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“Israeli settlers burned Saturday morning more than 200 fruit trees belonging to Palestinians from the town of Seir, east of Hebron on the West Bank.”

“School knapsacks, shoes and plastic dinnerware, were among the goods seized by Egyptian officials Friday afternoon when officers raided a smuggling tunnel storehouse near Rafah.“

Arab nationalists and leftits defeat Islamists in the election of dean of the syndicate of pharmacists.

This guy Khuri led on behalf of Hariri-Bush alliance the marketing of the Hummus Revolution in Lebanon: “”The fault in my opinion lies on the heads of the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie in the country. Proof of that is the specific March 14, 2005 day, that day would not have happened if it wasn’t for the intelligentsia and bourgeoisie making the move. Most remarkable in 2005 was not that there were masses down there but who was down there, it was every doctor that you went to to fix your teeth, your professors from school, the banker you always looked up to. It was your idols who were on the street.””

“Fundamentalist Muslims, or Salafis, whose agenda of global or holy war against the West is against Hamas’s nationalist goals, have stepped up attacks in the Gaza Strip over the past several months, targeting Hamas security men and offices.”

“” Astonishingly, the liberal Jewish publication had given the uber-Zionist, anti-Semite a platform for his noxious views.””

“There is a continuous delegitimization campaign against us. We are described as betrayers. But I can’t betray something I’m not part of. I’m not part of the army. I’m not part of the Zionist ideology. I’m a victim of Zionism…. It’s inhumane to demand that we be loyal to Zionism or accept Israel as a Jewish state. I can’t accept a definition that strengthens the discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.”

“A Palestinian protester was wounded by IDF fire in the northern Gaza Strip after he and 10 of his colleagues refused to abide by IDF orders given on the site not to approach to border fence.”

Look at this: King PlayStation manages to play ping pong while thinking about (humiliating) peace with Israel: “The Conflict Resolution Program at Georgetown University is pleased to announce a call for applicants for the King Abdullah Generations for Peace, Sport and Peacebuilding Post-Doctoral Fellowship. The fellowship will support innovative research on the intersection of sport and peacebuilding.”

Look at this dumb discussion of Islam in the New York Times:

“What Islam really needs is a reform branch — Reform Islam, which, like the Reform Jewish movement, would reconcile an ancientfaith with modern ways.

“In place of this precise slander and imprecise imputation, Bloom might have noted that some of the most robust left-wing discussion of Israeli policy has come from members of the British literary and academic establishment who are also Jewish (Tony Judt, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Jacqueline Rose). If there is more political discussion of this order in Britain than in America it is not necessarily because the English are so anti-Semitic — or at least, I certainly hope not — but more likely (as Judt has pointed out) because most Americans live in almost complete ignorance of the “fierce relevance” of certain political realities and facts.JAMES WOOD
Cambridge, Mass.
 

Posted by As’ad at 7:52 AM

In the village of Qulaylah east of Tyre, the AbuKhalil family is launching the strongest challenge to Amal-Hizbullah dominance in the Tyre region (in the municipal election today). The AbuKhalil is leading a coalition of leftists and Arab nationalists and SSNP against the Amal-Hizbullah ticket.

Let me say this: the reports from Israel by LBC-TV correspondent there over the last week are nothing but crude propaganda reports on behalf of Israel.

Some students at AUB have been asking me to comment on what is happening. Well, there is no reason why I should. I mean, i never took the status of AUB seriously, and never thought that it deserved any attention whatsoever, just as designer shoes don’t deserve any more extra attention than Damascene sandals (qabaqib).

 I am now often accused of covering up for AUB or of softening my criticisms of AUB just because the new provost of AUB, Ahmad Dallal, is a dear friend and comrade of many many years. But that is not true: I mean, I criticized AUB last January on campus during my talk there. And Ahmad was provost then.

I am still for the nationalization of AUB, and i am against the control of AUB by a remote board based in NYC and led by the White Man. I will be in Beirut in a matter of days and I shall be meeting with Ahmad to know what is going on. Of course, i would also like to meet with students, except those belonging to Lebanese Forces or Phalanges.

I know that the “leader” of the movement belongs to the Lebanese Forces, and that gives me worries. I know that the leadership of the movement kicked out the Palestinian club the other day, and that raises more worries. Having said all that: i cant meet a strike, a rebellion, a mutiny, and movement directed against the state or authority or university that i don’t support, unless it is managed and led by right-wing forces. So more later.

“”There is an agreement between Israel and the SLA that they [the Israelis] will not withdraw from here before the establishment of peace and a solution has been found for the SLA and the people of the area.” He continued: “The Israeli prime minister [Yitzak Rabin] stated publicly that among the conditions for peace are the disarmament of Hezbollah, the stopping of all military operations, security on both sides of the border and a solution for the SLA.” He clarified that this “solution” meant integrating the SLA militiamen into Lebanon’s regular army.”

“Regardless of the motivation, as a sex therapist, it seems to me that Arab women could use a little “affirmative action,” when it comes to showing the world that they can be powerful, sexual beauties. Blondes already know how to have fun (or so the theory goes). Muslim girls also ought to see hot, sexy, well-educated, responsible role models to whom they can relate succeeding in life—even promoting western values—beyond the burqa.” I mean, this piece of…article belongs to a previous century, or two, at least. Shame on Counterpunch for printing.

“My Beirut driver Abed and I often buy each other cheese “manouches””. But still. This is rather cute. But why can’t Robert or Abed buy me a “mancouche”?

“and sat at the impeccable table of Rafik Hariri when he was prime minister of Lebanon.” Good for you, Robert. Good for you. What do you want for that? A medal with Hariri visage on it? Or would you like a blender that can spew hummus? Please let us know. And let us know how dining at the “impeccable” table of Hariri has enhanced your knowledge of the Middle East.

And have you dined at the unimpeccable tables of poor Arabs, Robert? Let us know. Thanks. And then he says this: ” Beirut is a happy place to live, wars permitting, and probably serves the cleanest and spiciest food in the Middle East.” I mean, Robert Fisk has become so unreliable in his reporting on the Middle East that he can’t tell spicy food from non-spicy food? Lebanese food is the most non-spicy and that is why it is favored by Westerners.

“One was the abandonment of the SLA, whose soldiers had linked their fate to ours and many of whom had fallen in combat, but were left to live in poverty in Israel or in humiliation and suffering in Lebanon. Their cynical abandonment is a moral stain on the State of Israel, a warning signal to anyone considering an alliance with us in the future.” Are you crying yet? Yes, why not an Israeli newspaper publish an account of the ordeal of Nazi collaborators in France while you are at it.

There is much about Arab media that is not reflected in the US press or in Israeli propaganda outlets, like MEMRI. I mean, Al-Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon has a cover picture of Noam Chomsky and the headline is: Welcome, the Beautiful American. Such sentiments are not reflected in Western coverage of Arab public opinion, and MEMRI and other like minded crude, vulgar, and obscene propaganda outlets of Israel make sure to only cover Bin Ladenites of the Arab world.

They pledge that those who will protest economic measures will be met with Army and Security Forces

“Israel, which initially tolerated President Obama’s effort to thwart Iranian nuclear ambitions through sanctions, has grown increasingly impatient in recent weeks with the approach and concerned that whatever is agreed to now at the U.N. Security Council will only allow Iran more time to advance its program.” Can you imagine if Arab countries express impatience with US delays to bomb Israel?

“Dr. Erakat unequivocally denied today’s report in the Wall Street Journal claiming that Palestinians made offers to Israel. ‘‘Such reports are disturbing, foundless and baseless and only aim at harming Palestinian interests.’’”

“A soldier from the ultra-Orthodox Nahal Haredi battalion of the IDF shot and killed a camel belonging to a Bedouin in the northern Jordan Valley on Friday.” And can you imagine Western reactions if an Arab army has a Salafiyyah Batallion? The UN Security Council would have condemned.

Bahrain royal family has been trying to show that they are more subservient to US/Israel than other Arab regimes. The crown prince of Bahrain has said that US support for Arab dictatorships has been responsible for “establishing stability and security” in the region. Kid you not.

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: “The Liberation of Palestine: Some causes for its abortion*”

* My original title had ijhad and not ihbat.

“”In reaction, a music industry insider confirmed that the winds could be shifting. The music executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity in light of his ongoing business ties with artists, said that in recent months he had approached more than 15 performing artists with proposals to give concerts in Israel. None had agreed. The contracts offered high levels of compensation. He called them “extreme, big numbers that could match any other gig.””

“The Palestinian Authority has offered surprising concessions to Israel regarding borders for a future state, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.”

It is fair to say that with this latest shipment of US military aid to Lebanon, the entire Middle East military balance has shifted from Israel to Lebanon. Mini-Hariri will say

“”His success in crushing the insurgency – and the dossier he compiled on Egyptian jihadists, many of whom joined Bin Laden after their defeat in Egypt – made him a valued partner for the CIA after 9/11. (As did Egypt’s usefulness in ‘extraordinary renditions’. In the words of the CIA agent Robert Baer, ‘If you wanted to make someone disappear – never to return – you sent him to Egypt.’)“”

“Israel is embarrassed: This week the Czech Republic made an official protest of what it calls the humiliation of its foreign minister Jan Kohout at Ben Gurion airport.”

“A large proportion of people in the United States would support a proposed law that would strip all Americans with links to terrorist organizations of their U.S. citizenship, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 77 per cent of respondents approve of the bill currently being discussed in Congress.”

Look at how CNN asks whether Lebanese-American Ms USA is a spy?

“In an unprecedented outburst toward Saudi Arabia’s religious police, a married woman shot at several officers in a patrol car after she was caught in an “illegal seclusion” with another man in the province of Ha’il on Tuesday.”

“PB: I’m not asking Israel to be Utopian. I’m not asking it to allow Palestinians who were forced out (or fled) in 1948 to return to their homes. I’m not even asking it to allow full, equal citizenship to Arab Israelis, since that would require Israel no longer being a Jewish state. I’m actually pretty willing to compromise my liberalism for Israel’s security and for its status as a Jewish state.”

“In the end, we will only be left with Prof. Uriel Reichman. After we sent Prof. Noam Chomsky away, and there was no sharp rebuke by Israeli academics (who in their silence support a boycott of Bir Zeit University), we will be left with a narrow and frightening intellectual world.

It will be the kind of intellectual world shaped by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya – an institution of army officers and the rich, headed by its president, Reichman. A law professor, certainly enlightened in his own eyes, a former candidate to become education minister, Reichman says he doesn’t support the human rights group B’Tselem.

That’s his right, of course; our right is to state that at the head of an important Israeli college stands a man who doesn’t understand a thing about democracy. After all, what does B’Tselem do? It gathers reliable testimonies on the sins of the Israel Defense Forces, very few of which, if any, have been proved wrong.

Reichman doesn’t support this? In the world according to Reichman, we are left only with statements by the IDF Spokesman’s Office. We will believe that no white phosphorus was used in Gaza, that the “neighbor procedure” is something that tenants’ committees do, and that if they call a family and give them five minutes to leave before their home is bombed, that’s an action by the most ethical army in the world.”

يطير فرحاً. إتصلت به شقيقة “إيهاب” اليوم. عائلة “إيهاب” تنتظره. سيزورهم في برج أبو حيدر بالتأكيد هذا الصيف

“Six women and their children from the village of Araba, northern West Bank, were detained by Israeli troops on Tuesday evening.” (thanks Olivia)

stressing

Comrade Fawwaz on the style of government of `Ali `Abdullah Salih.

See: www.theangryarab.blogspot.com

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