WASHINGTON (IPS) - Neo-conservative hawks in and outside the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had hoped that Israel would attack Syria during last summer’s Lebanon war, according to a newly published interview with a prominent neo-conservative whose spouse is a top Middle East adviser in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Meyrav Wurmser, who is herself the director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute here, reportedly told Yitzhak Benhorin of the Ynet website that a successful attack by Israel on Damascus would have dealt a mortal blow to the insurgency in Iraq. Read more about Neo-Cons Wanted Israel to Attack Syria
Palestinians don’t want fresh elections in the occupied territories, but a free vote for a truly national ruling body. The elections that all Palestinians are demanding today (the millions under occupation and the millions in the refugee camps outside) are for the Palestine National Council, the parliament in exile, which is the national body that represents all Palestinians. The Palestinian people have indeed already spoken: for elections to the Palestine National Council, for lifting the economic boycott of a democratically elected authority; for liberty and to independence. Read more about Under an iron fist
Palestinians are reeling from a century of systematic destruction of their way of life at every possible level. Instead of pouring gasoline on the fire, as the US-Israel-Fatah coalition has been doing, and instead of debating the price of petrol, as the international community has busied itself with throughout the entire history of this conflict, we need to recognize that events are fast reaching the straw breaking the camel’s back moment. Few seem to grasp that ‘business as usual’ in the Middle East can only be destined to lead to more suffering, death, and loss of hope, and that the time to act was yesterday. Read more about Palestine on the brink of civil war?
The problem facing the Palestinian leadership, as they strive to bring the millions living in the occupied territories some small relief from their collective suffering, reduces to a matter of a few words. Like a naughty child who has only to say “sorry” to be released from his room, the Hamas government need only say “We recognise Israel” and supposedly aid and international goodwill will wash over the West Bank and Gaza. That, at least, was the gist of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s recent speech during a visit to the Negev, when he suggested that his country’s hand was stretched out across the sands towards the starving masses of Gaza — if only Hamas would repent. “Recognise us and we are ready to talk about peace” was the implication. Read more about The trap of recognising Israel
Stand here on these streets and you will know this is a civil war.” So said CNN’s Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware to the network’s viewers on November 27. To illustrate his point, he read from a diary published on Electronic Iraq. Our award-winning websites, The Electronic Intifada, Electronic Iraq, and Electronic Lebanon bring the voices of those living through the most frightening and brutal events to a worldwide audience. We illuminate the cultural and social creativity and resistance through which people proclaim their dignity and pursue peace with justice. Read more about Where do you go when the news makes you want to throw up your hands?
“Stand here on these streets and you will know this is a civil war.” So said CNN’s Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware to the network’s viewers on November 27. To illustrate his point, he read from a diary published on Electronic Iraq. Our award-winning websites, The Electronic Intifada, Electronic Iraq, and Electronic Lebanon bring the voices of those living through the most frightening and brutal events to a worldwide audience. We illuminate the cultural and social creativity and resistance through which people proclaim their dignity and pursue peace with justice. Read more about Where do you go when the news makes you want to throw up your hands?
On Dec. 7, 2006, CNN journalist Glenn Beck savaged President Jimmy Carter’s important new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, despite clearly not having given it a close read. In the course of his diatribe he referred to President Carter as a “fathead.” Time was that an employee would be fired on the spot for such a transgression. Had my mother or father run CNN and been listening I am quite certain that Beck would have been pulled from the set and a sincere apology offered to viewers within minutes. Clearly, no real standards exist at CNN. Read more about Vile Jibes At President Carter Ignored By Media
“The ideology that Avigdor Lieberman subscribes to that is an ethnic cleansing ideology. Someone who believes that the only way to solving the problems in Israel/Palestine is by expelling the Palestinians from Israel and any territory Israel covets. I think the problem with Avigdor Lieberman is not his own views but the fact that he reflects what most Israeli Jews think, and definitely what most of his colleagues in the Olmert government think but don’t dare to say, or don’t think is desirable to say for tactical reasons. But I do think that we should be worried about Lieberman, not as an extreme fascist but rather as a person who represents the mood of Israel in 2006.” Read more about A rare voice: An interview with author Ilan Pappe
The Bush Administration’s insistence that the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel’s existence may seek to achieve a moderate Palestinian leadership to enable a peaceful political process between the sides, but what about Israeli leadership and moderation? For five months Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip have been subjected to an incessant Israeli military campaign that has left over 500 Palestinians dead. While the provocation of Palestinian crude rocket attacks from Gaza into Israeli towns is well cited in US media, much less emphasized is the fact that most residents of Gaza are refugees from inside what is now Israel. Read more about Refugees Are The Key
The people of this region are being abandoned by the world to escalating chaos. The political crisis in Lebanon is a manifestation of this chaos, linked more broadly to the catastrophe in Iraq, and the butchery in Palestine. Despite empty gestures, fake goodwill and worn out slogans from a parade of prominent visitors to Jericho, Gaza and some regional capitals, there is no reason at all for hope. Hypocrisy and double standards have reached new levels of shamelessness. Members of the so-called “international community” refused to take any position on the inclusion in October of an openly fascist party in the Israeli government, on the grounds that this is a purely internal matter. Read more about Mounting crises in escalating chaos
