REMINISCING TARIQ AZIZ
Malcom Lagauche
Tariq Aziz is about to go on trial for the murder of 42 people in Iraq in 1992. The verdict, as with all the so-called trials of the Ba’ath regime members, is a foregone conclusion. Aziz will be found guilty. If you remember, the judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to hang, Abdel-Rahman, quickly left Iraq shortly after the murder of the president and claimed asylum in Great Britain. Since then, little or nothing has been heard about him. But, mysteriously he returned to Iraq and will be the judge in Tariq Aziz’ case. The first time I saw Tariq Aziz on U.S. television was in the aftermath of Desert Storm. His voice was the only one that made sense of the political scene at the time. For once, I heard the truth about many items that had been twisted beyond recognition by the U.S. administration and media. Aziz’ eloquence in the English language intrigued me. Most U.S. government spokespeople could have used an elementary school refresher course in English, yet there was an Iraqi who, like Baghdad Bob, spoke better English than the president of the United States…

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60 years of dispossession
Nakba 60
This year Israel celebrates its 60th birthday. Yet for Palestinians and for people of conscience this is not an occasion to celebrate. The establishment of the State of Israel involved the destruction of over 530 Palestinian towns and villages and the expulsion of about two-thirds of the indigenous Palestinian Arab population from their homes and lands to pave the way for the establishment of a Jewish State, with a Jewish majority. Contrary to Israeli claims that they declared statehood in response to an Arab war against them, in actual fact, Zionist leaders launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the largely defenseless Palestinian population in April of 1948…

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Another massacre of civilians by NATO forces in Afghanistan
Prof. Marc W. Herold, The Afghan Victim Memorial Project
April 30-May 7, 2008: in and around the largely deserted town of Garmser (Garmsir) in southern Helmand where a small British occupation base with 120 soldiers, FOB Camp Dwyer, exists. The newly arrived U.S. Marine occupation force of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) in the early morning of April 30th “stormed” the empty small town – in the words of Declan Walsh, “a ghost town” – seeking both to relieve the British and establish a presence in an area under complete control of the Taliban. Storming empty space? Many of the men in the 24th MEU served in 2006 and 2007 in Ramadi and in Falluja in western Iraq. The UN’s IRIN reports that thousands of civilians fled the area fearing (rightly) for their lives. Not surprisingly, the Portuguese Brigadier General Carlos Branco of NATO in Kabul, a gushing fountain of propaganda, asserted that the people had fled fearing being used as human shields by the Taliban. The U.S. military propaganda office in Kabul admitted some civilians were injured in the assault. Local sources reported that others had been killed…On May 8th, the independent Pajhwok Afghan News was able to finally break through the official new censorship. Haji Muhammad Qasam, a resident and tribal elder from the Darwishan area of the Garmser district, said that peasants and local men working in the poppy fields had been killed and injured in a firefight which had erupted on Wednesday evening (May 7th). He added that ! some 10- 15,000 residents had been displaced from the area by the fighting. The provincial council head noted that the district remained under Taliban control. Resistance sources accused foreign troops of bombing and firing upon civilian targets…

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 19/2008 (30 April- 07 May 2008)
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law seriously escalated in the OPT, especially in the Gaza Strip, during the reporting period (30 April – 7 May 2008): Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF killed 9 Palestinians, including a woman, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and wounded 35 others, including 6 children and a woman, also in the Gaza Strip. Three of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF in southern Gaza. On 30 April 2008, IOF extra-judicially executed 2 al-Quds Brigades activists (the armed wing of Islamic Jihad) and wounded a third, as well as three civilian bystanders, including 2 children, in Rafah town in the southern Gaza Strip. An IOF aircraft fired missiles at a workshop in Rafah, whilst the activists were inside the workshop. On 1 May, IOF extra-judicially executed an activist from the ‘Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas) in Rafah. An IOF aircraft fired a missile at the activist whilst he was walking in the street. A nearby child was also injured. On 4 May, IOF killed a Palestinian civilian and wounded 5 others during an incursion into Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza. On 6 May, IOF killed a ‘Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades activist, and wounded a second in Beit Lahia town in the northern Gaza Strip…

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Life after Guantanamo
Gamal Nkrumah
The US flag flutters at Camp V inside Camp Delta at the US Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as Sami Al-Haj, Sudanese cameraman, is released after seven years without any formal charges being laid. The ordeal of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al- Haj has touched the Arab world. He has become an iconic figure and his release has demonstrated to all and sundry that the world’s most powerful nation has committed a terrible blunder. Al-Haj was a professional media worker with no proven connections with Al-Qaeda. He was not put on trial and neither was he charged. Yet he languished in Guantanamo Bay, was tortured and nearly lost his life. The administration of United States President George W Bush cannot admit that, of course….

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Torture Subpoenas: Will Administration Officials Testify? And Will It Matter?
Winter Patriot
Like the spin on everything else the Bush administration tries to hide, the spin on torture is endless and multi-layered. And everybody’s buying it, or at least some of it — except possibly some ultra-radical terrorist-sympathizers. Thomas Ferraro for Reuters, in “Cheney aide subpoenaed to testify to Congress”, writes: U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff was subpoenaed on Wednesday to testify in a congressional probe of the administration’s treatment and possible [sic] torture of enemy combatants [sic]…

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National day of mourning to commemorate Palestinian Nakba
Ma’an News
A national day of mourning will be held across the Palestinian territories on Thursday to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. Palestinian and black flags will be raised on roof tops of buildings, a partial public strike will be conducted between 12-1 am on Thursday in addition to demonstrations in cities across the West Bank. In a statement issued on Thursday, the National Committee for Commemorating the Nakba called for all Palestinians to participate in the action in protest at “ the celebrations by the state of occupation [Israel] at its establishment on the remains of Palestinian cities and villages by expressing the clinging of the Palestinians of their ‘Right of Return’ which is a legitimate right.”…

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Video: Zionist War Crimes (Genocide In Palestine)
HMT
Several decades ago, people lived peacefully among one another in the Mid-East. Today, however, things have changed considerably. And the violence has spread considerably—far outside of the realm of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. This video takes you back in time. It shows actual footage of Israelis and Arabs dancing together in the streets, when violence was uncommon. Traversing the time lines, this video then takes you on a journey from the days of Herzl to today, showing numerous scenes that many of us in the West are completely ignorant—such as what occurred in Deir Yassin, Jenin, Lebanon, and many other cities that raised the Arabs’ ire….

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Iraqi officials: leader of al-Qaida in Iraq arrested in northern stronghold
The Associated Press
Iraqi police commandos captured the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq in a raid in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said Thursday, in what could mark a significant blow to the Sunni insurgency in its last urban stronghold. However, the U.S. military on Friday said there were “no operational reports” to confirm the capture of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq as stated by Iraqi officials, adding the capture of another insurgent might have caused confusion…

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Gaza improvises under siege
IRIN News
Intense political divisions in the Gaza Strip have split people on most issues, except one: the situation has never been worse, nearly everyone agrees. “I never remember Gaza being this bad,” said one man in his early 40s. “Living here has become a game of survival.” With fuel supplies nearly dry, many people no longer have cooking gas in their homes, leading some to search for alternative methods to make a meal. “People now are starting to look through the garbage to find combustibles,” a Gazan who works for a large international aid organization told IRIN. “Even my colleagues have begun to search the garbage bins or the sides of the roads to find wood and plastics to burn so they can cook their food at night,” he said, requesting anonymity so as to not embarrass his friends…

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What a shame…
Baghdad’s Kassakhoon
I just heard from a friend of mine that the prestigious American news agency, the Associated Press (AP) still treats its Iraqi employees in Baghdad office with a very humiliated way: they have to get searched twice before they get inside the office and they have to bring food with them, like construction workers, as they are not allowed to enter the kitchen and eat like other foreign staff. What a shame….such companies must be grateful to those Iraqi employees because they are the ones who are behind their success in this war-devastated country as they have the big role in the work as we all know that the foreign journalist can’t go out and do stories except to the Green Zone area…

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IOF Kill Mother in front of her Children inside their House in Khan Yunis
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the killing of a mother in front of her children yesterday, during an IOF incursion into New Abasan town, east of Khan Yunis. PCHR investigations indicate that at approximately 16:30 on Wednesday, 7 May, IOF troops raided the house of Majdi Abd El-Raziq El-Daghma during an incursion into New Abasan. The troops opened the outside metal door, then blew up the wooden interior door. The force of the blast killed 33 year old Wafa Shaker El-Daghma instantly…

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Celebration of the International Day of Press Freedom in Gaza Strip
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
On Thursday members of press and media outlets on Gaza Strip gathered outside the al-Shoroq building ( Gaza Strip press building office)to mark the International day of press freedom.The participants of the rally walked towards the office of the Palestinian Legislative Council to condemn the restrictions on the press and media,demanding press freedom and stop of all forms of oppression in the Palestinian territories.Dr Ahmad Bahar, the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) affirmed that press freedom is an issue,guaranteed by Palestinian legislation. Placards were carried with photographs of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana’ah and Hasen Shequareh who were killed in Israeli missile attacks three weeks ago, while on duty, covering the Israelis shelling across the Gaza Strip…

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Signs of rapprochement
Leaders within Fatah are waking up to the dangers of the present course charted by Abbas
Khaled Amayreh
With the US and Israel telling Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas that keeping away from Hamas is a sine qua non for the continuation of the “peace process,” many in Fatah are now realising that Israel and its US guardian-ally are only utilising Palestinian national disunity to further weaken the Palestinian negotiating position. Observers in the occupied Palestinian territories cite a number of recent signs indicating that a certain thaw in the Hamas-Fatah showdown is taking place…

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Iraqi government closes the Sadr’s radio station
Voices of Iraq
U.S. and Iraqi forces closed on Thursday the Sadr movement’s al-Ahad radio station’s office, and stopped its broadcast, at orders from the Iraqi government, said the station’s manager. “An Iraqi-U.S. force stopped al-Ahad radio station’s broadcast, according to a memo that carried Premier Nouri al-Maliki’s signature,” Abid Abu-Zahra told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI). “The force did not show a legal memo to stop the station,” he said. “This step made by the government is a dangerous measure that deprives people from the voice that represents their pains,” he added…

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Sadr city no longer safe for civilians
Voices of Iraq
“When Umm Mohammed threw herself over the body of her son who was hit by a sniper’s bullet just outside their house in Sadr City, she would have never thought that the next bullet would kill her,” a local resident of the Shiite slum said. For the last six weeks, Sadr City, the stronghold of Mahdi army fighters, has been a scene of uninterrupted clashes between the Shiite militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi forces. Pointing to Umm Mohammed’s house, Abu Muhannad, a neighbor, added sadly, “Umm Mohammed, tried to draw her son into the house, but her body remained along with her son’s corpse on the sidewalk where their house is located, while neighbors watched powerlessly through their windows as nobody was able to evacuate or call an ambulance.”…

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UN officials urge swift passage of aid to Sadr City
Michael Howard, The Guardian
UN aid officials in Iraq yesterday expressed growing concern for the plight of civilians caught up in fighting between Shia militiamen and US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad’s Sadr City area, saying they needed swift access to food, water and medicines. Hundreds of people have died and at least 6,000 have been displaced from Sadr City – a bastion of support for the militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army – since the government of Nouri al-Maliki launched a controversial crackdown on Shia militias in March…

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Aid groups: Sadr City devastated by fighting
Thousands are fleeing amid shortages of food, water and medical care, agency officials said.
Bradley Brooks, Associated Press
Entire sections of Baghdad’s Sadr City district have been left nearly abandoned by civilians fleeing a U.S.-led showdown with Shiite militias and seeking aid after facing shortages of food and medicine, humanitarian groups said yesterday. The reports by the agencies, including the U.N. children’s fund, added to the individual accounts of civilians pouring out of the Sadr City area as clashes intensify….

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Hezbollah seizes large parts of Beirut
Tom Perry, Reuters
Hezbollah gunmen took control of large areas of Beirut on Friday in a third day of fighting between the pro-Iranian group and fighters loyal to the U.S.-backed governing coalition. Security sources said at least 10 people had been killed and 20 wounded. The thud of exploding grenades and crackle of automatic gunfire echoed overnight in the worst internal strife since the 1975-90 civil war. Gunmen loyal to Hezbollah forced the pro-government Future News television off the air on Friday, said a senior official at the Beirut station…

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May 8, 2008: 48 Iraqis Killed; 70 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 48 Iraqis were killed and 70 more were wounded in the latest violence. Clashes continue in Sadr City, while bombings killed and injured many in Baghdad. One British soldier was injured. Also, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, leader of the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, may have been captured in Mosul. A British soldier was injured during a rocket attack at the Basra International Airport; two, possibly foreign, civilians were killed…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 8 May 2008.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
….Xinhua reported a source in the regime’s security forces as saying that fierce fighting raged during the night and until early Thursday morning between the Jaysh al-Mahdi and the attacking Americans and Iraqi regime forces. Local eyewitnesses reported that the Iraqi government troops used loudspeakers to tell residents of the impoverished Madinat as-Sadr district to leave their homes and head to tent camps set up for them by the regime….

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Even plants are dying in the land of the two rivers
Mohammed, Last of Iraqis
…The deterioration in agriculture was the reason behind the climate change as I think; people say that what used to be farms became a desert now in the south middle and west of Iraq and that’s one of the main reasons behind the sand storms that we suffer from now because there are no trees and plants to hold the sand storms, Iraq is suffering and it’s transforming, I know people are dying in Iraq and they can’t be even counted but what will we inherit our children even if the situation improved and Iraq became free again and everything is settle? What will we inherit them? A destroyed land? A desert? a community filled with hatred?…My country is being destroyed in every possible way, corruption is wherever you turn your head, even the land of Iraq is suffering, everything beautiful in Iraq is being killed, Iraq is dying and most of them are watching him struggling death while they say to their selves “no, it’s not, everything will be good, the future will be bright and everything will settle, sacrifices must be done…..blah blah blah” what more should we sacrifice? We sacrificed our land and soil, we sacrificed our dignity and we sacrificed our children, men and women, we sacrificed our homes and left it to thugs to steal it while we were forced to live as refugees, now it’s the dream and the ultimate wish for the Iraqi to be a refugee in any country, we sacrificed our careers, we sacrificed our professors, scientists and doctors, we sacrificed everything, Iraqis lo! st every thing and till this moment there is no real light at the end of the tunnel. And when I said “we” I didn’t meant my self only but Iraqis in general and when I said “sacrificed” I meant forced to sacrifice…..

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The Day of their Independence: The Day of Our Catastrophe
Internally Displaced Palestinian Citizens of Israel to Commemorate 60 Years of Nakba
11th Annual Return March
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
Sixty years have passed since the Nakba (catastrophe) of our Palestinian people, when Zionist military organizations, and later Israel, implemented a systematic campaign of population transfer that expelled almost one million people, turning two-thirds of the Palestinians into refugees, destroying over 530 towns and villages, the confiscation of our property, and considering even those of us who stayed, as absentees. This process of premeditated and systematic ethnic cleansing continues until this very day through Israel’s policies of siege, assassination, and the US/Israeli led campaign to undermine the Palestinian refugees’ and Internally Displaced persons’ right to return. On the day of Israel’s ‘independence’, we commemorate the 60th year of Palestine’s Nakba…

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Iraqi Christian refugees pine for home, but fear they face death
Annegret Kapp
Iraqi Christians who have taken refuge in Syria yearn to go home, but the intimidation they faced in Iraq makes it difficult to return. “Although I had been threatened many times in Iraq, I did not want to leave,” says the Armenian Orthodox hairdresser Cayran Vartan Roupen. “But then my shop was burnt and the car of my husband, who used to work as a driver, was stolen. So we left everything behind and fled.” When church leaders from around the world visited Syria in April, Iraqis who had fled their homes and their community for the hard life of refugees, said they felt a need to tell their stories to those they hope are empowered to assist in bringing an end to their tragedy…”Animals live better lives than human beings in Iraq,” said Samira, a Syrian Orthodox refugee. “At least they have the freedom to move. We were even too afraid to go to church because people were kidnapped from church.”…

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Sex charge hits British Embassy in Iraq
UPI
Several Iraqi employees in the British Embassy in Baghdad have charged a culture of sexual harassment, abuse and bullying exists in the facility. One of the complainants, a middle-aged cleaner, told the Times of London a British contractor with KBR, a private contractor hired to maintain the embassy premises, offered to double her daily pay if she would spend the night with him. She said she refused and was subsequently fired….

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Terrorist preaches violence…at a Miami party in his honor
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
Many things put the lie to the claim that the United States is fighting a “war on terror,” but few do so as effectively as its treatment of one of the world’s most notorious terrorists, Luis Posada Carriles, a man responsible for the mid-air bombing of Cubana Flight 455 and the death of its 73 passengers and crew, along with a long string of other terrorist actions, including some as recently as the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro during a visit to Panama in 2000, an action in which Posada was personally involved (and convicted). And now Posada walks free in Miami, with the U.S. government still refusing to comply with, or even formally acknowledge, an extradition order by Venezuela filed three years ago (Flight 455 originated in Venezuela, and it is in Venezuela where Posada is wanted on 73 counts of murder). Ah, but that’s not enough – now they’re having gala parties in his “honor”, galas attended by members of other notorious terrorist groups like Alpha 66…

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Abuse Claims Mount Against Pentagon, Contractors
William Fisher
As human rights groups demanded the release of a report on a long-running investigation of the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the unlawful interrogations of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, new torture claims were leveled at two U.S. military contractors by a former Abu Ghraib “ghost” detainee who was wrongly imprisoned and later released without charge. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act request this week with the Departments of Justice and Defence demanding release of a report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General (OIG), which the group says has been completed for months but blocked by the Defence Department…

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Secret agreement to end Sadr-City fight
Roads to Iraq
According to al-Malaf Press, The Sadrists represented by the spokesman al-Obaidi and member of the al-Sadr political council reached a secret agreement with anonymous high rank members of Maliki’s government to end the crisis in Sadr-City, both delegations met today to discus the new plan which is: The withdraw of the American occupation forces and handing over Sadr-City to the Iraqi forces only, which will starts to search the area for arms and most wanted in period of 10 days and to end the siege on the city after that….

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Iran invites Maliki for talks
UPI
A top official with the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council said Tehran invited Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for talks on Iraqi national security. Mohsen Hakim, son of party founder Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and a senior adviser, said no formal date was set but expressed optimism any future meetings between the two neighbors would yield positive results. Baghdad wanted to move forward to resolve any open issues with Tehran to address security conflicts and sovereignty issues, Hakim told The Tehran Times…

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Baghdad’s Coming Refugee Crisis
Mark Kukis, Time
U.S.-back Iraqi forces are gearing up for a new push deeper into Sadr City that could worsen fighting and displace hundreds, a government spokesman in Baghdad said. “There will be a big offensive soon,” said Iraqi government spokesman Tahseen al-Sheikhly. He did not say when the operation would go forward. In east Baghdad the Iraqi government has readied two stadiums and one former military base to serve as camps for Sadr City residents who may be forced to flee the fighting, al-Sheikhly said. “We don’t want any losses in the civilians,” said al-Sheikhly…

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Update on the escalation of violence in Lebanon
Ya Libnan
…There are unconfirmed reports that Hezbollah fighters attacked the Grand Serail , the seat of the Lebanese government and the same reports have indicated that that the ministers had left the Grand Serail to unknown destinations. It was not clear if the ministers left before or after the alleged Hezbollah attack. The majority has earlier warned that the government and the Grand Serail are a red line…

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Celebrating Evil
Khaled Amayreh, Palestine Think Tank
Normal nations, like normal people, don’t celebrate their days of infamy. In fact, they struggle to forget them. Some countries with a troubled past try hard to deal with their shameful legacies, often by openly acknowledging their sins and apologizing to their victims and to their victims’ descendants. However, in Israel, which encapsulates evil and racism, ethnic cleansing is celebrated with utmost pride as a consummate national achievement and a glorious success story. “This is our manifest destiny,” many Zionists would ostentatiously argue, with glee and deep satisfaction apparent in the tone of their voices…

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Iran recalls ambassador to Iraq
UPI
Iran recalled its ambassador to Iraq in protest of Baghdad’s support for a move by the United Arab Emirates to take ownership of three Persian Gulf islands. The Emirates News Agency, WAM, said April 28 that the Iraqi government expressed “unconditional support” for the Emirates’ sovereignty over the Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa islands, which lie at a key access point to the Strait of Hormuz. Iran claimed control over the islands following the departure of British forces in 1971. UAE officials say Iran is an illegal occupier of the islands….

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Legislators ask Iraqi government to allocate money for refugees
Alaa al-Tamimi, Azzaman
Iraqi legislators have urged the government to set aside part of the country’s oil revenues to help Iraqi refugees. In a hearing attended by Deputy Prime Minister Burham Saleh, the deputies said there were more than four million Iraqi refugees, inside and outside the country, and as Iraqi citizens they were entitled to help. Official statistics show that one out five Iraqis has become a refugee since the 2003 U.S. invasion. At least two million of them have fled abroad and the rest have been compelled to flee their hometowns or districts to safer areas….

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For those driven out, Israel’s independence marked Al Nakba – `the catastrophe’
Nicholas Keung
Khaled Mouammar has vague memory of the escape from the Israeli takeover at the tender age of 7, when he fled Palestine with his grandmother and a brother in 1948. There were bombs exploding around their house in Haifa, an attack that derailed their train and streams of displaced Palestinians seeking water and food to continue their journey of exile to other Arab states. And soon, it was the Mouammars’ turn. “We had to smuggle ourselves out of Palestine because all the other Arab countries closed their borders on Palestinian refugees and we had to take the donkeys through the mountains into Lebanon,” recalls Mouammar, who came to Canada in 1965 via Brazil….

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Beirut racked by street battles
Aljazeera.net
Six people have been killed and 15 people wounded in Lebanon, according to security sources, as the country’s political crisis threatened to spiral out of control. Fighting in Beirut intensified on Thursday, the second day of anti-government protests, after a speech by Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah secretary-general, in which he called a government crackdown on the Shia group “tantamount to a declaration of war”. In several neighbourhoods across the capital automatic rifle fire could be heard as fighters in support of Hezbollah and the allied Amal group exchanged fire with pro-government fighters in the worst domestic fighting since the 1975-90 civil war…

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Ramzy Baroud’s “The Second Palestinian Intifada”
Stephen Lendman
Baroud published his first book of Arabic poetry at age 18 and has since written two others – “Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion” and “The Second Palestinian Intifada” and subject of this review. Baroud is well-qualified for his task. He was born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp and saw how Israeli soldiers repressed and humiliated young Palestinians like himself – “forcing (them) to their knees….and threatening to beat them if they did not spit upon a photo of Yasser Arafat.” They refused to insult his image even under threat, and “would endure pain and injury, but would say nothing.” They’ve taken plenty, and it’s unrelenting. Baroud’s book is poignant and masterful…

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Residents says Iraqi soldiers warn them to leave Sadr City
SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer
Iraqi soldiers for the first time warned residents in the embattled Sadr City district to leave their houses Thursday, signaling a new push by the U.S.-backed forces against Shiite extremist who have been waging street battles for seven weeks. Iraqi soldiers, using loudspeakers, told residents in some virtually abandoned areas of southeastern Sadr City to go to nearby soccer stadiums, residents said. UNICEF says about 6,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Sadr City, most of them from the southeastern section…

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Justice Lost in the Age of Power
Wael Al Saad, Palestine Think Tank
Looking into the current analyses that are making the rounds, I have yet to find a collective plan or process toward a plan that will enlarge our options or change the boundary conditions of our dilemma. It seems as if all the proposed alternatives are wrong. Most of the analysis is done with the same logic, based on “certainty” and generally focusing on the reality of the Zionist aggressions and the failing politics of formal institutions superficially, with little self-critique, nor encompassing review of tactics or philosophy. The fact our leadership never admit this endorses my allegation. We seem so certain, yet what have we achieved within “Palestine Activism” to alter the reality on the ground in the last eight years after the second Intifida?…

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Aqsa foundation deplores Israeli diggings in an Islamic cemetery in Abbasiya
Palestinian Information Center
The Aqsa foundation for the reconstruction of Islamic places strongly denounced the Israeli archeology authority and companies for carrying out excavations in an Islamic graveyard in the Palestinian village of Abbasiya whose people were displaced from it in 1948. In a report received by the PIC, the foundation said that after it announced two weeks ago about discovering a historical Islamic cemetery in the Abbasiya village, the Israeli archeology authority embarked on disinterring graves inside the cemetery in order to move them into another place…

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Anatomy of a Conditionally Unresolved Conflict
Gilad Atzmon, Palestine Think Tank
…If, for instance, we try to analyse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the Hegelian mechanism of recognition, we realise the impossibility of any dialogue between the two parties. While it is more than clear that the Palestinian people are fighting for recognition, which they declare at every possible opportunity, the Israelis avoid the whole recognition issue altogether. They are convinced that they are already fully recognised in the first place. They know who they are – they are born masters who happen to live on their ‘promised land’. Israelis refuse to join the dialectic ‘meaning transformation’ game and instead divert all their intellectual, political and military efforts into demolishing any sense of Palestinian recognition. The battle for Israeli society is to suppress any Palestinian symbol or desire, whether material, spiritual or cultural….

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PALESTINE THINK TANK IS BORN!!
PALESTINE THINK TANK
Haitham Sabbah, Mary Rizzo and Gilad Atzmon are very pleased to announce their new site. Palestine Think Tank. It is a site containing news, analysis, art and more to further the cause of justice for Palestinians. It concentrates on many aspects of the resistance, but also focuses on the issues affecting the entire Middle East. Please visit us at www.palestinethinktank.com, share this news with those who might be interested, and if you have a blog or site, consider linking to us. We also have a forum for those interested in interactive communication….

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