OLMERT'S WHITE HOUSE VISIT EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, MAY 23): Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Bush at the White House will discuss two issues deal with the Islamofascist threat to Israel: 1) the danger from Iran; and 2) how to deal with the threat posed by a Hamas-run Palestinian Authority.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060522-101441-5350r.htm

WEST BANK TERRORIST STATE - R. JAMES WOOLSEY (WALL STREET JOURNAL, MAY 23): A two-state solution can become a reality when the Palestinians are held to the same standards as Israelis -- to the requirement that Jewish settlers in a West Bank-Gaza Palestinian state would be treated with the same decency that Israel treats its Arab citizens.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1148341868...days_us_opinion

OLMERT'S FOLLY ... - ARIEL COHEN (WASHINGTON TIMES, MAY 23): Mr. Bush should voice his strongest opposition to Olmert?s dangerous and reckless scheme for an Israeli retreat from the West Bank.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200605...01450-3835r.htm

SAYING NO TO OLMERT - CAROLINE GLICK, (JERUSALEM POST MAY 22): Olmert will present a plan to Bush that provides a strategic victory to the forces of global jihad.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

TOUGH LOVE FROM ISRAEL'S FRIENDS - JEFF JACOBY (BOSTON GLOBE, MAY 24): Israel cannot afford to succumb once again to the delusion that retreating in the face of terror will bring safety and peace of mind.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...sraels_friends/

OLMERT'S EXPECTATIONS - FRANK J. GAFFNEY JR. (WASHINGTON TIMES, MAY 23): President Bush and Congress should tell Mr. Olmert: "No more territory for terrorists."
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200605...02007-9404r.htm

TO HURT OR HELP HAMAS: NO ONE WINS IF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY COLLAPSES ? EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, MAY 24):
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials

HAMAS OR CHAOS - NATHAN J. BROWN (TOMPAINE.COM, MAY 22): The pressures brought to bear by the U.S., Israel and Europe after Hamas's victory are already having a dangerous impact.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/2...as_or_chaos.php

NO TO ISRAELI UNILATERALISM: FAR FROM BRINGING STABILITY, EHUD OLMERT'S PLAN TO DRAW ISRAEL'S FINAL BORDERS WOULD DESTROY THE PALESTINIAN DREAM OF SELF-DETERMINATION AND IGNITE MORE CONFLICT - SANDY TOLAN (SALON, MAY 23)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/23/olmert/

THE JEWISH REFUGEE PROBLEM: DUE RECOGNITION - JOSEPH BRAUDE (NEW REPUBLIC, MAY 24): A bipartisan group of senators and congressmen is expected to introduce a resolution that urges the president to make sure that, during international discussions on refugees in the Middle East, "any explicit reference to Palestinian refugees is matched by a similar explicit reference to Jewish and other refugees, as a matter of law and equity."
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060522&s=braude052406

Rivals push for Palestinian unity BBC News
Leaders of the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, have begun two days of talks in the hopes of healing deep political divisions. Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of Hamas, addressed the meeting to appeal for unity in the face of a "Western siege" against the Palestinian Authority. He vowed that tensions between factions would not descend into civil war. The rival groups have been embroiled in a power struggle since Hamas replaced Fatah as the ruling Palestinian party.There have been violent clashes between supporters loyal to the groups. Tensions have been exacerbated by a foreign aid freeze by donors refusing to finance a government led by Hamas, whom they have branded a terror group.

Olmert in the US
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is continuing a visit to the US, has said he is ready to negotiate peace with the Palestinians but not until Hamas rejects violence and recognises Israel. Mr Olmert warned that Israel would not wait forever and that he will redraw Israel's borders unilaterally if necessary.



"Should the Palestinians ignore our outstretched hand for peace, Israel will seek other alternatives to promote our future, and the prospects of hope in the Middle East," he said. The Hamas-run government and the Fatah-controlled presidency are hopelessly divided on the Israel issue, the BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza says. Mr Abbas is expected to press again for Hamas to accept what he would regard as a more realistic attitude. It is against a background of deepening crisis that Palestinian factions will hold talks, our correspondent says. Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is chairing the talks from the West Bank town of Ramallah. Israeli travel restrictions mean Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya is taking part via videophone from Gaza City.

Tensions
Tensions between Hamas and the Fatah-dominated police have led to a string of incidents in which at least nine people have been killed this month. The deployment by Hamas of its own security forces in Gaza in the last week has raised tensions further. On Wednesday, a Palestinian security chief in the Gaza Strip was killed by an explosion in his car. Nabil Hudhud was known to be loyal to Fatah. The cause of the blast was not clear. Earlier in the day, masked gunmen killed a member of Hamas and wounded two others in Gaza City.

'National cause'
The two Palestinian sides have expressed a determination to end the violence and head off a bloody escalation, which could perhaps even endanger future Palestinian statehood. "The entire world is aware that our national cause is in danger and we should therefore work for the success of this dialogue," Mr Abbas said. Those sentiments were echoed by Mr Haniya who said: "The government is committed to finding an agreement with all factions." They need to agree on many operational issues ranging from security to financing. Western donors have suspended direct aid to the Palestinian government to pressure Hamas into renouncing violence and recognising Israel. The move has plunged the Palestinian Authority into a financial crisis, unable to pay thousands of public workers.

Bomb kills Islamic Jihad member in Lebanon Yahoo! News
A bomb wounded a senior Islamic Jihad official and killed his brother in southern Lebanon on Friday, in an attack the Palestinian group blamed on
Israel. It was not immediately clear who targeted Mahmoud Majzoub, known as Abu Hamze, and his brother Nidal, also an Islamic Jihad member, but the group, the main Palestinian faction to defy a 15-month-old truce with Israel, vowed revenge. "This is an Israeli attack and a dangerous escalation," Islamic Jihad official Ali Abu Shahine told Reuters in Beirut. "Israel will be held responsible for this attack which crosses red lines by targeting officials outside the Palestinian territories and that changes things." An Israeli military source told Reuters in Jerusalem he was not aware of any activity or involvement by Israel at this time. Several Palestinian militants and officials of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group have been assassinated in Lebanon in recent years in attacks their organizations have blamed on the Jewish state. The most prominent was then-Hizbollah chief Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed in 1992 when an Israeli helicopter rocketed his car in southern Lebanon. Jihad Jibril, son of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command chief, was killed in Beirut by an explosion in his car in 2002. Two Hizbollah officials died in blasts in 2003 and 2004.

BOOBY-TRAP
Friday's explosion was set off when the ignition was turned in the Majzoub brothers' car, security sources said. The blast, near the Abu Bakr mosque in the port city of Sidon, was caused by a bomb planted in the vehicle, they said. It reduced the car to a charred mass of twisted metal, showering the area with broken glass and debris. Lebanese security forces sealed off the area. Lebanese security sources earlier said that Abu Hamze had been killed but later said he sustained critical wounds and that his brother died. Islamic Jihad has killed more than 30 people in suicide bombings inside Israel since a ceasefire started, including one that left 11 people dead in Tel Aviv on April 17. Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank with deadly missile strikes and arrest raids, prompting calls for revenge from the group. Islamic Jihad's leader, Abdallah Ramadan Shallah, is based in Damascus, which has been under international pressure to stop backing Palestinian militant groups opposed to peace with the Jewish state. Lebanon has seen a string of bombings and assassinations against anti-Syria politicians and journalists since the February 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. International and Lebanese uproar over Hariri's murder forced Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon two months later.
By Ali Hashisho

Abbas stuns Hamas with talk of referendum Yahoo! News
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he will call a national referendum on accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel if Hamas does not agree to the idea within 10 days. Abbas' surprise announcement was a political gamble that could either help resolve the Palestinians' internal deadlock or lead them into a deeper crisis with the militant Hamas group. Such a vote would effectively ask Palestinians to give implicit recognition to Israel by accepting a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in 1967. Approval of the 18-point plan would provide a way out of the impasse over acceptance of Israel, which has led to an international freeze on aid to the Hamas-led government. Hamas officials were divided over the idea of a referendum, with several giving their blessing, but others dismissing it as an attempt to undercut the Hamas-led government. A referendum, which Palestinian pollsters expect to pass, could provide cover for the militants to moderate without appearing to succumb to Western pressure. Such a vote could also renew pressure on Israel to return to the negotiating table rather than imposing borders on the Palestinians. However, Amar Duaik, director of the Palestinian election commission, said calling a referendum might not be easy. He said the parliament would have to pass a referendum law or Abbas would have to issue a presidential decree. "If there is no agreement (between Hamas and Fatah), I expect to have troubles and differences," Duaik said. In Gaza, meanwhile, violence erupted again between Fatah and Hamas forces. A police officer was killed in the shootout in Gaza City, and the two sides blamed each other for starting it. In the past week, 10 people have been killed in the Hamas-Fatah clashes, leading to concerns of a civil war. The talks in Ramallah were designed to defuse the crisis. Abbas' proposal came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert returned from a trip to Washington, where he presented President Bush with a West Bank pullout plan. Olmert said if there is no breakthrough in long-stalled peace efforts in the coming months, Israel would withdraw from much of the West Bank, solidify its control of large settlement blocs and unilaterally draw its border with the Palestinians. The Palestinians reject Olmert's unilateral plan, and Abbas' announcement Thursday appeared part of a hurried effort to show the world there is a willing Palestinian partner for negotiations with Israel. Abbas said that if 10 days of dialogue between Hamas and his Fatah movement did not lead to a joint political platform, he would call a referendum 40 days after that. The dialogue began Thursday. The referendum would ask Palestinians to either accept or reject a document that had been drafted earlier this month by senior Palestinian militants jailed in Israel. The five-page document calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. The draft was negotiated by leading prisoners from Hamas and Fatah over the period of four weeks at Israel's Hadarim Prison, where top Fatah prisoner Marwan Barghouti is being held. The talks took place in a wing for Palestinian security prisoners, where 120 inmates are held, said Barghouti's lawyer, Khader Shkirat. After the factions' political leaders gave their blessing, Barghouti drafted an outline that was revised in the negotiations, Shkirat said. Many of the sessions took place in the prison yard. Hamas is pledged to Israel's destruction and has rejected international demands that it recognize the Jewish state or renounce violence. The group appeared to soften its position since taking power in March, but has refused to explicitly give up its demands for an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine, which includes Israel. It was not clear whether Abbas had briefed Hamas before the announcement on the referendum. Some Hamas officials said they had been taken by surprise, but said they support the idea. "Returning to the people is one of the most important principles in democracy," said Parliament Speaker Abdel Aziz Duaik, of Hamas, who added that the prisoners' document was a good basis for dialogue. However, Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri said that a referendum was a "coup against the democratic choice" of the Palestinians who swept Hamas into power in January parliament elections. The smaller Islamic Jihad group, which also rejects the existence of Israel, said it opposed the referendum proposal.

Israeli officials declined to comment.
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Abbas said he did not mean his proposal to be a game of brinkmanship, but said a national consensus was needed urgently. "The situation is getting more dangerous. The whole nation is in danger. We can't wait for the rest of our lives," he said. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a close adviser to Abbas, said Hamas and the other Palestinian groups had to make a choice, "either to accept the prisoners' document as it is or to go to a referendum." "Both solutions are satisfactory and can get us out of the impasse," he said. "All that the international community needs is there in this document and we think that they will accept it." Palestinian pollster Nader Said of Bir Zeit University in Ramallah said he expected the referendum to pass because most Palestinians support a two-state solution. "I think it has a very good chance to pass, I think it will get high support," he said, estimating it could pass by as much as two-thirds. Abbas made his proposal at the start of a national conference of Palestinian factions intended to hammer out a joint Palestinian platform. The meeting was held by video conference between the West Bank city of Ramallah and the parliament building in Gaza City. Abbas, usually a restrained speaker, spoke with unusual enthusiasm, repeatedly gesturing as he implored the gathered leaders to work together. He said Hamas backed the proposal to call for a state in what are known as the 1967 borders. "All the Palestinians, from Hamas to the Communists, all of us agree we want a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders," he said. "This is what we have, we cannot talk about dreams." In an earlier speech to the gathering, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said his group would not moderate its positions to get the economic boycott imposed by the West after Hamas' election victory lifted. "I want to assure here, and make it clear for all parties, that the Palestinian government and the Palestinian people will not make any compromise that harms the Palestinian goals and rights," he said. Abbas has said that Hamas must moderate to regain international support for the Palestinian cause. "The Arab countries are waiting for this realistic position, to work in harmony, to push the Palestinian cause ahead. They cannot do anything for the Palestinian cause if the (Palestinians) are rejecting everything," he said. Both Abbas and Haniyeh called for an end to internal tensions that have repeatedly exploded into violence in recent days, leaving at least nine people dead. "We are not going to engage in a Palestinian-Palestinian conflict," Haniyeh said.
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.p...nt=yes&id=15189



Steering Into a Third Intifada

by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted May 26, 2006

When there is no solution, there is no problem, observed James Burnham, the former Trotskyite turned Cold War geostrategist.

Burnham's insight came again to mind as President Bush ended his meeting with Ehud Olmert by announcing that the Israeli prime minister had brought with him some "bold ideas" for peace.

And what bold ideas might that be?

Olmert wants Bush to remain steadfast in refusing to talk to the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority. He wants U.S. support for Israel's wall that is fencing in large slices of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem, forever denying the Palestinians a viable state. He wants U.S. recognition of Israeli-drawn lines as the final borders of Israel. And he wants America to remove the "existential threat" of Iran.

In the six months before he proceeds unilaterally with this Sharon-Olmert plan, he will be happy to talk with Mahmoud Abbas, the isolated Palestinian president he has called "powerless."

What is the Bush plan to advance our interests in the Middle East? There is none. For five years, the Bush policy has been to sign off on whatever Sharon put in front of him. And now that Bush is weak, he is not going to pick a fight he cannot win and, in candor, he does not want.

For Bush has signed on to the Sharon agenda. And if he had a policy that clashed with the Sharon-Olmert Plan, political realities would prevent his pursuing it.

Consider: Suppose Bush declared that Ehud Olmert's proposed withdrawals from the West Bank were insufficient, that an official Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem was imperative, and that the United States needed to aid the Palestinians whom Israel is starving out and to talk in back channels to Hamas, even as we talked to Libya's Col. Khadafi to convince him to give up terrorism and his weapons of mass destruction.

Bush's and America's stock might rise worldwide. But here in the United States, it would be another story altogether.

We would hear the cry of "Munich!" from neoconservatives, echoed by Evangelical Christians and the religious right. "Bibi" Netanyahu would be a fixture on Fox News, which would be asking hourly if Bush had taken leave of his senses.

Republican congressmen would be force-bused to the next AIPAC convention to repudiate the Bush policy. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid, seeing an opening to win back Jewish votes lost to Bush, would introduce a resolution putting Congress behind Olmert, against Bush.

Then, as his father did on the loan guarantees for Israel that he briefly held up in 1991, Bush would capitulate.

Thus Israel will pursue the Sharon-Olmert Plan to completion. There will be withdrawals from isolated settlements and outposts, but no negotiations with a Palestinian Authority to agree on permanent borders and two states.

The West Bank wall will soon encompass all of the suburbs of Jerusalem for miles around. Palestine will be divided into three parts: Gaza and two enclaves on the West Bank. There will be no Palestinian official presence in Jerusalem. No viable nation.

Meanwhile, America will be called upon for new sums of money to subsidize the Sharon-Olmert Plan, even as we are prodded to do our duty and emasculate Iran.

As Olmert is the pilot setting the course, and Bush has signed on as crew to his "bold ideas," our destination is easy to foresee.

The United States alone will recognize Israel's new borders, and her annexations of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem as Israel's exclusive capital. Israel will ask for and the United States will accede to Israel's request that we commit ourselves militarily to defend Israel's new frontiers. No Arab government will recognize the new borders. America's Arab friends will be further estranged.

Every demagogue bidding for power in the Islamic world will, like Iran's Ahmadinejad, play the Palestinian card.

The suffering of the Palestinian people under the U.S.-Israeli sanctions regime will further radicalize them into hating us as they do Israel. The struggle between Hamas and Fatah over diminishing aid and resources will intensify, degenerating into civil war. Iran will move into the vacuum. Eventually, with aid cut off and no hope of negotiations, Hamas will revert to terror and the third intifada will begin.

Western Europe, its Muslim populations growing in numbers and militancy, will neither recognize Israel's borders nor endorse U.S. policy. Europe is not going to side with 5 million Israelis, whom they believe to be in the wrong, against 300 million Arabs, who will be 500 million at mid-century.

Rightly, Americans say we will not let Israel be destroyed. But why must we acquiesce in Israel's annexations of Arab land? Why must we remain silent to her deprivations of the Palestinians?

These questions will puzzle the historians who investigate the astonishing and swift end to U.S. hegemony in the 21st century.

Hamas militia off streets after Abbas challenge Yahoo! News
The Hamas-led Palestinian government ordered its new militia off Gaza's streets on Friday following clashes with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement that stirred fears of civil war. While Hamas said the move aimed to ease tensions, top officials from the militant group also appeared close to rejecting an ultimatum from Abbas to back a proposal calling for Palestinian statehood that implicitly recognizes Israel. Abbas stunned Hamas on Thursday with threats to call a referendum on the proposal within 40 days, effectively going over the government's head and setting the stage for a showdown. Hamas seeks to destroy Israel and has rejected Abbas's calls for talks with the Jewish state. Youssef al-Zahar, a leader of the 3,000-strong Hamas force in the impoverished Gaza Strip, told Reuters the interior minister had ordered the militia pullback. "We have received orders to withdraw from the streets and to concentrate in certain locations to be ready to rush to the scene when needed to confront chaos," Zahar said. Clashes between Hamas and Fatah have become more frequent since the unit was deployed last week. Government officials have said they will not disband the new force, despite calls from Abbas to do so, but integrate it into regular police units. Abbas and Hamas have been engaged in an increasingly bitter power struggle since the Islamists took office two months ago after beating Fatah in January elections. Raising the stakes, Abbas on Thursday gave Hamas 10 days to back a plan for a Palestinian state alongside Israel or face what would amount to a confidence vote. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, vowed the government would make no concessions. "Even if they besiege us from all directions, they should not dream that we will make any political concessions," Haniyeh said at a Gaza mosque without directly rejecting the plan. "We will not recognize the legitimacy of the occupation, we will not renounce resistance and we will not recognize unjust (interim peace) agreements." Hamas would not be "blackmailed" into accepting the plan, a member of the group's exiled leadership in Damascus, Mohammad Nazzal, added. Passage of the referendum might offer Hamas an opportunity to moderate its opposition to Israel and any peace negotiations without having to formally change its stance.

DEBATE
The proposal, drafted in an Israeli jail by senior prisoners from factions including Hamas and Fatah, calls for a peace settlement if Israel withdraws from all of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, occupied since the 1967 Middle East war. Israel has not commented but has long rejected pulling back from all the West Bank. It has said it intends to keep large Jewish settlement blocs there and also considers Jerusalem its "eternal and undivided capital." Palestinian factions involved in the second of two days of national dialogue aimed at easing tensions on Friday debated Abbas's ultimatum. Former cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo criticized Hamas's refusal to modify its stance. "Since Hamas's victory, we have lost everything. We lost the international backing for our just cause," he told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on the sidelines of the talks. Hamas's position toward Israel has triggered an aid boycott that has brought the Palestinian Authority to its knees. The prisoners' proposal calls for an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital. It also seeks a unity government. Most polls in recent years have shown strong Palestinian public support for a state along the 1967 borders. Hamas seeks an Islamic state in place of Israel.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi

ISRAEL'S 'REALIGNMENT': EHUD OLMERT'S HOPE TO WIN U.S. SUPPORT FOR A NEW ISRAELI BORDER OFFERS PRESIDENT BUSH BOTH OPPORTUNITY AND PERIL ? EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, MAY 26)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6052501863.html

WHAT OLMERT HEARD GLOBE EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, MAY 25): The road map for Mideast peace requires Israel to negotiate its permanent borders only with Palestinians, not with Americans.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...t_olmert_heard/

BOYCOTTING ISRAEL TASTE (WALL STREET JOURNAL, MAY 26): Britain's largest academic union, if it accepts resolution recommending that its 67,000 members boycott Israeli scholars who refuse to dissociate themselves from their country's "apartheid policies" vis-à-vis the Palestinians, would ask Jews to abandon not their religion but, if they are Israelis, their state, to gain acceptance.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1148594559...aste_primary_hs
PAID SUSBCRIPTION

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: PEOPLE HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH THE LOBBY JUSTIN RAIMONDO (ANTIWAR.COM, MAY 26): The motive and purpose of the Israel Lobby is to squelch any debate about U.S. policy in the Middle East, especially as it concerns Israel, and to smear anyone who questions the centrality of the "special relationship" to that policy as an "anti-Semite."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9045

THE STORM OVER THE ISRAEL LOBBY - MICHAEL MASSING (NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, JUNE 8): On their central point -- the power of the Israel lobby and the negative effect it has had on US policy -- Mearsheimer and Walt are entirely correct in their "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19062

INTERESTING TIMES: JOIN THE CONSPIRACY - SAUL SINGER, JERUSALEM POST, MAY 25): Remember the Harvard paper that trashed the "Israel lobby"? Now Michael Massing has written an 8,000-word sequel in the New York Review of Books that comes to the same conclusion, complete with a helpful guide to all the awful people behind the conspiracy to support Israel.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

AN ARAB BACKLASH AGAINST HAMAS? EDITORIAL WASHINGTON TIME (MAY 25): Hamas's relations with neighboring Arab governments are deteriorating.
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060524-090028-9504r.htm

Israeli shells 'kill four Gazans' :

Four Palestinians have died in Gaza in what hospital officials say were separate Israeli artillery attacks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5021666.stm

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Israel Provides Arms To Help Abbas Take On Hamas:

Israel's transfer of a limited amount of weapons and ammunition to the Palestinian Authority's presidential guard will enable PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to "contend with Hamas," senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad said Friday.
http://tinyurl.com/fbv4p

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Haniyeh: US, Israel conspiring against us: In an address to Palestinian parliament; Palestinian PM speaks of 'international network' conspiring with Israel 'to suffocate and starve us'
http://tinyurl.com/htrdw

===
The Full Text of the National Conciliation Document of the Prisoners :

By Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails (representing FATEH, HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and DFLP)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13196.htm

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US approves aid to Israel, Egypt:

The budget includes aid for Israel (USD 2.4 billion) and Egypt (USD 1.7 billion).
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3255291,00.html

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Interview with Prof. Norman Finkelstein: :

Prof. Finkelstein, in your estimation why does it seem that when someone challenges Israel on its policies towards the Palestinians they are accused of anti-Semitism?
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4739.shtml

Hamas force leaves Gaza streets BBC News
A paramilitary security force deployed by the ruling Palestinian party Hamas has withdrawn from the streets of Gaza. The force has been involved in clashes with regular police and military units since its deployment 10 days ago. Several people have been killed in the clashes, amid mounting tension between Hamas supporters and security men loyal to the former ruling party, Fatah. Regular police and military units have now taken the place of the Hamas forces on the streets of Gaza City. The Hamas government says the withdrawal is aimed at reducing this tension. It said it was implementing agreements made with Fatah that are intended to calm the situation. The force is not being disbanded, Hamas government officials say, but will be incorporated into the regular police.

Less visible
BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston say it is clear that the Hamas militia will now be a much less visible presence and this should significantly ease the tension here. Hamas deployed the 3,000-strong force, which included members of other militant groups and some regular troops, to tackle a crisis of insecurity and lawlessness in the Gaza Strip. The move triggered a serious deterioration in relations with Fatah, which the two sides are trying to remedy at a continuing conference for national unity. On Thursday, the first day of the conference, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he would call a referendum on the borders of a Palestinian state, if rival factions could agree a political programme. Hamas won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in January, the first time it stood for office in the national political arena.

Hamas militia returns to streets BBC News
Members of a controversial Hamas militant force have made a limited reappearance on the streets of Gaza. This came after the Hamas-controlled government had ordered the force back to their bases on Friday. That withdrawal was an effort to reduce violent tensions between the Hamas men and their rivals, who are linked to the Fatah faction. For several days a force of well-armed Hamas men had been deployed on the streets here. But they disappeared almost completely early on Friday. They had been withdrawn in what the Hamas-controlled government described as a move to reduce friction with Fatah party loyalists.

Redeployment
Now, though, the Hamas men are back in a few key areas, such as Gaza City's main square. Hamas always made clear that it had no intention of disbanding the force. It described Friday's pull-back as a mere redeployment. The government said that the new unit would continue with its law enforcement policing mission and that it would be deployed where ever it was necessary to do that - hence, apparently, the reappearance of the militants in some areas. Meanwhile, members of an armed group loyal to the Fatah faction have staged a demonstration in the heart of Gaza City.
By Alan Johnston, BBC News, Gaza

Israel struck by Lebanese rockets BBC News
The Israeli army says a soldier has been wounded after several rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon. The rockets landed in an army base near the town of Safed - further south than any missile from Lebanon is thought to have reached before. "The state of Israel holds the Lebanese government responsible for any terror attack emanating from its territory," an army spokeswoman said. No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. In the past, the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Palestinian militants based in Lebanon have claimed such attacks. Israel has often responded by launching air strikes inside Lebanon, though the army spokeswoman said no action had been taken in this case. She said the attacks "lightly" wounded one soldier at the base, 20km (12 miles) from the Lebanese border, and caused some damage. Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, after a 22-year occupation.

Sharon moved for long-term care BBC News
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been moved from hospital to a specialist care centre in Tel Aviv. Mr Sharon, 78, suffered a major stroke in January and has remained in a coma despite eight operations. He was moved from Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, where doctors say he can receive appropriate long-term care. Mr Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, assumed his powers in January and was recently elected prime minister. The director of the Sheba centre, Dr Zeev Rotstein, told reporters that Mr Sharon's treatment would be "difficult, because in his condition, complications are expected".

Legacy
Correspondents say the move away from the Hadassah hospital signals an acceptance that Mr Sharon is unlikely to emerge from his coma any time soon. "We will treat him as best we can. It is not a short-term treatment, we are talking about long-term treatment," Dr Rotstein added. Mr Sharon, a former army commander who fought in a series of Middle East wars, held a number of cabinet positions before he became prime minister in 2001. He is among the best known politicians in Israel's history, but is widely hated by many in the Arab world. His tenure in office was dominated by security concerns, and he pushed through Israel's withdrawal from settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Two dead in Lebanon border clash:

Clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters in Lebanon following a rocket attack on Israel have left at least two people dead.
http://tinyurl.com/l5j36

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Abbas loyalists threaten Hamas with civil war:

FORCES loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, are preparing for an onslaught against the military wing of the Islamist rival group Hamas in a desperate attempt to sustain his waning power.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2200174,00.html

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Mike Whitney : Is Abbas a Traitor?

Are the scraps from Israel’s table so tantalizing that he would willingly sell out his own people?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13412.htm

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Gordon Prather: The best Congress money can buy:

Ehud Olmert – who assumed the office of prime minister of Israel earlier this month – has just addressed a joint session of what some cynics have been referring to lately as The Best Congress Money Can Buy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13411.htm

===
Enough Is Enough : People have had it up to here with The Lobby :

Perhaps Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) didn't quite realize what she was getting into when she voted against the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, so-called, which would cut off all aid to the Palestinians, impose economic sanctions, and make it impossible for any entity, public or private, to operate in Palestine. Or maybe she's just brave.
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9045

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Countdown to Apartheid:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's address to both houses of Congress was perhaps the most skilled use of Newspeak since George Orwell invented the term in his novel /1984/
http://www.counterpunch.com/halper05252006.html

Israel in Lebanon border 'truce' BBC News
UN officials say they have brokered a truce after skirmishes broke out along the Israel-Lebanon border, following missile attacks from both sides. The UN said it hoped "sporadic" firing along the border would soon subside. Israeli jets earlier targeted guerrilla bases in Lebanon, reportedly killing two militants, in response to rocket attacks on northern Israeli bases. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said militants in Lebanon would "receive a clear and harsh response". The opening salvo came when Katyusha rockets were fired across Israel's border towards a base on Mount Miron, some 20km (12 miles) from the Lebanese border. An Israeli official said up to eight rockets were fired. This was the first rocket attack on northern Israel since December, and the rockets were thought to have travelled further into Israel than in any previous attacks. No militant group claimed responsibility. In the past, the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Palestinian militants based in Lebanon have claimed such attacks. The BBC's Jon Leyne, in Jerusalem, says there was no clear reason why the Israeli base was initially attacked, but a senior member of the Islamic Jihad militant group was killed on Friday in a bombing in Lebanon. Israel responded hours later by launching air strikes on two bases run by the Palestinian militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - one near Beirut and the other at Sultan Yacoub near Syria. PFLP fighters responded with anti-aircraft fire.

Disputed area
Skirmishes then broke out between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops on opposite sides of the border. Residents of the Israeli towns of Kiryat Shemona and Nahariya were ordered to take cover. An Israeli general said his forces attacked 20 Hezbollah posts after an off-duty soldier was wounded by sniper fire from across the border. Hezbollah denounced Israel's air strikes as "part of Israel's targeting of security and stability in Lebanon". Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, after an 18-year occupation. But there is still a small disputed border area known as the Shebaa Farms, where confrontations break out regularly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1785072,00.html
Punishment of Palestinians will create a crucible of trouble for the world

George Bush's policies helped build Hamas; now a dangerous linkage with Iran and Iraq threatens a mega-crisis

David Hirst
Monday May 29, 2006
The Guardian


Patients with chronic kidney disease dying for lack of their routine dialysis; 165,000 employees of the Palestine Authority unpaid for two and a half months; women selling jewellery for fuel or food ... the "humanitarian crisis" of the West Bank and Gaza is not a Darfur. And what most shocks Arabs and Muslims is that it stems from a conscious political decision by the world's only superpower. First, they say, you give us Iraq, now on the brink of civil war. Then this: the starving of a whole people. The psychological and strategic linkage between Iraq and Palestine is far from new. But its latest, most intense phase began with the US invasion of Iraq - conceived by the Bush administration's pro-Israeli neoconservatives as the first great step in their region-wide scheme for "regime change" and "democratisation", whose consummation was to be an Arab-Israeli settlement. Indeed, professors Mearsheimer and Walt argue in their study, The Israel Lobby, that there very likely wouldn't have been an invasion at all but for Israel and, above all, its partisans inside the US.

But it had always been crystal clear that the more authentic any democracy Arabs or Palestinians did come to enjoy, US-inspired or not, the more their conception of a settlement would collide with the US-Israeli one. The point was swiftly proved, in the wake of Hamas's assumption of power, when President Bush declared: "We support democracy, but that doesn't mean we have to support governments elected as a result of democracy." And his administration set about engineering Palestinian "regime change" in reverse.

Its strategy found more or less willing accomplices - Europeans, Arab governments, the Palestinians themselves. But it was always going to be a perilous one; the more vigorously it was pursued in the face of the opposition that it was bound to encounter, the more likely it was to make of Palestine a crucible of trouble for its own people, the region and the world - very much like the one that other quasi-colonial western intervention had already made of Iraq.

The idea was to get the Palestinians, through collective punishment, to repudiate the very people they had just elected. Some do blame Hamas. But most of those blame America much more. If anything, sanctions have had the opposite effect from that intended, encouraging people to rally round the new government. Buoyed by its own popularity, on top of its electoral legitimacy, Hamas won't easily relinquish power - "not without a war", said Iyyad Sarraj, a Gaza psychologist.

Even if the US did succeed in bringing Hamas down, it would, like the overthrow of Saddam, be a catastrophic kind of success - plunging Palestine, too, into the chaos and internecine strife that is the antithesis of the modern, democratic, pro-western Middle East order the US is trying to build. It is clear that, with President Mahmoud Abbas's bombshell proposal for a referendum on the nature of a final peace raising the political stakes and with skirmishes in Gaza raising the military ones, war between Hamas and Fatah is eminently possible. It is far from clear that America's "side" could win. "If Fatah couldn't fight Hamas while it was still in power," said General Ilan Paz, the former head of Israel's civil administration in the territories, "how could it gain control with Hamas in power and itself disintegrated?"

Furthermore, chaos in the territories would open the way to militants, jihadists and suicide bombers from the rest of the world, just as it did in Iraq. Iran, the non-Arab country that is now the main state patron of Arab radicalism, was quicker than any Arab government to offer money to the new Hamas regime. An intrinsic part of its wider strategic and nuclear ambitions, Palestine now ranks among Iran's top foreign-policy priorities. Abbas says that Hizbullah and al-Qaida are already active in Gaza. From where, if not from such outsiders, have come the long-range Katyusha missiles that have begun to target southern Israel from Gaza? And if Hamas were driven from office, it would go underground again, resuming with a vengeance the resistance it has suspended.

As for the Arabs, they would be at least as subject to the fallout from Palestine as they are from Iraq's. Their discredited regimes hardly know what to fear more: the example of a Hamas democratically installed or undemocratically ousted. The first would encourage the ascension of their own Islamists. The civil war liable to result from the second would arouse even more dangerous passions among them. Broadly speaking, Hamas has Arab, especially Islamist, public opinion on its side, and the more the regimes defer to the US in its anti-Hamas campaign, the greater discredit they will fall into.

For Rami Khouri, a leading Beirut columnist, the Palestine cause risks being transformed from a "national" into a "civilisational" one, with "potentially dangerous linkages between events in Palestine-Israel and the rest of the Middle East".

"Hundreds of thousands of young people will feel duped and betrayed. The wellspring of support for Hamas- and Muslim Brotherhood-style democratic engagement will slowly dry up in favour of more intense armed struggle. They will stop wasting time trying to redress grievances through peaceful, democratic politics or diplomacy ... Bringing down the Hamas-led Palestinian government will bring further radicalisation, resistance and terrorism across the region." Well aware of this resonance, the Palestinian finance minister, Omar Abdul Razeq, warned: "The entire region will catch fire if the Palestinian people are pushed to a situation where they have nothing to lose."

Suddenly this month the Bush administration seemed to grasp something of the perils it is courting. And those US-engineered privations of Gaza were too scandalous to ignore. At a meeting of the Quartet (the EU, the US, the UN and Russia), it offered $10m in emergency medical aid. The largesse was paltry and grudging, but at least it seemed to indicate that Washington had given up hope of bringing about immediate "regime change" via economic ruin. Gideon Levy, a pro-Palestinian Israeli commentator, was even moved to say: "Hamas is winning."

Hardly. For the only substantive way in which it could be said to be doing that would be if the US started drawing the right conclusions from this spectacularly unwelcome result of Arab democratisation - the most important of which is that, were it not for US policies, Hamas would never have won the elections.

But that would require a fundamental, revolutionary change of heart. In the opinion of Mearsheimer and Walt, the extraordinary US attachment to Israel - that moral and strategic "burden" - makes such a change impossible any time soon. So the fear must now be that, long before this could happen, the Middle East's "dangerous linkages" will assert themselves even more dangerously than before, and that those two ongoing crises - Palestine and Iraq, which the attachment did so much to engender - will be joined, and fused into a single mega-crisis, by a third: when, on its protege's behalf, the Bush administration goes to war against Iran.

· David Hirst reported from the Middle East for the Guardian from 1963 to 2001

What did Bush signal? :

Did President Bush give Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a red light or a green light for his plan to unilaterally annex parts of the Palestinian West Bank?
http://tinyurl.com/l3p32

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Punishment of Palestinians will create a crucible of trouble for the world :

George Bush's policies helped build Hamas; now a dangerous linkage with Iran and Iraq threatens a mega-crisis
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13417.htm

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Tamimi: Israel breaches international & human law against the Palestinians:

He called upon international community to support the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and to reconsider their stances regarding suspension of aid, warning at the same time against a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian Territories.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/...2006052911.html

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Here's why they call it the 'Jewish state':

In recently approving an effective ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel's Supreme Court has shut tighter the gates of the Jewish fortress the state of Israel is rapidly becoming. The judges' decision, in the words of the country's normally restrained Haaretz daily, was "shameful."
http://tinyurl.com/jo5jj

"WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP?: NEO-CON PROPAGANDA REQUIRES MORE THAN AD HOC ANSWERS - ROBERT DICKSON CRANE (AMERICA MUSLIM, MAY 26)
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/featu...c_answer/009406

REAFFIRMING US-ISRAELI TIES - ERAN LERMAN (BOSTON GLOBE, MAY 28): American Jewry, unlike all others in Jewish history, is made all the more American, not less so, by its close and committed association with Israel. (Eran Lerman is director of the Israel and the Middle East Office of the American Jewish Committee.)
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...s_israeli_ties/

WHAT DID BUSH SIGNAL? - GEORGE BISHARAT (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, MAY 29): Time will tell whether President Bush is a partner in Israel's charade, or will genuinely demand that Israel negotiate with the Palestinians in good faith, and on the basis of international law. Our standing in a critical region of the world will turn on the answer.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...EDGDOIJI5R1.DTL

A BULLIES' ALLIANCE - GIDEON LEVY (HAARETZ, MAY 28): The renewed alliance forged between the Israeli prime minister and the American president is an alliance of bullies, two bullies who think they are allowed what most of the world is forbidden.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages...l?itemNo=720345

ON BEHALF OF HAMAS -- MAHMOUD ABBAS - ZVI BAR'EL (HAARETZ, MAY 28): That is Israel's condition: it will only talk to those who recognize it and it is only ready to withdraw from those who do not.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/720343.html

ABBAS CORNERING HAMAS EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, MAY 27): There is much-needed wisdom in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ultimatum that the Islamist movement Hamas either accept a two-state solution as the basis for negotiations with Israel or face a referendum on the issue.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...ornering_hamas/

THE ABBAS CHALLENGE OPINION (BALTIMORE SUN, MAY 28): Palestinians should have a say in their future homeland, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' surprise call last week for a national referendum on an independent state reaffirms that right.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/b...inion-headlines

TOWARD A THIRD INTIFADA - FRED SCHLOMKA (BALTIMORE SUN, MAY 28): As conditions for Palestinians continue to decline and Israel moves ahead with the partitioning of the West Bank, further revolts from the beleaguered population are inevitable.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

BUSH BETRAYS EGYPT'S DEMOCRATS: FOR WHAT - BRET STEPHENS (WALL STREET JOURNAL, MAY 30)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1148948363...in_commentaries
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

JORDAN WAGES PROPAGANDA WAR WITH TV CONFESSIONS - SULEIMAN AL-KHALIDI (REUTERS, MAY 26): Jordan is stepping up a propaganda war against radical Islamists to counter their growing threat to the U.S. ally's stability.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24316927.htm

ISLAMISM THREAT TO DEMOCRACY - AHMED CHARAI (WASHINGTON TIMES, MAY 28): In Morocco it is important to pursue the reforms initiated by King Mohammed VI to secure development, reduce poverty and improve the conditions of millions of Moroccans in a vulnerable status that makes them easy prey for fundamentalist agitation.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200605...11537-4045r.htm

Pay pledge to Palestinian workers BBC News
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya has said 40,000 low-paid public employees will receive a month's salary despite a crippling financial crisis. Mr Haniya said others in the 165,000 strong workforce would get an advance. Civil servants, who have not been paid for three months, had staged protests on Tuesday, warning their anger could turn to violence. Western donors halted direct aid after the election of Hamas, which refuses to renounce violence or recognise Israel.

'Siege'
Mr Haniya said at a Cabinet meeting that workers earning up to 1,500 shekels ($330; £175) a month would get a full month's salary, while those earning more would get the 1,500 shekels as an advance. The prime minister did not say where the money to pay the workers would come from but it could total around $55m. A group of about 1,000 public employees had protested in Ramallah and others in Bethlehem demanding the payment of wages and chanting slogans against what they called the "siege" by Israel and the West. The European Union and US froze aid to the Hamas government after it was elected in January while Israel has refused to hand over tens of millions of dollars in customs revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority. Bassam Zakarneh, head of the civil servants' union, said: "I fear that we are going to lose control over the protesters and we will end up with a general strike and closure of the government offices."

Rocket rattles Israeli minister BBC News
A rocket fired by Palestinian militants into Israel from the Gaza Strip has landed near the home of Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz. Another house in the town of Sderot was hit by two of the Qassam rockets, one of which made a hole in the roof while the other landed in the garden. No-one was injured. A third rocket landed in a nearby township. The attack came a day after Israeli troops killed three militants preparing to fire rockets into Israel from Gaza. The owner of the house that was hit told Israeli Army Radio that his residence is just 100m (yards) from Mr Peretz's home. Shortly after the incident, Mr Peretz visited the damaged house. "We will find the way to take actions that prevent these organisations from firing toward Sderot and other communities," he was quoted by The Associated Press as saying. "Therefore I hope that the [Palestinian] population understands that these organisations are bringing them toward a catastrophe."

MOVE ON: THE U.S. SHOULD MOVE ITS EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM ... NOW - DANIEL FREEDMAN (NATIONAL REVIEW, MAY 31): Moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is required by the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTkzN...TJiYWI1ODIxZDg=

OUR WORLD: ABBAS'S NEWEST BIG LIE - CAROLINE GLICK (JERUSALEM POST, MAY 29): A document supported by PA leader Mahmoud Abbasis nothing more than a new restatement of their declaration of war against Israel and a recommitment to their goal of destroying the Jewish State.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

THIS NONSENSE OF NOT TALKING TO HAMAS GIDEON SAMET (HAARETZ, MAY 31)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/721497.html

THE BUSH-OLMERT AXIS - ROBERT DREYFUSS (TOMPAINE.COM, MAY 31): By denying the Palestinians any part of Jerusalem, by creating a patchwork of Bantustans in Gaza and the West Bank, by preempting any Palestinian claim to their refugees? ?right of return,? Israel will plant the seeds for future conflicts, as no Palestinians will accept such a solution.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/3...olmert_axis.php

THE PERSECUTION OF THE PALESTINIANS - PATRICK J. BUCHANAN (AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, JUNE 5): For a textbook example of why we are hated, consider Gaza and the West Bank. There, a brutal Israeli/U.S.-led cutoff in aid has been imposed on the Palestinians for voting the wrong way in a free election.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_06_05/buchanan.html

SOS FROM AN EGYPTIAN BLOGGER: THE AUTHOR'S REAL NAME IS BEING WITHHELD BECAUSE EGYPT'S GOVERNMENT HAS RECENTLY JAILED EGYPTIAN BLOGGERS WHOSE OPINIONS DIFFER FROM ITS POLICIES. HIS WRITINGS CAN BE FOUND AT - 'SANDMONKEY' (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, MAY 31)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0601/p09s02-coop.html

BBC IS BACK WITH 'BIG VOTE OF CONFIDENCE' IN LEBANON (YA LIBNAN, MAY 31): BBC has reopened its bureau in Lebanon after a 15-year closure in what an official representing the corporation called "a big vote of confidence" in the country.
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2006/05/...is_back_wit.php

THE LAST ORIENTALIST: BERNARD LEWIS AT 90 - REUEL MARC GERECHT (WEEKLY STANDARD, MAY 31): The scholar Bernard Lewis has gained the broadest fame and notoriety for being the intellectual godfather behind the Bush administration's critique of the Muslim Middle East.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...7ttvdc.asp?pg=1

Israel: Collateral damage:

Aman's 7-year-old son Muhand was killed; Naima, his wife, 27, was killed; his mother Hanan, 46, was killed. His three and a half year old daughter Mariya is lying in the pediatric intensive care unit at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, permanently paralyzed and on a respirator. Aman is not allowed to be with her.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/721483.html

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PA foreign minister brushes off Arab peace plan as protests swell:

Unpaid security forces vandalize parliament
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?ed...rticle_id=24928

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"Gaza under siege."

Channel 4 Video Report:
http://www.channel4.com/player/playerwindo...=5268&vert=news

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Tanya Reinhart: The Hamas Government Should Be Recognized :

Israel is confronted with an elected Palestinian government which is not willing to play that game any more. Haniyeh is telling the government of Israel: From now on, you will represent the position of Israel in the negotiations, and we will represent the position of the Palestinians.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13465.htm

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Gush Shalom breaking the ice towards Hamas:

Gush Shalom calls for the immediate opening of negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian governments, with no preconditions and on the basis of stopping all violent acts on both sides.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en

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US lobby group enters Israeli academic boycott row :

A powerful American civil liberties group has called on US academics to boycott British lecturers who boycott Israeli universities.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/wor...c=ticker-103704

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Israeli professor: UK boycott justified:

In a special interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, Professor Rachel Giora of Tel Aviv University gives her reasons for supporting the British boycott on Israeli academic institutions.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3257291,00.html

Fatah deploys new W Bank militia BBC News
A new militia loyal to Palestinian head Mahmoud Abbas has taken up positions in the West Bank town of Jenin. This comes a few weeks after the Hamas-led government deployed its own new force in Gaza. The commander of the new militia said it would support the official forces. But the Hamas deputy PM Nasser Shaer has denounced it as "unacceptable". Correspondents say the creation of the militia is likely to worsen tensions between Hamas and Mr Abbas' Fatah. The head of the new force, Ata Abu Rimela, said there was no connection between the new Fatah force and the Hamas force. "This force is directed against nobody, it only aims to protect the Palestinian national project," he told the AFP news agency. Mr Abbas is reported to have begun meeting with leaders of the various political factions to try and settle their differences, but the Hamas representative is said to be absent. Mr Abbas warned on 25 May that he would call a referendum on an initiative drawn up by jailed faction leaders if rival factions failed to agree a political programme within 10 days. It sets out formal Palestinian claims to an independent state on land occupied by Israel in 1967, as well as the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to former homes inside Israel.

Salary issue
Earlier on Saturday, Finance Minister Omar Abdel Razeq said some 40,000 Palestinian civil servants were to be paid a month's salary on Monday. On Friday, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya promised all government employees would be paid within two days. The authority's 165,000-strong workforce has not been paid for more than three months. The financial crisis began when Western donors halted direct aid after the election of Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel or renounce violence.

Gaza militant shootings kill five BBC News
Five Palestinians have been killed in two outbreaks of violence in Gaza. A car carrying a Hamas militant and members of his family was fired on in the southern town of Khan Younis. Two people were killed in the attack, which Hamas has blamed on members of the security forces regarded as being close to the rival Fatah movement. In a separate incident in Gaza City, three more people were killed. It is not yet clear what sparked the violence or who exactly was involved. But the shooting broke out near a tent where mourning ceremonies were being held for a security force officer killed a few days ago. The officer's comrades had blamed his death on the Hamas movement. One of those killed in Khan Younis was a pregnant woman, related to local Hamas leader Mohammad al-Ghalbana. He and his brother were wounded and were taken to hospital, Reuters news agency reports. Hamas blames the shooting on an arm of the police force known as "Preventive Security", seen as close to Fatah. Preventive Security and Hamas gunmen have often clashed in recent weeks. Tension has been high between the rival groups since Hamas surprisingly replaced Fatah as the largest group in the Palestinian parliament after elections in January.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060604/D8I1L3EO0.html




Hamas Rejects Abbas Ultimatum Over Israel

Jun 4, 5:32 PM (ET)

By IBRAHIM BARZAK


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Palestinian standoff intensified Sunday after Hamas rejected an ultimatum from President Mahmoud Abbas to endorse a plan implicitly recognizing Israel, and a pregnant woman was killed during a clash between the rivals' forces in Gaza.

In a rare dose of good news, some Palestinian public workers began withdrawing money from their banks, the first time they have been paid in three months because of a Western aid cutoff. Also, Israel's premier talked to Egypt's president about resuming peace talks with the Palestinians.

Abbas will order a referendum on a plan drawn up by top Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli jail calling for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem alongside Israel, a Fatah official said Sunday. Abbas set a Tuesday deadline for Hamas agreement.

"If Hamas doesn't give a positive answer, Abbas will issue a presidential decree calling for a referendum," Fatah official Azam al-Ahmad said at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the unsuccessful talks have been taking place.



An Abbas-Hamas struggle over control of security forces has ignited several violent incidents. Hamas formed its own militia last month, and on Saturday, a similar Fatah force took to the streets in the West Bank town of Jenin. On Sunday, Fatah militants said they have a force of 1,250 gunmen ready to deploy in Gaza as well.

Group spokesman Abu Qusai told The Associated Press that if no agreement is reached over the Hamas militia, "we will have to take to the streets."

Violence erupted in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis between forces loyal to Fatah and the new Hamas militia, security officials said. A 20-year-old woman, eight months pregnant, was killed when masked gunmen opened fire on a car carrying her and two Hamas militants, they said. One of the militants was critically wounded.

Gunmen from the two sides then battled in Gaza City, security officials said. Three bystanders were killed in a clash between Fatah and Hamas forces, and relatives of the dead gathered at the hospital where the bodies were taken and shouted anti-Hamas slogans.

Near the scene of the shooting, at the entrance to the Shati refugee camp, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was consulting with Fatah representatives about the document. No progress was reported.

The Hamas takeover of the Palestinian government has led to a cutoff of funds by Israel, the United States and European Union, which list Hamas as a terror organization. The bankrupt government was unable to pay its 165,000 workers, who make up the largest sector in the Palestinian economy.

On Sunday, the Palestine Bank in Gaza said it was opening its ATMs, and the 40,000 lowest-paid workers began withdrawing money. The government said it would give them each 1,500 shekels - about $331 - but the rest of the employees would have to wait.

Dozens lined up at automated teller machines in Gaza City. Bahar Habashi, 43, a father of seven who works as a doorman at a school, said the money would not come close to meeting the needs of his family.

"I don't think this money will stay in my pocket more than an hour," he said, "but I am going to spare 50 shekels to buy candy and fresh fruit for my children."

The costly confrontation over recognition of Israel played out against the background of Israeli plans to set its own border unilaterally if peace negotiations fail. Israel refuses to talk to a Palestinian government headed by a movement that does not accept the Jewish state.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert traveled to Egypt on Sunday to discuss the situation with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, often a mediator in Israeli-Palestinian disputes.

Mubarak opposes unilateral Israeli steps, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration prefers negotiations. She told CNN on Sunday that the "final status is really something that has to be mutually acceptable" to Israel and the Palestinians.

Olmert repeated his offer to meet Abbas to discuss resumption of peace negotiations, but he did not give a date for what would be the first Israel-Palestinian summit since February 2005.

"I really hope that our Palestinian partners will take advantage of this opportunity and will implement all their commitments so that it will be possible to proceed according to the 'road map,'" Olmert said, referring to the U.S.-backed peace plan.

Mubarak and Olmert said they agreed negotiations must be pursued.

Palestinians, meanwhile, were focused on their internal disputes.

Haniyeh rejected Abbas' deadline for the referendum, calling the proposal illegal. That set up a head-on political confrontation between Hamas and Fatah.

"The local basic law and the advice which we got from experts in international law say that referendums are not permitted on the Palestinian land," Haniyeh said.

A poll released last week showed that nearly 90 percent of Palestinians favor the prisoners' agreement. Al-Ahmad said Abbas would consider calling elections for president and parliament if Hamas did not abide by the results of a referendum.

Hamas, formed in 1987 at the beginning of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, holds that the Middle East must be entirely Islamic. Jews can live in the region only under Islamic rule, not in an independent state.

Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in attacks since the violence resumed in 2000.

---

Associated Press reporters Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, and Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, contributed to this report.

Abbas Delays Referendum Plan:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave the governing Hamas party on Tuesday three more days to accept a document that implicitly recognizes Israel, threatening to bring the issue to a national referendum.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/06/...in1685602.shtml

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Dangerous dirty tricks in Palestine:

Palestinian Authority chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the internal Palestinian situation towards a dangerous and unnecessary crisis. He has called a referendum supposedly to gain public endorsement for a document written by Hamas and Fatah members held in Israeli jails which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in all the territories occupied in 1967.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4765.shtml

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Haniya pained by Palestinian fighting:

The government is reeling from a financial embargo imposed by the US, Canada, Israel and the EU, rendering it unable to pay the salaries of 165,000 civil servants and public employees, although the government says it will soon pay those wages.
http://tinyurl.com/qy6vu

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Israeli generals mull massive operation in West Bank :

sraeli army generals have been calling for massive raids and operations in the West Bank in a bid to destroy militants infrastructure there before Israel's further pullout from the region, Israel's Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200606/0...606_271546.html

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The World Zionist Congress : Zionism against Jews?:

The most disturbing resolution must be number 6/18, from the World labour Zionist movement (which is presumably linked to Israel's Labour party, and therefore of considerable significance), which "calls upon the nations of the world to act aggressively and immediately to remove the Iranian threat".
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/200...ainst-jews.html

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Exiles plot to overthrow Syria's Baathist regime:

LEADING Syrian opposition figures, led by the country’s former Vice-President, gathered in London yesterday for a two-day conference to plot the overthrow of the Baathist regime of President Assad
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2211178,00.html

'Talks' on direct Palestinian aid BBC News
A senior US envoy says Washington and the EU are working closely to find ways to give aid to the Palestinian people without dealing with their government. US Assistant Secretary of State David Welch described economic conditions in Gaza and the West Bank as "troubling". But, speaking after meeting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Mr Welch said the US would not allow long-overdue salaries to be paid from its funds. The US and EU halted their funding when Hamas took power earlier this year. They accuse the Islamic militant group, which took over the Palestinian government after elections in January, of being a terrorist organisation.

Unpaid salaries
"We are working closely with our EU colleagues to establish a temporary international mechanism to provide direct assistance to the Palestinian people," Mr Welch said. He said the "quartet" of Middle East peace mediators - the US, EU, Russia and the UN - were working on ways of funnelling aid to the Palestinian people while bypassing the government. But he said the payment of salaries to civil servants was the responsibility of the government, Reuters TV reports. Earlier this month, some 40,000 of the lowest-paid staff - those who earn 1,500 shekels ($325; £174) a month or less - received some of their salary for the first time in three months. The other 125,000 staff would have to wait, the finance minister said.

Wanted militant dies in Gaza raid BBC News
A senior Palestinian official in the Gaza Strip has died in an Israeli air strike in the town of Rafah. Jamal Abu Samhadana founded the Popular Resistance Committees, which regularly launches home-made rockets into Israel. Samhadana, a senior security chief in the Hamas-led government, was one of four killed in the attack on a training camp, which injured seven others. He was one of Israel's most wanted men in Gaza, and was thought to be involved in a 2003 attack on a US convoy.

Revenge calls
A training camp in Rafah - on the Egyptian border - was shaken by four explosions close to midnight local time (2100GMT). It soon became clear that Samhadana was one of the four killed. Hospital officials said despite serious injuries Samhadana's face was recognisable, according to the Associated Press news agency. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it targeted militants who were planning an attack on Israel. Samhadana had narrowly escaped four previous assassination attempts, once being so badly injured that he lost a leg, the BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza says. Samhadana had become close to the Hamas movement which now controls the Palestinian government, our correspondent says. His appointment to the interior ministry recently infuriated Israel and the Palestinian opposition faction, Fatah. The move was also bitterly condemned by the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) expressed their anger over Samhadana's death. A spokesman for the PRC vowed to "open the gates of hell" in response. As word of Samhadana's death spread, hundreds of angry militants converged on the hospital where his body was lying. They fired their weapons in the air and swore that they would strike back at Israel, our correspondent says.

Al-Qaeda urges Abbas vote boycott BBC News
Al-Qaeda ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged Palestinians to reject a referendum on a future state. The vote has been proposed by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, allowing Palestinians to accept or reject a two-state solution. The referendum is opposed by the Hamas party, which won elections in January and is committed to destroying Israel. In a video broadcast on al-Jazeera TV channel, Zawahiri said: "Palestine is not for bargaining or bidding." He adds: "Palestine was a land of Islam, and its liberation is the duty of every Muslim." He called on Muslims everywhere to support the Palestinian people. The video also made references to political tensions in his homeland, Egypt, and to Sudan's strife-torn region of Darfur. It also praised the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose death was announced on Thursday, after the tape had been recorded. Zawahiri was last seen in a video in April, saying Iraqi insurgents had trounced US forces.

Israel kills 9 Palestinians:

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire killed at least nine Palestinians on
Friday, including six people on a crowded Gaza beach, Palestinian medics said.
http://tinyurl.com/qj8ub


Israel Kills Palestinian Family Including 3 Children:

The attack destroyed a tent and scattered body parts along the beach. A crowd
flocked to the area, screaming and running around in confusion. One tearful man
held the limp body of what appeared to be a girl or young woman.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13223303/


With a little help from the outside :

Israel cannot claim the boycott weapon is illegitimate. It makes extensive use
of this weapon itself, and its victims are suffering under severe conditions of
deprivation, from Rafah to Jenin.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/722364.html


Fears of 'regime change' policy after US cancels Palestinian pay talks:

The US has cancelled talks in which ministers had been expected to approve
urgent measures leading to the payment of Palestinian salaries, including those
of the security forces, which were frozen after a Hamas government came to
power.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle...ticle753710.ece

Hamas military calls off truce after 10 killed CTV.ca
The Hamas military wing called off its truce with Israel, after 10 Palestinians were killed by shells fired into a crowded beach in the Gaza Strip where a family was picnicking. All of the dead are believed to be related. The Hamas declaration raised the prospect of a new wave of bloodshed. "The earthquake in the Zionist towns will start again," said a leaflet distributed by the militants at a Hamas. "The resistance groups ... will choose the proper place and time for the tough, strong and unique response." The truce -- which Hamas has largely honoured -- was declared in February 2005. Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, speaking at a hospital where victims were being treated called the deaths a "war crime." He urged Jordan and Egypt, both mediators in past Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, to step in. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also condemned Friday's fatalities as a "bloody massacre" and urged the international community to intervene. "There was quite a lot of blood. People are running around in confusion, children have been taken to the hospital," The Israeli army said its attacks targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip used by Palestinian militants to fire homemade rockets at Israel. "They regularly and routinely will target sites that are used by militants for rocket attacks," said CTV's Janis Mackey Frayer, reporting from Jerusalem. But one artillery strike appeared to go dramatically off course on Friday. The army said it had determined that aircraft and gunboats had not fired the artillery that struck the picnic, but that ground forces might have been the source. Israel carried out at least three air strikes, including one attack that killed three militants, after they fired a rocket into Israel. The militants were identified as members of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a small group that is responsible for much of the rocket fire. Israeli military chief Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz ordered a temporary halt on artillery strikes in the area while an investigation was conducted. "We regret any harm caused to innocent civilians," said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman. He said Israel was offering medical support to the wounded. The attack comes one day after Jamal Abu Samhadana, a top Palestinian commander and leader of the PRC, was killed in an Israeli air strike. He recently led the Hamas government's private militia. Hamas, sworn to the destruction of Israel, considered the Thursday attack to be an assault on its government, and warned Israel that Samhadana's death would be avenged. "His funeral was held today. Thousands of people packed into a soccer stadium, so what happened on the beach today has only inflamed the sense of rage there," Mackey Frayer said. Hundreds of gunmen fired thousands of bullets into the air, chanting, "God is great'' and "Revenge, revenge.'' The mounting death toll stoked tensions as Haniyeh made a last-minute appeal to Abbas to abandon a proposed referendum in which Palestinians will decide whether they want a two-state solution with Israel. Haniyeh wrote that the referendum would divide the Palestinian people and "carries many dangers." "I'm afraid it will cause a historic rift that will hurt the Palestinian cause for decades to come," Haniyeh wrote. But Abbas, who is eager to restart peace talks with Israel, was expected to announce on Saturday that July 31 had been set as the date for a national referendum. "This would recognize Israel and its right to exist," Mackey Frayer said. However, public opinion polls show the two-state proposal has widespread support.
Hamas Military Wing Calls Off Israel Truce ABC News
Palestinian PM urges end to Israeli offensive People's Daily Online
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Abbas announces July referendum BBC News
The Palestinian Authority president has set 26 July as the date for a controversial referendum on a statehood plan that implicitly recognises Israel. Mahmoud Abbas made the announcement in an official decree. The Hamas movement, which leads the government has rejected the proposal, saying such a vote would be illegal. The plan sets out formal Palestinian claims to an independent state on land occupied by Israel in 1967, and implicitly adopts a two-state solution. "It was a declaration of a coup against the government," said leading Hamas politician Mushir al-Masri in remarks quoted by Reuters. "Whoever announced the referendum should shoulder the responsibility for the dangerous consequences that may result," Masri said, adding that Palestinians should boycott the vote.

Israel launches air raid on Gaza BBC News
The Palestinian Hamas movement says two of its militants have been killed in an Israeli air strike near Beit Lahiya, in the Gaza Strip. Israel said it had targeted militants who were on their way to launch rockets at Israel from northern Gaza. Hamas said it had fired a number of rockets at Israel, one of which left an Israeli critically injured. Hamas said it was retaliating for the deaths of seven people on a Gaza beach, apparently killed by Israeli shelling. The rockets were the first it had fired since its truce 16 months ago, it said.

Regret
Hamas said two of its fighters were killed on Sunday in the Israeli strike near Beit Lahiya. A member of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was killed in a separate incident in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya. There are conflicting reports of how he died. One says he was killed in an Israeli air strike, another says he was killed by an explosion in his home unrelated to any attack. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed regret over the deaths of the seven members of a Palestinian family killed on Friday. "We regret the death of innocent civilians," he told ministers at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting, AFP reported. His government has ordered the military to conduct an inquiry into the deaths. There were emotional scenes in Beit Lahiya on Saturday as thousands of people attended the funeral of the victims - a couple and five of their children. The killings have sparked fresh criticism of Israel, with Jordan saying they were crime which would further increase tensions and Turkey calling them a severe blow to efforts to bring peace. Five Israeli human rights organisations demanded an urgent to end the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli security forces. Mr Olmert will arrive in the UK on Sunday, ahead of talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday.

Hariri inquiry requests extension BBC News
The United Nations inquiry into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is seeking a one-year extension. Chief investigator Serge Brammertz said the move would give the inquiry "a sense of stability and continuity". In a report to the UN, Mr Brammertz said investigators had made considerable progress - although he did not go into details. The current mandate is due to expire next Thursday. The report says an extension would "offer assurances to staff". It adds that Syria's co-operation with the inquiry "has further developed". "Full and unconditional co-operation from Syria to the commission remains crucial," the document says. Mr Hariri was killed in a massive car bomb in Beirut in February 2005 along with 22 other people. Critics say Mr Hariri could not have been assassinated without help from Syria. His death triggered huge demonstrations in Lebanon against the Syrians. Damascus denied involvement but eventually bowed to international pressure, pulling out its troops after nearly 30 years of military presence. Mr Brammertz is expected to brief the UN Security Council on Wednesday on the latest findings.

Hariri inquiry requests extension BBC News
The United Nations inquiry into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is seeking a one-year extension. Chief investigator Serge Brammertz said the move would give the inquiry "a sense of stability and continuity". In a report to the UN, Mr Brammertz said investigators had made considerable progress - although he did not go into details. The current mandate is due to expire next Thursday. The report says an extension would "offer assurances to staff". It adds that Syria's co-operation with the inquiry "has further developed". "Full and unconditional co-operation from Syria to the commission remains crucial," the document says. Mr Hariri was killed in a massive car bomb in Beirut in February 2005 along with 22 other people. Critics say Mr Hariri could not have been assassinated without help from Syria. His death triggered huge demonstrations in Lebanon against the Syrians. Damascus denied involvement but eventually bowed to international pressure, pulling out its troops after nearly 30 years of military presence. Mr Brammertz is expected to brief the UN Security Council on Wednesday on the latest findings.

President Abbas Describes Israel's Massacres:

"Undoubtedly what happened in Gaza today are bloody pogroms against safe civilians," said President Abbas in a statement to WAFA "Israeli is committing the biggest crimes of termination against the Palestinian people."
http://tinyurl.com/eh3yr


US supports Israel killing :

Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mahmoud Az Zahar condemned the US support of Israel killing an entire family yesterday. He described the US position as one of an “accomplice to the crimes,” as the Americans do foot the bill and also give their moral support to such brutality.
http://www.pnn.ps/english/archive2006/jun/...606/report2.htm


Paralyzed for life :

The tangle of tubes and the artificial respirator attached directly to her windpipe cannot hide her beauty. A little 3-year-old girl lying in the pediatric intensive care unit at Sheba Medical Center, Maria Aman's sad, brown almond eyes are wide open, her lips murmur in a whisper: "Food, I want to eat," but all her limbs are paralyzed, forever.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/725208.html


Hamas says will renew attacks on Israel:

The militant group Hamas, which has largely abided by a truce for more than a year, said on Friday it was renewing attacks on Israel following Israeli strikes that were reported to have killed 10 Palestinian civilians.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09560621.htm


Jailed Hamas men retract support of prisoners' plan :

The Hamas prisoner who helped draft a proposal that would implicitly recognize Israel withdrew his name from the document Sunday on behalf of all Hamas prisoners, deepening Palestinian divisions ahead of a referendum on the plan.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/725495.html


Israel braces for new "terror" war:

The IDF report outlines the army's general assessment for the next five years. It lists Iran's nuclear program as the top danger to Israel, followed by the threat of a renewed conflict with the Palestinians. The third level of threat is all-out war.
http://tinyurl.com/ke7ab


Israel's 'Right' to Exist : A question of legitimacy :

The basic fact is Israel was created in violation of international law and remains so. Israel's illegitimacy is the point that Hamas asserts and which the world is starving and economically boycotting the Palestinians to force them to reject -- by demanding they recognize Israel's right to exist.
http://tinyurl.com/fqy6e


Constitutional chauvinism:

Arab citizens have no right to a family life in their homeland, if this means granting legal status to their partners in Israel. The reason is that this changes the numerical ratio between Arabs and Jews, thus changing the status quo in Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/724872.html


US approves annual aid to Israel :

House of Representatives approves allocation of USD 2.46 billion to Israel, the largest sum received by any country;
http://tinyurl.com/lul3j


Lebanon: Israel-linked suspect nabbed in Jihad killing :

Lebanon said on Saturday it had arrested a man who was a key mastermind in a car bombing that killed a senior official of a violent Palestinian terror group and who has links to Israeli intelligence.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3261094,00.html


Israelis Fear Spread Of War Crimes Cases :

Laws passed in wake of Nuremberg trials now being pressed in Europe against Israeli generals.
http://tinyurl.com/jed2e


Dahlan vows to decimate Hamas:

Former Gaza strongman Mohamed Dahlan said during a closed meeting held recently in Gaza that he would "rough up and humiliate" Fatah members or supporters who might be tempted to join the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/798/re82.htm


The essence of colonialism:

Gabriela Becker* exposes the implications of thriving Israeli agriculture in the wake of continuous measures to annex or colonise Palestinian lands and efface the Palestinians
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2006/798/feature.htm

Palestinian PM office set on fire BBC News
Gunmen loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have set fire to the offices of the Hamas prime minister and parliament in Ramallah. Security personnel and militiamen fired shots before rampaging the offices in protest at earlier clashes in Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas MP Khalil Rabei has been kidnapped in the West Bank city. Hamas and Mr Abbas's Fatah factions have been involved in a power struggle since the Palestinian elections in January, which were won by Hamas. Earlier on Monday a Hamas gunman was killed in a clash with security forces loyal to Fatah in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Each side blamed the other for firing first.

Heavy damage
Correspondents say security forces were joined by gunmen from Fatah offshoot the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Gunmen shot out the windows of the Palestinian parliament and stormed the cabinet offices, smashing furniture and computers. The office was unoccupied as Ismail Haniya is based in the Gaza Strip. It is not clear if there have been any casualties, but the buildings reportedly suffered heavy damage. Militants tried to prevent fire engines from reaching the site to extinguish the flames. Tensions have worsened between the two sides since Mr Abbas called a referendum on a statehood plan which would implicitly recognise Israel, whose right to exist Hamas rejects. At least 20 people, mostly militia members, have been killed in clashes between the two factions in the past two months.

Nine killed in Israeli air strike BBC News
Nine Palestinians, including two children, have been killed and at least 30 hurt in an Israeli air raid in Gaza. The Israeli army said it had targeted "a terror cell" on its way to fire rockets at Israel on a vehicle loaded with Katyusha rocket launchers. The Islamic Jihad militant group said two of its members died in the blast. Seven civilians were also killed. The incident was the latest in an escalating series of missile attacks from both sides.

'Restraint'
The BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza says although Israeli strikes on vehicles travelling through the territory have become familiar, Tuesday's attack resulted in one of the heaviest death tolls.The dead were reported to include two brothers, four-year-old Hisham al-Mugrabi and eight-year-old Shaher, and their father Ashraf. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of engaging in "state terrorism". Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel had so far been showing restraint, but would no longer do so. Israel says about 100 rockets have been fired from across the Gaza border in the past few days. After Tuesday's strike a yellow van was left mangled on the main road through the north of Gaza, while pools of blood lay nearby. Islamic Jihad said the blast killed two of its militants, including its top rocket launcher, Hamoud Wadiya, the Associated Press reported.


Witnesses said the first strike was followed soon afterwards by another missile, which hit civilians and rescuers who had gone to the scene of the first blast. At least one ambulance man was reported to have been killed. Israeli military sources, however, said the latter explosion may have been caused by one of the militants' rockets. There were scenes of anger as bloodied civilians were taken to hospital. At the hospital's morgue, angry women shouted: "Death to Israel, death to the occupation!" An Israeli army statement said the attack was launched at "a vehicle loaded with rockets and carrying a terror cell en route to launch at Israel". A spokeswoman said that the van was "loaded with Katyushas". Katyushas have a longer range than the homemade rockets that are usually launched from Gaza. Witnesses cited by the Reuters news agency said they saw rockets in the back of the yellow van.

Beach blast
The upsurge in violence follows the deaths of eight Palestinians on a beach in Gaza on Friday. After those deaths, the militant group Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, said it was breaking off its voluntary truce and launched rockets at Israel. The beach explosion was blamed by Palestinians on Israeli shelling near the area where a family was enjoying a picnic. However, Israeli officials say a military inquiry has ruled that Israel was probably not responsible and that the blast could have been caused by a mine planted on the beach by the Hamas government. Both sides suggested that cross-border attacks would continue after Tuesday's air strike. "Today we have said farewell to our martyrs and tomorrow Israel will say farewell to their dead," Islamic Jihad told Reuters. Mr Peretz said: "We have been showing restraint due to the international storm caused by the incident on the Gaza beach - but no longer."

The blood on our hands :

The ineffable anguish in the image of a girl running on a beach where her family lay in pieces on the sand, was shown again and again and again on Al Jazeera, but it passed swiftly from Israeli television screens
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=725483


Video

Death On A Gaza Beach:

A 7 year old Palestinian girl screams in horror as she watches her dead parents and other family members being removed from the beach:

- Warning -This video should only be watched by a mature audience.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13593.htm


In pictures:

Death On A Gaza Beach:

Pictures show the destruction of a Palestinian family by Israeli bombs
http://tinyurl.com/k6rtc


Mike Whitney : Funereal in Gaza :

“Don’t leave me alone.” 7 year old Palestinian Huda Ghalya, who was orphaned when an Israeli missile killed her parents and 5 siblings
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13594.htm


US pressing EU NOT to pay Palestinian health workers :

The EU had hoped to begin paying the allowances starting July 1, but doing so could prove difficult without U.S. backing.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11171441.htm


The issue is not whether Hamas recognises Israel:

Hamas is determined that Palestinian recognition of Israel will not come about without Israel's recognition of Palestinian national rights, and that only an end to the occupation and Israel's acceptance of the principle that no changes in the pre-1967 borders can occur without Palestinian agreement (a principle enshrined in the road map that Israel pretends to have accepted) will constitute such recognition.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13583.htm


Israel's former PM tried to kill Adenauer: German report:

As a Zionist leader, Begin was responsible for a series of horrific terrorist attacks throughout the 1940s and 50s, among them the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which killed 91 people.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/...2006061209.html


Promises and Betrayals: : Video:

An intriguing look at how the British double-dealing during WWI ignited the conflict between Arab and Jew in the Middle East. A disturbing picture of a duplicitous wartime government.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8739.htm

A GATHERING MIDEAST STORM ? EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, JUNE 13): Israeli and Palestinian leaders are teetering on the edge of an abyss because they have not produced the negotiated two-state peace agreement large majorities of both
peoples want and need.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial..._mideast_storm/

FACING DOWN OUR DEFEATIST LEADERS - CAROLINE GLICK (JERUSALEM POST, JUNE 12): Two words aptly describe the Bush administration and the Olmert
government's responses to the escalating war. They are respectively: appeasement and capitulation.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

ABBAS' COMEBACK PLAN IS A DEAD END: THE ISOLATED PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT IS GAMBLING ON A VOTE THAT COULD TURN BACK THE CLOCK ON PROGRESS - AARON DAVID MILLER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JUNE 14): Until Palestinians make clear precisely what they want and how they plan to achieve it, not much is going to change.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

HEARING THE PALESTINIAN SILENT MAJORITY - MONITOR'S VIEW (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, JUNE 13): A large and silent majority of Palestinians -- heretofore heard only through opinion polls -- supports two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0613/p08s02-comv.html

THE ABBAS-HAMAS PROBLEM: A CIVIL WAR LOOMS BETWEEN PALESTINIAN FACTIONS, THREATENING U.S. INTERESTS IN IRAQ ? EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, JUNE 14)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials

FOREIGN MINISTRY LAUNCHES PR BLITZ - HERB KEINON (JERUSALEM POST, JUNE 14): Israel's message is simple: The Palestinians are responsible for endangering the civilian population by transferring Grad missiles in a populated area and using the population there as a human shield.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

ACADEMIC LIES ABOUT ISRAEL SHMUEL ROSNER (HAARETZ, JUNE 14): There are a variety of means available whose goal is to rescue Israel from the ambush set for it on campuses by clever opponents who want, in effect, to bring about its
liquidation.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/726490.html

PROPHETS IN THEIR OWN LAND: HOW TO GO FROM RESPECTED ACADEMIC TO
ANTI-SEMITE?IN ONE SIMPLE STEP - MICHAEL C. DESCH (AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, JUNE 19): John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's London Review of Books essay The Israel Lobby,? and the heavily footnoted working-paper version posted on the John F. Kennedy School of Government website, have generated a tsunami of commentary. The Israel lobby's efforts to stifle the piece by ignoring it publicly while working behind the scenes to attack Mearsheimer and Walt's integrity and credibility may already be backfiring.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_06_19/article1.html

THE WRONG WAY TO SWAY EGYPT - JON B. ALTERMAN (WASHINGTON POST, JUNE 13): The U.S. government should continue to press hard for reform in Egypt, and it should closely scrutinize the aid package. But linking the two would be
counterproductive, if not disastrous.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6061201286.html

"Hamas gunman" killed, security chief wounded in clash:

A Hamas gunman was killed and a senior Palestinian security official from a
force loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas was wounded in Gaza on Wednesday in
violence that could further inflame internal tensions.
http://tinyurl.com/pyjb9


Palestinian Protesters Storm Parliament:

In a sign that tension is rising amongst the Palestinians, dozens of Palestinian
servants rampaged through the parliament building demanding long overdue
salaries.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7003910637

Olmert approves arms shipment to boost Abbas:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday he had approved a shipment of
weapons and ammunition to bolster security forces loyal to Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13748757.htm


Despite the divisions, the national consensus holds :

The Palestinian strategy of negotiation and resistance is common to liberation
movements. Attempts to foster splits will fail
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13619.htm


Lebanese man confesses to killings on behalf of Israel :

A Lebanese man has confessed to assassinating a series of senior Hezbollah and
Palestinian militants over a seven-year period on behalf of Israeli
intelligence, the Lebanese Army said on Tuesday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13616.htm


Apartheid Israel:

Solution found to end 'Jews only' flights :

The Transportation Ministry on Wednesday said it would install temporary X-ray
scanning machines in the Kiryat Shmona airport, in an effort to calm public
protests over its policy barring Arabs from traveling on flights from the north
to Tel Aviv.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/726818.html


Witnessing the Destruction of Gaza:

Where is the world community’s condemnation of Israel’s military actions? Where
are the words of reprobation from the European Union—the champion of democracy?
I know the death of Palestinians is not as interesting as the World Cup—but this
is getting a bit ridiculous.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13623.htm


Revealed: Shrapnel evidence that points to Israel's guilt : -

Israel has dismissed continuing calls for an independent international inquiry
into the beachfront explosion which killed seven members of a Palestinian family
in Gaza last Friday
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13615.htm


Israeli Human Rights Organizations: End Killing of Civilians

Five Israeli human rights organizations demanded today in an urgent appeal to
the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense that they take immediate action
to end the killing of Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territories, and to
eradicate the factors contributing to these killings.
http://www.btselem.org/english/press_releases/20060610.asp


Palestinian FM returns to Gaza with $20 million in suitcases:

A cutoff in Western aid has left the Hamas-led Palestinian government have left
it broke. Tens of thousands of civil servants haven't received salaries in more
than three months.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/726919.html