citizens – and yet elder political scientist Sheldon Wolin, who taught the philosophy of democracy for five decades, sees the current predicament of corporate-government hegemony as something more endemic.

=> Read more!

Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, the Army general who first investigated the abuse at Abu Ghraib, has accused the Bush administration of committing war crimes. “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture,” Taguba said.

=> Read more!

More than 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes, lands, and villages by Zionist militias in 1948,

The Palestinian national struggle began among the Palestinian refugees, whose lives are the ongoing reality of the Nakba. No national strategy for resistance is possible without them at the centre, writes Azmi Bishara

Some have an almost religious faith that Israel will one day cease to exist. Others maintain that Israel will end if the Arabs optimise their conviction that it is an alien entity in the region, incapable of reaching a just peace because it seeks to dominate rather than to assimilate. Odder yet is the belief that peace is the key to Israel's inevitable destruction. Unless Israel can be delivered a major defeat just once, proponents of this belief hold, normalisation is the most powerful weapon against it, because it would then be torn apart by its internal contradictions.

=> Read more!

Palestinians at a Hamas-sponsored demonstration on the Gazan side of the closed Rafah border crossing with Egypt to protest against the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip

One full year into the siege, Israel -- in full view of the world -- continues to illegally starve and collectively punish Gaza's civilian population, ostensibly to avenge the democratic expression of the Gazan people who continue to choose resistance to occupation over humiliation, betrayal and servitude. Serene Assir examines a year of Israeli crimes and international complicity on the back of decades of occupation

With the deference of the international community, Israel has maintained a total blockade on Gaza since 9 June 2007.

Amnesty International described conditions borne from the siege as the gravest humanitarian crisis Gaza has experienced to date. Barring the Hamas-instigated 10-day breach of the border with Egypt in January-February 2008, Gaza's borders to the outside world have been blocked for the overwhelming majority of this time.

=> Read more!

Pay no mind to the Mossad agent on the line.

By Philip Giraldi

After Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1986, the U.S. negotiated an understanding with Israel—a “gentlemen’s agreement” —stipulating that neither nation would thenceforth conduct espionage operations in the other’s territory without consent. But the agreement was a sham from the beginning. The Israeli government didn’t even honor its commitments in the aftermath of the Pollard case, failing to return the estimated 360 cubic feet of stolen information to enable the U.S. to conduct a damage assessment. The United States, for its part, continued to recruit and run agents inside Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s. And it was known within the intelligence and counterintelligence communities that Israel did the same in the United States. David Szady, the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, was so dismayed by the level of Israeli spying in the late ’90s that he called in the head of the Israeli Embassy’s Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Activities (Mossad) office and told him, “Knock it off.”

Virtually every U.S. government body concerned with security has confirmed that Israeli espionage takes place, though it is frequently not exposed because FBI officers know that investigating these crimes is frustrating and does no favors for their careers. But Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called “Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage.” The 2005 report states, “Israel has an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States. These collection activities are primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizable armaments industry.” It adds that Israel recruits spies, uses electronic methods, and carries out computer intrusion to gain the information.

=> Read more!

Fightin’ words: Rep. Dennis Kucinich brandishes his pocket Constitution on the campaign trail in New Hampshire last January.

By Gore Vidal

On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.

I wish to draw the attention of the blog world to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment presented to the House in order that two faithless public servants be removed from office for crimes against the American people. As I listened to Rep. Kucinich invoke the great engine of impeachment—he listed some 35 crimes by these two faithless officials—we heard, like great bells tolling, the voice of the Constitution itself speak out ringingly against those who had tried to destroy it.

But then I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the welfare of this republic, and so I turned, as I often do, to the foreign press for a clear report of what has been going on in Congress.

=> Read more!

About 270 so-called enemy combatants
remain at the prison facility

The US Supreme Court has said foreigners held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison have the right under the US constitution to challenge their detention in US civilian courts.

The court ruled on Thursday that detainees in the US jail in southern Cuba "have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus". "The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," said Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court.

The ruling, passed by a vote of five to four, is a setback to the administration of George Bush, the US president.

=> Read more!

Washington Post: Capitol Briefing

The House voted today by a comfortable margin to refer 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush to the Judiciary Committee, as the measure's chief sponsor vowed to bring the issue up again if the panel does not agree to hold hearings.

=> Read more!

BY Phillip F. Tourney, USS Liberty survivor

When Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., Commander in Chief, United States Naval Forces, Europe, ordered the cover-up on the attack of the USS LIBERTY GTR-5 it was a sure act of treason perpetrated on the American people and the crew of the LIBERTY to hide the true facts surrounding the unprovoked attack by the Government of Israel on our ship, the USS LIBERTY.

=> Read more!

The Zionists' occupation of Jerusalem and attempts to make Jerusalem Israel's capitol are illegal according to international law.

Jerusalem's status as part of Israel is not internationally recognised and remains a central issue in peace negotiations.

Barack Obama said he spoke as a
"true friend" of Israel

Arab leaders have reacted with anger and disbelief to an intensely pro-Israeli speech delivered by Barack Obama, the US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee.

Obama told the influential annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (Aipac): "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."

=> Read more!

Sabastya

By Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News Report this post to the editors

Palestinian sources reported on Tuesday that the Israeli antiquities department under the protection of the Israeli army stole a stone coffin from the village of Sabastya, located near the city of Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank.

=> Read more!