Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

 

• Bucking Obama and Netanyahu, Palestinian refugees assert their centrality

• Israel puts barbed-wire fence around village of 247 Palestinians in W. Bank to prevent stonethrowing

• Chris Matthews is in, and up to the hub! Taking on AIPAC

• Taking on AIPAC

• Obama’s overflowing ‘love’ for Ireland shows up his rage toward Israel/the lobby

• Obama, the Arab Spring and irrelevance

• Jewish man, 62 y.o. but vital, seeks unh… world domination

• First they came for Norman, then they ate the hummus

• Obama missed the point about ‘endless delay’

• Saudi woman campaigns for right to drive

Bucking Obama and Netanyahu, Palestinian refugees assert their centrality

May 23, 2011

Alex Kane

When President Barack Obama delivered his much awaited speech on the “Arab Spring” last Thursday, outlining his administration’s policy on the Arab revolts and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he proposed a negotiations process that would delay discussions on Palestinian refugees.

“These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met,” he said at the State Department. “I’m aware that these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair.”

Obama didn’t even mention refugees once during his May 22 speech to the annual conference of the powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

But Palestinian refugees themselves are not having any of that, despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow that Palestinians’ insistence on returning is “not going to happen,” as he told President Obama at the White House May 20. As the Nakba day protests that erupted on May 15 show, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and their demands to return to their homeland in what is now Israel, remain a core issue in the conflict.

Obama is “now attempting to parse away the negotiations by turning it into a very piecemeal negotiation, where first you focus on borders and security, and then leave all of the other issues to a later date,” Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Negotiations Support Unit, told the Institute for Palestine Studies. “This is the policy the Israelis have been pushing for a very long period of time.”

But Palestinian refugees are not waiting on a U.S. president to show them the way forward. Through the kinds of unarmed, popular resistance that have overthrown the regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali–and that Palestinian themselves first used during their intifadas–they are reinserting themselves into the discourse on Israel/Palestine.

The next big event for refugees and their supporters will be June 5, a date that marks the start of the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel captured and occupied the Golan Heights in Syria, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt–all of which remain in Israel’s hands, save for the Sinai.

The Ma’an News Agency reported May 21 that “masses of Palestinian refugees will march to Israel’s borders and ceasefire lines again on June 5, organizers of the May 15 ‘return rally’ said…The committee organizing the ‘return rallies’ said Saturday that the May 15 protests were ‘just the beginning.’ In a statement, the group called on all Palestinian refugees living in exile to march peacefully to the borders of historic Palestine on June 5.”

The “right to return” rallies represent the clearest sign yet that Palestinian refugees are done waiting for a peace process that has done nothing for their rights. The rallies could be looked at as a wholesale rejection of a negotiations process that has systematically shut refugees and the whole Palestinian diaspora out. And it represents a rejection of the Obama/Netanyahu line on refugees.

Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia at alexbkane.wordpress.com, where this post originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

Israel puts barbed-wire fence around village of 247 Palestinians in W. Bank to prevent stonethrowing

May 23, 2011

Kate

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
New buildings in Mehola settlement
JVS 23 May — For few days now, Mehola settlement, in the Northern Jordan Valley, builds new houses. Mehola is located at the junction between the ‘Road 90’ and ‘Alon Road’, made to isolate the Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank. Mehola was the first settlement established in the Jordan Valley, in 1968. Today, the children of Mehola founders continue to build. Some of them build inside Mehola, others, build in an outpost just beside Mehola that, if legalized by the Israeli government, could become a part of Mehola, creating a very large colony. The northern Jordan Valley is now occupied by four major settlements (Mehola, Rotem, Maskkiyot and Shdemot Mehola) and Mehola outpost. Each one of these settlements builds new houses and expend on a regular basis in order to constitute a big single colony that would control the all area. The Palestinian communities that are now surrounded by all those colonies, struggle on an everyday basis to stay on their land, as they face house demolitions, denial of access to water, education and health.
http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=271:new-buildings-in-mehola-settlement&catid=15:2010&Itemid=21
Settlers set up new outposts
Ynet 23 May —  Rightist activists attempted to set up a new farm in the contentious E1 area, near the settlement of Maale Adumim, in an apparent bid to provoke and embarrass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently in Washington. Meanwhile, another outpost was set up in the Binyamin region in the West Bank. Ynet learned that settlers were planning to set up yet another outpost in the Hebron region. Several dozen members of the so-called “Hilltop Youth,” accompanied by Knesset Member Michael Ben Ari and rightist activists Itamar Ben Gvir, Baruch Marzel and Meir Bratler established the farm near Maale Adumim under the slogan “We’re all E1.” Riot police who prepared for their arrival allowed the activists to reach the site but prevented one of them from positioning a caravan in the area. During the encounter, rightist activists cursed Arabs who were riding their horses nearby … Meanwhile, hilltop youth Aryeh Bloomberg asked to convey a personal message to US President Barack Obama: “I too am an American citizen, but before that, I’m Jewish. This land is mine because it was given to us by God; it says so in the Torah.” “Obama, you have no right to tell us what to do,” Bloomberg said. “Deal with your own country.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072939,00.html
Settlers try to set up new West Bank outposts during Netanyahu’s US visit
Haaretz 23 May — Palestinians and the international community, including the United States, have long objected to the E-1 plan on the grounds that it would cut the West Bank in two and sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the area.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/settlers-try-to-set-up-new-west-bank-outpost-during-netanyahu-s-u-s-visit-1.363598
Settlers fabricate nonexistent ‘eternal rights’ / Yossi Gurvitz
+972mag 23 May — Why settlers lie and claim that an article of the UN charter grants “eternal rights” to Jews in Palestine — A bunch of senior settlers – Gershon Messica, Boaz Ha’etzni, Benni Katzover, Ariel mayor Ron Nahman, and others – have boldly gone where no nutjob has gone before. They sent a threatening letter to the General Secretary of the UN, Ban Ki Moon (Hebrew), stiffly informing him that if he would not stop his odious custom of noting facts and referring to the West Bank as an occupied territory, they will sue him an international court, and demand damages. Whatever for? Well, the NRG article breathlessly informs that Moon’s statements contradict Article 80 of the UN Charter of 1945, known colloquially as the “Eretz Israel article,” which, claim the settlers, lays down the “judicial rights of the Jewish people for Eretz Israel as eternal rights, which cannot be abrogated without the agreement of the Jewish people.” This seemed rather strange. I mean, if such an article existed, I’m pretty certain I’d have heard of it by now.
http://972mag.com/settlers-fabricate-non-existent-%E2%80%9Ceternal-rights%E2%80%9D/
Israeli forces install fence around Qalqiliya village
QALQILIYA (Ma‘an) 23 May — Israeli forces began to install a barbed-wire fence on Monday around a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, saying it was meant to prevent stone throwing. Residents of Izbat At-Tabib, located east of Qalqiliya, awoke to the sounds of construction, and were told that lands made inaccessible by the construction were being confiscated for the construction of a buffer area between the village and the settler road that passes to its north … Bayan Tabib, president of the village’s council, said the construction and confiscations came without warning, and effectively caged in residents. “This was an arbitrary decision meant to isolate the village and part of the Israeli effort to take it over. Israeli forces have threatened more than once to displace our people,” he said. The village is located about 1.5 kilometers from two settlement blocs, one of which extends some 22 kilometers into the occupied West Bank.
Izbat At-Tabib is the second Palestinian population center that has been fenced in under the pretext of preventing stone throwing. In March, the town of Beit Ummar wasfenced in from one side, and three homes and workshops demolished.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390349
IOF seal off Sheikh Jarrah suburb as settlers attack Palestinian children
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 23 May — The Israeli occupation troops sealed-off Sunday the Sheikh Jarrah suburb in the occupied city of Jerusalem after extremist Israeli settlers went on the rampage in the area and attacked Palestinian children and women. The Quds Press agency quoted Palestinian journalist Rasem Abdul Wahid, a resident of the suburb, as saying that a number of extremist Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinian children in the suburb prompting strong clashes by hands with Palestinian families who rushed to save their children. He added that one of the settlers who had occupied part of the house of Palestinian citizen Refqa Al-Kurd unleashed his dog to terrorize and assault Palestinian children and women. The IOF troops, he explained, arrived to the suburb and sealed it but instead of expelling the Israeli attackers, they arrested a number of Palestinian minors alleging they attacked the settlers.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd
Israel attacks Izbat Tabib, resumes annexation
PalMon 23 May — Israeli bulldozers are moving right now on Izbat Tabib in order to build a so-called security fence through the small, ancestral village farms. “The army started working and we are standing, about twenty, with people from International Solidarity Movement and the village. We want to stop them if we can,” said the mayor Bayan Al Tabib. “We are fighting with them and we want stop them if we can, by our bodies.” Ten kilometers east of Qalqiliya, Izbat Tabib’s privately owned land was the scene two weeks ago of a violent confrontation: three activists were beaten and one 60-year old woman’s wrists were broken by Israeli soldiers. Located in Area C, the 45 homes of the village are under direct Israeli military control. Almost half of their historic lands have already been lost to the annexation wall.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1826
Right to education under attack in Beit Ommar
PalMon 23 May — In a direct affront to Palestinians’ basic right to education, Israeli Occupation Forces threaten university students with arrest during their final exam week if they do not cease demonstrations outside the illegal settlement, Karmei Tsur.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1824
Detention / Court actions
Israel detains mother of senior Hamas official
RAMALLAH, (PIC) 23 May — Israeli forces arrested Monday morning the mother of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri after raiding her home in Aroura village near Ramallah. Soldiers surrounded the Arouri residence in the village and then tampered with the contents inside while searching the premises, Salama al-Arouri told the Palestinian Information Center. He added that they notified Arouri’s mother A’isha, 70, that an arrest warrant had been issued against her. The soldiers brutally apprehended her when she expressed refusal to respond. Arouri said his mother suffers from several illnesses and is unable to walk without the help of others. He held Israel liable for harm caused to her. Arouri’s son Asim was arrested a few days back for questioning. The Hamas politburo member spent a total of 18 years in Israeli prisons before Israel exiled him to Syria last year.
It was not the first incident where Israel abducted the mothers of activists, said Fuad al-Khuffash, Ahrar center director. A year back, Rabi‘a Bilal was arrested to pressure her sons during interrogations. Israel also arrested the mother and wife of Yahya Ayyash, who was wanted and on the run.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Israeli court sentences teen to 6 months
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 23 May — Israel’s military judges on Monday issued a six-month jail sentence to a teenager from Bil‘in village near Ramallah. Amjad Ayed Abu Rahma, 15, was sentenced at Ofer military court near Ramallah, local activists said. He was detained in January for participating in Bil‘in’s weekly non-violent protests against the separation wall.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390272
British parliamentarians take on treatment of teens in Israeli military court / Amira Hass
Haaretz 23 May — Israel’s West Bank military court was debated in two sessions of the House of Lords, with a focus on the issue of the detention and sentencing conditions for Palestinian minors by the Israeli military … Lord Alf Dubs made the following statement to the House of Lords on May 4: “My Lords, I recently visited the West Bank; it was my first time there … In the court we visited we saw a 14 year-old and a 15-year-old, one of them in tears, both looking absolutely bewildered. What shocked me as much as anything was to see that these young persons – children – had chains or shackles around their ankles while sitting in court … When being interrogated these young people do not have the security of video recordings, lawyers or parents present … “The court proceedings are in Hebrew, with translations of a doubtful quality. The verdicts are mostly based on uncorroborated confession evidence…” … But perhaps Lord Dubs himself, of Britain’s Labor Party, would interest our legislators. At the age of six he was one of 669 mostly Jewish children that British citizens evacuated from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/british-parlimentarians-take-on-treatment-of-teens-in-israeli-military-court-1.363436
IOA extends solitary confinement of captive Hamid for six more months
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)- The administration of the Israeli Ramle prison has decided Sunday to extend the solitary confinement of Palestinian captive Ibrahim Hamid for six more months without giving reasons for the extension. Hamid, 46, was arrested in 2006 and remained in isolation. The IOA denied him family visit him since then. He is a father of two children Salma and Ali. According to Palestinian records, there were around 37 Palestinian captives are still incarcerated in isolation, many of them for years now.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7uSdxPWD9%2bXdZgoVAaIlt4gtf8NX5lKpooKh4DNCFYDQmZ2GN%2fUI%2fYJvtpytNg5CLvNJynMxStfM0EcpLHwX7REszAudm4pViToRPLnBjkrI%3d
Detention extended for Silwan man accused of participation in clashes
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC)  23 May — Silwan resident Sa‘id Sarhan, 34, was arrested during a large-scale dawn raid on his home on 19 May. Sarhan faces allegations of participation in recent clashes in Silwan that erupted in response to Israeli settlement policies and house demolitions. Israeli forces infiltrated the Sarhan premises by using ladders to climb the outer walls of the property. They forced their way into the house, searching for specific items of clothing they claim Sarhan was wearing during confrontations with Israeli forces and will prove his alleged guilt. Sarhan was then detained. Sarhan’s wife was also summoned for investigation. Sarhan’s detention has now been extended until Tuesday 24 May, when he is scheduled to appear before the Magistrates Court for the second time in less than a week.
http://silwanic.net/?p=16861
PA security nabs man over failure to respond to summons
AL-KHALIL (PIC) 23 May — PA security agencies arrested Sunday night former captive in Israeli occupation jails, Muhannad Abdo al-Heimoni, 24, after he declared refusal to respond to a summons earlier. Locals reported that the force took him to security headquarters at gunpoint and released him after three hours of interrogation. They also confiscated his ID and bank cards. Heimoni said in interview that part of the interrogation revolved around a Facebook page protesting the continued summonses by West Bank security agencies.
West Bank intelligence arrested the same day noon ex-captive Abdurrahman Hindiyya from Nablus. He refused to respond to a summons as well.
Separately, the Islamic Jihad has confirmed that the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence service has notified ten of the group’s men that they must appear at police headquarters.
Fatah, which controls the West Bank, had agreed to release all political prisoners as a condition for a historic deal with Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Israel police to compensate man blinded in intifada NIS 810,000
Haaretz 23 May — Haifa Court rules in favor of Nazareth man, who claims Israel police shot two rubber bullets into his face while he was walking home from work in October 2000.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-police-to-compensate-man-blinded-in-intifada-nis-810-000-1.363599
Gaza – under siege for 1440 days now
Man killed in Rafah tunnel collapse
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 May — A Palestinian man was killed and another sustained injuries Monday morning when a smuggling tunnel collapsed over them in the southern Gaza Strip. Gaza’s emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya identified the victim as 32-year-old Muhammad Mustafa An-Najjar. Abu Salmiya said a second man was critically injured in the same tunnel accident under the border between Egypt and Gaza
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390180
Malaysia aid ship ends sea attempt to Gaza
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) 23 May — A Malaysian aid ship attempting to land in Gaza after being warned off by Israeli naval forces last week has been forced to abort its mission after engine trouble, activists said. Matthias Chang, who is heading the mission for the Perdana Global Peace Foundation, told AFP on Monday that the MV Finch was now stuck six nautical miles from Egypt’s El-Arish port. “At about 5:30pm local time (0330 GMT), our vessel developed engine trouble and we lost our steering capability, so we had to stop our attempt to reach Gaza by sea,” he said. “However, the Egyptian foreign minister has given his assurance that we will be allowed to unload our humanitarian cargo and that it will be taken by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency into Gaza,” Chang said, adding that Egypt is bound by international law to lead the vessel to safety.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110523/wl_asia_afp/malaysiaisraelegyptpalestiniansconflictgaza
Gaza’s children mark first anniversary of Freedom Flotilla raid
MEMO 23 May — Palestinian children have launched paper aeroplanes into the skies above Gaza’s small port to commemorate the first anniversary of the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla on 31st May last year. The children held Palestinian and Turkish flags in a symbolic gesture to the countries taking part in the flotilla and carried banners with the photographs and names of the men who were killed in the massacre. The residents of Gaza are following closely the latest developments regarding Freedom Flotilla 2, due to set sail from Turkey closer to the anniversary, and are anticipating its arrival eagerly as it attempts to break the siege. Formal preparations to receive Freedom Flotilla 2 in Gaza are nearing completion
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2386-gazas-children-mark-first-anniversary-of-freedom-flotilla-raid
UNRWA strikers enraged after being ‘blackmailed’
GAZA (PIC) 23 May — UNRWA’s “blackmail” and threats to dock strikers for the two days of work they missed for protests “will only increase the staff’s determination to defend their cause and rights,” said a statement released Sunday night by the UNRWA labor union …All UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip went on strike on Wednesday and Thursday after the administration dismissed three men who were exonerated of various charges by the Palestinian courts. In a related development, a teacher at an UNRWA school in Gaza has filed a claim against UNRWA after he was dismissed from his job unfairly.He was reported to have been fired for alleged political activity “outside of UNRWA’s framework.”
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87
Gaza crossing partially open
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 May — Israeli authorities decided to open the Kerem Shalom crossing on Monday to allow limited aid into the coastal enclave. Palestinian liaison official, Raed Fattouh, said Israel would allow approximately 300 truckloads into Gaza, including 20 new cars. Of these, 82 truckloads would bring cement and iron into the coastal enclave for projects funded by the German Development Agency and UNRWA. Limited quantities of domestic gas will be pumped via the same crossing, Fattouh said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390176
Gaza police say bomber caught outside supermarket
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 May — Gaza police on Monday arrested a man they said was attempting to plant an explosive device outside a supermarket in Gaza City. An official from the investigations department said officers received a tip and were able to catch the man in action, but identified the alleged bomber only as H.M. Police said an investigation had been opened
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390252
Unity
Abbas backs unity with Hamas
AFP/Ynet 23 May — Palestinian president responds to Obama’s AIPAC speech, in which he said Fatah-Hamas truce ‘poses obstacle to peace’, by saying ‘Hamas is part of Palestinian society, will take part in democratic game as opposition’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072485,00.html
Abbas: I will navigate Palestinian gov’t
Ynet 23 May — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that both Israel and the United States fail to understand the true meaning of the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation. Abbas’ comments followed US President Barack Obama’s statement that Israel will not be able to negotiate with Hamas as long as it is dedicated to its annihilation.  The future Palestinian government, he said, “Will be neither a Fatah government nor a Hamas one. It will operate according to my policy and strategies. “Speaking in a press conference in Amman, following a meeting with King Abdulla II of Jordan, Abbas said that the Palestinian factions were aiming to create a technocracy — a government comprised of independent individuals, who will not include any PLO delegates.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072849,00.html
Egypt: Obama misreading unity deal
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 23 May — Egypt will counter any external pressure that could endanger the progress of the Palestinian unity process, Egyptian ambassador to the Palestinian Authority Yasser Othman said Monday after the US president raised concerns.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390271
PFLP: No candidate chosen to lead new government
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 May — The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on Monday denied media reports that PLO factions had agreed on a candidate to lead the interim government. As part of the Palestinian unity deal signed in Cairo earlier this month, PLO parties agreed to form a transitional government of technocrats to prepare for national elections. But factions have not tackled the issue of who will head the new government “at all” in meetings since the signing of the reconciliation agreement, PFLP said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390410
PLO factions to convene in Gaza City
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 23 May — Palestinian factions will meet in Gaza City on Tuesday to discuss ways to ensure that all parties participate in the reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo earlier this month. The factions, operating under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization, will meet at the office of the Arab Liberation Front,
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390196
Fatah, Hamas make progress on accord: Russian FM
MOSCOW (AFP) 23 May — Russia said on Monday that rival Palestinian leaders from Fatah and Hamas had further bridged their differences and made progress on the details of a new Palestinian reconciliation accord. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced after talks with visiting Palestinian delegations that Fatah and Hamas representatives had put their names on a new statement detailing the agreement signed in Cairo in early May.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110523/wl_mideast_afp/russiapalestiniansdiplomacy
Political / Diplomatic / International
Obama’s ‘Jewish state’ reference jars Palestinians
AP 23 May — JERUSALEM — U.S.-Israel tension over Barack Obama’s endorsement of Israel’s pre-1967 borders is obscuring a flip side of the Middle East coin: The past days’ speeches by the U.S. president contained difficult challenges for the Palestinians as well … Most difficult for Palestinians is Obama’s call to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, essentially requiring the Palestinians to accept that most refugees will be denied the “right of return” to what is now Israel. Perhaps for this reason, the Palestinians have remained largely quiet about the substance of Obama’s speeches, seemingly content to watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clash with the U.S. administration over Israel’s future borders. “It’s really premature to jump into any of these details,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, when asked by The Associated Press about the demands Obama made of the Palestinians.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110523/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_mideast_jewish_state
Hamas: Let’s discuss 1948 lines
Mahmoud al-Zahar says US president’s plan for Mideast peace similar to that of George Bush. ‘Obama wants to place us within 22% of area of Palestine,’ he says, while Islamic Jihad calls Obama ‘helpless before Zionist lobby’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072740,00.html
Quartet, EU back Obama plan
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 23 May — Members of the Middle East Quartet and the EU’s foreign policy chief came out in full support of statements made by US President Barack Obama this week, urging Israel and Palestine back into direct talks. The Quartet members, including the US, EU, UN and Russia, issued a statement saying all were “in full agreement about the urgent need to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390191
AIPAC chief: Obama should not be even-handed toward Israel and Palestinians
Haaretz 23 May — AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr said Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama should not take an even-handed approach to the Middle East conflict, as it puts Israel at a disadvantage … “In a world which is demonstrably on the side of the Palestinians and Arabs – where Israel stands virtually alone – the United States has a special role to play,” said the AIPAC director.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/aipac-chief-obama-should-not-be-even-handed-toward-israel-and-palestinians-1.363579
The reader’s guide to peace talks
Ynet 23 May — US President Barack Obama’s Mideast vision uses basic terms which are part of the negotiation’s lingo. Ynet offers a quick guide to the glossary [Ynet’s interpretation, that is]
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072671,00.html
Report: Netanyahu phones Egypt’s Tantawi
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 23 May — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned Egypt’s military ruler Muhammad Hussein Tantawi last week, for the first time since the army council took power after Hosni Mubarak was toppled, Israeli media reported Monday. Netanyahu’s office did not give any details of the discussion, Hebrew-language daily Maariv reported, noting that the reported conversation took place ten days after Israeli ministry of defense official Amos Gilad visited Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390321
Report: Fayyad hospitalized after heart attack
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 23 May — Prime Minister in Ramallah Salam Fayyad suffered a heart attack while visiting the US and is recovering in hospital, a spokesman told The Associated Press late Monday.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390497
Shalit family to Congress: Freeze PA funds
Ynet 23 May — Gilad Shalit’s family calls US senators to urge Obama to stop PA, Hamas funds pending his release. ‘The PA is directly responsible for Gilad’s well-being, has clear duty to locate him,’ they wrote
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072890,00.html
Report: Russia warned Israel before expelling attaché
Ynet 23 May — Moscow paper reports Israel received three warnings that Colonel Leiderman was violating Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations before Russia expelled him. In response, Israel vowed he would observe diplomatic law
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072583,00.html
Other news
Sports center to reclaim Hebron Old City
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 23 May — Deep in Hebron’s divided Old City, a sports club will open in June offering residents access to a swimming pool, gymnasium and sports courts, in an effort to bring residents back into the area. Home to 700 Israeli settlers, protected by 1,500 Israeli soldiers and police, the outdoor life of Hebron’s Old City has been stifled for years. Violent assaults from settlers who took over homes in the area drove out shoppers from the once-busy souk, and whole streets were closed down to Palestinians as settlers moved in. With the help of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, and the French sporting federation Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail, groups in Hebron alongside the municipality prepared to open the Tareq Bin Ziad Sports Club. The building — in an area of the city center under Israeli control and amid settler housing — will offer 1,000 square meters of sports space, with a swimming pool, wrestling hall, sauna and steam room to 5,000 young men and women living in the Old City.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390041
Filipina mother of Israeli toddler to be deported despite ministry promises
Haaretz 23 May — Evelyn Belseng had a son with her Israeli husband, who passed away shortly after; she is set to be deported despite declarations by Interior Minister Eli Yishai that she would be allowed to stay.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/filipina-mother-of-israeli-toddler-to-be-deported-despite-ministry-promises-1.363411
Analysis / Opinion
Prepare to be awed!
Friday Lunch Club 23 May — click on The Palestine-Israel border! for an interactive map
http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2011/05/prepare-to-be-awed.html
Video — Omar Barghouti: Self-determination, ethical decolonisation and resistance
Toward a Secular Democratic State in Historic Palestine. Omar Barghouti – Introduction by Gilbert Achcar
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/omar-barghouti-self-determination.html
Obama to Palestinians: Eh, colonization happens / Yousef Munayyer
23 May  — (from Obama’s AIPAC speech) “That’s what mutually agreed-upon swaps means. It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years. It allows the parties themselves to take account of those changes, including the new demographic realities on the ground, and the needs of both sides.” It is hard to tell what is most disturbing about this. There is of course the near vomit-inducing reality that an American President is repeating the narrative of a foreign Prime Minister before a room full of lobbyists who are lobbying for that very Prime Minister’s interests. Then there is the narrative itself. To reduce the conscious and calculated process of colonization in the occupied Palestinian territory, illegal under international law, to the equivalent of moss growing on a tree for a few decades is not only ludicrous and offensive but it is the whitewashing of a crime which Palestinians have been the direct victims of. 500,000 Israelis did not fall to sleep in on one side of the Green Line in places like Tel Aviv only to wake up on the other side in places Kiryat Arba, Ariel, Har Homa and Pisgat Ze’ev. Colonization is not a passive natural process that happens over time, as described by the Israeli Prime Minister before being repeated by the American President. It is a violent and state-driven process which involves breaking international law, dispossessing land owners through the use of force and monopolizing the natural resources of another people.
http://blog.thejerusalemfund.org/2011/05/obama-to-palestinians-eh-colonization.html
Netanyahu’s bizarre response to Obama’s Palestinian proposal / Peter Beinart
DailyBeast New York 23 May — President Obama’s parameters for a new round of Mideast peace talks were designed to head off U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state based strictly on 1967 borders—which would be catastrophic for Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu’s immediate rejection of the plan suggests he has no grasp of the real world. A sailor throws a drowning man a life preserver. How dare you, screams the man. Because of you, people are going to think I can’t swim. That about sums up the relationship between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110523/ts_dailybeast/14280_benjaminnetanyahusbizarreresponsetoobamasproposalfornegotiationswithpalestinians_1
The Israeli reality that Obama doesn’t understand / Merav Michaeli
Haaretz 23 May — “President Obama doesn’t understand the reality,” according to “associates” of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke after the meeting between the two leaders … You can’t blame him: It really is impossible to understand this reality. It’s impossible to understand why a country and a people continue to refuse to do the right thing, something that could have been done a long while back, and prefer to continue to bang their heads against the wall until blood flows, with absolutely no logic, literally amok, like someone who has gone insane. It’s hard to understand a reality in which a prime minister sits and, contrary to all logic and every code of conduct, arrogantly lectures his host, the president of the United States. It’s hard to understand a reality in which a day before their scheduled meeting, a prime minister responds to the speech of the U.S. president, who is about to host him, with an announcement that is as good as spitting in his face. So President Obama, here is the reality: The reality is that in the prime minister’s own reality show, he is “the leader of a persecuted people” and he likes being “the leader of a persecuted people.” That is why no reality in the world has ever convinced our leaders to stop being a persecuted nation.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-israeli-reality-that-obama-doesn-t-understand-1.363442
Rightists cause a near-riot during Abdallah Abu Rahmah  speech in Paris / Joseph Dana
972mag 22 May — Ethnic violence in France usually causes headlines during Muslim riots on the outskirts of Paris. But on May 5th it was a different story. Far right “pro Israel” activists disrupted a speech by Bil’in’s Abdallah Abu Rahmah and Israeli Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS)activist Ronnie Barkan. Members of a Paris based Jewish group claming to be an off shoot of the  Jewish Defensive League interrupted Abu Rahmah’s speech with incitement to violence against the Palestinian people. French police were able to intervene and stop any outbreak of physical violence. The second video can’t be embedded in the post, please follow the link to view it
http://972mag.com/rightists-cause-a-near-riot-during-abdallah-abu-rahmah-speech-in-paris/
www.theheadlines.org (archives)
groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi (listserv)

Chris Matthews is in, and up to the hub! Taking on AIPAC

May 23, 2011

Philip Weiss

Watch this space. Chris Matthews just started, I’m making dinner; and in the tease, he’s asking why Republican lawmakers are lining up with a foreign prime minister against their president — Netanyahu and AIPAC. If Democrats did this, the Republicans would be all over them, he said.

So the wedge has been driven, on party lines. And if this is what it takes to politicize the issue, I’ll take it.

UPDATE: The pudding turned out to be lukewarm. Matthews cast the story as Republicans siding with Netanyahu on a point that Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had already accepted — ’67 lines. And said that when the inevitable deal is struck, the Israelis will have most of Jerusalem. “We all knew that.”

And then Matthews said that he would show us how Herman Cain, a candidate for the Republican nomination, has no understanding of a basic issue in the Middle East.

The right of return. Apparently Cain said he had no intelligence about the issue when he was asked by Chris Wallace– then later issued a statement denouncing the right of return.

So again, you see what is happening: Obama has driven the wedge, on party lines. Forget about party, let’s talk about dual loyalty and the right of return. Oooweee, riding be high, tomorrow’s the day that my brides are going to come! Oh and my headline is from Huck Finn. I’m in, and up to the hub!!

Taking on AIPAC

May 23, 2011

Philip Weiss

3 images re AIPAC. Top two are from Andrew Courtney in Washington, from Moveoveraipac, featuring encounters between members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and anti-AIPAC demonstrators. Bottom one is of Israeli citizens gathered at Bil’in in the occupied territories.

Obama’s overflowing ‘love’ for Ireland shows up his rage toward Israel/the lobby

May 23, 2011

Philip Weiss

If you want to understand how angry Obama is at the Israel lobby and Israel, watch the speech he just gave in Dublin.

He is a generous man (I say as a fellow Leo) and generosity brims in every word of that speech. The speech is filled with love. He is grateful to Ireland for supporting the abolitionist movement, he is grateful to Ireland for helping preserve the union, grateful to it for the American revolution and for the cultural contributions to America today.

But the most direct contrast is Obama’s celebration of Ireland’s ability to end the troubles and struggle toward the goal of human equality, with his grim support for Israel yesterday. There wasn’t a soaring word of praise yesterday. But today, some of the phrases: The Irish obeyed “the irrepressible human impulse to love.” America will stand by you always for this. “You already have surpassed the world’s highest hopes.. A dream has turned to reality…”

You faced an intractable problem. (I believe he used that word intractable– very important, no transcript up yet). The world said, your problems are too big, your challenges are too great, you shouldn’t even try. But America stands by you. “Is feidir linn. Yes we can.”

Obama, the Arab Spring and irrelevance

May 23, 2011

Omar Barghouti

In his policy speech on Thursday, 19 May, US President Barack Obama said that with the eruption of the Arab peoples’ revolutions for freedom and democracy Al-Qaida lost its relevance. In my view, so did the US, relatively speaking, but few in the US establishment are yet ready to admit that. In his speech before AIPAC on Sunday, 22 May, Mr. Obama came across, again, as more of an Israel advocate than a US president, further alienating Arab — and many other — audiences.
With Arabs crossing the barrier of fear and taking the initiative to rebuild their societies freely, on democratic principles, the last thing they need is the US government’s offer for help; having seen exactly how the US is building democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Obama will excuse Arabs for being skeptical about his offer, to put it mildly.
The Arab Spring happened despite the US administration’s decades-old staunch support for the dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere. US support for the Saudi dictatorship, arguably the most totalitarian and reactionary of all, has been critical in suppressing popular revolt and democratic reform in the oil-rich oligarchy. In Tunisia and Egypt, only after victory became a fait accompli did the US and most of Europe start paying lip service to the need for democratization and an orderly transfer of power.

To underline this point, the US has maintained its crucial backing of the Yemeni and Bahraini despotic regimes, despite brutal violations of human rights, arbitrary killings of peaceful protesters, and imprisonment of reform leaders, simply because the regimes there have proven to be able — at least temporarily — to hold back the revolts by brute force. Once the regimes start to crumble, so will US public support for them, no doubt. Realpolitik wins, at the end, while principles and a true commitment to human rights and international law — the latter being completely missing from the entire Obama speech — take a back seat, as always.
And now the US administration is offering Tunisians and Egyptians petty “debt-relief” bribes after having colluded with the tyrannical regimes there in the pillage of their respective nations’ wealth and the investment of these sums in the US and Western Europe, for the most part. Mr. Obama must think that Arabs have a very shallow memory or are somewhat slow. The sooner he realizes that he is wrong on both accounts, the more likely his administration will be able to absorb the true historic meanings and transformative repercussions of the Arab Spring and, consequently, the more just, fair, consistent and relevant US foreign policy can become.
In his policy speech on Thursday, Obama’s mere mention of the 1967 borders as a territorial basis for “negotiations” triggered a “synthetic” outrage by the Israeli government. Obama’s caveat that followed, “with agreed land swaps,” was intentionally ignored by Israeli officials’ and lobbyists’ irate attacks on Obama. As a result, Obama bent over backward in his speech before AIPAC to explain that what he really meant was that the 1967 borders will not stay the same as they must accommodate Israel’s colonies built on occupied Palestinian land over the last 44 years of occupation. By bluntly putting Israel’s interests ahead of everything else, including long established US interests in ensuring “stability” and winning hearts and minds in the region, Mr. Obama’s two speeches made those US interests even more remote. The fact that Obama’s strongest argument for ending the Israeli occupation is that it serves Israel’s interest of securing a Jewish state and circumvents the fast growing international isolation further confirms where his allegiances lie.
Judging by myriad opinion columns and media interviews on main Arab TV channels President Obama’s original policy speech largely failed to impress the Arab publics, including Palestinians, for several reasons; I shall focus on the most blatant.
First, very few Arabs today actually trust the Obama administration, particularly after its demeaning U-turn on the US demand for Israel to freeze its colonial settlements illegally built on occupied Palestinian and Syrian territory. The utter failure of the US administration to compel Israel to stop construction of those colonies — which constitute war crimes according to international law — has cost the US a severe hemorrhage of credibility in the eyes of the Arab world. If Israel will not listen to its main benefactor over such a relatively small matter, can anyone expect the US to pressure Israel to recognize the more substantial inalienable rights of the Palestinian people?
Second, the fanatic-right Israeli government with Netanyahu at its helm has, through its well endowed lobby groups, shown beyond doubt that it commands far more influence over the US Congress than Obama and his administration when it comes to setting Mideast policy. Not only was the US forced to accept the humiliation of being seen by the world as obsequiously complying with Israeli diktats by reversing long standing US policy condemning Israel’s settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace; it had to cast a veto a resolution at the UN, supported by an overwhelming majority of the world community, that reiterated this US policy staple.
Netanyahu’s latest public rebuff of Obama at their meeting on Friday did not help ameliorate the damage either. As a result, no matter what Mr. Obama says now, very few will take it seriously, knowing that Israel’s far-right government will ultimately have the upper hand in setting US policy in this part of the world.
Third, Mr. Obama’s double standard has reached a new record, as he threw around lofty terms such as “self determination,” “inclusive democracy,” “the inalienable right to freedom,” but he largely excluded the Palestinian people from the set of nations entitled to these inherent rights. He spoke of the “self-evident truth that all men are created equal,” but ignored Israel’s system of racial discrimination that the US Department of State has itself consistently condemned as constituting “institutional, legal, and societal” discrimination against the indigenous Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. In fact, this legalized discrimination fits the UN definition of apartheid.
Furthermore, while Obama spoke about his government’s support for non-violent struggle for freedom and equal rights, he again excluded Palestinian peaceful resistance against the Israeli occupation and apartheid. Non-violence is exactly what most Palestinians have been engaged in over many years, whether in the civil society-ledboycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, the mass peaceful protests against the wall and colonies, or the most recent Nakba commemoration peaceful marches that succeeded in crossing the border into the occupied Golan Heights, setting a historic precedent that is pregnant with far reaching potential.
What added insult to injury in the speech was Obama’s insistence on recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state,” which he emphasized further by calling it a “state of the Jewish people,” thus endorsing Israel’s extraterritorial definition of nationality, a clear violation of international law that fundamentally denies the non-Jewish citizens of Israel, the indigenous Palestinians, equal rights simply because of their identity. Imagine if the US President were to describe the US as a Christian nation, or a nation of Christians around the world. Why should Israel be treated as above the law of nations and allowed to maintain an ethnocentric, exclusionary regime that automatically reduces its “non-Jewish” citizens to second-class citizenship with circumscribed rights due to their ethnic or religious identity? How can any state be allowed to define itself as a state of some of its citizens, and many others who are not, but not of all its citizens? Whatever happened to Mr. Obama’s supposed commitment to equality and “inclusive democracy”?
By the same logic, international law does not condone an exclusionary, racist Islamic, Christian, Hindu or any other state that institutionalizes racial discrimination and apartheid against part of citizenry, based on their ethnic, religious or any other identity attribute.
Charting a path to a just, comprehensive, and sustainable peace in the Middle East requires that all parties abide by international law and universal human rights. So long as the US administration carries on with its massive, multi-billion dollar annual subsidy for Israel’s intransigence and to protect from international censure and sanctions Israel’s multi-tiered system of colonial oppression against the Palestinians, no glamorous oratory from Mr. Obama stands a chance to slow down the US’s descent into irrelevance in the ongoing reshaping of the modern history of this strategic region.

Jewish man, 62 y.o. but vital, seeks unh… world domination

May 23, 2011

Philip Weiss

Because you asked for it, today Mondoweiss is unrolling a new feature, personal ads. Here are our first three. Email Weiss if you want to hook up:

–Devilishly handsome 62 y.o. Jewish man looking to explore wildside on UES, NY. Beaut hotel suite. Speaks many languages, runs world economy, who knows, may be next pres of France. Has understanding with wife.

–Squarejawed, 61, power-is-greatest-aphrodisiac type. In NY/DC on business trip, into domination. Raised outside Philly so has American accent, Israeli but you’d never know it, may even hold office there. Looking for media, finance, pols, 30-70 y.o., to bend American president to his will

–62 y.o., great hair, better resume. Raised by Jewish mother/Cath father but ran shop  opposing intermarriage. Slender, boyish, plays for both teams– though close to powerful Dem, seeks meetings w Repub pres’l candidates so can continue to run Middle East policy in White House forever.

First they came for Norman, then they ate the hummus

May 23, 2011

Philip Weiss

From the president of DePaul University today on a proposal to boycott Sabra Hummus:

To the University Community,

As you are aware, DePaul agreed last winter to study whether to boycott a food product on our shelves, stemming from concerns raised about a parent company’s alleged support of forces involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As is customary, the Fair Business Practices Committee (FBPC) was asked to study the issue and make a recommendation. The FBPC consists of faculty, staff and student representatives and has met throughout the past six months among themselves and with proponents of both sides of the debate.

I am attaching the executive summary of their analysis and their recommendation: https://wd.is.depaul.edu/FileAccess/uec/1107439601/FBPC_Sabra_Executive_Summary.doc /

The document concludes with the following sentence:

“While we recognize the original complaint made by DePaul students arose from genuine concerns surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the judgment of the Fair Business Practices Committee there do not appear to be sufficient grounds for a boycott of Sabra Hummus, primarily because the Committee did not find evidence that the Strauss Group provides direct military support for units within the Israeli Defense Forces.”

I encourage you to read the entire three-page statement. Their recommendation has been accepted and the product will remain on our shelves.

I am well aware that these concerns were raised with good faith and honorable intentions. I’m proud of all our students at DePaul, and very glad that they would fight on behalf of justice as they see and understand the issues at hand. At a university, we approach such issues with study and deliberation, and then make an informed decision. I am grateful to all those who participated in this process. I ask that we continue to seek ways to support a lasting peace in this troubled and important part of the world.

Respectfully,

Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M.

President

Obama missed the point about ‘endless delay’

May 23, 2011

Bruce Wolman

In case you haven’t seen it, I find Pepe Escobar’s analysis of Obama’s Middle East speech in Asia Times the most clear-eyed, convincing and on the money: “What Obama could not possibly say.” I bring one quote to your attention:

And when Obama stressed that “endless delay” won’t “make the problem go away” he totally missed the point; it’s by employing “endless delay” tactics that every Israeli government has kept settlement-building on overdrive and totally encircled East Jerusalem, while relentlessly applying a “divide and rule” strategy (pitting Fatah against Hamas) to crush Palestinian morale.

Saudi woman campaigns for right to drive

May 23, 2011

Seham

and other news from the Arab Spring!!!

Bahrain
Bahrain updates: or what does not bother Obama
“Today was the appeal for the 4 protestors who got death sentences for supposedly killing the policemen. Two got their sentences changed to life, two others are getting the death penalty. I can’t believe they are actually going threw with this. The four men are so young.   In another trial today, Shaikh Al Muqtad, one of Bahrain’s most important religious figures that was imprisoned, told the judge that drilled a hole into his leg and showed the judge the hole. He then said he has even more torture marks but he’s not allowed to show them.  Oh they also arrested a high school girl from the Al Khawaja family (they really can’t stand that family). She called her family and told them to bring her clothes. She says they tortured her.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/bahrain-updates-or-what-does-not-bother.html
Bahrain court upholds death sentences
Special court upholds death sentences for two men convicted of killing policemen during anti-government demonstrations.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/2011522112055924720.html
Bahrain insists open to dialogue with opposition (AFP)
AFP – The Bahraini government insisted on Friday it remains open to dialogue with the opposition, in line with a call by the US president that was praised by the kingdom’s main Shiite opposition group.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110520/wl_mideast_afp/mideastusdiplomacyunrestbahrain
How Bahrain is oppressing its Shia majority
Bahrain’s parliament once gave me a standing ovation, now I’ve been banned from the kingdom – both for pursuing human rights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/22/bahrain-change-view-human-rights
Egypt
In Egypt, anger grows over Mubarak’s health reports
The former president insists, with the help of state medical evaluations, that he has a heart condition too complex to be treated in prison. Activists say the medical reports in question can’t be trusted.It has been more than three months since former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted and more than a month since he was detained, yet he has not set foot inside Tora prison, where his two sons have been held during a corruption probe.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/PYbFLaXtrq4/la-fg-mubarak-doctors-20110522,0,7341156.story
Death sentence for Egyptian policeman
Officer convicted of shooting dead 20 protesters during upheaval that led to Mubarak’s fall.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/2011522154824715521.html
The trial of Egypt’s Khaled Said, adjourned
The trial of two policemen accused of beating 28-year-old Khaled Said to death has been postponed to June 30. Khalid Said died almost a year ago, but it was his death which contributed to growing discontent in the weeks leading up to the Egypt’s revolution. While Said’s mom waits for justice to be served, so do thousands of Egyptians across the country. Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reports from Alexandria, Egypt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SidsA8U5HtY&feature=youtube_gdata
Former Mubarak minister’s trial postponed
Case against Mubarak’s former interior minister adjourned amid courtroom chaos as lawyers scuffle with police.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/20115211816200964.html
Egyptian Military Cracking Down On Journalists
CAIRO — Military prosecutors summoned and then released the editor and two journalists of an independent newspaper for reporting on an alleged deal to offer amnesty to ousted president Hosni Mubarak. The three were released after they signed a pledge agreeing not to report on issues involving the armed forces that might cause “confusion” in the streets, Egypt’s state news agency and a rights activist said Friday.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/20/egyptian-military-crackin_n_864745.html
In new Egypt, police talk to human rights groups
CAIRO, May 20 (Reuters) – Egypt’s police, whose credibility was shattered for using excessive force against anti-government protesters who toppled President Hosni Mubarak from power, will give more focus to human rights, the government said on Friday. police, who in Mubarak’s era, routinely took bribes, used torture to get confessions and crushed opposition, have been on a charm offensive to regain credibility and deal with a security breakdown threatening the country’s economic recovery.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/in-new-egypt-police-talk-to-human-rights-groups
Why Saudi King was outraged: he wanted to Mubarak to kill them all
“It is not an easy sell in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where King Abdullah was outraged by Mr. Obama’s abandonment of President Hosni Mubarak. (He told Mr. Obama that he needed to support the Egyptian leader even if the protesters in Tahrir Square were fired upon.) Saudi Arabia’s drive now is to stop the threat to established governments — even as Mr. Obama seeks partners in helping integrate a new Egypt into the world economy.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-saudi-king-was-outraged-he-wanted.html

Egypt official: Obama misreading unity deal
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Egypt will counter any external pressure that could endanger the progress of the Palestinian unity process, Egyptian ambassador to the Palestinian Authority Yasser Othman said Monday after the US president raised concerns. In his Thursday speech about the “Arab spring,” and again during a Sunday speech to an American-Israel lobby group, Obama said the unity agreement between rival Palestinian parties “raised profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?”
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390271

Regarding #SCAF Again and Again
Today is the #NoSCAF where Egyptian bloggers and tweeps speak and criticize the supreme council of armed forces in Egypt aka our military junta. Some are doing this in solidarity with Maikel Nabil while others are doing in solidarity with the victims of the military trials. I talked and criticized the SCAF before and I will not stop doing it till ends its emergency meeting , I will not stop doing it till we have transparent answers about the allegations surrounding the practices of the military police against our own civilian citizens whether in the military prison and in the Egyptian museum. Up till now we have not got any answer about the investigation done in issues concerning the allegations of abuse whether against women protesters or what happened in Cairo university or lately at the Israeli embassy. I will not stop till we got an explanation why the SCAF claimed that it was not detaining any “so called revolutionary” youth in its prisons but later we found that the SCAF is starting to release these young men after denying in the first time !? How can we have a real trust then !?
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/05/regarding-scaf-again-and-again.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29
Hossam el-Hamalawy, “Now Overthrow the Workplace Mubaraks”
So this is phase two of the revolution, the phase of socio-economic change. What we need to do now is take Tahrir to the factories, the universities, the workplaces. In every single institution in this country there is a mini-Mubarak who needs to be overthrown. In every institution there are figures from the old state security regime who need to be overthrown. These guys are the counter-revolution.
http://bit.ly/msJhIW
Libya
Fighting continues on Libya-Tunisia border
NATO has stepped up its bombing campaign in Libya with air raids on Tripoli and a residence of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.   In the west of the country, pro and anti Gaddafi forces are battling for control of a border crossing between Libya and Tunisia. Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid reports from the border crossing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_PM6PXD1uc&feature=youtube_gdata
EU opens Libya office in Benghazi
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton opens an EU office in the rebel-held Libyan city of Benghazi.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-africa-13494248
‘Forced to gang-rape’
Captured Libyan soldiers tell of campaign of abuse in Misrata
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-africa-13502715
Libyan women demand louder voice
For women who took a prominent role in an uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, the lack of female rebel leaders points to a long struggle.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/feature-through-din-of-war-libya-women-demand-louder-voice
Morocco
Moroccan police beat up protesters
Protesters calling for more rights and economic benefits dispersed by police in Rabat and Casablanca.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/africa/2011/05/2011522204645915126.html
Saudi Arabia
Saudi woman arrested after defying driving ban
Saudi authorities detained a female activist who uploaded a video of herself behind the wheel of a car on to YouTube, in a campaign to overturn a ban on female drivers in the deeply conservative kingdom.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-woman-arrested-after-defying-driving-ban-2287817.html
Saudi women: why they are not on the agenda of Western feminists
Can you imagine if this happened in Iran? Can you imagine the world reactions? Can you imagine the outrage that would pour from Western capitals?  “RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Authorities detained a Saudi woman on Saturday after she launched a campaign against the driving ban for women in the ultraconservative kingdom and posted a video of herself behind the wheel on Facebook and YouTube to encourage others to copy her.   Manal al-Sherif and a group of other women started a Facebook page called “Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself,” which urges authorities to lift the driving ban. She went on a test drive in the eastern city of Khobar and later posted a video of the experience.” Western governments have as much credibility on democracy and human rights as much as Dominique Strauss-Kahn has credibility on gender issues.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/saudi-women-why-they-are-not-on-agenda.html
Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri calls for uprisings in Saudi Arabia
NICOSIA — Ayman al-Zawahiri, the longtime Egyptian number two to Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader killed earlier this month, has called on Saudis to take up this year’s wave of Arab revolt.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/22/al-qaeda-chief-ayman-al-zawahiri-calls-for-uprisings-in-saudi-arabia/
House of Saud’s contributions to civilization
“Islamic charities from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates financed a network in U.S. ally Pakistan that recruited children as young as eight to wage holy war, a local newspaper reported on Sunday, citing Wikileaks.  A U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks said financial support estimated at $100 million a year was making its way from those Gulf Arab states to a jihadist recruitment network in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Dawn newspaper reported.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/house-of-sauds-contributions-to.html
Saudi women are being driven to rebellion | Nesrine Malik
The driving ban in Saudi Arabia does little to actually protect women, it is merely a backward, pre-emptive act of repression. While all eyes are on Libya, Syria and Yemen, a different kind of rebellion is taking place in Saudi Arabia. A group of Saudi women have set up Women2Drive, a right-to-drive campaign, with a launch date of 17 June. Last week one of its members, Manal al-Sharif, took to the streets and drove a car for a couple of hours, filming her trip (her father assisted) and posting it on YouTube. On Sunday, she was arrested along with her brother, who reportedly has now been released.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/23/saudi-women-driving-ban-rebellion
Syria
55 Dead in Syria’s Weekend of Rage, Juan Cole
The protest began as a funeral procession for demonstrators killed on Friday, when 10 died in Homs and some 44 died at government hands throughout the country. In Homs on Saturday, an AFP reporter and eyewitness said that tens of thousands were in the streets.Despite a heavy government crackdown in past weeks and hundreds of deaths, the protests in Syria appear to be spreading. On Friday, they broke out in the Kurdish city of Qamishli, in Banias and Latakia to the west, in Deir al-Zor (a small petroleum-producing area) and in Damascus suburbs.
http://www.juancole.com/2011/05/55-dead-in-syrias-weekend-of-rage.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29
Syria mourners ‘attacked by security forces’
At least 11 dead and 27 injured in Homs, activists say, as thousands attend funerals for those killed on Friday.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/20115211441542189.html

Protester who exposed lies at the heart of Syria’s regime
In most countries it would have been inconsequential. But for Ahmad Biasi, a young man from a small town in north-west Syria, the simple act of filming himself in his home town captivated the Syrian protest movement, made him a symbol of the nationwide insurrection – and may have put his life in danger.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/protester-who-exposed-lies-at-the-heart-of-syrias-regime-2287789.html

Syrian protesters defy crackdown
Thousands turn up for funerals of pro-democracy demonstrators and chant slogans seeking President Assad’s removal.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/201152222164736736.html
Syrian authorities set free human rights activist
DAMASCUS, May 22 (Xinhua) — The Syrian authorities on Sunday released Anwar al-Bunni, a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist, after he finished the five-year jail term, local news website Day Press reported. Al-Bunni, who was sentenced to five years in jail by the criminal court on charges of spreading false news that might weaken the nation’s morals, has often called for democratic reforms in Syria and spoken out on behalf of detainees and Kurdish activists, the report said.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/23/c_13888455.htm
Yemen
The crucible of Yemen
The two opposing forces of unity and disunity are helping to shape the future of the struggle against Saleh in Yemen.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115228013977326.html
Yemen transition deal collapses
Gulf nations suspend mediation efforts after Saleh fails to sign exit pact and warns of civil war.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/201152216373928689.html
Obama’s Speech/Other Op-ed & Analysis
Report: Nasrallah to address Obama position
BEIRUT (Ma’an) — Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is expected to speak about the US push for a return to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in an address to be televised Wednesday, Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar reported Monday. The newspaper said Nasrallah would “snap back” at US President Barack Obama, who on Sunday accused Hezbollah of carrying out “political assassinations” during a speech to American pro-Israel group AIPAC.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=390220
Obama and the Israeli lobby
“When even Israel-devoted stalwarts such as former IDF Corporal Jeffrey Goldberg and the ADL’s Abe Foxman are dismissive of the condemnation of Obama’s statements, it’s crystal clear that they pose no challenge to the dominant pro-Israel orthodoxy that has shaped American policy (and political discourse) for decades. At most, Obama’s public endorsement of this position was a symbolic gesture to chide Netanyahu for his overt indifference to U.S. interests (and, more so, belligerence toward Obama), and a small rhetorical fig leaf to the populist forces driving the Arab rebellion. Yet even the most microscopic deviation from the dictates of the Israel Government produce shrill and ludicrous backlash from The inside-the-U.S. Israel Lobby.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-and-israeli-lobby.html
Can you imagine if an Arab leader were to urge the US president to draft his speech differently??
“The Israeli government immediately protested, saying that for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders would leave it “indefensible.” Mr. Netanyahu held an angry phone conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday before the speech, officials said, in which he demanded that the president’s reference to 1967 borders be cut.  Israeli officials continued to lobby the administration until right before Mr. Obama arrived at the State Department for the address. White House officials said he did not alter anything under Israeli pressure, though the president made changes in the text that delayed his appearance by 35 minutes.”  If you believe that the president did not alter the text under Israeli pressure, you would believe that Obama did not stand by Mubarak.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/can-you-imagine-if-arab-leader-were-to.html
Egyptian revolt leaders react to Obama’s speech
This is what Egyptian youth leader, Asma’ Mahfuz, said about Obama’s speech to the pro-American Saudi mouthpiece of Prince Salman, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat:  “I don’t understand the reason for Obama’s glorification of Arab revolts as his administration and previous administrations of the US have supported dictatorial regimes in the Middle East over the past years.  And we heard such words from Obama’s speech in Cairo.  We say to Obama: go play another game…And we believe that this speech comes as an attempt to break the isolation of Israel and to support it after it has felt a total siege.  And he has repeated more than once and stressed the friendship between the US and Israel while expressing his fear from the reconciliation agreement between Fath and Hamas which Egypt played a big role to achieve.”  This is a representative reaction: if you read other reactions by Arabs in Maryland or in Virginia by people favored by spokespeople of US administration in mainstream US media you may ignore.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/egyptian-revolt-leaders-react-to-obamas.html
Obama’s lousy speech
Comrade Joseph writes:  “Opposition to the United States and Israel in fact is something espoused by the peoples of the Arab world, not by their leaders, who have been insisting for decades that the US and Israel are the friends of Arabs. Indeed the people of the region have been the only party that insisted that US policies and domination in the region and constant Israeli aggressions are what make these two countries enemies of the Arab peoples, while Arab rulers and their propaganda machines insisted on diverting people’s anger toward other imagined enemies, which the US conjured up for the region, while making peace with Israel.  Obama’s attempt to deny the hatred that Arabs feel towards the United States and Israel because of the actions of these two countries is nothing short of the continued refusal of the United States and Israel (not of Arabs) to take responsibility for their own actions by shifting the blame for the horrendous violence they have inflicted on the region onto their very victims. When Obama and Israel call on Arabs to take responsibility for the state of the region and not blame the US and Israel for it, what they are essentially doing is to refuse to take responsibility for what they have inflicted on Arabs.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-lousy-speech.html
Obama’s speech and divisions in the Arab world
“President Obama, in his speech on Thursday about the changes in the Arab world, spoke directly to that feeling. “Divisions of tribe, ethnicity and religious sect were manipulated as a means of holding on to power, or taking it away from somebody else. But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore.””  Look at this sentence: as a quotation in a front page article in the New York Times and as a passage in Obama’s speech.  I mean, there is no need for a comment? No need to address the external factors in deepening and stoking Arab divisions? I mean, has there been any government (internal or external) that has done more to instigate sectarian, ethnic, tribal, and religious conflict in Iraq than the US itself?  I love how Western colonial powers operate.  They go to a country and they prop up half-dead tribal elders, and then they say: those societies are tribal.  I saw that in South Lebanon in 1982.  Leftist and Arab nationalist organizations have taken over most villages in South Lebanon in the 1970s and have marginalized the old traditional familial and tribal leaders, so the first thing that Israeli terrorist occupiers do is to prop up those old traditional leaders and give them powers.  Many of those folks were men in their 80s—kid you not.  And after Wikileaks, do we have doubts about US manipulation of sectarian divisions in the Middle East in cooperation with Saudi Arabia?  Who are you kidding?
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-speech-and-divisions-in-arab.html

Obama’s Arab Spring Silence on Saudi Arabia Is Deafening
Barrack Obama’s headland speech ‘A Moment of Opportunity’ has pledged billions of dollars in aid supporting the recent uprisings referred to as the Arab Spring. Obama pledged continuing aid for Egypt and Tunisia, pledged support for democratic reform Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, signaled out particular criticism Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, confirmed the imposition of sanctions on al-Assad and six senior officials because of human rights abuses, and called on the world’s financial institutions to underpin the region’s economies.

Obama’s Arab Spring Silence on Saudi Arabia Is Deafening

Obama’s favorite Arabs
Of course, I have maintained from day one that there will be no difference in foreign policy between Obama and Bush.  The same Zionist fanatics who ran Middle East policy, for example, in the Bush White House are either still there or there are people with similar views.  You can tell that the same Zionist hoodlums are there by looking at the most favored Arabs in both White Houses.  Not only in terms of House of Saud, for example, but even individual Arabs.  Look at this piece. Was it not sexy to invite bloggers from Bahrain or UAE or Saudi Arabia?
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/obamas-favorite-arabs.html
Osama bin Laden’s Death: There Is Much More To Say,  Noam Chomsky
We are left with two choices: either Bush and associates are guilty of the “supreme international crime” including all the evils that follow, crimes that go vastly beyond anything attributed to bin Laden; or else we declare that the Nuremberg proceedings were a farce and that the allies were guilty of judicial murder.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28161.htm