The Corner Report

By Uri Blau

Haaretz

Dozens of teenage boys from Jerusalem received the same ICQ message: "We're putting an end to all the Arabs who hang out in 'Pisga' [Pisgat Ze'ev] and the mall, whistle at the girls, curse, threaten little kids. Anyone who is Jewish and wants to put an end to all that should be at Burger Ranch at 10 P.M., and we'll finally show them they can't hang in our area anymore. Anyone who is willing to do that and has Jewish blood should add his name to this message."

It would have been difficult to choose a more cynical date on which to send out such a message: Wednesday, April 30, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Dozens of boys arrived at the meeting place in the Pisgat Ze'ev shopping mall. They streamed in from all parts of the capital, some on foot, some by bus and some driven in by parents. Equipped with knives, sticks and clubs, they all had one purpose: to do harm to Arabs for being Arabs.

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The U.S. State Department reconsiders withdrawing Fulbright grants to seven Palestinians and asks Israel to let them travel.


Palestinian student Hadeel Abu Kawik was supposed to spend next year in the United States on the prestigious Fulbright scholarship program, but now will remain where she is -- trapped in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli blockade. Hatem Moussa / Associated Press

By Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

JERUSALEM -- Confined by Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, two Palestinian sisters who dreamed of postgraduate studies abroad got their chance in January when Gaza militants destroyed part of a wall along the Egyptian border.

Yasmin Abukwaik, 22, joined the thousands who fled Gaza before the breach was sealed and now studies X-ray technology in the United Arab Emirates. Her sister Hadeel, a 23-year-old software engineering instructor, took a risk and stayed so she could qualify for one of the few Fulbright grants for Gaza residents to study this fall in the United States.

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The tasks of Arab society predate the Nakba and at issue is Arab will, writes Azmi Bishara

Painting by Palestinian artist Suleiman Mansour

By Azmi Bishara

Contrary to the general impression, there is nothing new in Israel's lavish celebrations of its so- called independence. The Israeli celebration of the Nakba, or calamity that befell the Palestinian people, is calculated according to the Jewish calendar, thereby creating a symbolic distance between the two events: the national independence of one people and the national dispossession of another.

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Samir Farid wraps up ten days of film-watching at Cannes, the festival of film festivals and benchmark of what to watch for the rest of the year

Winner of the Best Actor Award, Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro as Che Guevara in director's Steven Soderbergh Che

By Samir Farid

The American actor, producer and political activist Sean Penn, head of the Jury at this year's Cannes Film Festival (14-25 May), made a statement at the beginning of the festival to the effect that he would like to see filmmakers who show themselves to be aware of the times in which we live being rewarded for this awareness. Last Sunday the festival's star-studded awards ceremony saw the fulfillment of Penn's wish.

Two overtly political Italian films -- Gomorrah and Il Divo -- received the Grand Prix and the Jury Award respectively, while the top two acting awards went to Benicio del Toro for his role as the legendary Argentinean revolutionary Che Guevara in the American film Che, and to Sandra Corveloni for her role in the Brazilian film Linha de Passe (Line of Passage), which depicts a poor mother of four youngsters trying to pursue impossible dreams in the slums of Sao Paulo.

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All the crises that Carter faced -- fuel and food, the Middle East, general malaise -- are still crying out for solutions, argues Gamal Nkrumah

By Gamal Nkruman

In conventional wisdom, an aspiring American presidential candidate must court the omnipotent pro-Israel or Jewish lobby. So it came as no surprise that Senator Barack Obama has abruptly halted his acerbic public warnings about the need for drastic change in foreign policy concerns -- and especially when it comes to Israel, a country that has never been seen as a paragon of good government in this part of the world, but that has long been the sacred cow of the American political establishment.

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Al Ahram

When it comes to supporting Israel, any bigot will do, writes Ramzy Baroud*

By Ramzy baroud

The recent uproar surrounding Pastor John Hagee is only remarkable in the sense that it took so long in coming. The fundamentalist pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone "mega-church" in San Antonio, Texas, has long shown himself to be not just anti- Semitic, but also anti-Islamic and anti-Catholic. It doesn't take much probing to find ample examples of racism, bigotry and justification of violent tragedy in the words of the man once described by Senator Joe Lieberman as "Ish Elokim" -- a "man of God".

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By Kim Pilling, The Independent (UK)

Lecturers prompted an angry response last night when they agreed to
contemplate a possible boycott of Israeli universities over the
"humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza" and the Palestinians.

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By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*

BAQUBA - After more than five years of U.S. occupation, the very dreams of the people of Baquba have changed. For a start, they are no longer about the future.

Today, a shower is a dream. Or that the electricity supply continues just that little bit longer.

"These needs are very trivial for people of other countries," 43-year-old political leader Saad Tahir told IPS. "But in Iraq, people dream more of these things than of some ambition or success."

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Forty people were also wounded in the 2006 Israeli shelling

Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel Peace prize winner, has said he is shocked by conditions in the Gaza Strip after months of Israeli sanctions.

Tutu, who has been on a UN fact-finding mission to investigate the deaths of 19 Palestinian civilians killed in November 2006, said on Thursday the coastal strip had become "desolate and scary".

He said Israel should ease the blockade, which has resulted in shortages of fuel and other basic goods.

Eight children were among the dead in the
November 2006 attack

Israel imposed sanctions last year after Hamas seized control of Gaza.

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There is "no concrete evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon" 00 Mohammad El Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency

Begins June 4, Airs Wednesday Nights At 9:00 ET/PT

NEW YORK - Sundance Channel will premiere “On the Road in America,” the 12-part documentary series that follows four young Arabs as they travel across the United States on June 4, 2008.

Created by Academy Award-nominated producer Jerome Gary (Pumping Iron), and executive produced by Gary and Leon Shahabian, the series was conceived with the intent to expose Middle Eastern audiences to the diversity and uniqueness of the United States and Americans.

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STATE OF ISRAEL
Head of State: Shimon Peres (replaced Moshe Katzav in June)
Head of government: Ehud Olmert
Death penalty: abolitionist for ordinary crimes
Population: 7 million (Israel); 3.9 million (OPT)
Life expectancy: 80.3 years (Israel); 72.9 years (OPT)
Under-5 mortality (m/f): 6/5 per 1,000 (Israel);
23/18 per 1,000 (OPT)
Adult literacy: 97.1 per cent (Israel); 92.4 per cent (OPT)

The human rights situation in the Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) remained dire. Israeli forces killed more than 370 Palestinians, destroyed more than 100 Palestinian homes and imposed ever more stringent restrictions on the movement of Palestinians.

In June, the Israeli government imposed an unprecedented blockade on the Gaza Strip, virtually imprisoning its entire 1.5 million population, subjecting them to collective punishment and causing the gravest humanitarian crisis to date.

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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.

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Fadil Shana'a

GAZA - The Palestinian Journalists' Forum and the Union of Arab Physicians announced the creation of an annual award on Wednesday named after Fadil Shana'a, the Reuters cameraman who was killed by Israeli tanks in Gaza on 16 April.

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The Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth is a modern Catholic church built over the remains of Byzantine and Crusader churches. It incorporates the cave, known as the Grotto of the Annunciation pictured in the photo above, in which the Virgin Mary received the news from Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus. The site has been a pilgrimage destination since earliest times and remains an important stop for Holy Land pilgrims today.

By Saed Bannoura

An Arab member of Knesset, Wasel Taha, slammed an Israeli court decision to imprison an Arab resident of Nazareth for defending the Basilica of Annunciation Church in the city after in came under attack by an extremist Israeli couple.

Jeffry Abu Sinna was sentenced to eight months imprisonment for participating in defending the church which was attacked by Odilia Habibi and his wife who hurled fire crackers and gas bombs at the church setting part of it on fire.

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By Ghassan Bannoura

The Israeli army invaded the southern West Bank city of Hebron and nearby villages on Wednesday morning and kidnapped four civilians.

Local sources reported that the Israeli army invaded the city of Hebron, and the nearby Yatta, Banni Nu'em, Kharssah, and Beit Omer villages. During the invasion Israeli troops searched and ransacked residents' homes before kidnapping four civilians and took them to unknown locations.

The sources identified the four as; Amjad Shureteh, 30, Yousif Al Khudari, 23, Ali Adwi, 21, and Nizar Awwad, 14.

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By Ghassan Bannoura

The Israeli army attacked Al Shawurah and Beit Fajjar villages located near the city Bethlehem of in the northern part of the West Bank and kidnapped two civilians on Wednesday early morning

Local sources from Bethlehem said, that a number of Israeli vehicles attacked Beit Fajjar village searched homes then kidnapped Ahmad Deireh, 22, and took him to unknown location.

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By Ghassan Bannoura

The Israeli army invaded the northern West Bank city of Nablus and nearby Balata refugee camp and during that attack the invading forces kidnapped six civilians on Wednesday at dawn.

Local sources said that the Israeli troops searched and ransacked a number of homes. Witnesses said that troops opened fire randomly at resident homes during the attack.

From Balata refugee camp the Israeli army kidnapped Yousif Al Assmar, 17, Ahmad Musa'ed, 17, and Farees Thiab, 18. Meanwhile Hilal Zahran, 32, and Amer Ya'ish, 21, were taken from the city of Nablus.

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By Rami Almeghari

Two Palestinian fighters have been reportedly killed and nine others wounded on Wednesday, in two Israeli air strikes and a ground invasion into separate Gaza areas.

Palestinian medical sources said that Osama Alghewaiti,33 and Abdelrazeq Mo'amar, 21, were killed and four others injured, all were admitted to the Abu Yousef Alnajjar hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

Witnesses said that an Israeli air strike hit the Rafah city today morning, leaving one man killed.

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Hamas' Haniya (L) and Tutu hold a joint press conference in Gaza

U.N. human rights observers led by Desmond Tutu on Wednesday met survivors of a 2006 Israeli bombing that killed 19 Palestinian civilians in Gaza, leading the South African cleric to say the group was "devastated" by what they learned.

Nobel peace laureate Tutu said he was moved to tears by the "unacceptable" situation in the Palestinian territory that is under a tight Israeli blockade.

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Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour

Sheikh Hamad Al-Beitawi (Photo by Gale Courey Toensing)

RAMALLAH - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with officials from the rival Hamas movement in the Presidential compound (the Muqata'a) in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, reliable Palestinian sources said.

The Hamas delegation delivered a letter from Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails calling for unity.

According to the source, the delegation included former Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Addin Ash-Sha'ir, Sheikh Hamid Al-Beitawi and Samir Abu 'Eisha.

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By Peter Chamberlin

countercurrents.org

Bush has failed to fulfill his divine mission, to secure the safety of Israel for all time. For a true believer in Christian-Zionism, it must be gnawing at his soul like some giant rat hollowing-out his insides. How can Jesus ever return if Bush can't make Jerusalem safe enough for all Jews to return to? If Bush can't clear the way for the rebuilding of Solomon's Temple, then where will the messiah sit while he is destroying the earth and most of the Jews with it? (See: "Lobbying for Armageddon")

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By Ofri Ilani

The American mathematician David Mumford, co-winner of the 2008 Wolf Foundation Prize in Mathematics, announced upon receiving the award yesterday that he will donate the money to Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah, and to Gisha, an Israeli organization that advocates for Palestinian freedom of movement.

"I decided to donate my share of the Wolf Prize to enable the academic community in occupied Palestine to survive and thrive," Mumford told Haaretz. "I am very grateful for the prize, but I believe that Palestinian students should have an opportunity to go elsewhere to acquire an education. Students in the West Bank and Gaza today do not have an opportunity to do that."

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Ex-president says EU is colluding in a human rights crime

Former US President Jimmy Carter speaking at the 2008 Hay Festival

Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU's position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as "supine" and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "embarrassing".

Referring to the possibility of Europe breaking with the US in an interview with the Guardian, he said: "Why not? They're not our vassals. They occupy an equal position with the US."

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Burbank promises Bush war crimes investigation

CANTON, Conn. - Human rights attorney Harold H. Burbank II has been selected as Connecticut Green Party's 5th Congressional District candidate to run against incumbent Democrat Christopher Murphy and Republican David Cappiello in the November general election.

The northwest Connecticut Green Party held a regional selection meeting on Friday, May 23, in New Milford. Members unanimously voted Burbank as the candidate.

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Tony Blair on his airplane

By Saed Bannoura

Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Envoy for the Quartet for Mideast Peace had a 'near-miss' on Friday when Israeli fighter jets mistook his plane for an 'enemy aircraft', and were within seconds of shooting him down.

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Opinion

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict turned 60 this month. That's 60 years since the founding of a Jewish state and 60 years of Palestinian dispossession.

Seventy-five percent of non-Jewish natives of historic Palestine were expelled and prevented from returning home.

This 60-year-old zero-sum game defies the intent of international law, which seeks to resolve conflict peacefully.

It particularly defies the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the right to return home. Ironically, the declaration also celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

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Dr Mernissi gave a lecture at the American University of Sharjah titled "Love in Digital Islam: Why is Ibn Hazm so popular on the internet?"

By Siham Al Najami

DUBAI - The clash between Islam and the West is in reality a clash between "Ulfa" meaning empathy and consumerism, said internationally-renowned writer and feminist Dr Fatima Mernissi in a lecture held at the American University of Sharjah.

The Moroccan sociologist delivered the lecture "Love in Digital Islam: Why is Ibn Hazm so popular on the internet?"

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Touring the region, Bush has no one to blame but himself for the sorry state of Middle East affairs, writes James Zogby*

James Zogby

President George W Bush may attempt to sound visionary, talk tough, and criticise opponents as naïve, but the Middle East which he visited last week is in shambles due in no small part to policies he has pursued or failed to pursue during his two terms in office.

Bush ostensibly travelled to the Middle East to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding, the 75th anniversary of close US-Saudi relations, and to deliver a keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh. All of this might have sounded like a trip planner's dream project, except for the fact that while in the region the president, despite his rhetoric, would have a hard time diverting attention from the fires burning all around.

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Below please find the text of a superb speech delivered yesterday,
Thursday, May 22, 2008, at Princeton University by Chris Hedges, a
former Middle East bureau chief of the New York Times.

By Chris Hedges

Princeton University, May 22, 2008

Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez Canal and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.

The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.

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The concepts of "the chosen people" and "the promised land" have allowed both the United States and Israel to brutally mistreat the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Palestine and dispossess them of their lands, Steven Newcomb tell us.

Indian Country Today

By Steven Newcomb / Indigenous Law Institute

In his May 15 speech before the Israeli Knesset, President George W. Bush invoked the Old Testament story of the chosen people and the Promised Land. Bush said that the establishment of Israel in 1948 ''was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham, Moses and David - a homeland for the chosen people in Eretz Yisrael.''

Bush also spoke explicitly of an alliance and a friendship between Israel and the United States rooted in the Bible. The source of the link between the two countries, he said, ''is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul.'' Then, weaving a bit of American history into the mix, Bush told his audience: ''When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of [the Hebrew prophet] Jeremiah 51:10: 'Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.'''

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The bodies of shepherds killed in the strike [Reuters]

A US military helicopter air assault has killed eight Iraqi civilians, including two children, in Baiji, north of Baghdad.

Colonel Mudhher al-Qaisi, Baiji's police chief, told Reuters news agency on Thursday that the attack targeted a car of shepherds who were in a farming area in the town late on Wednesday.

"This is a criminal act. It will make the relations between Iraqi citizens and the US forces tense. This will negatively affect security improvements," al-Qaisi said.

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The Nakba represents the story of Palestinian loss and dispossession

By Lamis Andoni, Al Jazeera Middle East analyst

US president George Bush's attempt, at the World Trade Economic Forum in Egypt, to ease Arab anger over his speech to the Knesset is too feeble and too late.

Bush had addressed the Israeli parliament, on Israel's 60th anniversary three days ago, saying the establishment of Israel had been "the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David - a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael".

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By John Mohawk

Before the formation of the confederacy now called the Iroquois or, more traditionally, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, there were no states. In the prehistoric Northeast woodlands, internecine warfare and blood feuds were going on everywhere. The people had been at war for so long that some were born knowing they had enemies and not knowing why they had enemies. It was led by what we would call today warlords, although they were actually warrior chieftains.

What was peculiar about it was that the people who had the capacity to make war did not have the capacity to make peace. This is the case with warlords also. A warlord can initiate violence, but can't guarantee the cessation of violence.

I propose to you that there will always be people who work outside of a framework of states, who do violence and adhere to no coherent rules about when to end the violence.

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By Ray McGovern

Dear Admiral Fallon:

I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I have drafted this letter in the hope it will come to your attention.

First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As you are doubtless aware, that oath has no expiration date; it remains on active duty, so to speak.

You have let it be known that, even though you are now retired, you do not intend to speak, on or off the record, about the looming war with Iran.

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From Democracy Now:
Amy Goodman: We end today’s program with a tribute to Malcolm X. He was born eighty-three years ago today on May 19th, 1925, assassinated February 21, 1965, as he spoke before a packed audience in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. He was just thirty-nine years old when he was gunned down. This is an excerpt of a speech Malcolm X gave at the Audubon Ballroom about half a year earlier. It’s called “By Any Means Necessary.”

MALCOLM X: One of the first things that the independent African nations did was to form an organization called the Organization of African Unity. […] The purpose of our […] Organization of Afro-American Unity, which has the same aim and objective to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary. That’s our motto. […]

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Civil liberties groups defending detainees in Guantanamo are outraged at juvenile detentions

A report has revealed that the US is holding about 500 juveniles described as "unlawful enemy combatants" in detention centres in Iraq, with 10 in its Bagram base in Afghanistan.

The US told the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child that 2,500 youths under the age of 18 had been held, almost all in Iraq, for periods of up to a year or more.

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Soldier says war violates his values as soldiers tell horror stories

Sgt. Matthis Chiroux is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American U.S. military recruiters love, but he says he refused to go to Iraq because he believes it is an "illegal occupation".

"I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school… recruiters started phoning me when I was in 10th grade (16 years old)" the now 24-year-old told AFP.

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Soldier used Islam's holy book as a target during practice
Muslim Scholars says it is a sign of US hate towards Muslims

BAGHDAD - AFP)A U.S. soldier has been expelled from Iraq for shooting a Quran during target practice, the American military said on Sunday as a top general apologized for the desecration that triggered protests.

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Bush seeks to reaasure Arabs

Bush told Abbas Washington is not blind to the Palestinians' aspirations for a state

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt - Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that U.S. President George W. Bush's speech to Israel's parliament had angered Arabs and Palestinians.

"Bush's speech in front of the Knesset angered us," Abbas told reporters in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the official MENA news agency reported.

Bush addressed the Israeli parliament at the start of a regional tour as the Jewish state marked its 60th anniversary, sparking Arab anger over his perceived bias towards Israel.

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By Saed Bannoura

After the US President, George W. Bush, gave a speech at the Israeli Knesset on Thursday, several right wing members of Knesset said that “Bush seems to be more Zionist the Olmert”, and that “it is better to have Bush as a PM instead of Olmert”.

Some of the Knesset members even said that “Bush appears to be the one person who will achieve the Zionist aspirations”, the Arabs48 news website reported.

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Painting: Iraqi artist, Serwan Baran

I remember when I was first initiated to the Palestinian cause. I must have been 10 or 11. I vividly remember the setting. It was our living room [in Iraq - the writer is Iraqi]. I recall seeing sun rays penetrating across onto the Persian carpet. I remember the colors coming alive. I guess it must have been spring or summer.

My parents were seated opposite one another. Each was holding a newspaper. They would read, pause, comment, debate and resume their reading...

Sensing that I was hesitant to come forward with the little knowledge I had for a 10 year old, my father completed my thoughts. "Palestine has been taken away from us by force...Layla, what happened to Palestine will happen to every Arab country unless..." My mother intervened as she usually does and added "Always remember that Palestine is Arab and that you are an Arab whatever happens..."

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Canaan (Connecticut) May 17, 2008

Palestine by artist Isma Badr

Marc Gopin

WASHINGTON-There are Israeli Jews who have been talking to Hamas for years, especially Rabbi Menahem Frohman. In fact, there are more Israeli Jews, official and un-official, who would be talking not only to Hamas, but also to Syria and Iran were the White House not pressuring them against dialogue with enemies of Israel. This is unprecedented: a third party, supposedly mediating for peace, that forbids two parties from talking to each other.

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Hartford Courant

By Bessy Reyna

May 16, 2008

Early this month, I attended a panel dealing with the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It was organized by the group "We Refuse To Be Enemies," composed of Jews, Muslims and Christians. This group's main goal is the promotion of a peaceful and just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In light of Israel's 60th anniversary, and the lack of progress in resolving the conflict, this is an ever more urgent issue.

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A Palestinian stands in Iqrit, northern Israel, as part of an annual pilgrimage to a village whose residents were ordered out by Jewish fighters during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war; a gleeful Israeli girl, born well after the establishment of Israel, holds an anti-tank rocket-launcher in celebration of the event

A growing number of Israeli intellectuals believe their state may soon implode by force of its contradictions and failures, writes Saleh Al-Naami

By Saleh Al-Naami

When Amnon Rubinstein speaks, many people in Israel listen. As an intellectual who has held the posts of minister of education and of justice, Rubinstein commands the respect of the Israeli elite regardless of their intellectual and political leanings. And yet Rubinstein surprised Israelis when in interview with Hebrew Radio in mid-April he anticipated that the Israeli state would not survive. Rubinstein is not the only person to have reached this conclusion. On the eve of the 60th anniversary of Israel's establishment, Israeli intellectuals teemed with pessimistic predictions about the future. An increasing number of politicians and Zionists have begun to openly express the belief that the entity of Israel is on a path to oblivion.

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In the Galilee, Jonathan Cook hears how erasing all traces of Palestine and its people was the lynchpin of the Zionist agenda

By Jonathan Cook

Amin Mohamed Ali (Abu Arab), 73, is a refugee from the village of Saffuriya, three miles northwest of Nazareth. The village, home to 5,000 Palestinians, was one of the largest in the Galilee and among the first to be bombed from the air, according to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. It was occupied on 16 July 1948. Most of its refugees ended up in Lebanon, but some fled to nearby Nazareth, where they established a neighbourhood, Safafra, named after their village. Abu Arab's home overlooks his family's former lands, now farmed by a Jewish community called Zippori. His old home was destroyed, now covered by a pine forest planted by the Jewish National Fund. He is one of the founders of the Saffuriya Cultural Association and organised this year's Nakba procession to Saffuriya.

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The viciousness of Israel is testament to its knowing that Palestinians will always remain steadfast and defeat its past and present attempts to erase them, writes Joseph Massad*

By Joseph Massad

One of the most difficult things to grasp in the modern history of Palestine and the Palestinians is the meaning of the Nakba. Is the Nakba to be seen as a discrete event that took place and ended in 1948, or is it something else? What are the political stakes in reifying the Nakba as a past event, in commemorating it annually, in bowing before its awesome symbolism? What are the effects of making the Nakba a finite historical episode that one bemoans but must ultimately accept as a fact of history?

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A lone Palestinian in an unidentified Palestinian refugee camp navigates her way through the tents

Mahmoud Darwish was born in 1941 in the village of Birwe, in Upper Galilee. Birwe was destroyed in 1948 after its inhabitants were made to flee the village. The extract which follows is taken from a memoir Darwish wrote during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In it, he remembers his first encounter with Beirut in 1948, before his family stole back into what has since become Israel, where Darwish remained until 1972.

The sky of Beirut is a huge dome made of dark sheet metal. All-encompassing noon spreads its leisure in the bones. The horizon is like a slate of clear grey, nothing colouring it save the playful jets. A Hiroshima sky. I can, if I want, take chalk in hand and write whatever I wish on the slate. A whim takes hold of me. What would I write if I were to go up to the roof of a tall building? "They shall not pass"? It's already been said. "May we face death, but long live the homeland"? That's been said before. "Hiroshima"? That too has been said. The letters have all slipped out of my memory and fingers. I've forgotten the alphabet. All I remember are these six letters: B-E-I-R-U- T.

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Haaretz

Next to the word "chutzpah" in the dictionary is a photo of Zionist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who said on Thursday that the Palestinians will be able to celebrate their independence day on the same day that the word "nakba" or catastrophe is erased from their lexicon. Livni was referring to the Palestinians' "Nakba Day" which is commemorated on May 15, the day Israel was founded in 1948.

By Rotem Sela

The Israeli mission to the United Nations is seeking clarifications after an official communique released by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's bureau made specific reference to the word "nakba," according to a report broadcast on Israel Radio early Friday morning.

The report said the UN chief telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to express his solidarity with the Palestinians on the day they mark the "nakba," the Arabic word meaning "catastrophe" that is used in reference to the founding of the state of Israel.

=> Read more!

Al Ahram

Humiliated in 2006 and now hit by corruption scandals, most Israelis want Prime Minister Olmert to resign immediately, writes Jonathan Cook

by Jonathan Cook

Israelis may have noted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unusually dejected demeanour when he gave a televised address to the nation last week on the eve of Israel's 60th Independence Day celebrations. Most, however, had no way of knowing why Olmert was so downcast. An Israeli judge had slapped a sweeping order to prevent the Israeli media from repeating reports published in American newspapers that Olmert was becoming rapidly ensnared in a corruption scandal.

=> Read more!

Christian Science Monitor

Analysts say politicians hold their tongues on giving additional US aid to Israel for fear of being labeled as anti-Semitic.

By David R. Francis

Israel, celebrating its 60th birthday last week, has proved to be an expensive ally for the United States.

Since its birth, Israel has received at least $114 billion from the US in direct foreign economic and military aid, says Shirl McArthur, a retired US diplomat who periodically updates his Israel cost estimates for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WREMA), a magazine often critical of US policy toward Israel.

That estimate, Mr. McArthur notes, is conservative. For instance, he has not factored inflation into that $114 billion cumulative sum. The late Washington economist Thomas Stauffer did that calculation several years ago. He found total official aid to Israel, up to 2002, came to $247 billion. He added other costs of US support of Israel (interest on debt, higher oil prices, etc.) to reach a highly controversial total of $1.6 trillion.

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by Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

We are 126 years after the practical initiation of the Zionist project to colonize Palestine and we are 60 years after the realization of that vision in the form of a Jewish ethnocentric nationalistic state. These are very short periods in human histories (the crusader kingdoms lasted longer). History teaches us that native people are not guaranteed victory but that they always have many options moving forward. In this essay, I explore the challenges and the many options open for Palestinians as we enter perhaps the most challenging period of our history. George Bush's speech in front of the Israeli Knesset "celebrating" this ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the politicide that followed included this with no bit of irony:

"The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: 'Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.' The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state."

Will his "Manifest destiny" characterize the future and will Palestinian natives follow the trajectory of America's natives? Will he be proven wrong here as he was proven wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan? We cannot guarantee anything. We only know that history is not something that happens; it is made. Further, natives can learn to analyze objectively without losing their dreams and aspirations (and natives in America have not given up). In Palestine, we actually have far more options and possibilities if we look at things objectively.

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By Akiva Eldar

If George Bush were a true friend of Israel, he would seize the investigation against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as an excuse to stay home tomorrow. Unless he has a rabbit in his hat, this will be the third time in the past half year that the U.S. president shows the Palestinians and the entire Arab world that they are wasting their time by trying to end the occupation by peaceful means. Not only have matters not improved since he troubled dozens of leaders from around the world to come to Annapolis in late November, 2007; since then, the occupation has been progressing, while the vision of two states has been receding. The number of new buildings erected in the settlements in the last few months rivals only the number of roadblocks that have been added since Bush last visited Jerusalem, in January.

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By Jeff Halper
May, 2008

Israeli Independence Day 2008, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the rise of the Jewish State on the ruins of Palestinian society, should be cause more for sober reflection and reevaluation than for celebration.

True, Israeli Jews have much to celebrate. Only a few weeks ago the shekel joined the fifteen strongest currencies in the world, and with an economy fueled by diamonds, arms, high-tech, security services and tourism, Israel's economy is booming. Israel's international position continues to soar: the European Union recently upgraded its links, German Chancellor Angela Merkel brought half her cabinet to Jerusalem to emphasize that Germany was Israel's "loyal partner," and President Bush will come for the second time in the past few months. Celebrities like Steven Spielberg (who withdrew as a cultural consultant to the Olympics in protest of China's human rights violations), Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google founder Sergey Brin, Rupert Murdoch and Henry Kissinger, alongside South African Nobel Laureate and anti-apartheid crusader Nadine Gordimer, will also grace the festivities. And as for the "conflict," it has been effectively removed from the public consciousness (with the exception of Sderot) as attacks inside Israel have been virtually eliminated. What's not to celebrate?

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This is from an Israeli licensed march of Palestinian families at the old destroyed Arab village of Safurye. About half way through the clip CNN's own Ben Welderman gets harassed too and barks back. If this is how Israel treats Palestinians who are citizens of Israel you can only imagine how it treats Palestinians that they occupy.

Remember, this demo was licensed by the Israeli authorities!

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Editor's Note: Although this document, authored by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr., contains a direct appeal for political action we feel it is nonetheless striking. It is news unto itself. As such we offer it as news. --from Truthout

From: The office of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr.
May 8, 2008

Join Me in Calling on President Bush to Respect Congress' Exclusive Power to Declare War

Dear Democratic Colleague:

As we mark five years of war in Iraq, I have become increasingly concerned that the President may possibly take unilateral, preemptive military action against Iran. During the last seven years, the Bush Administration has exercised unprecedented assertions of Executive Branch power and shown an unparalleled aversion to the checks and balances put in place by the Constitution's framers. The letter that follows asks President Bush to seek congressional authorization before launching any possible military strike against Iran and affirms Senator Biden's statement last year that impeachment proceedings should be considered if the President fails to do so.

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Ben Heine © Cartoons

The Nakba of 1948 was a disaster for the people of Palestine…. The Nakba of today is...

‘A disaster for everybody’

UN official says Israel’s blockade of Gaza is feeding a ‘growing sense of injustice’ among its population
By Rory McCarthy in Gaza City
guardian.co.uk

Gaza’s population has been reduced to a “subhuman existence” where basic humanitarian needs are going unmet in the face of rapidly deteriorating conditions, according to a senior UN official.

An Israeli economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, has produced shortages of fuel and basic supplies and has closed most private businesses and pushed up poverty rates.

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By Sandy Tolan

Air Force One is traveling back in time Tuesday, banking low near the southern Mediterranean coast and touching down on contested soil where the past is always present. In the Holy Land, the battles over historical narrative -- above all, the meaning of the founding of Israel in 1948 -- are as hard-fought as the contemporary struggles over West Bank settlers, Palestinian refugees, and negotiations for a two-state solution. For the observer, or self-described "honest broker" in a long and bitter dispute, identifying with only one side's history carries profound meaning of its own.

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The Capitol

The tenants of the Capitol

How many members of the US Congress and/or the US Senate know the answers to the following 10 questions:

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By Gary Leupp

May 9. I read tonight a brief article by Philip Giraldi posted on the American Conservative website: “War with Iran Might Be Closer than You Think.”

“There is considerable speculation,” writes the former CIA officer, “and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods [Revolutionary Guards]-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran.”

Voting for “antiwar” Democrats two years ago didn’t end the war. Even millions in the streets, peacefully demonstrating as the system encourages, didn’t prevent the assault on Iraq over five years ago. Now there’s no feasible political recourse to stop an attack on Iran. And little time to mobilize mass demonstrations against it. It will come as a thief in the night, presented to the American people as a fait accompli. As the Bush-Cheney cowboys ride off into the sunset, smirkin’ and grinnin’ and slapping each other’s backs, the people will start to pay.

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A Poem by M.I. Kuruwilla

Carry a message to your own people, my friend,
Which will be well understood by your people,
Not ours--the creed of the material, phenomenal
World as an illusion, you call it, Maya, don’t you?
Concealing but also symbolically revealing
A deeper order of reality. Do I sound philosophical?
You must excuse me. I cannot help it.
This view of things with a deeper reality
At a deeper level is intriguing. I am myself affected
To the extent of thinking of blood and terror
As fantasies, symbols. Isn’t it intellectually
Consoling to think that violence, blood and terror
Are not real but only symbols of a deeper
Reality. Although I live in a firm world, I move
On two planes of reality--the mundane level,
And a deeper level of mystical yearnings and insights.
Yet the mystique of blood and terror is a terrifying
Thing, not consoling at all. Passion and the craving
For power at a deeper level are murderous things.
Call it spirituality of blood and terror, if you
Like. But it is no joke to allow your face
To be blasted. No taking you first by the scruff
Of your neck even.

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Is this action a precursor to Bush labeling Venezuela as a state sponsor of "terrorism"? See Penobscots lead opposition to Venezuela "terrorist" resolution

By Humberto Santana

Washington announced at the end of last month that it is resurrecting the long-ago moth-balled Fourth Fleet to reassert US power in the Caribbean and Latin America. Created at the time of World War II to combat German submarines attacking merchant shipping convoys in the South Atlantic, the Fourth Fleet was seen as no longer necessary after the Second World War and was disbanded in 1950.

The Pentagon’s a statement on the revival of the fleet gave a far vaguer indication of its new duties, saying it would “conduct varying missions including a range of contingency operations, counter narco-terrorism, and theater security cooperation activities.”

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By Gale Courey Toensing

CANTON, Conn. - For voters in Connecticut's Fifth District who are appalled by the Republicans’ disastrous foreign policies, and disillusioned by the Democrats’ broken promises to fix them, the November 2008 elections will offer a third choice.

Harold Burbank II is running for Congress as the Green Party candidate for Congress, challenging first-term incumbent Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican state Sen. David Cappiello.

Burbank, a human rights attorney, has never worked for a corporation. He has an impressive record of public service in government, in international relations and law, and in the peace movement for over 30 years. It is this experience in justice work and what Burbank calls this “critical moment in history” that drove his decision to run for the Fifth District congressional seat.

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Signing a peace deal is one thing and implementing it in an atmosphere of rejection in the region is a completely different matter."
--Yasser Al-Zaatra, Addustour

"The declared objective of Rice's visits is to boost Palestinian- Israeli negotiations, whereas the real objective is to gain the confidence of Israelis and the Zionist lobby during the year of the US presidential elections."
--Ezzeddin Darwish, Tishreen

"It is clear from the political regional and international situation that the Palestinian issue will reach a stage in which there will be no right of return and no united Palestinian state."
--Rawya Rashad Al-Shawa, Al-Quds

Al Ahram

Al Ahram

Leaders within Fatah are waking up to the dangers of the present course charted by Abbas, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

By khaled Amayreh

With the US and Israel telling Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas that keeping away from Hamas is a sine qua non for the continuation of the "peace process," many in Fatah are now realising that Israel and its US guardian-ally are only utilising Palestinian national disunity to further weaken the Palestinian negotiating position.

Observers in the occupied Palestinian territories cite a number of recent signs indicating that a certain thaw in the Hamas-Fatah showdown is taking place.

However, it is unlikely that US President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert -- the latter eager to display toughness in talks with the Palestinians in order to divert attention from his latest corruption scandal that may signal an early end to his political career -- will tolerate the restoration of Palestinian national unity. The reason is clear. Solid rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas would strengthen the Palestinian negotiation position and make it harder for Israel and the US to blackmail and bully Abbas, a man of weaker calibre compared to late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

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Al Ahram

Omitted from the latest US State Department report on terrorism is that the Bush administration has fuelled it, writes Ramzy Baroud *

By Ramzy Baroud

The data provided in the US State Department's annual terrorism report for 2007 points to some interesting if puzzling conclusions. The much publicised document, made available 30 April via the State Department's website, makes no secret of the fact that Al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. It also suggests that violence worldwide is nowhere near subsiding, despite President Bush's repeated assurances regarding the success of his "war on terror".

Will the report inspire serious reflection on the US's detrimental foreign policy and its role in the current situation?

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Al Ahram

Whereas Arab media enjoys limited freedom as journalists struggle for more, US media freedoms are guaranteed but no one uses them, writes James Zogby*

By James Zogby

This year's Arab Broadcast Forum in Abu Dhabi will bring together a few hundred electronic and print journalists from across the Arab region. This year's sessions will explore threats to press freedom, evaluations of the coverage of major crises, and a self-critical examination of their craft. The participants will benefit but so too will the wider public, since the proceedings will be aired on sponsoring networks.

I have been fortunate to have been a participant in past Arab Broadcast Forums, and other similar gatherings in the Arab world, and continue to be impressed by the quality of the conversation and sharpness of the self-criticism. What comes through clearly is the concern that Arab journalists have for their profession and their commitment to improve the quality of their product.

Arab media may not be free, in the sense that there is government ownership and, in varying degrees, interference and censorship. But Arab journalists are free thinkers and are serious about expanding their freedom to examine critical issues.

All this stands in interesting contrast to the US media that, while cherishing and boasting of its freedom, is increasingly constrained. The US press is technically free of government influence, but there is a combination of political, cultural and commercial considerations that have made US media less free and less inquisitive. The controls are not overt but subtle and at all times pervasive, even decisive.

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Right-wing Israelis establish one of the first West Bank settlements on December 8, 1975

By Saeed Taji Farouky in London

As Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary on May 8, some academics, scholars and journalists are pausing to reflect on the ambitions and aspirations that fuelled the country's 1948 independence - and whether those reasons still resonate today.

David Rubinger, an Israeli photojournalist who witnessed and photographed the country's birth in 1948, told Al Jazeera: "I will with absolute pride say never in history have 600,000 people achieved in 60 years what these 600,000 people achieved in 1948."

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by Uri Avnery

Every time I hear the voice of David Ben-Gurion uttering the words "Therefore we are gathered here…" I think of Issar Barsky, a charming youngster, the little brother of a girlfriend of mine.

The last time we met was in front of the dining hall of Kibbutz Hulda, on Friday, May 14, 1948.

In the coming night my company was to attack al-Qubab, an Arab village on the road to Jerusalem, east of Ramle. We were busy with preparations. I was cleaning my Czech-made rifle, when somebody came and told us that Ben-Gurion was just making a speech about the founding of the state.

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The war drums are again beating. It's beginning to look like the neocons have cranked up their useful idiots in the Bush administration for a fall offensive, target Iran. And maybe also Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians.

The bad guys' list, which is remarkably similar to a roll call of Israel's enemies, seems to have expanded both vertically and horizontally at a time when the U.S. military is using paper clips and chewing gum to hold together its efforts in Iraq. The critique of Iran has sharpened and intensified and new friends of Iran have been discovered in Afghanistan and Gaza. Even Venezuela is accused of being a tad too close to the mullahs, criticized by the State Department for having "deepened relations" with Iran and establishing a weekly flight connecting Caracas with Tehran via Iran Airlines. Lest there be any misunderstanding, doing business or even talking nice with Iran will not be tolerated.

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A newborn is cared for at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. International human rights groups have warned of a collapse in the health care system due to an Israeli blockade

By Omar, a humanitarian worker, in partnership with Oxfam

In two weeks, my wife will bring our child into the world.

The unborn baby is happy now, nestled within its mother's womb and somewhat protected from the violence and suffering that exists in Gaza.

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Some sources say Olmert could be replaced
by foreign minister Livni

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, is likely to step down, or at least have his duties as prime minister suspended as bribery allegations against him are probed.

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Palestinian security forces have intensified patrols and security checks in the village of Qabatya [AFP]

A Palestinian civilian has been killed after Palestinan president Mahmoud Abbas's security forces clashed with armed men for the first time since the launch of a US-backed security drive in the northern West Bank.

Mo'men Fawwaz Kmeil, 20, was shot on Tuesday as he tried to escape a standoff between Palestinian forces and local armed men in a cafe in the town of Qabatya near Jenin, residents said.

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The five Afghan detainees have been taken to
Pul-i-Charkhe prison on the outskirts of Kabul

Five Afghan detainees who were released from Guantanamo Bay last week have been sent to jail upon their arrival in Afghanistan.

They had been detained at Guantanamo Bay with the Al Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Hajj. Al-Hajj and the Afghan detainees were on the same plane after they were released from the US military prison.

The detainees, who have been taken to the Pul-i-Charkhe prison on the outskirts of Kabul, the Afghan capital, will now face Afghan courts.

This procedure to take them to prison and try them in Afghan courts is ... to prevent these detainees from seeking compensation for their illegal arrest -- Lal Gul, a human-rights activist, says of this new development

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This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday April 30 2008 on p. 33 of the Letters & reply section. It was last updated at 12:44 on April 30 2008.

In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating. Surely it is now time to acknowledge the narrative of the other, the price paid by another people for European anti-semitism and Hitler's genocidal policies. As Edward Said emphasised, what the Holocaust is to the Jews, the Naqba is to the Palestinians.

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Johann Hari, The Independent

When you hit your 60th birthday, most of you will wonder if you have become everything you dreamed of in your youth. In a few weeks, the state of Israel is going to do that.

It will look in the mirror and think ? I have a sore back, rickety knees and a gun at my waist, but I'm still standing. Yet somewhere, it will know it is suppressing an old secret it has to face. I would love to be able to crash the birthday party with words of reassurance. Israel has given us great novelists like Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, great film-makers like Joseph Cedar, great scientific research into Alzheimer's, and great dissident journalists like Amira Hass, Tom Segev and Gideon Levy to expose her own crimes.

But I can't do it. Whenever I try to mouth these words, a remembered smell fills my nostrils. It is the smell of shit. Across the occupied West Bank, raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements, along large metal pipes, straight onto Palestinian land. From there, it can enter the groundwater and the reservoirs, and become a poison.

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By William James Martin

Former President Jimmy Carter independent Middle East diplomacy is nothing less than a coup of the American foreign policy of the Bush administration.

He has now met twice with the representatives of Hamas including its head, Khalid Meshaal and has had one-on-one meetings with the heads of state of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and with King Abdullah of Jordan. The Prime Minister of Israel, Edmund Olmert has refuse to meet with him.

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By Greg Moses

The thing about courthouse reporting is the stories come packaged for delivery. For a thirty-dollar check and a five-minute wait, the clerk at the federal courthouse will hand you a document whose news value comes pre-certified by affiants with impeccable credentials, signed off by a U.S. Magistrate Judge.

“That’s sixty pages,” she says, not meaning to remind you of the audio thud that television producers delivered yesterday when they dropped this report in front of the camera from two feet above the desk.

Walking back out the silent stone building, past the metal detector, wishing the courteous guardian a nice afternoon, I wonder that times have changed so many of these heavyweight buildings into inner sanctums. Thank goodness that I could explain myself briefly.

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GAZA - aN Unarmed 41-year-old Palestinian man was killed and his wife and brother were injured when an Israeli tank shell struck their house in the town of Khuza'a, near the city of Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, witnesses said.

The Israeli forces withdrew at 10am local time after an eight-hour incursion.

Eyewitnesses said that Husam Najjar was killed when shrapnel from the shell penetrated his stomach.

Najjar's nephew, 24-year-old Muhammad Samir Najjar, was critically injured earlier on Sunday by Israeli forces who opened fire at the family house in Khuza'a. Palestinian medical sources said Muhammad was shot twice in the head and doctors were operating on him in an attempt to save his life.

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BETHLEHEM - Israeli peace activists will transfer $60,000 worth of medicines and medical supplies they have collected into the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the activists said.

Israeli Coalition Against the Gaza Siege raised money from around the world and bought the supplies from Palestinian companies in the West Bank city of Nablus. After much bureaucratic wrangling, the groups secured the agreement of the Israeli military to allow the much-needed supplies into Gaza. The Tel-Aviv based Physicians for Human Rights obtained the permits, and the Israeli Peace Bloc, Gush Shalom, will accompany the shipment to the Gaza border.

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Sami al-hajj was taken to hospital
immediately after arriving in Sudan

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has hit out at the US treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison where he was held for nearly six and a half years.

Saying that "rats are treated with more humanity", al-Hajj said inmates' "human dignity was violated".

Al-Hajj, who arrived in Sudan early on Friday, was carried off the US air force jet on a stretcher and immediately taken to hospital.

Later, he had an emotional reunion with his wife and son.

His brother, Asim al-Hajj, said he did not recognise the cameraman because he looked like a man in his 80s.

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By Khaled Abu Toameh

More than 100,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon are expected to march toward the border with Israel on May 14 in the context of the Palestinian Authority's plan to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Israel, PA officials told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

The PA leadership has, meanwhile, announced that it would boycott any world leader who arrived in Israel to participate in the anniversary celebrations.

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The Israeli army has blamed Palestinian fighters for the deaths of a Gaza mother and her four young children following an Israeli air raid in Beit Hanoun last week.

The military's report contradicts one by B'Tselem, an independent Israeli human rights group, which found that the family was killed by a strike from an Israeli missile.

The army said on Friday that its investigation of the killing of Meissar Abu Megteg and her children found that secondary blasts from ammunition backpacks carried by the fighters were to blame.

But B'Tselem maintains there is "no evidence" of any secondary explosion.

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While on the surface it appears invincible, Israel lies exposed in its behaviour as a racist, belligerent, arrogant and colonial pariah, writes Ayman El-Amir*

Next week Israel will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its declaration of independence in the presence of an enviable number of dignitaries and heads of state. One week later, on 15 May, the Palestinians will commiserate their Nakba -- the day they were driven from their homeland by Jewish paramilitary settlers who established the state of Israel.

While Israel will be showered with words of admiration and congratulation, principally by those countries that helped create it, the Palestinians will be huddled together in exile or under military occupation, encircled by the Israeli wall of shame that was probably inspired by the Nazi wall that enclosed the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in 1940. The only statements making reference to them will be the empty rhetoric of Arab officials calling for peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state, and probably maligning Hamas. Victors will continue writing history, at least as long as they remain powerful.

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Spurned in Washington, can President Abbas defer any longer the imperative of re-establishing Palestinian national unity, asks Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah

A NEW ISRAELI OUTRAGE: The battered bodies of four Palestinian children killed by Israeli fire lay at a morgue in Beit Lahia, Gaza. The four children, aged one to five, and their mother were killed during Israeli military operations

The obvious failure of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's latest visit to Washington has been reverberating through Palestinian society, with many intellectuals and pundits advising Abbas to "quit" or at least stop acting at the US administration's beck and call. Some critics have even called for dismantling the PA and abandoning the two-state solution strategy in favour of the one-state solution of a democratic state for all its citizens.

All the promises and pledges the Bush administration has made to us have evaporated. The US is only indulging in an open-ended process of deception for the purpose of giving Israel the time it needs to build more settlements and make the task of creating a viable Palestinian state unrealistic and unachievable. -- Fatah official Hatem Abdul-Qader

Abbas trusted the Americans too much and for too long. He should have explored alternatives to this futile process. "He should extend his hand to Hamas and re- establish Palestinian national unity, irrespective of American and Israeli reactions. He should stop this futile process under whose rubric Israel is liquidating the Palestinian cause...After all, if we stand united, the whole world, including the Americans, will respect us. The ball is in our court, and no one else's. -- Hamas official Hani al Masri

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Sami al-Hajj is expected to be greeted by his family
at the airport in Khartoum

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has been released from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay and is being flown to Sudan, according to sources.

Al-Hajj's family is expected to greet him when he lands in the capital Khartoum late on Thursday.

Once he arrives, al-Hajj will undergo a series of medical checks.

Al-Hajj was seized by Pakistani intelligence officers while travelling near the Afghan border in December 2001.

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By Mazin Qumsiyeh

Between December 1947 and December 1950, over 530 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed. Half of the Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by underground Zionist forces even before Israel was unilaterally declared a state. Palestinians call these events of the late 1940s the Nakba (Catastrophe).

The Palestinian refugees are the largest remaining refugee population in the world. Seven million of the ten million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people. They are prevented from returning to their homes and lands even though International law and UN resolutions demand it.

=> Read more!

By Rebecca Harrison

GAZA, April 30 (Reuters) - When Hassan Amin al-Bana gingerly steps on the gas pedal of his bright yellow taxi, a strange smell wafts from the exhaust: deep-fried fast food.

Faced with chronic fuel shortages due to an Israeli blockade and a strike by Palestinian distributors protesting supply caps, taxi drivers in the Gaza Strip are filling their tanks with cooking oil, often scrounging leftover fat from street vendors.

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Unlike the US and Israel, Iran is neither occupying any other country’s territory nor threatening to invade another country. Nevertheless, propaganda against Iran is spouting from US and Israeli mouths at an increasing rate. Lie after lie rolls off the tongues of leaders of the “two great democracies.”

By Paul Craig Roberts

It is 1939 all over again. The world waits helplessly for the next act of naked aggression by rogue states. Only this time the rogue states are not the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. They are the United States and Israel.

The targeted victims are not Poland and France, but Iran, Syria, the remains of the Palestinian West Bank and southern Lebanon.

The American mass media is overjoyed. War coverage attracts viewers and sells advertising.

The neoconservatives are ecstatic. Hegemony uber alles is back on track.

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Any country that resists submitting to US hegemony is automatically deemed a "terrorist" state.

The US has said Iran remains the "most active" state sponsor of what it calls "terrorism".

The US state department, in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism document, accused Iran of providing aid to the Palestinian group Hamas, the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, "Iraq-based militants", and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

=> Read more!

Several Palestinian factions have agreed, in principle, to a ceasefire with Israel.

A Palestinian official said that Hamas and 11 small groups agreed in Cairo on Wednesday to proposals that include a six-month truce, a prisoner exchange and reopening of the border between Gaza and Israel.

The truce, if implemented, will initially take effect in Gaza, with a view to being extended to the West Bank.

=> Read more!