Activism

South African artists, intellectuals and gov’t ministers take steps to isolate Israel

By 3

How long before South Africans are accused of being anti-Semites?

South Africa to ban labeling West Bank settlement products as ‘made in Israel’, Amira Hass
Minister of Trade and Industry says South Africa recognizes the State of Israel only within the borders demarcated by the UN in 1948.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/south-africa-to-ban-labeling-west-bank-settlement-products-as-made-in-israel.premium-1.431342?localLinksEnabled=false 

AGRICULTURE MEC Gerrit van Rensburg has decided against taking a trip to Israel after the Department of International Relations and Co-operation told him visits by government officials to that country had to be kept to a minimum, his spokesman, Wouter Kriel, has said.
 
As South African Artists and Cultural Workers who have lived under, survived, and in many cases resisted apartheid, we acknowledge the value of international solidarity in our own struggle. It is in this context that we respond to the call by Palestinians, and their Israeli allies, for such solidarity. As artists of conscience we say no to apartheid – anywhere. We respond to the call for international solidarity and undertake not to avail any invitation to perform or exhibit in Israel. Nor will we accept funding from institutions linked to the government of Israel. This is our position until such time as Israel, in the least, complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. Until then, we too unite with international colleagues under the banner of “Artists Against Apartheid.”
 
“I wish you empowerment to resist; to fight for social and economic justice; to win your real freedom and equal rights.” These are the stirring words of Omar Barghouti in his open letter to “people of conscience in the West”. The prominent Palestinian human rights activist gave an indication of the poetic ability and charisma that inspires this letter in a recent discussion over Skype. The newly established Rhodes University Palestinian Solidarity Forum (RUPSF) engaged Barghouti in an attempt to inspire students and academics to feel the immediacy of the struggle to our own pasts, and by extension, the power South African voices can hold in the contemporary international sphere. Palestinians are cognisant of the potentiality of the emotive cord that joins us: the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign have candidly based their agenda and discourse on the international anti-apartheid campaigns of the 80s and 90s. Professor Adam Habib, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg (UJ), in a recent conversation with me, recalled how Palestinian academics imparted the moving reflection on him that, compared to the bi-partisan stance of many academic institutions globally, Palestinians “expect more from South Africa”, “we expect different”.
Ethnic Cleansing / Land Theft and Destruction / Restriction of Movement
 
The national bureau for defending the land and resisting settlement said the Israeli government stepped up its settlement activities and its annexation of more Palestinian lands.

 
Jewish settlers ‘uproot trees near Hebron’
Dozens of Palestinian olive trees and grape vines were destroyed and anti-Arab graffiti was daubed in groves of the West Bank villageof Beit Omar, residents said on Saturday. The villagers said the attack had taken place on Friday night or early Saturday and blamed it on Jewish settlers of nearby Bat Ayin settlement, which lies north of the town of Hebron. Hebrew graffiti reading “death to Arabs” and “price tag” was also found sprayed on boulders in the area. “Price tag” is the name generally used for attacks carried out against Arabs and Palestinians and their property in response to Israeli government action against settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli army said it was unaware of the incident.

 

An unnatural thing: Israeli occupation plans to cut trees in the name of natural preservation, Charlotte Silver
The Wadi Qana belongs to the village of Deir Istya, but the Israeli occupation controls its fate. After labeling it a “natural reserve,” the occupation authorities have ordered the destruction of nearly 2,000 of its trees.

International, local Palestinian and Jewish activists met in Al Araqib on May 13 where the Jewish National Fund has been attempting to plant trees on a plot of land over the ownership of which the Beersheva District Court has yet to rule. The JNF had previously agreed to refrain working on the plot in question, number 24.
 
RAMALLAH, May 19, 2012 (WAFA) – Muslim leaders have warned against attempts by Jewish fanatics to desecrate al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday as thousands are expected to participate in marches celebrating Israel’s occupation of the east part of the city 45 years ago. Israel occupied East Jerusalem during its 1967 war against its Arab neighbors and it later annexed it despite international opposition and condemnation naming both sections of Jerusalem as its capital. No country has so far recognized Israel’s rule over or annexation of occupied East Jerusalem. Sheikh Yousef Ideis, head of the Muslim Sharia courts in the Palestinian Territory, called Saturday on Palestinians to be alert for possible infiltration of fanatic Jews into al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem’s Old City, Islam’s third holiest site and which houses al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
 

Interview: Michael Sfard, the Israeli lawyer battling illegal settlements
Michael Sfard has won two key rulings in Israel’s supreme court that are applying some pressure against Israeli expansion in the West Bank.

 
There`s a method in Mr Netanyahu`s game that dates all the way back to Israel`s founding in 1948. Israel`s founders didn`t like the terms of the partition plan offered by the UN in 1947, but they accepted them in principle – and then substantially revised them on the ground in the war that followed.

 

IOA orders closure of Palestinian shops in O. Jerusalem
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has ordered Palestinian merchants in occupied Jerusalem to close their shops on Sunday.

 
The Israeli occupation authority decided to cordon off tomorrow Silwan district ahead of the marches which extremist Jewish settlers intend to organize.
 
The Ugly Parade of Jerusalem Day
Today is the Jerusalem Day, the day Israelis celebrate the unification of the city of Jerusalem in 1967.  It is one of the lowest rating holidays in Israeli attracting the least public participation and attention. I believe that for most Jewish Israelis the importance of the Jerusalem day, if at all, is to celebrate our return to the Old City, the holy sites and the Western Wall. Jerusalem is heart of the state of Israel. It is a symbol for the Jewish people and for the Jewish religion (just as it is for the Palestinians) and we cannot give up on Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. However, the very unification of Jerusalem (i.e. the annexation of 28 Palestinian neighborhoods in 70 sq.km around Jerusalem in 1967) was not a good thing for Jerusalem nor did it contribute to strengthen the status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Most of the Jewish Israelis, including the Jerusalemites, are not really aware of the meaning of this unification. We don’t see nor visit the Palestinian neighborhoods that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967, and we have almost no interaction with the 300,000 Palestinians residing in the united city of Jerusalem.

 
Nakba
 
Interactive map of Palestine villages destroyed in Nakba
The Electronic Intifada has produced this interactive map that allows you to see information about any of the more than 400 Palestinian cities, towns and villages depopulated and destroyed during the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist and later Israeli forces from late 1947 into 1948.

 
U. of Haifa stops Nakba commemoration, as prof writes hate post calling for ‘Many Nakbas’, Ira Glunts
Ha’aretz (Hebrew only) and Ynet (English, short) reported that school officials prohibited a Nakba commemoration on campus at the University of Haifa on Wednesday. The school cancelled the event just three hours prior to the time it was scheduled to begin. This was after the students had obtained all the necessary permissions.
https://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/u-of-haifa-stops-nakba-commemoration-as-prof-writes-hate-post-calling-for-many-nakbas.html
 

Massive participation in Nakba festival in Amman
Thousands of Jordanians attended the festival that was held on Friday evening in Amman to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.

 
A Palestinian man was arrested at Ni’lin checkpoint on Tuesday, April 15 during a Nakba Day demonstration. The procession successfully crossed the checkpoint which separates the West Bank from Palestinian territories seized in 1948. They were violently forced back by occupation soldiers and police. A Palestinian woman and an international woman were also detained but released that same afternoon. During the morning rush hour, several dozen Palestinians and solidarity activists took the Israeli army by surprise and walked through Ni’lin checkpoint. The procession stated their intention to return to their homes in the territories occupied by Israel in 1948 and each presented a placard reading, “permission to enter Palestine: inevitable return,” and bearing the names of Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948.
 

In photos: San Francisco commemorates Nakba, Ramsey El-Qare

Palestinian activists and their political allies held a silent vigil in San Francisco’s Union Square, May 15, to commemorate the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, an expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949. Around 70 people participated in the event, including a group from Occupy San Francisco who marched to join the protesters from their downtown encampment.
 
Siege on Gaza
 
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma’an) — Egyptian forces on Saturday seized two vehicles in the Sinai peninsula with fuel destined for the Gaza Strip, security sources said. The vehicles had broken through a checkpoint between the city of El-Arish and Sheikh Zweid before Egyptian security fired at their tires, bringing the vehicles to a halt. One of the vehicles was carrying 1,100 liters of fuel in nine barrels and 10 jerrycans. The other vehicle contained 900 liters of petrol destined for sale on the black market. 
 

Lives of more than 400 kidney patients at risk in Gaza
The Ministry of health in Gaza warned that the lives of 404 kidney patients are at risk because the stock of bloodlines, an essential dialysis machine consumable, is running very low.

 
Ten Palestinian volunteers harvested wheat in Gaza’s northern no-go zone on Wednesday, May 16, only 350 meters from where the Israeli Apartheid wall encircles the Gaza Strip. Two weeks ago the barley was cut and gathered and on Wednesday, volunteers loaded the harvest onto donkey carts to transport it for sorting, in the face of Apache helicopters, tanks, and F-16 fighter jets.
 
This series is not meant to say that Gaza is all beautiful and has no problem. I came back sick from Gaza, I think partly because of the physical exhaustion. This is a tough place. But also from all the stories I heard and from the general situation. I visited families in refugee camps who live in very dire conditions: up to 11 people in one small room, some people have to sleep in the kitchen or above the toilets. In those families several members are often sick, from children having asthma to mental illness. In one house, a woman had her legs broken in different parts because the roof fell on her. No jobs, no hope in the future, confined to a tiny space without electricity for several hours every day: how can one stay sane?  A family that I have been visiting before are still living in tents after they decided that they could not stay in their houses after it was shelled two times (in one bombing one woman, mother of 5 children was killed). So yes the general situation is very grim and desperate.
 
Israeli Violence / Attacks on Protesters 
 
OCHA Report: “370 Injured During Nakba Commemoration”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently issued its weekly report on Israeli violations in the occupied territory for the period between 9- 15 of May, revealing that Israeli soldiers shot at least 370 Palestinians during the Nakba commemoration, and continued their violations in the West bank and the Gaza Strip.
 

Two Injured As Settlers Attack Nablus Village
Palestinian medical sources reported that two Palestinian were injured during clashes with Israeli settlers who invaded, on Saturday evening, the eastern area of the Aseera Al-Qibliyya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

 

Soldiers Attack Nonviolent Protest Near Hebron
Israeli soldiers attacked, Saturday, a nonviolent protest held in solidarity with the secretary of the National and Popular Committee in Beit Ummar town, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, who was kidnapped by the army during the weekly nonviolent protest last week.

 
HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli forces shut down a protest in Hebron-district town Beit Ummar on Saturday, organizers said.  A group of Palestinian and foreign activists gathered in the town and marched with Palestinian flags towards the neighboring Karmi Zur settlement, the popular committee said. Demonstrators are protesting Israel’s detention last week of secretary-general of the popular and national committees in Beit Ummar Ahmad Abu Hashem, the group said.
 
Complaint About Extreme Police Violence to Demonstrators Passed to Israeli Justice Department
Israeli daily, Haaretz, reports today that the complaint about severe police violence against imprisoned protesters after a demonstration outside Ramle prison made by the Adalah advocacy group two weeks ago has been passed to the Israeli Justice Ministry because of the serious nature of the complaint. The police violence was said to include the use of Taser electroshock weapons, the beating and kicking of bound detainees, racist verbal abuse and sexual harassment of female detainees.
http://www.imemc.org/article/63523

 
Illegal Arrests
 

IOF soldiers arrest 3 Palestinian children
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested three Palestinian children in Azzun village to the east of Qalqilia on Friday evening, local sources said.

 
IOF raid neighborhoods in al-Khalil, arrest 2 people
IOF troops, at dawn Friday, raided different neighborhoods in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil and some surrounding villages and refugee camps and arrested two Palestinians.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7ZjvolvZy3snVFG3q3VXdapWmqwPlE9ucZN1dCwgg6hpxVrQLojTFsprdkT1wETlSf6OSK%2b9R5ktAG%2bIBg531NkqNCdAH2SqbV%2bhRb0JluKA%3d

 
Prisoner News
 
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Ten-year-old Jumanah Abu Jazar is preparing to visit her father for the first time since he was detained by Israeli forces in 2003. Following the recent agreement between prisoners and Israeli authorities to end hunger strike action, families from Gaza can now visit their relatives in Israeli jails. After the agreement was signed last week, Jumanah began looking through old photos of her father, Alaa Abu Jazar, to remind herself of what he looked like. ”I recognize my father only from his photos. When I receive my school transcript, I weep because there is nobody to share my joy with. My father is in jail, my mother is dead as well as my grandfather and my uncle. I don’t even wear new clothes during holidays,” she told Ma’an.
 
Palestinian sources reported that detainee Mahmoud Kamel As-Sarsak, currently held at the Ramla Prison Hospital is determined to continue his hunger strike until his release or death.
 

IOA extends administrative detention of municipal council member
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) renewed on Friday the administrative detention of Mohammed Nassar, the Jenin municipality council member, for four months.

 
The Qassam leader, captive Sheikh Ibrahim Hamed, from Silwad town northeast of Ramallah, was transferred from his solitary cell to Hadareem prison, as confirmed by his family on Wednesday. 
 
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails: Their legal status and their rights
The status of prisoners of war is a very complicated issue in international humanitarian law. Many people think – wrongly – that all of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are to be considered as prisoners of war. International humanitarian law, in particular the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 and its protocols, gives a very precise definition of “prisoner of war” which is not applicable to the majority of the Palestinians detained by the occupying power, Israel.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/briefing-papers/3774-palestinian-prisoners-in-israeli-jails-their-legal-status-and-their-rights
 
Solidarity
 

Birzeit students: The sit-in will not stop until the end of political arrests
Dozens of students, activists in the Islamic bloc at Birzeit University, continue in their sit-in, protesting the campaign of arrests and summonses against them by the PA preventive security.

Solidarity for Palestinian political prisoners
following the call by Palestinian Civil Society Free All Palestinian Political Prisoners ! On April 17, 2012, over 2,000 Palestinian prisoners launched an open-ended hunger strike that came to an end two days ago after some of their demands were met. 
 
On the second anniversary of an Israeli attack on Mavi Marmara Freedom Flotilla, IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation will be organizing a march in İstanbul’s Taksim neighborhood. We expect everyone to show up for this march on May 31.
 

Demonstration to protest BBC’s neglect of prisoners’ strike
Dozens of activists participated in a sit-in outside the BBC headquarters to protest the organization’s deliberate neglect of the Palestinian prisoners’ issue, and the constant bias.

 
BDS
 
Israel should be excluded from Olympic unions and committees, head of the Palestinian Football Association says.

 

Quakers Divest from Caterpillar!
Have you heard the wonderful news? After a roller coaster United Methodist divestment campaign ending in partial victory, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is so excited to announce that the Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC), which holds over $200 million in assets, hasdivested from Caterpillar! FFC divested $900,000 in sharesof Caterpillar, which continues to feel the pressure from all sides for its production and sale of weaponized bulldozers to Israel, used to violate Palestinian rights and destroy Palestinian homes, schools, hospitals, olive groves, and lives.

Report comes after South Africa says only recognizes State of Israel within borders demarcated by UN in 1948; move is in line with U.K. recommendation from 2009.
 
Minister of Trade and Industry says South Africa recognizes the State of Israel only within the borders demarcated by the UN in 1948.
 
AGRICULTURE MEC Gerrit van Rensburg has decided against taking a trip to Israel after the Department of International Relations and Co-operation told him visits by government officials to that country had to be kept to a minimum, his spokesman, Wouter Kriel, has said.
 
As South African Artists and Cultural Workers who have lived under, survived, and in many cases resisted apartheid, we acknowledge the value of international solidarity in our own struggle. It is in this context that we respond to the call by Palestinians, and their Israeli allies, for such solidarity. As artists of conscience we say no to apartheid – anywhere. We respond to the call for international solidarity and undertake not to avail any invitation to perform or exhibit in Israel. Nor will we accept funding from institutions linked to the government of Israel. This is our position until such time as Israel, in the least, complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. Until then, we too unite with international colleagues under the banner of “Artists Against Apartheid.”
 
“I wish you empowerment to resist; to fight for social and economic justice; to win your real freedom and equal rights.” These are the stirring words of Omar Barghouti in his open letter to “people of conscience in the West”. The prominent Palestinian human rights activist gave an indication of the poetic ability and charisma that inspires this letter in a recent discussion over Skype. The newly established Rhodes University Palestinian Solidarity Forum (RUPSF) engaged Barghouti in an attempt to inspire students and academics to feel the immediacy of the struggle to our own pasts, and by extension, the power South African voices can hold in the contemporary international sphere. Palestinians are cognisant of the potentiality of the emotive cord that joins us: the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign have candidly based their agenda and discourse on the international anti-apartheid campaigns of the 80s and 90s. Professor Adam Habib, deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg (UJ), in a recent conversation with me, recalled how Palestinian academics imparted the moving reflection on him that, compared to the bi-partisan stance of many academic institutions globally, Palestinians “expect more from South Africa”, “we expect different”.
Israeli Hate and Racism

 
A new report reveals that 78 percent of Palestinians in Jerusalem – and 84 percent of Palestinian children – live under the poverty line., According to the report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the 360,000 Palestinian residents of the city – 38 percent of Jerusalem’s total population – have reached the highest poverty rate ever in 2011. By comparison, in 2006, 64 percent of the Palestinian population and 73 percent of the children lived under the poverty line., Read more: http://forward.com/articles/156552/poverty-at–in-arab-east-jerusalem/#ixzz1vNeUslth
 
According to Association for Civil Rights in Israel, main reason for the poverty is the high unemployment rate – 40 percent of the men are unemployed, as are 85 percent of the women.
 

Arabic Not Allowed Among Teachers, Students, In Kfar Sava Hospital
Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported that Arab teachers and students at the Kfar Sava medical center are not allowed to use their mother-tongue despite the fact that Arabic is one of Israel’s official languages. Arab families of children hospitalized at the medical center filed a complaint to the hospital’s management.

 

Yishai to Non-Jews: Wipe Our Butts & Don’t Have Kids
Israel Interior Minister Eli Yishai, speaking at the Ramle Conference on April 15, 2012 

Other News

 
Emerging Arab democracies don’t need American blood money:  State Department’s new Middle East fund in trouble on Capitol Hill
The biggest single new initiative in the State Department’s $51.6 billion budget proposal for next year was a Middle East Incentive Fund – $770 million in mostly new money to help State respond to the Arab Spring by supporting emerging democracies and their civil societies. But the House of Representatives declined to fund it in their version of the appropriations bill. The House Appropriations Subcommittee for State and Foreign Ops didn’t give any money to fund the initiative in their fiscal 2013 appropriations mark, released last month. The leaders of that subcommittee claim that State failed to give them enough detail about the program to justify the new outlay of funds. Now, the State Department is depending on its allies in the Senate to save the program when the Senate Appropriations Committee marks up its bill next week. The episode is an example of the disconnect between State and Congress over how to respond to the Arab Spring as well as the difficulty of securing new money for diplomatic initiatives in this tight budget environment.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/18/state_department_s_new_middle_east_fund_in_trouble_on_capitol_hill

 
JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Surrounded by aides, including one whose only task seems to be light his cigarettes, Mahmoud Abbas sits in a vast presidential office and speaks of his ambition to create a Palestinian state. But outside his sprawling compound on the hills of the West Bank town of Ramallah reality on the ground is different — his dream is being built over by ever-expanding Jewish settlements.
Worst abusers of the planet–and the least
Rob sent me this:  ”You quoted from the WWF report that listed Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE as the world’s three greediest resource users (US is number 5), but missed an important corollary: the lowest resource user per capita is… “Occupied Palestinian Territory“. (For the original graphs see pages 44 and 45 of the full WWF report)
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/05/worst-abusers-of-planet-and-least.html
 
Citi Field, home of the Mets, is sold out for Sunday evening — but not for a baseball game. More than 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews plan to pack the stadium to hear about what the event’s organizers call the dangers of the Internet and how to use it in a religiously responsible way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/nyregion/ultra-orthodox-jews-will-meet-at-citi-field-to-discuss-internet-dangers.html 

Analysis / Op-ed

Israeli Practices Perpetuate Palestinian Inequality
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its annual report on Israel last month, praising the strength of the Israeli economy while condemning a rate of inequality that has risen steadily over the last 20 years. The report designated Israel as one of the three IMF members with the worst inequality, and warned of the risk to Israel’s economic integrity posed by the growing disparity between the country’s rich and poor. In a widely publicized interview with Haaretz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained that, “if you deduct the Arabs and ultra-Orthodox from inequality indexes, we’re in great shape.”
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-practices-perpetuate-palestinian-inequality?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

 
More than ever, Israel finds itself under siege. The British Guardian newspaper published a long article naming the apartheid walls built or being built by our enemy to separate the Zionist elite from the rest of the world. Their latest achievement in this vein is an almost completed wall between the Sinai and Naqab deserts on the Egyptian-Palestinian borders, costing almost half a billion dollars.
 
Watch this brief video clip of J Street’s Ben-Ami debating Bill Kristol Tuesday night in New York. Ben-Ami makes the point that there are two choices, either come up with a border or give everyone equal rights.  Kristol “totally disagrees”
 
If Kristol’s latest prediction comes true, a Romney presidency would put U.S. foreign policy even more firmly under the control of a foreign power.
 
It was a big story the other day when demographers reading the census data reported that today in the U.S., births of ethnic and racial minorities have surpassed white American births. I think the trend has clear implications for US support for Israel, whose advocates routinely speak about a demographic “threat” — too many non-Jewish births.
 
The political earthquake that shook Israel last week went, at first, almost completely unreported in America. I can put forward some explanations why it wasn’t reported – in a nutshell, because the story is a lethal combination of confusing and embarrassing. By yesterday, however, the initial stench and general sense of disgust at the surprise “unity government” deal have apparently faded away as the news traveled the Atlantic – and Israeli PM Netanyahu (hereafter, “Bibi”), the deal’s apparent winner, landed on a Times Magazine cover crowning him as “KING BIBI”, no less.
 
I struggle with something that Israel supporters say: Well you did it to the Native Americans, who are you to tell us not to do it? Some of these hasbarists even show up wearing Indian headdresses and war paint to try and rub it in– you’re as racist as we are. Recently a liberal American-Israeli Zionist even made the dig personally, saying, You live on ethnically-cleansed land. And it’s true, I look out my window and see a hickory tree whose nuts Native Americans made liquor from. But they’re not here anymore. And my awareness of the ethnic cleansing here sometimes stops me.
 
Interview: Launch of Leila Khaled biography by EI contributor canceled after Zionist pressure
The cancelation of the Manchester launch of Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation has only brought the book broader publicity, says author and Electronic Intifada contributor Sarah Irving. 
  
WaPo’s Walter Pincus says US is ‘going above and beyond for Israel’, Adam Horowitz
Last year, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus said the US must reevaluate aid to Israel in light of our country’s economic woes. Yesterday he revisited the issue and is aghast at the largess being thrown Israel’s way while the US economy continues to struggle.
https://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/wapos-walter-pincus-says-us-is-going-above-and-beyond-for-israel.html

Egypt’s new role in the future of Palestine
Recently, millions of Egyptians crowded round TV sets in Cairo to watch two presidential candidates debate their country’s future. For citizens more used to having a political system imposed on them than joining in the discussion, they seem to have adapted quickly. Cheers and applause broke out as the candidates each exploited their opponent’s weaknesses. Interviews with spectators were forthcoming, something unthinkable under the ousted Mubarak.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/articles/middle-east/3775-egypts-new-role-in-the-future-of-palestine

 
Throughout contemporary history, movement of people outside their own countries for long or short intervals has occurred for various reasons: education, work, marriage, family ties, fleeing hardships, and so on. Foreigners exist in every country in the world, forming their own sub-societies and clinging with varying degrees to their own cultures as they integrate into the new ones. Sometimes, the second or third generations that arise after this movement experience the drive to return to their home countries, find their roots and re-integrate into their societies of origin.

http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19307

Global Appeal for Stories of Palestinian Displacement
BADIL is delighted to announce the launch of the new ‘Ongoing Nakba Education Center’ (ONEC) website - www.ongoingnakba.org. The participatory website uses multi-media tools to build a significant advocacy resource relating to the historic and ongoing displacement of the Palestinian people. The website is already online in both English and Arabic, although it is constantly being updated and developed with new tools. In this regard, BADIL is launching an international call to Palestinians everywhere, and to non-Palestinians working to support the dissemination of stories of Palestinian displacement.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19304

Peacemaking Without Mediators, Nicola Nasser
A surplus of mediators have been around all the time, including the heavy weight Quartet of the UN, U.S., EU and Russia, as well as heaps of terms of reference of UNSC resolutions, bilateral signed accords and “roadmaps,” in addition to marathon bilateral talks that have left no stone unearthed, international as well as regional conferences were never on demand to facilitate the “peace process,” which has been lavishly financed to keep moving. However the Palestinian – Israeli peace-making is still elusive as ever as Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” has been, without a glimpse of light at the end of the endless tunnel of Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory and people.  Palestinian – Israeli peace-making has been for all practical reasons on hold since 2000, and bilateral peace contacts have been dormant since Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in 2009 except for a failed five-round “exploratory” talks hosted by Jordan last January.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/18/peacemaking-without-mediators/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=peacemaking-without-mediators

You Dare Call This Arab Feminism
Some Arab “feminist” writers out there are telling us that for the ‘real’ revolution to begin all Arab women and the Muslim ones in particular must realize that the real war is on them. I speak of propagandist journalists or cultural producers who write in the name of feminism. By presenting themselves as human rights activists, as women who are Arab, sometimes Muslim ( sometimes previously veiled but then seen as “closer to the truth” about women’s lives), they have played a large role in legitimizing wars in the region. I speak of the new face of this age-old propaganda in the name of “liberating oppressed women” which now justifies and poisonously legitimizes a cultural and ideological war on the revolution.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/you-dare-call-arab-feminism?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

The Arab Spring is Part of the General Strike of the South
Vijay Prashad’s new book, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (AK Press, 2012) captures the complexity of the Arab revolts – by bringing out the history and historical forces behind them. The book exposes the West’s imperial anxieties and their fear of the organic – the mass character of these uprisings. It demonstrates the resoluteness of the “rebels from below”, that they will not allow the Arab lands to “be the same again”, that they are dissatisfied with the Present and they want something more than the “21st century delusions” that neoliberalism delivers. Most importantly, Prashad’s book reconfirms that “the rebellion from below has its own radical imagination.” The following discussion with the author is an attempt to read the book with him to understand the implications of his analysis of the Arab revolts.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/18/the-arab-spring-is-part-of-the-general-strike-of-the-south/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-arab-spring-is-part-of-the-general-strike-of-the-south

 
Jowan Safadi: Breaking The Mold
The Palestinian musician continues to defy convention, gathering admirers and enemies in droves along the way.
Annexation – that’s what tens of thousands of protesters in the Middle East are calling new Arab union plans. It comes after Saudi Arabia said it wants to form an alliance with Bahrain.
Bahraini police attack Shahrakan demo
Bahraini regime forces have attacked anti-regime demonstrators in the western village of Shahrakan.
Bahrain: Drop Charges Against Rights Activists
Bahraini authorities should drop politically motivated criminal charges against Nabeel Rajab, a human rights activist, and release him immediately. Rajab is scheduled to go on trial on May 16, 2012, for “offending an official institution” – namely, the Interior Ministry, which he criticized for allegedly ignoring attacks against boys and young protesters as well as Shia-owned businesses.

Bahrain’s Khawaja well, to continue hunger strike: lawyer
Jailed Bahraini dissident Abdel Hadi Khawaja, on hunger strike for more than three months, is well but still continues his fast to protest a life sentence, his lawyer said on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/bahrains-khawaja-well-continue-hunger-strike-lawyer-180846759.html

Bahrain king attends UK queen’s jubilee lunch
The king of Bahrain, whose regime has been accused of rights abuses, was among nearly 50 foreign royals at a lunch Friday to mark the diamond jubilee of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
http://news.yahoo.com/bahrain-king-attends-uk-queens-jubilee-lunch-133729411.html

British Queen slammed after meeting Bahraini King
The British royal family has come under intense criticism after Buckingham Palace confirmed that the King of Bahrain would be attending a state lunch with the Queen, despite an ongoing crackdown on pro-democracy protests in the Gulf kingdom. Bahrain’s King Hamad al-Khalifa is among a number of ruling monarchs expected at a Windsor Castle lunch being hosted by the Queen on Friday. Al-Khalifa has been leading the crackdown on the pro-democracy protests in the country that began last year. The UK’s leading opposition party said it was wrong to allow the despot to visit, while a leading rights campaigner said al-Khalifa was “blood-stained.”
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/british-queen-slammed-after-meeting-bahraini-king?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

Bahrain protests: Shias rally against closer ties with Saudi Arabia
Tens of thousands of Shia protesters demonstrate against further integration between Sunni rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Tens of thousands of mainly Shia protesters in Bahrain have joined a march to denounce proposals for closer ties between the unrest-torn Gulf kingdom and neighbouring Saudi Arabia. There were no immediate reports of violence, but the large turnout on Friday points to strong opposition to further integration between the Sunni rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Gulf leaders this week delayed a decision on the proposals. Bahrain’s majority Shia population began demonstrations against unification 15 months ago. They are seeking a stronger political voice in the Sunni-ruled region.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/18/bahrain-protests-shia-saudi-arabia

Sunni Bahrainis stage rally in support of Saudi union
Thousands of Sunnis staged a rally in Manama on Saturday in support of of a controversial proposal to unite Bahrain with neighbouring Saudi Arabia, witnesses said.
http://news.yahoo.com/sunni-bahrainis-stage-rally-support-saudi-union-182641582.html

 
Demonstration in Tehran over Bahrain-Saudi union
Thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran on Friday to protest a proposed union of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, in the first step toward closer links among six Arab monarchies across the Gulf.
http://news.yahoo.com/demonstration-tehran-over-bahrain-saudi-union-131231158.html

Inside Story – Saudi troops in Bahrain a warning to Iran?
Troops from Saudi Arabia rolled into Bahrain last year purportedly to quell protests but was there another motive, such as a warning to Iran? Iran recently criticised GCC efforts on the Saudi-Bahrain unity proposal. What is the latest escalation in tensions in the Gulf between the two regional heavyweights likely to achieve? Guests: Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg, Sadegh Zibakalam, Mustafa Alani, Saeed Al Shehabi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izUJkjuG1ZE&feature=youtube_gdata

Bahrain: A Hot Potato Across The Persian Gulf
Fifteen months into their uprising, Bahrainis balk at both the proposed union with Riyadh and statements reviving the Iranian claim to their country. Tensions are running high between the two coasts of the Persian Gulf. The war of words pitting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain against Iran may be part of a regional struggle that is essentially over Syria rather than Bahrain. But Bahrain is its current focus, and it is the Bahraini people who are being made to pay the price.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/game-hot-potato-across-persian-gulf?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

Egypt

Egyptian Ambassador to Kuwait Abdel Karim Sulaiman on Saturday announced that the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate in the presidential election won 30.9 percent of the votes of expatriate Egyptians in Kuwait, Reuters reported.
 

Polls give few clues to Egypt vote
Contradictory opinion polls give few clues on Egypt’s election.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18110194#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

Egypt shuts down newly-opened Shiite mosque in Cairo
The Egyptian authorities shut down a Shiite “Husseiniya,” a name given to the Shiite mosque, which was lately opened by Lebanese Shiite cleric Ali al-Korani during his recent visit to Cairo, sources close to Al Arabiya said.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/17/214718.html

Saudi religious persecution, As’ad Abukhalil
You may not be aware of this, or you may most likely not care but Arab (and Muslim) governments that receive Saudi financial aid are under pressure always to show firm resolve against any manifestation of Shi`ite religious worship.  Morocco famously declared that it cracked a huge conspiracy of Shi`itization of the country, in return for Saudi cash.  Now, the Egyptian Military Council has ordered the closure of a Husayniyyah.  If those crackdowns and persecution were directed against Jewish worship, the Security Council would have taken up the matter.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/05/saudi-religious-persecution.html

 
Egypt’s revolution fails to benefit slum dwellers 
Across Egypt there are millions of people living in slums. Last year’s revolution focused on Egyptians demanding their rights in Tahrir Square – but have the country’s slum-dwellers gained anything from the uprising? With just a few days to go before the Presidential election, Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal went to find out.
 
Wife of lawyer detained in Saudi may take case to international court
The wife of Ahmed al-Gizawy, a lawyer and activist imprisoned by Saudi Arabian authorities, said she is considering taking his case to an international court if the matter is not soon resolved. “I’m concerned about my husband’s future,” Shahenda Fathy told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Thursday. “I need him to have a fair trial. But I have not decided yet.” Gizawy was arrested last month after allegedly bringing into the Gulf kingdom 21,380 Xanax tablets, which are banned there except for use by psychiatric institutions and under close supervision. Fathy criticized Ahmed Rashed, the Saudi lawyer defending her husband, for spending his time talking to the media rather than working on the case.
http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/846756

Egypt: Owner of belly dancing TV station arrested
Egypt’s vice police on Thursday arrested the owner of a belly dancing TV station on suspicion of operating without a license, inciting licentiousness and facilitating prostitution, a security official said.
http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-owner-belly-dancing-tv-station-arrested-174406283.html

Egypt’s Presidential Election: Meet the Contenders
Egypt’s first presidential election after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak is scheduled to take place on 23 and 24 May 2012, with a possible run-off race on 16 and 17 June 2012. The following guide to the presidential candidates is based on a series of articles published by Egypt Independent. For more information on prominent presidential candidates, click on any of the names below.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5604/egypts-presidential-election_meet-the-contenders

 
Presidential hopeful Khaled Ali said that a second revolution was inevitable in Egypt in spite of who is elected president because the people want to achieve the objectives of the revolution. He said that this struggle will continue even after the new president is elected, and that while the success of a revolutionary candidate could delay the second revolution, it is still unavoidable. Ali said in an interview with the London-based newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on Friday that he feared elections-rigging more than Islamists or former figures reaching power. He added that he would accept the results of the election even if a Mubarak regime figure won the race.

http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/848536

In Search of Egypt’s Fifth President: Salim al-Awa
In the third installment of the series of interviews with Egypt’s presidential candidates, Al-Akhbar sat with conservative Islamist candidate Salim al-Awa.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/search-egypt%E2%80%99s-fifth-president-salim-al-awa?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

Candidate Aboul Fotouh highlights diversity of Egypt’s Islamists
Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh has emerged as a top candidate in next week’s Egyptian presidential elections.
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/LijMEE4Y3uA/Candidate-Aboul-Fotouh-highlights-diversity-of-Egypt-s-Islamists

For many in Egypt, the presidential vote is not about Islam
Egyptians have more earthly matters to contend with: jobs and the sagging economy. Polls find the Muslim Brotherhood candidate trailing moderate rivals.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/DXvTAorPIpk/la-fg-egypt-election-islam-20120518,0,7383501.story

 
Egyptian presidential candidate (and Mubarak official), Ahmad Shafiq, is hit with shoes.  (For the significance of shoes in Arab culture, please consult any US newspaper).

Iran

“At some point such actions which undermine state sovereignty may lead to a full-scale regional war, even, although I do not want to frighten anyone, with the use of nuclear weapons,” Medvedev said. “Everyone should bear this in mind.”
 

IAEA chief Amano to visit Iran on Monday
The chief of the UN nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, will visit Iran on Monday and meet Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, the IAEA said.
http://news.yahoo.com/iaea-chief-amano-visit-iran-monday-155905494.html

 
The Former Chief of Staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated that this resolution “reads like the same sheet of music that got us into the Iraq war.” 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31360.htm 

US strike plan on Iran ‘ready’
The US has plans in place to attack Iran if other measures fail to stop it developing nuclear weapons, Washington’s envoy to Israel says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18110191#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

Senior Israeli Official: Leadership’s Made Decision for War Against Iran, Richard Silverstein
Reuters is reporting that several well-placed Israeli sources are confirming both that the senior government leadership has gone into “lockdown” mode regarding Iran indicating that something is afoot; and that the decision to attack Iran has already been made and that the strike will come before the U.S. elections.  From an independent source, I’ve learned that one of the informants for this article is the regular source of my Israeli national security scoops.  So I take the comments in this article with even more seriousness than I normally would.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/05/17/senior-israeli-official-leaderships-made-decision-for-war-against-iran/

Iran Will Require Assurances: An Interview with Hossein Mousavian
Hossein Mousavian has served as visiting research scholar at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security from 2009 to the present. Prior to this position, he held numerous positions in the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including director-general of its West Europe department and ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997. Ambassador Mousavian was also head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran during both terms of Mohammad Khatami’s presidency (1997-2005). In this capacity, he served as spokesman of the Iranian nuclear negotiations team from 2003 to 2005. When that team was replaced following the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mousavian served for two years (2005-2007) as foreign policy adviser to Ali Larijani, who was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the chief nuclear negotiator in the Ahmadinejad administration. The ambassador was arrested in 2007 for allegedly passing confidential information to the British Embassy and others, but was eventually cleared of the charges. As part of those proceedings, he was suspended from serving in diplomatic posts for five years, due to his criticism of the nuclear negotiating strategy adopted by the Ahmadinejad administration. He left Iran in 2009 and his work at Princeton has included the preparation of the forthcoming book Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, to be published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in June. Asli Bali interviewed Ambassador Mousavian at his office in Princeton, New Jersey on April 26.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5603/iran-will-require-assurances_an-interview-with-hos

 

Did Obama take the military option against Iran off the table? 
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, whose relationship with President Obama dates back to Obama’s days in the Senate, made headlines this week with his statement, in an address to Israel’s bar association, that America’s military option against Iran is “not just available,” but “ready.  

 
Hopefully he won’t flip flop, like he did with Palestine: Ron Paul and America’s “Military Option” against Iran
We note that, even though he is leaving the U.S. Congress in just a few months, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) continues to fight the good fight on Iran-related issues.  Last week, Paul was one of the few to speak out, clearly and forthrightly, against the latest congressional resolution “expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”  Dr. Paul’s statement bears reading, see here.  
 
Iran Hawks in Congress in Some Disarray, Jim Lobe
Hopes by Iran hawks here to get the U.S. Congress to wield the threat of a U.S. military attack on the Islamic Republic on the eve of next week’s critical negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program appear to have fallen unexpectedly short. 
http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2012/05/18/iran-hawks-in-congress-in-some-disarray/

 

Iraq

Iraq: Mass Arrests, Incommunicado Detentions
Iraq’s government has been carrying out mass arrests and unlawfully detaining people in the notorious Camp Honor prison facility in Baghdad’s Green Zone, based on numerous interviews with victims, witnesses, family members, and government officials. The government had claimed a year ago that it had closed the prison, where Human Rights Watch had documented rampant torture.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/15/iraq-mass-arrests-incommunicado-detentions

 
An Iraqi anti-terror officer, his wife and three children have been shot dead by gunmen in north Baghdad, security and medical officials said on Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-anti-terror-officer-family-shot-dead-083805207.html

15 Killed, 67 Wounded at Baghdad Pet Market, Restaurant and Home
In the capital, multiple attacks harkened back to the height of sectarian tensions. At least 15 Iraqis were killed and 67 more were wounded.

 

Maliki, in charm offensive, invites scholars to Baghdad
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, concerned by his portrayal in U.S. media as an autocratic leader intent on consolidating power, has invited several influential Washington scholars to Baghdad to meet his team next week. The rare invitation was extended to Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institution and Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, Reuters has learned.

 
‘Get some new lawyers.’ — 1999: Then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on his assertion that the bombing of Balkan States was illegal under international law. In this sixteenth anniversary year of Madeleine Albright stating her endorsement of half a million child sacrifices at the altar of the UN Embargo on Iraq as a “price worth it”, this silent holocaust is to be commemorated annually. In New Haven, Ct., On 12th May, marking the day of Albright’s infamous broadcast, a banner was unfurled and a minute’s silence held as the Middle East Crisis Committee, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CT), the Tree of Life Education Fund and We Refuse to be Enemies, inaugurated the first Iraq Genocide Memorial Day.
Beating the Drums of Orientalism
The US occupation of Iraq, coupled with its attendant deployment of sectarianism as a political technology, has foreclosed the possibility of non-sectarian modes of seeing, or critiquing political life in Iraq. In “Shiites and Sunnis in post-US Iraq: separate and unequal; some predict dissolution of country,” the five contributors, four of whom are writing from Iraq, adopt this lens in reflecting on the contentious relationship between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq. In the article, originally published by The Associated Press and re-posted by The Washington Post and The Washington Times, the authors hone in on the Shia persecution of vulnerable Sunnis in the aftermath of the withdrawal of US troops. Such a portrayal produces the occupying imperial power as a neutral arbiter of Iraq’s religious communities, or in the authors’ words, as Iraq’s “peacemakers.” Without them, we are told, Iraq’s Sunni minority has to fend for itself in a now Shia-dominated country. 
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5594/beating-the-drums-of-orientalism-

Lebanon

A tentative truce in Lebanon’s second city of Tripoli appeared to be holding on Saturday, with only a few reports of violence in the past 24 hours. A number of hand grenades were thrown on Friday night, Lebanese state media said, but there were no reports of casualties and the city appeared to be calm on Saturday morning. The Lebanese army has deployed more heavily in the city in the past 24 hours, breaking up violence between armed gangs. There were a couple of violent incidents on Friday evening, with grenades being through in the Haret Al Saydeh and Omari areas, as well as a sound bomb in Kawah, state media said.
 

Sectarian clashes injure 3 in Lebanon: official
Shelling between two pro- and anti-Syrian neighbourhoods in the north Lebanon port city of Tripoli on Friday left three people wounded, a security official and hospital sources said.
http://news.yahoo.com/sectarian-clashes-injure-3-lebanon-official-171308257.html

Don’t blame Syria – Lebanon’s leaders are fuelling the fighting in Tripoli
The ongoing fighting in the northern city of Tripoli between Sunni and Alawite militias is among the worst witnessed by Lebanon for several years. And, in a nod to their shared past and intertwined present, whenever security in Lebanon is discussed, the mention of Syria is never far behind. No surprise, then, that this week’s Tripoli fighting has been reported as the inevitable progeny of the violence that has divided Syria and is now finally spilling over into Lebanon. The logic is not necessarily unsound, given Syria’s historic tutelage, and given that Lebanon’s political heavyweights – and, by extension, its people – are mortally divided over Bashar al-Assad. If you ask the fighters themselves, they tell you that their actions are derived either from love or loathing for the Syrian leader.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/18/lebanon-leaders-fuelling-tripoli-fighting

 
Saad Hariri: One Year Leading by Remote Control

Scene One: Saad Hariri put a piece of property up for sale in the Barbir area. According to sources close to the Saudi embassy in Beirut, the property forms part of a plot of land the Saudis want to turn into housing projects for the people of Beirut. The sale of the land is not particularly noteworthy. Its value is merely pocket change for Hariri. The surprise lies in the names of those who stepped in to buy it. They are the president of Riyadi (Sporting) Club, Hisham Jaroudi, the “republic’s contractor” and businessman, Jihad al-Arab (brother of the head of Hariri’s personal security detail), and the former head of Future TV, Nadim al-Munla.
 
As an openly religious organization, Hezbollah promotes strict adherence to Islamic Sharia among its members. This translates into a largely homogeneous wardrobe, specially among women, making those who dress differently stand out in a Hezbollah crowd.
 

Manar TV: Hiding the Unveiled
Restrictions have been imposed at Hezbollah’s Manar television to avoid the appearance of unveiled women on the station’s programs. Is the resistance channel backtracking on years of openness and now moving in a more conservative direction?
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/manar-tv-hiding-unveiled?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

Saudi Arabia

Al-Qaeda chief: Saudis must rise up against ruling family
Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri has urged Saudis to rise up against the kingdom’s ruling Al-Saud family, suggesting they draw inspiration from uprisings that have deposed leaders across the Middle East and Africa in the past year and a half. Speaking in a video clip that was posted on an Islamist website, Zawahri, who took over the leadership of Al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan just over a year ago, said Arabs should no longer accept the ruling Al Saud family.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/al-qaeda-chief-saudis-must-rise-against-ruling-family?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

Saudi Arabia bans using Gregorian dates
Saudi Arabia has banned all government and private agencies from using the Gregorian calendar in official dealings.  The use of the English language to answer calls or communicate, mainly in companies and hotels, has also been banned, a local daily said.  All ministries and agencies have to use the Hijri dates (Islamic calendar) and the Arabic language, the interior ministry said. The ministry attributed its decision to preserving the Islamic calendar and the Arabic language, Arabic daily Al Watan reported.
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia-bans-using-gregorian-dates-1.1024301

Saudi ban on women’s sports blamed for rising obesity (Zambarakji), Juan Cole
Angie Zambarakji writes at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: A girl’s school in Saudi Arabia has defied a ban on sport for girls by letting pupils play basketball. This comes comes after Human Rights Watch has claimed that women’s limited access to sport was contributing to rising obesity in the country. Under the Kingdom’s strict Islamic legal system, girls are not allowed to play sports at state-run schools, although some private girls’ schools have sports programmes. Powerful Saudi clerics have also issued religious rulings against female participation in sports.
http://www.juancole.com/2012/05/20699.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29

Syria

Car bomb in eastern Syrian city kills 9
A car bomb in the parking lot of a Syrian military compound killed at least nine people Saturday, the latest in increasingly frequent bombings in the country’s major cities to target the regime’s security services.
 
Activists: Syrian forces shell rebel town
Opposition groups say Syrian government forces are pounding a rebel-held town north of the central city of Homs.
http://news.yahoo.com/activists-syrian-forces-shell-rebel-town-074631425.html
 
The Lede Blog: U.N. Observers Dodge Bullets and Mockery in Syria
The head of the U.N. military observer mission in Syria was forced to defend his team from the ridicule of protesters on Friday.  The inability of the monitors to compel the security forces to stop attacking protesters was underlined twice this week by video clips that showed one monitor crawling along a street in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, to avoid shots that were being fired at demonstrators, and another looking on helplessly from his vehicle as students were beaten in the city of Aleppo.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/u-n-observers-dodge-bullets-and-mockery-in-syria/
 

Syria: Activists Arrested, Held Despite Pledge to Annan

Syrian security forces are arbitrarily arresting and holding peaceful activists incommunicado, despite the government’s commitment under Kofi Annan’s six point plan to release everyone who has been arbitrarily detained. People being arrested include peaceful protesters and activists involved in organizing, filming, and reporting on protests and humanitarian assistance providers and doctors, Human Rights Watch said after interviewing dozens of activists, witnesses, and family members.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/13/syria-activists-arrested-held-despite-pledge-annan

The Lede Blog: Student Protest in Syria Unfolds Live Online
Syrian activists managed to broadcast live video to the Web from their phones of a demonstration by students in Aleppo, during a visit by United Nations observers.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6aa2ed0df7ceafe4f992907e5022d38f

Largest protests yet in Syrian city of Aleppo
Syrian security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse thousands rallying Friday in the northern city of Aleppo, which activists said saw the largest turnout since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in March 2011.
http://news.yahoo.com/largest-protests-yet-syrian-city-aleppo-132651836.html

 
The largest demonstrations held in Syria’s second city, Aleppo, since the beginning over a year ago of the revolutionary movement in that country, were held on Friday. In part, they were provoked by the brutality of regime troops toward student protesters at the university in Aleppo on Thursday. The Baathist regime of President Bashar al-Assad responded with tear gas and batons, and there were some injuries reported. Tens of thousands of people came out in the streets in other cities as well on Friday in a continued effort to topple the regime.
http://www.juancole.com/2012/05/aleppo-joins-the-syrian-revolution-are-al-assads-days-numbered.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29 
Protesters Are Attacked at Aleppo University in Syria
The crackdown on the demonstration at Aleppo University came less than a week after it had reopened following a raid by security forces that left at least four students dead.
http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=dbb7ae9416281b2a93f2ec538dfe02c9

Syrian activist sentenced to death for ‘treason’
The League dismissed the charges as “null and void” and said that Hariri, an engineer in his late 30s arrested on April 16, was “brutally tortured” and forced to make confessions. It said Hariri was awaiting his execution in the notorious Saydnaya prison -once identified by Amnesty International as “Syria’s black hole” as inmates have limited access to the outside world. “He was tortured from the first day of his arrest. They broke his backbone and authorities refused to give him the proper medical care,” the League said in a statement. Hariri was arrested after discussing on Al-Jazeera television the terrible humanitarian and security situation in southern Daraa province, cradle of the anti-regime uprising that erupted in March 2011, the group said.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/18/214885.html

 
Panel’s report says N Korea “continues to defy” UN sanctions on selling of arms and related technology to other nations.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/05/201251842358932543.html
 
And will there be probes of U.S. transfers of weapons to Syrians? U.S. Organizing Syrian Rebels: Syrian Rebels Get Influx of Arms with Gulf Neighbors’ Money, U.S. Coordination
Syrian rebels have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-rebels-get-influx-of-arms-with-gulf-neighbors-money-us-coordination/2012/05/15/gIQAds2TSU_story.html?wprss=rss_world
 
Annan deputy to visit Syria
A deputy of Kofi Annan, the international mediator on Syria, plans to travel to Syria but the exact timing is confidential, Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told a regular UN briefing on Friday. Fawzi declined to elaborate on reports that an “important person” would visit Damascus later on Friday. He said Annan intended to go there at some stage, and his deputy had a specific travel plan. He did not name the deputy.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/annan-deputy-visit-syria?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlAkhbarEnglish+%28Al+Akhbar+English%29

UN observers chief calls for end to Syria violence
The head of a U.N. observer team says that no amount of observers in Syria can achieve a permanent end to the violence without dialogue.
http://news.yahoo.com/un-observers-chief-calls-end-syria-violence-083330779.html

 
Head of UN mission in Syria ‘pessimistic’
Major-General Robert Mood gives bleak assessment of task his team faces as violations of ceasefire continue.
UN: Monitors alone cannot end Syria bloodshed
The head of a U.N. observer team in Syria cautioned Friday that the mission cannot achieve a permanent end to the violence without genuine talks between the two sides that have been locked in a violent conflict for more than a year.
http://news.yahoo.com/un-monitors-alone-cannot-end-syria-bloodshed-100545261.html
 

U.S. tells G8 Syria’s Assad must go, cites Yemen as model

U.S. President Barack Obama told G8 leaders meeting at Camp David that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave power, and pointed to Yemen as a model of how political transition could work there, the White House said on Saturday.

 

The UN chief Ban Ki-moon says that Islamist militants from al-Qaeda must be behind two recent devastating suicide car bomb attacks in Syria.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18115084#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

Radical mosques invite young Tunisians to jihad in Syria
Some of Tunisia’s radical mosques are calling on young people to fight in a jihad in Syria against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a religious affairs official said Friday.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/18/214947.html

 
Syria: Church under attack as Christians leave Homs
During the worst of the conflict, the opposition forces attacked churches (see photo right) and also occupied an evangelical school and home for the elderly, which were then shelled by the army. Church leaders have reported that Muslim neighbours are turning on the Christians, and that Muslim extremists from other countries have been coming to Homs to join the fighting. Christians have also suffered kidnappings and gruesome murders. Some Christian families, unable to pay a ransom for their relatives’ release and fearing that they may be tortured, have been driven to ask the kidnappers to kill their loved ones at once.
http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news?newsaction=view&newsid=5977 

Intellectuals blast Syrian opposition calls for Adonis’ death
BEIRUT: Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals are issuing online condemnations in the wake of a call from elements of the Syrian opposition that Syrian poet and literary critic Adonis be killed.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Culture/Books/2012/May-18/173770-intellectuals-blast-syrian-opposition-calls-for-adonis-death.ashx
 

Turkish PM calls for up to 3000 observers for Syria
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the United Nations on Friday to boost the number of military observers in Syria to far more than a planned total of 300.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/18/214945.html

Syrian revolt’s Islamist slogans under criticism
The use of Islamist slogans by protesters during weekly Friday demonstrations against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has triggered criticism among an already-fractured opposition.
http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-revolts-islamist-slogans-under-criticism-111048965.html

 
The Syrian situation is complex like any other uprising, but the situation has added complexity because it is at the juncture of several conflicts in the region. Those struggles involve local, regional, and international power plays that make the situation a lot more charged. For instance, we have Syria at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Syria is part of an axis, so to speak, with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, confronting imperialism in various forms from inside and outside the region, particularly in relation to U.S. domination and Israel’s occupations and belligerence. There is also resistance to the conservative Arab camp that includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other conservative countries that are usually allies with the United States. Also, Syria is, in many ways, the guarantor of stability in Lebanon. Syria’s presence in Lebanon has guaranteed some stability despite many violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty by Syria. For all these reasons, Syria’s position in the region is pivotal. This is not simply another uprising against a dictator. It is also being transformed by other players into an effort to redraw the political map of the region and curtail further protests elsewhere. A lot of the anti-regime actors and analysts are placed in an odd position. They do not support the regime or the turn that the uprising has taken since fall of last year. So perhaps the task is to build an independent opposition away from the dictates of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or the United States. Military intervention in Syria will bring in Iran and Hezbollah, and that will change the dynamic of the conflict. Most people in the region are opposed to the Syrian regime’s domestic behavior during the past decades, but they are not opposed to its regional role. The problem is the Syrian regime’s internal repression, not its external policies. If there is no interference from the outside, the uprisings will be seen as legitimate. If it becomes regional and you bring in the U.S. and Israel in a fight against the Syrian regime, it changes the strategic dynamics of the conflict — and not just the players involved.

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/5575/on-syria-and-its-neighbors_jadaliyya-co-editor-bas 

Other World News

Inside Story Americas – How many has the US wrongfully executed?
More than 20 years after Texas executed Carlos DeLuna, a study reveals he was innocent. Support for capital punishment in the US has been on the decline over the last two decades. We take a closer look at the DeLuna case and what it says about capital punishment in the country, and the flaws in its implementation. Guests: Shawn Crowley, Bruce Fein, Richard Dieter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEvOihl_cw8&feature=youtube_gdata

 
The survivors’ accounts lend an urgency to the official version of events, and they convey the brutality and the seeming randomness of what took place in those early-morning hours. 
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/05/17/2147790/lets-run-lets-get-out-of-here.html
House OKs indefinite definition of terror suspects
The House on Friday endorsed the indefinite detention without trial of terrorist suspects, even for U.S. citizens seized on American soil.
http://news.yahoo.com/house-oks-indefinite-definition-terror-suspects-135300876.html

U.S. Secret Drug War in Honduras: Botched DEA Raid Leaves 2 Pregnant Women, 2 Men Dead
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has confirmed its agents were on board a U.S.-owned helicopter with Honduran police officers when four people were shot and killed on a boat earlier this week. Two of the victims were said to be pregnant women. The deadly incident has highlighted the centrality of Honduras in the U.S.-backed drug war. Honduras is the hub for the U.S. military operations in Latin America, hosting at least three U.S. bases. We speak to Dana Frank, a Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/18/us_secret_drug_war_in_honduras

All-White Jury Acquits Houston Ex-Police Officer in Videotaped Beating of Black Teen Chad Holley
Hundreds of people rallied in Houston on Thursday to protest the acquittal of a former police officer in the videotaped beating of an African-American teenager. On Wednesday, the officer, Andrew Bloomberg, was found not guilty by an all-white jury in the beating and stomping of 15-year-old burglary suspect Chad Holley. Video taken of the March 2010 incident shows Holley being stopped by a police vehicle. After Holley falls to the ground, he is clearly seen surrendering and putting his hands behind his head. But instead of placing him in handcuffs, Bloomberg and six fellow officers proceed to attack Holley with stomps and kicks. “It seems we have become jaded, willing to accept in too many instances, young black people being grossly mistreated,” says NAACP President Ben Jealous.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/18/all_white_jury_acquits_houston_ex

 
Number of people imprisoned in the United States: 2.3 million. Number of victims of rape or sexual abuse in U.S. prison, jails and juvenile detention facilities in the past year according to the Justice Department: 216,600.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31371.htm 

U.S. provided intelligence for Turkish air raid: official
American spy drones provided intelligence to Turkey’s air force for an errant bombing raid in December that killed 35 civilians instead of Kurdish separatists, a U.S. defense official said Thursday.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/17/214793.html

World Briefing | Middle East: Kuwait: Islamic Law Proposal Blocked
Kuwait’s emir, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has blocked a proposal by Parliament to amend the Constitution to make all legislation in the country comply with Islamic law.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/world/middleeast/kuwait-islamic-law-proposal-blocked.html

 

When he took office, Mr Khasawneh raised hopes for reform. He vowed to end election-rigging, engage Jordan’s Islamists and deal with popular demands roused by the Arab awakening. To his chagrin, he soon felt he was mere window-dressing for a shadow government run by the intelligence services. His overtures to the Muslim Brotherhood, Jordan’s biggest political organisation, floundered, after the authorities drafted an electoral law limiting single parties in the 138-seat parliament to only five MPs. His efforts to end the ostracising of Hamas, a Palestinian branch of the brotherhood, which the king once expelled, fizzled. The anti-corruption investigation, announced with a fanfare, has ground to a halt. His justice minister watched powerlessly as a military tribunal jailed a journalist who had accused the king of suspending an inquiry into bribes concerning a housing scheme.
http://www.economist.com/node/21554229

Libyans cast ballots in Benghazi elections
Local elections in Libya’s second city, for the first time since the 1960s, intensifies federalism debate in Libya.
Tunisia-uprising injured sew lips in protest
Protesters stage demonstration outside parliament, claiming lack of treatment and that their plight is being ignored.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/05/20125184154285527.html

Morocco: Prison for Rapper Who Criticized Police
The sentencing of a rapper on May 11, 2012 to one year in prison for “insulting the police” shows the gap between the strong free-expression language in Morocco’s 2011 constitution and the continuing intolerance for those who criticize state institutions. The sentence was handed down one week before the opening of the international Mawazine music festival in Rabat, which is held under the patronage of King Mohammed VI.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/12/morocco-prison-rapper-who-criticized-police

More than 30,000 Moroccan children homeless: study
A recent study revealed that more than 30,000 Moroccan children are homeless in what is seen as a growing phenomenon which places a lot of pressure on both the government and society.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/17/214732.html
 

www.TheHeadlines.Org

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should the 404 palestinians die whose lives are threatened because the stock of blood line tubes for their dialysis machines is running low, the cause of their deaths should be attributed to the israeli siege of gaza. add in all the palestinians who prematurely die on account of lack of medicines &/or access to medical facilities and the following poem becomes yet more real –

gaza and the warsaw ghetto

same place
different time
while the world stands by
genocide*
live

*slow motion in gaza

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will mainstream african american organizations such as the naacp & urban league join south african artists, intellectuals and government ministers in denouncing israeli apartheid? this assumes, of course, that said organizations won’t let fear of being labeled antisemitic by israel firsters deter them from the moral obligation of supporting all anti-apartheid struggles, no matter where such arise and regardless of who are the victims and who are the perpetrators. likewise where are other human rights organizations (latino, lgbt and asian, for example) on this issue. surely they must realize that until the last chain is broken, none of us will be free?

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Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced that the South African ambassador in Tel Aviv would be called in for a reprimand today, adding that “this is not political opposition to settlements but negatively tagging a state through a special marking, according to national-political criteria. Accordingly, this is a racist measure”.

Knesset Member Arieh Eldad of the far-right Yechud Leumi goes further, calling on the government to mark all products imported from South Africa with a prominent label of “Warning! Product of South Africa. The history determines: anti-Semitism is liable to result in the death of Jews!”
http://leftwing-christian.net/2012/05/22/palestine-bds-movement-notches-up-a-couple-of-wins.aspx

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