Does Israel Really Have a Right to Exist?
Susan Abulhawa
Following Netanyahu’s much anticipated policy speech, politicians and journalists, like mindless automatons, have set about repeating Israel’s tired mantra that Palestinians should recognize Israel’s right to exist. Never mind the fact that the PLO and Palestine Authority have obliged this ludicrous call, not once, but four times. And never mind that Israel has always denied Palestine’s right to exist, not only as a nation, but as individuals seeking a dignified lif e in our own homeland. Does anyone find it interesting that Israel is the only country on the planet going around with this incessant insistence that everyone recognize her right to exist? Given that we Palestinians are the ones who have been dispossessed, occupied, and oppressed, one might expect that we should be the ones making such a demand…
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America’s Human Rights Record
New UN Report Denounces Washington
Stephen Lendman
On May 26, the UN Human Rights Council issued a report titled “Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development – Report of the Special Rapporteur (Philip Alston) on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.” Alston was damning in his criticism regarding “three areas in which significant improvement is necessary if the US Government is to match its actions to its stated commitment to human rights and the rule of law” …
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Iraq’s (not so) New Death Squad
Imad Khadduri
…”The Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces. The project started in the deserts of Jordan just after the Americans took Baghdad in April 2003. There, the US Army’s Special Forces, or Green Berets, trained mostly 18-year-old Iraqis with no prior military experience. The resulting brigade was a Green Be ret’s dream come true: a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, that would operate for years under US command and be unaccountable to Iraqi ministries and the normal political process…
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Agent Orange Continues to Poison Vietnam
Marjorie Cohn
From 1961 to 1971, the U.S. military sprayed Vietnam with Agent Orange, which contained large quantities of Dioxin, in order to defoliate the trees for military objectives. Dioxin is one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man. It has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a carcinogen (causes cancer) and by the American Academy of Medicine as a teratogen (causes birth defects). Between 2.5 and 4.8 million people were exposed to Agent Orange. 1.4 bil lion hectares of land and forest – approximately 12 percent of the land area of Vietnam – were sprayed. The Vietnamese who were exposed to the chemical have suffered from cancer, liver damage, pulmonary and heart diseases, defects to reproductive capacity, and skin and nervous disorders. Children and grandchildren of those exposed have severe physical deformities, mental and physical disabilities, diseases, and shortened life spans…
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Obama: Netanyahu speech an “important step forward”
Ma’an News
US President Barack Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday “an important step forward,” according to news reports. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Sunday said that Obama “welcomes the important step forward in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech. The President is committed to two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestine, in the historic homeland of both peoples.”..
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Waltz With Bibi
GILAD ATZMON
…Once the Zionist political soup is ready to be served there is no real difference between Benyamin Netanyahu and the so-called ‘Israeli left’. They all say YES to a Palestinian state and NO to the Right of Return, for what they really want is the ‘Jews only state’. A few months ago we wondered where the Israeli ‘left’ is, as if there has ever been such a thing. Now we happen to wonder where the ‘right’ is. In fact, in Israel, all you have is rabid racist rightists. People who sincerely beli eve in the bizarre Jewish right to celebrate their national aspirations at the expense of others…
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Palestinians reject Israeli terms
Aljazeera.net
Palestinian officials have condemned a major policy speech by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, saying it had “closed the door” on moves to reach an agreement between the two sides. In his address, Netanyahu gave the slightest of nods to the creation of a Palestinian state, an issue he has avoided since taking power in April, but with a host of conditions attached. “Netanyahu’s speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestin ians’ senior negotiator, said…
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Health Ministry: 3 patients die in Gaza due to the siege, death toll 343
Ghassan Bannoura
Three Palestinian patients died on Monday due to the ongoing Israeli siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, Health Ministry reported. The Ministry stated that Huda Sha’ath, 7 month, and Salem Matar, 45, died in Gaza hospitals, while Niven Al Mogharbi, 21, a mother of three, died in Egypt. The Israeli military imposed a crippling siege on the Gaza Strip on June 2007, leaving the 1.5 million Palestinians living there without the needed basic supplies, while Gaza hospitals arrived to a pointed where it can treat patients…
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Dennis Ross out as Iran envoy?
Politico
Israel’s left-of-center Haaretz newspaper is reporting that Dennis Ross, the Obama administration’s special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia — which includes Iran — is being shifted out of that job to deal with region-wide peace negotiations. The paper speculates that the reported ouster of Ross, an observant Jew who co-founded a synagogue in a D.C. suburb, may have something to with Iranian objections about religion — though they offer no evidence…
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Video: Farmers, Activists Beaten and Arrested in Saffa
International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
This Saturday, as has been done every Saturday for over a month, International and Israeli activists joined Hamad and Jabber Soleiby and their families as they worked their land in Saffa, near Bat ‘Ain settlement. This Saturday, however, both the Israeli army and settlers from the right-wing extremist settlement were ready and waiting…
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Iran Supreme leader orders election probe
Press Association
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered an investigation into claims of fraud in last week’s presidential election. The country’s state television reported Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is ordering the powerful Guardian Council to examine the allegations by pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was widespread vote rigging in Friday’s election. The Iranian government declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner in a landslide vi ctory. It is a stunning turnaround for Iran’s most powerful figure, who previously welcomed the results…
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Hebron: Hamas member die while in PA custody
Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC
A Palestinian man, known to be Hamas movement member died on Monday morning in the custody of the general Palestinian intelligence in the city of Hebron, southern West Bank. The general Palestinian intelligence said that 33-year-old detainee, Haytham Amr, from a village near Hebron, tried to escape from prison and jumped from a second floor detention cell and died from the foal…Hamas movement accused Palestinian security of torturing Amr to death. The movement said in a short statement released immediately after the incident that “the detainee died as a result of brutal torture in the custody of Palestinian intelligence.”…
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54 days
Eva Bartlett, In Gaza
Today, on my birthday, we (ISM) went with Beit Hanoun ‘Local Initiative’ volunteers to retrieve the long-decomposed body of a man who didn’t live to see his 19th birthday. Ahmed Abu Hashih disappeared on April 21st. His family believed that he had been killed somewhere in the north-eastern border region, the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ where Israeli soldiers routinely shoot at Palestinian farmers and residents. Since then, his parents and others have searched, unsuccessfully, for his body, fearing the worst. Sixteen of us (family, international accompaniment from the ISM, and local rights activists and volunteers from Beit Hanoun) set out this morning to comb the land for the missing youth. The terrain is dry weeds and tall, prickly scrub, making walking difficult…
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Obama administration reluctant to criticise Iran election results
Ewen MacAskill, Guardian
The Obama administration today maintained a softly-softly approach to Iran, reluctant to criticise its election for fear of derailing Washington’s diplomatic overtures to Tehran. The White House resisted pressure from Republicans who called on Obama to condemn the election as a fraud and to support the reformers….
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Afghan Al Jazeera producers held
Aljazeera.net
Two Al Jazeera employees have been detained in Afghanistan after being told by officials to report to the country’s intelligence headquarters. Concern for the welfare of Qais Azimy and Hameedullah Shah was growing on Monday, a day after they arrived at the official building in Kabul, the capital. Azimy, a senior producer for Al Jazeera English, had travelled to the headquarters after being told to meet authorities for an interview, two days before campaigning for the country’ s presidential elections was due to begin…
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Palestinians reject Israeli terms Aljazeera.net
Palestinian officials have condemned a major policy speech by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, saying it had “closed the door” on moves to reach an agreement between the two sides. In his address, Netanyahu gave the slightest of nods to the creation of a Palestinian state, an issue he has avoided since taking power in April, but with a host of conditions attached. “Netanyahu’s speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestin ians’ senior negotiator, said…
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Hamas: Netanyahu’s speech is racist
Palestinian Information Center
The Hamas Movement said on Sunday that Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech was racist when demanding the Palestinian people to proclaim their land of Palestine a pure Jewish state and to renounce their right to this land, highlighting that such statements make the Palestinian people more adherent to their rights. In a statement issued following the speech delivered by the Israeli premier and a copy of which was received by the PIC, Hamas stressed t hat Netanyahu spoke about a Palestinian state without identity, sovereignty, the holy city, the right of return or army, and insisted on the expansion of settlements…
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Israeli Police and Military Brutalize Peaceful Protesters at Netanyahu’s Speech
Ann Wright
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was making a major foreign policy speech at Tel Aviv University Sunday, Israeli police outside the university attacked international protesters of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, illegal settlements and the apartheid wall. Heavy-handed police treatment of the unarmed, peaceful members of the CODEPINK delegation there began immediately after they unfurled several pink banners that read “Free Gaza” and “End the Occupation.” …
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Statement from the Communist Organization of Greece in solidarity with comrade Sa’adat
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -PFLP
On behalf of the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE), we express our full and
unconditional solidarity with Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat who once more is in the forefront of the struggle, leading the resistance and the protest against the policy of isolation practiced by Israel against the Palestinian prisoners. The Israeli attacks against the Palestinian prisoners escalate after the genocidal invasion of Gaza, confirming the deeply inhuman character and the neo-nazi policy of the Zionist entity. The so-called “international community” and its institutions should be ashamed for their guilty silence in front of the continuous and increasing crimes perpetrated by the Zionists against the Palestinian People and the Palestinian prisoners.
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