and other news from Today in Palestine:
Closure for Purim
why Palestinians dread Jewish holidays…
As Israel celebrates Purim, Palestine placed under siege
IMEMC 18 Mar — The Israeli army enforced a full closure on the occupied territories as Israel and its West Bank settlers celebrate the Purim holiday. Effective Thursday midnight until midnight Monday, the occupied territories will be under full closure and siege. The Palestinians who have permits to enter Israel will not be allowed to do so until the closure is lifted. All Gaza terminals were also shut down.
http://www.imemc.org/article/60888
Juggling trick / Tal Niv
Haaretz 18 Mar — The clown’s costume glistens colorfully against the backdrop of a disputed building in the Al-Ras neighborhood, known in settler doublespeak as ‘Peace House.’ It’s not easy to look into the face of this clown, with his over-the-top, manic jubilation against a background of lowering skies and a watchtower above. In this effective photograph by Olivier Fitoussi, the annual Purimspiel of the settlers in Kiryat Arba and Hebron, held on March 29 last year, acquires a dimension of horror … In a few days, these settlers will again celebrate Purim by parading along a road on which Palestinian Hebronites are forbidden to travel, past windows that have been shuttered by order of the GOC Central Command, onto a street whose residents have vanished as though into thin air – because they are forbidden to travel on it, walk on it, open stores on it or pass along it. Then the settlers will head to the very symbol of their zeal, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and maybe more clowns in yellow, blue and red will make them laugh yet again.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/juggling-trick-1.350014
Land, property, resources theft and destruction / Ethnic cleansing
Israel court decides to turn Rahma graveyard into Jewish garden
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC) 18 Mar — An Israeli court decided to convert part of the Palestinian graveyard, Bab Al-Rahma, in occupied Jerusalem into a biblical garden and prevent the Muslim Palestinians from burying their dead there. This decision was taken after an extremist Jewish settler called Arie King filed a petition with the Israeli court claiming that part of this Islamic graveyard, near the Aqsa Mosque, was in the past a biblical Jewish garden.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2B
IOF storm west of Jenin, threaten to raze Palestinians structures [coal plants]
JENIN, (PIC) 18 Mar — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Thursday evening stormed Ya‘bad town, west of Jenin city, and handed Palestinian citizens a military order to demolish their coal plants, the main source of charcoal in occupied Palestine. Local sources affirmed that 17 coal plants on which dozens of families depend for their living received demolition warnings from the IOF. The IOF launched six months ago a plan to demolish all coal plants in the town and nearby villages and banned their owners from importing timber from the 1948 occupied lands.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Israel to displace families from Wadi Abu Hindi, raze their homes
NABLUS, (PIC) 18 Mar — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Thursday handed more six Palestinian Bedouin families living in Wadi Abu Hindi district, northeast of occupied Jerusalem, military demolition orders against their homes at the pretext their presence in the area was illegal. Palestinian local sources said these Palestinian homes are located near Kedar settlement and will demolished in order to complete the construction of the segregation wall and expand settlement outposts around Jerusalem. Entire families from the Bedouin clan of Sarai‘ah will be displaced, especially since other families from the same clan had received evacuation orders last month. The Bedouin Palestinian families in the Wadi Abu Hindi area are part of the wider Jahalin tribe, numbering some 2700 people living in 31 areas of the desert. The Jahalin tribe is originally from the area of Tel Arad in the Naqab (Negev) desert, but Israel deported them in the early 1950s, so they moved to the Jerusalem area. In the 1990s, some 1,000 members of the Jahalin tribe were deported to the area of Jerusalem’s municipal garbage dump, in order to expand the settlement of Maale Adumim.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2b
Violent confrontations rage through Silwan once again
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 18 Mar — Residents of Silwan conducted a public prayer in solidarity with the people of Libya and those martyred in the revolution against the Gaddafi regime today at the Al-Bustan protest tent. The solemnity of the prayer was shattered by Israeli forces positioned in the village who fired tear gas grenades at Al Daer hill and the protest tent. Palestinian youth worked quickly to evacuate the tent of the elderly in attendance as clashes erupted and spread to the Ein Silwan district and Samer Sarhan Street, Al-Bustan, Bir Ayyub, Baten al-Hawa and Hara Wousta in Ras al-Amoud.
http://silwanic.net/?p=13703
Photographer hospitalized for suffocation during clashes
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 18 Mar — News photographer Mahfouz Abu Turk was transferred to Al Maqased Hospital in Jerusalem today after suffering severe suffocation effects due to tear gas inhalation during violent confrontations today in Silwan.
http://silwanic.net/?p=13686
Israeli officer injured by Molotovs thrown at jeep as tension mounts in Silwant
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 18 Mar — An Israeli officer has sustained burn wounds to his body and face after the military jeep he was driving in Silwan was hit with Molotov cocktails. Settler guards extinguished the fire. No further details can currently be obtained due to the heavy military presence and state of heightened tension gripping the village.
http://silwanic.net/?p=13699
Invisible settlements in Jerusalem / Hagit Ofran
Jerusalem tourist sites and settlements are being used to promote an exclusively Jewish narrative of the city’s history … It would seem that the most successful model of a tourist settlement in Jerusalem is in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood in Silwan … It is indeed unfortunate that touristic, archaeological sites are being used as a tool by the right to torpedo the chance for a solution in Jerusalem. The increased presence of Israelis as tourists in the Palestinian areas of Jerusalem — while ignoring the complexity and the importance of these same sites to other cultures and other nations — is the type of settlement with far-reaching implications for daily life in the east of the city and for the future of the conflict.
http://pij.org/details.php?id=1283
Human Rights Centre: Thousands of Jerusalemites halt claim to taxes a a prelude to being separated from the city
MEMO 18 Mar — In a report released today, the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights highlighted that their legal department had recently received complaints from residents of these districts stating that when they went to the occupation’s municipality in Jerusalem to obtain the 2011 list of Arnona tax fees, they were informed that they were no longer required to pay the tax and as such their request was refused by municipal officials … The Jerusalem Centre has warned that this could be the preliminary step toward political procedures disclosed over a year ago by Yair Segev, a high-ranking official within the occupation’s municipality in Jerusalem. He announced the municipality’s intention to get rid of tens of thousands of Jerusalemites in districts cut off by the Wall such that the municipality would no longer have any need to continue to exercise its powers there meaning that it would definitively end its provision of public services to the residents of these districts.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2154-human-rights-centre-thousands-of-jerusalemites-halt-claim-to-taxes-as-a-prelude-to-being-separated-from-the-city
Settler violence
Palestinian hospitalized after settler attack
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — A group of settlers attacked a Palestinian from Huwwara village on Friday, as settler violence escalated in the northern West Bank. Settlers threw stones at Talal Ad-Dmeidi, 35, and beat him with sticks at Yitzhar junction south of Nablus. Ad-Dmeidi was taken by ambulance to Rafidia Hospital, medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369846
Settlers attack Palestinian taxi driver
SALFIT (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — A Palestinian taxi driver said a group of settlers attacked his car on Friday in Salfit in the northern West Bank. Fathallah Issa Bozeh, 45, told Ma‘an that settlers threw rocks at his taxi and smashed the windscreen at Za‘tara junction. Bozeh said he informed Israeli forces at a nearby checkpoint and they told him to leave the area.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369978
Activist: Settlers burn cars near Nablus
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — Israeli settlers set fire to two Palestinian cars at the entrance of the illegal settlement of Qadumim on the Nablus-Qalqliya road on Thursday, rights activists said. Zakariyah As-Sada, of the Israeli-Palestinian society for human rights, told Ma‘an that “settlers set fire to two Palestinian cars 150 meters away from the entrance of Qadumim while being watched by cameras installed by the Israeli army to monitor the movement of Palestinians around the settlement.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369776
Land of fire / Neri Livneh
Haaretz 18 Mar — In any case, the term “price tag” is used by the media so routinely these days that no one stops to ask what’s behind this creative concept. In addition to “blood revenge” (which is something we condemn strongly when it refers to a quarrel between Arabs – but, on second thought, why should we care if they kill one another?), this term means the calculated organization of a pogrom. Yes, a pogrom, like the ones systematically inflicted upon Jews before they had their own country – where later, they could carry out their own pogroms in Silwan or Bil‘in or some other town square … What was done in Itamar is a horror beyond words, and what we are doing routinely to the Palestinians is also a horror. They do not have a “price tag” to implement against us, without our immediately dispatching our glorious air force, the wings of whose planes vibrate only slightly when they bomb whole neighborhoods in a not particularly surgical way. Nor do they have a judicial system to protect them.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/land-of-fire-1.350005
Settler violence is nothing new / Sophie O’Brien
17 Mar — Ziyad Othman, official spokesperson for the governorate of Nablus explains that there is a variety of factors which make Nablus and the surrounding areas a hub for settler violence. ‘There are a high percentage of religious, violent settlers in the area’ he claims. Significantly, “Five members of the Knesset live in the surrounding settlements belonging to a coalition of right-wing parties,” he asserts, thus demonstrating the infiltration of the settler ideology into the highest echelons of government. The Itamar settlement is also home to one of the most ideologically fervent Rabbis who has been known to “issue decrees for the killing of Palestinians.” As a final factor compounding the propensity for violence against Palestinians, Ziyad reminds of the fact that many of the settlers are ultra-orthodox and so do not have jobs whilst receiving compensation from the government. In this sense, many of the settlers simply have too much time on their hands. All these factors, he asserts, “encourage the settlers to act violently.”
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1721
Siege / Restriction of movement
Ill youth from Gaza, who for 16 days was denied entry to Israel to seek treatment, dies in East Jerusalem hospital, January 2011
B’Tselem 16 Mar — On 4 December 2010, Mahmoud a-Najar, 15, from Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, was diagnosed as having leukemia. Physicians at a-Shifaa Hospital, in Gaza City, referred him to Augusta Victoria Hospital, in East Jerusalem, where he was given an appointment for 28 December … Following a prolonged wait, and the intervention of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, the permit arrived on the evening of 12 January, almost a month after the request had been made, and 16 days after his scheduled admission date at Augusta Victoria Hospital. By this stage, the youth’s condition had already deteriorated greatly. On 13 January, he went with his mother to Erez Crossing, where, despite his grave condition, he was required to undress and undergo a lengthy body check. At Augusta Victoria Hospital, the youth was given chemotherapy. On 15 January, his condition further deteriorated. He was taken to intensive care and the chemotherapy was stopped, the mother told B’Tselem. Mahmoud a-Najar died in the hospital on 21 January.
http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20110316_Teenage_cancer_patient_from_Gaza_dies_in_EJ.asp
Higher Islamic clerk [cleric] not allowed to leave country
IMEMC 18 Mar — Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Elyahu Yishai, decided on Thursday to prevent Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the Higher Islamic Committee in Jerusalem [and former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem], from leaving the country for six months. Yishai cited “security concerns” to defend his decision, adding that effective from March 13 Sabri will not be allowed to travel for six months … This is the second time Sheikh Sabri is denied his right to travel as he received a similar 6-months travel ban order last year.
http://www.imemc.org/article/60887
The uncertain future of the Gaza blockade post-Mubarak / Alex Kane
18 Mar — The overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has caused a lot of people to speculate on what the Egyptian revolution means for the people of Gaza. Under Mubarak’s rule, Egypt was the junior partner in the Israeli/U.S. effort to squeeze the people of Gaza following the Hamas takeover in 2007. Mubarak’s gone now, so what happens next? The only thing that’s clear is that the situation is in flux.
http://alexbkane.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/the-uncertain-future-of-the-gaza-blockade-post-mubarak/
Reprisals
Army: Missile fired on tank in southern Gaza
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — Gaza fighters on Friday launched an anti-tank missile at Israeli forces operating in the southern Gaza Strip, a military statement said. The army said its soldiers were “performing a routine activity” in the coastal enclave, and that it would “choose the method of response as per arising security assessments.” No injuries were reported.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369945
10 mortars fired at Negev; no injuries
Ynet 18 Mar — … Four of the shells were fired before noon. Some of them landed in Palestinian territory. At around 4 pm six additional mortars launched from the Hamas-ruled territory landed in an open area within the limits of the Eshkol Regional Council, near the security fence separating Israel and Gaza. There were no reports of injury or damage in either attack.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4044226,00.html
Activism / Solidarity / Boycott, Investment & Sanctions
Six injured, two kidnapped as troops attack West Bank anti-Wall protests
IMEMC 18 Mar — Six civilians were injured and two were kidnapped when the Israeli army attacked the weekly anti-wall protests organized on Friday in the villages of Bil‘in, Ni‘lin and an-Nabi Saleh, in the central West Bank, as well as al-Ma‘sara in the south.
http://www.imemc.org/article/60897
The slogan of this week’s demonstration was ‘End the division and occupation’
[photos] Friday 18 Mar (3 pages) — Five locals injured and a dozen suffocated by tear gas in Bil‘in’s weekly demonstration — The slogan of this week’s demonstration was ‘End the Division and Occupation’ Five local residents were injured in various parts of the body and a dozen people fainted due to inhalation of concentrated and poisonous tear gas. Many also suffered from colored and foul chemical liquid that was sprayed over the protesters by the Israeli Defense Force
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=348&Itemid=30
‘Buy Gaza’ movement gains momentum / Pam Bailey
GAZA CITY, Mar 18 (IPS) — Palestinians are calling for boycotts against Israeli products and companies. But in the Gaza Strip — at the heart of the Israeli occupation — it is often impossible for residents to follow their own call to action. The Israeli currency (the shekel) is the only monetary system in use, and Israeli products dominate key markets, particularly household items
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54898
Boycott roundup; Canada campuses mobilize to divest
EI 18 Mar– As part of a regular feature, The Electronic Intifada brings you this roundup of activism news related to the growing Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11864.shtml
Anti:
Bad romance: Poland and Israel / Eva Jasiewicz
EI 17 Mar –Last month witnessed the launch of the first Polish-Israeli governmental forum held in occupied Jerusalem. The biannual dialogue accelerates an existing partnership between the two countries which includes trade agreements, joint military training exercises and arms deals under an ongoing “Polonization of Israeli Technology” drive.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11858.shtml
Quest for Palestinian unity
March 15 coalition launches petition
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 17 Mar — The March 15 coalition has launched an initiative to gather a million signatures to end the division, the coordinator of the coalition Yousef Nouri told Ma‘an. “This campaign will be house-to-house, street-to-street, city-to-city in the West Bank and Gaza demanding an end to division,” Nouri said. The document reads: “I, a Palestinian citizen, urge Mahmoud ‘Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, and Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, to sign this document.” It also “demands that the leaders of Fatah and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza ratify it.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369759
Gaza protesters leave UN compound
GAZA CITY (AFP) 18 Mar — Sixteen protesters who took refuge in a UN compound in Gaza on Thursday to flee from Hamas police left the premises and called off a planned hunger strike, a UN official said. “They all left. The authorities in Gaza gave assurances that they will be safe,” said Chris Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Two hours earlier, one of the demonstrators said the groups planned to stage an indefinite hunger strike to demand an end to Palestinian divisions and reconciliation between rival factions.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369832
Netanyahu slams Palestinian unity efforts
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed Palestinian unity efforts, saying national Palestinian reconciliation would be the end of the peace process with Israel. In a CNN interview broadcast Thursday, Netanyahu compared Hamas to Al-Qa‘eda, and said the Palestinian Authority could not be “for peace with Israel and peace with Hamas that calls for our destruction.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369844
Practical arrangements underway for Abbas visit to Gaza
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday instructed Civil Affairs chairman Hussein Al-Sheikh to make logistical arrangements for his visit to Gaza as quickly as possible … The president said Wednesday that he was ready to hold unity talks with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the midst of massive youth protests across the West Bank and Gaza demanding an end to the division.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369897
Abbas asks for Israeli permission to head for Gaza
RAMALLAH, March 18 (Xinhua) — Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday asked for an urgent Israeli permission to head for the Gaza Strip for the first time in more than three years, the PNA presidency office said.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/18/c_13786428.htm
Hamas, Fatah make overtures under pressure / Hossam Ezzedine
RAMALLAH (AFP) 18 Mar — This week’s huge unity protests may have forced Hamas and Fatah into making a show of patching up their differences, but analysts are cynical about the rivals’ sincerity … Not everyone saw Abbas’s initiative as a positive step towards reconciling the two factions. “What he is offering here is a visit to form an independent government that Hamas will not be part of, so I doubt Hamas will accept that,” said George Giacaman, head of the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy. “For Hamas, reconciliation is not about forming a government to supervise elections,” he told AFP. “I think there will not be any result from this as neither side is willing to give up their international and regional alliances,” he said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=369833
Unity calls stifled in West Bank and Gaza / Mel Frykberg
EI 17 Mar — …In an effort to make Tuesday’s demonstration appear anti-American, PA’s Fatah supporters also burnt the American flag, and some dollars while shouting anti-American slogans. Protesters tried to drown them out by blowing whistles and calling for Palestinian freedom … Protesters in Gaza had similar problems when they were assaulted and forcibly dispersed by Hamas security forces and compelled to regroup at another venue in Gaza city. But despite the difficulties, and violent opposition from diehard Hamas and Fatah supporters, it appears that the voice of the ordinary Palestinian in the street may be getting through to some of the Palestinian leaders.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11863.shtml
Racism / Discrimination
Family Affair / Duah Matta / Rehovot
Duah was born in the Christian-Arab village of Mi‘ilya, she’s Catholic, lights a votive candle every night, and her family is secular and musical … She’s been here two months, following a frustrating search for a home. Duah: “Because my name is Duah [Du‘aa’, which means ‘prayer’, nice name to most people], I ran into silence when I was looking for an apartment, or the landlord started to stammer.” It always began with a nice conversation, she says, “and then they would ask, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Duah,’ I would reply, and then they seemed to cough. ‘We’ll let you know,’ they would say.”
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/family-affair-duah-matta-rehovot-1.350009
Other news
Report: Hamas official suspended over allegations of corruption
Haaretz 18 Mar — Ayman Taha accused of embezzling money; Taha and Hamas spokesperson Fauzi Barhum say claims are completely inaccurate This is the first time in the history of the organization in which one of its senior officials was suspended from office, after it was revealed that he was involved in a case of money embezzlement.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-hamas-official-suspended-over-allegations-of-corruption-1.350057
Analysis / Opinion
Israel’s right sees Arab essence in terrorists / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 18 Mar — The right does not consider the opinion of the moderate collective an authentic Arab voice. For them, the acts of the murderous exceptions are the determining factor … When the trace of the murderers leads to the Palestinian territories, the exception immediately becomes the rule – a genetic trait that is characteristic of the Muslims.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-s-right-sees-arab-essence-in-terrorists-1.349928
Murdering babies is ‘permissible’ when they’re Palestinian / Alison Weir
[with long list of Palestinian children killed] CP 17 Mar — …news reports on the abhorrent Itamar murders fail to mention the frequent, tragic, and equally abhorrent killing of massive numbers of Palestinian children by Israelis. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Itamar incident was “the deadliest such attack against Jewish settlers in the area since 2002,” but didn’t bother to report that there have been numerous deadly attacks on Palestinians in the area in the intervening years, that dozens of Palestinian minors have been killed, many more injured and maimed, and even more Palestinian mothers, fathers, and grandparents killed. This viewpoint is typical of U.S. media. Statistical studies show that primetime network news shows report on Israeli children’s deaths at rates up to 14 times greater than they report on Palestinian children’s deaths; regional newspapers report Israeli deaths at even more disproportionate rates.
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03172011.html
Palestine through the lens of a ‘caged bird’ / Lynda Renham-Cook
In her continuing series on Palestine, Lynda Renham-Cook speaks to Palestinian photographer Ahmad Mesleh who takes photos of his countrypeople as they struggle to fight against an occupation.
http://www.uruknet.info/?new=75837
‘No peace without water’ — The role of hydropolitics in the Israel-Palestine conflict / Jameel M Zayed
Jnews 15 Mar — Israel, a land flowing with milk and honey – but what about water? The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the driest in the world and due to climate change, an exploding population, and increased urbanisation, the region is getting more and more arid.
http://www.jnews.org.uk/commentary/%E2%80%9Cno-peace-without-water%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-the-role-of-hydropolitics-in-the-israel-palestine-conflict
Zionist tales of ‘passionate longing’ for Palestinian lands / Stuart Littlewood
17 Mar — The Board of Deputies of British Jews is targeting unsympathetic Christians with a new booklet called Zionism: A Jewish Communal Response. It answers a growing concern amongst Jews that Christians are too ready to dismiss Zionism as a political movement rather than a central facet of Jewish identity.
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2011/03/zionist-tales-of-%E2%80%98passionate-longing%E2%80%99-for-palestinian-lands/
Religion can be a fertile ground for Mideast peace / Michael Melchior
We have an obligation to base the peace with the Muslim world on the many common values we share with the Muslims … A profound observation of the processes taking place in the Arab world should gladden the heart of anyone who favors freedom and justice in general, and every Jew in particular. It contains a kind of repeat broadcast of the Exodus from Egypt. But this time it’s the Egyptians who are emerging from slavery into freedom. Almost without bloodshed, an entire nation rose up against the regime of torture, despotism and slavery. Every Jew should be pleased with a step that ends in a victory of justice and truth over oppression and lies.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/religion-can-be-a-fertile-ground-for-mideast-peace-1.349931
Iraq, Arab world
Thursday: 1 Iraqi killed, 20 wounded
Light violence left at least one Iraqi dead and 20 wounded in Baghdad and Mosul. A car bomber was stopped at the entrance to Kut. In Baghdad, one person was killed and three more were wounded during a blast in Iskan. A roadside bomb wounded three people, including a civilian, in Ur. Another roadside bomb wounded three in Shabb. Three more were wounded by a blast in Karrada. A bicycle bomb wounded eight people in Mosul. Kut police seized a car bomb but the driver escaped. Four suspects arrested. An Islamic State of Iraq leader was arrested in Hawija. [End]
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/03/17/thursday-1-iraqi-killed-20-wounded/
Latest developments in Arab world’s unrest
AP 18 Mar 1:40pm Latest developments in the unrest sweeping the Arab world from North Africa to the Persian Gulf:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110318/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_mideast_protests_glance
U.S.
Furious Pakistan demands apology over US drone strike / Jason Ditz
17 Mar — Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir has demanded a formal apology from the United States for a drone strike earlier Thursday which targeted a tribal jirga, killing large numbers of civilians and tribal fighters loyal to the Pakistani government in North Waziristan … The attack was among the deadliest single US attacks on the tribal areas in the past several years, rivaling a 2009 attack on a funeral procession which killed over 80 people over the course of two strikes.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/03/17/furious-pakistan-demands-apology-over-us-drone-strike/
Taking the ‘war’ out of air war / Tom Engelhardt
18 Mar — These days, we need a new set of terms to explain what U.S. air power actually does. Start this way: American “air superiority” in any war the U.S. now fights is total. In fact, the last time American jets met enemy planes of any sort in any skies was in the First Gulf War in 1991 … It’s a long path from knightly aerial jousting to air war as… well, what? We have no language for it, because accurate labels would prove deflating, pejorative, and exceedingly uncomfortable. You would perhaps need to speak of cadets at the Air Force Academy being prepared for “air slaughter” or “air assassination,” depending on the circumstances.
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/03/17/taking-the-war-out-of-air-war%C2%A0/
Playboy interviews Helen Thomas
April issue …he asked “So what do you think of Israel?” That’s when I said, “They should get the hell out of Palestine.” PLAYBOY: Did you realize how controversial those words were as you spoke them? THOMAS: I knew I’d hit the third rail. You cannot say anything about Israel in this country. But I’ve lived with this cause for many years. Everybody knows my feelings that the Palestinians have been shortchanged in every way. Sure, the Israelis have a right to exist — but where they were born, not to come and take someone else’s home. I’ve had it up to here with the violations against the Palestinians. Why shouldn’t I say it? I knew exactly what I was doing — I was going for broke. I had reached the point of no return. You finally get fed up.
http://www.playboy.com/articles/helen-thomas-playboy-interview/index.html
All the president’s messengers
The Economist 17 Mar — Before the UN vote of February 18th, Barack Obama reportedly encouraged Mr Cameron and others to take a tough line on Israel. In phone calls to his European allies, Mr Obama is said to have expressed frustration at Mr Netanyahu’s approach to settlements, but to have explained he had “too many domestic fires to extinguish” to risk a bust-up over Israel. The White House strenuously denies this account.
http://www.economist.com/node/18389092?story_id=18389092&fsrc=rss
US senators urge EU to keep Hamas on terror list
JPost 17 Mar — Move comes after ‘Post’ report that PA was lobbying for such a change; House members draft bill to relocate US embassy to J’lem.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=212671
Report: US considering strategic outreach to Hezbollah
Haaretz 18 Mar — Washington Post says Obama administration weighing dialogue with Lebanese militant group’s political wing, in an effort similar to that attempted by U.K. in its dealings with Sinn Fein in the 1990s.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-u-s-considering-strategic-outreach-to-hezbollah-1.350032
