Shadi Fadda brings us today's headlines relating to Palestine and other news from around the internet.
Theft/Destruction/Obstruction of Land & Resources
Israel to raze 200 Palestinian homes in E Jerusalem
Israeli authorities plan to seal 200 Palestinians homes in East Jerusalem Al-Quds to counter what they call "discriminatory enforcement" against Israeli settlers. The East Jerusalem Al-Quds Mayor Nir Barkat announced the decision after the State Prosecutor Moshe Lador criticized the municipality's refusal to carry out a Supreme Court order to seal the Jewish-owned Beit Yehonatan building in East Jerusalem Al-Quds. The building, which houses Israeli settlers, was illegally built in the city's neighborhood of Silwan in 2004. In a letter written to the prosecutor on Wednesday, Barkat agreed to implement the sealing order but added that he would also act to tear down 200 "illegal" Palestinian homes in the area.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117846§ionid=351020202
The Israeli Military Invades Areas Near Gaza City & Destroys Farm Lands
Israeli tanks and bulldozers invaded residential areas and farm lands, east of Gaza City on Wednesday afternoon. Witnesses said that ten Israeli tanks and a number of bulldozers stormed eastern areas of Gaza City close to the boarders with Israel. As tanks opened fire at nearby resident’s homes, bulldozers destroyed farm lands, the witnesses added. Earlier on Wednesday morning Israeli jet fighters shelled a number of areas in the Gaza Strip. The shelling left one Palestinian dead and two injured.
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57858
Raze Illegal Buildings — Unless They Are Jewish
SILWAN, East Jerusalem — Backed by armed security men, the municipal inspectors race their jeeps through the narrow alleyways and up a hillside crowded with buildings. Some of the homes are well-faced with stone; the naked concrete of others gives off something of a temporary air
http://original.antiwar.com/kessel-klohendler/2010/02/03/raze-illegal-buildings-unless-they-are-jewish/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+antiwar-original+%28Antiwar.com+Original+Articles%29
New checkpoint targets Tulkarem farmers
Tulkarem - Ma'an - Israeli military personnel completed the installation of a partial checkpoint and search station Wednesday for farmers in the Tulkarem area who pass through Gate 753 on their way to lands cut off by the separation wall.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=258978
Settlers Occupy a Palestinian Mountain In Nablus
A group of right-wing, armed, Israeli settlers occupied a 500-Dunam Palestinian mountain south of Nablus city, in the northern part of the West Bank.
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57868
Activism/Solidarity/Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment
Israeli Apartheid Week--coming to a city near you!
Check out this video for Israeli Apartheid Week 2010 in Toronto, and then get resources for organizing Israeli Apartheid Week events in your area by clicking here.
http://endtheoccupationblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/israeli-apartheid-week-coming-to-city.html
Scattered Palestinian protests reflect a fractured struggle
NABI SALEH, West Bank — The villagers prepared for battle, piling up rocks in the streets, erecting barricades out of rubbish bins, and wrapping their faces in trademark Palestinian chequered scarves. But only a few dozen people gathered in front of a line of Israeli troops to chant against the takeover of nearby land by Jewish settlers, and they soon scattered before a deafening salvo of tear gas and sound grenades.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jqIPKWjGlhialGyZpKCgEVwMfXMQ
Why are Israelis Demonstrating in Sheikh Jarrah?
Every Friday over the last few weeks, a coalition of Israeli organizations and many private citizens have come to a park on the outskirts of the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah to protest against the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes and the entry of Israeli-Jewish settlers into these homes. The Jerusalem Police has taken a hard-line against the demonstrators, denying them permits and arresting dozens of them. These actions brought Sheikh Jarrah into the headlines, although much of the resulting public discussion in Isarel revolves around issues such as freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate in a democratic state.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ir-amim/why-are-israelis-demonstr_b_445968.html
Pro-Apartheid
Canadian organization attacking Palestinian rights groups
The Board of Directors of Rights & Democracy, a not-for-profit organization created by Canada's parliament in 1988 to encourage and support human rights around the world, recently voted, with substantial objection, to repudiate grants given to Al-Haq and Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, two well-known Palestinian human rights organizations located respectively in the West Bank and in Gaza.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11051.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
Pro-Israel lobbies target Europe
BRUSSELS (IPS) - Defenders of Israel's aggressive stance have for many years been recognized as a powerful force shaping United States foreign policy. A less well-known fact is that the pro-Israel lobby has been making a concerted effort to strengthen its presence in Europe. The lobby's determination to make an impression on European Union (EU) policy-makers was exemplified by a new booklet published on 28 January.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11052.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
Violence and Aggressio and Siege Related Deaths
Gaza Patient Dies Of Kidney Failure
Palestinian medical sources reported on Thursday that a 22-year-old Palestinian patient from Gaza, who was wounded in an Israeli offensive in 2003, died of health complications and kidney failure.
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57866
Israeli Army Breaks Into The Home Of Hebron Legislator
Palestinian sources reported that Israeli soldiers, on Wednesday at dawn, broke into the home of Palestinian Legislator of, Hatem Qafisha, in Wad al-Harya area, south of Hebron in the southern part of the West Bank. The soldiers searched the home and sabotaged its property before breaking into the homes of Sobhi, the brother of Hatem, who was recently released from a Palestinian prison.
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57853
Detainees
Army Kidnaps 29 Palestinians in the West Bank
Israeli soldiers detained, on Thursday at dawn, 29 Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank. Army sources claimed that those detained are on their “wanted-list” by the Israeli security
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57864
The Israeli military detained 12 Palestinian civilians from the West Bank
Twelve Palestinian civilians were detained, on Wednesday, by Israeli troops during pre-dawn invasions targeting a number of West Bank communities.
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57857
Palestinian ex-detainee dies of mistreatment while in occupation jails
Liberated prisoner Mohammed Al-Emle, 26, was pronounced dead on Wednesday in one of Al-Khalil hospitals of kidney failure after he was given wrong medication while in Israeli custody.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7OuaIBI4iZXFpkguXILm%2fYXAUkcD4%2ffJMNS57LlAm2bDTUqfGt9wrCNHoH7tU4uMBmAQETsS65CtICSC5sqvJiEQ6IfFGqSMjcg7%2b0LqpSBg%3d
More Detainees Seeking Higher Education
The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) reported that more Palestinian detainees, imprisoned at the Ramon Israeli prison, are joining the Hebrew Open University. The detainees are also holding seminars and educational sessions. The PPS stated that nearly 100 detainees are currently studying at the open university while three detainees managed to obtain masters degrees despite harsh conditions and ongoing violations by the army.
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57854
Hasan Ghafry marks 21 years in Israeli prison Thursday
Gaza – Ma'an – Palestinian detainee Hasan Ghafry marks today his 21st year in Israeli prison on Thursday, having spent more than half of his life incarcerated, detainees affairs experts announced.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=259032
Human Rights/Humanitarian Issues/Siege
Gaza underground wall enters final stage of construction
North Sinai -- The steel barrier Egypt is erecting along its border with the Gaza Strip has reportedly reached the final stage of construction, with eyewitnesses saying that 45 trucks bearing reinforced steel sheets had arrived at the site within the last two days. Sections of the barrier in the north and south of the divided border city of Rafah have already been completed. The last stage, now under construction, runs through the heavily populated Salah Eddin corridor, where the majority of alleged Palestinian smuggling tunnels--used to supply the besieged enclave with badly needed food and medicine--are located.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/border-barrier-enters-final-stage-construction
Gaza's water supply near collapse
The Gaza Strip's underground water supply is in danger of collapse due to overuse and contamination, exacerbated by Israel's offensive in December. Billions of dollars could be needed over the next 20 years to restore Gaza's aquifer. Meanwhile, Palestinians have taken the onus of re-developing their water system before matters get any worse Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04iJuuF928E&feature=youtube_gdata
Adjusting to life one year after Israel's war on Gaza
Hala Shunar's life was on track until her dreams were derailed by Israel's 22-day war on Gaza. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaEK1pGEQe8&feature=youtube_gdata
Chicken farmer restarts his business after Gaza war
Hundreds of businesses were wiped out during Israel's war on Gaza last year, inclduing Abdul Shadi who raised chickens for a living. He lost 10 commercial chicken farms inthe war and went bankrupt. Abdul Shadi is back at work but along much more modest lines. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports from the impverished Gaza strip where he joins Abdul Shadi on his first trip back to the market.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du8wUz0rZdo&feature=youtube_gdata
Nightmares continue to plague Gaza children
OCCUPIED GAZA STRIP (IRIN) - Mona al-Samouni, 12, is depressed and has nightmares about the day -- just more than a year ago -- when she witnessed her parents and a number of relatives being shot by Israeli soldiers in their home in Zeitoun, southeast of Gaza City. Like a number of other children who witnessed horrific events during last year's 23-day Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, Mona has become increasingly withdrawn and silent -- common ways of coping with tragedies, doctors say.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11053.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
Beware the Iron Wall, the Coming War, Ramzy Baroud
The Israeli military may be much less effective in winning wars than it was in the past, thanks to the stiffness of Arab resistance. But its military strategists are as shrewd and unpredictable as ever. The recent rhetoric that has escalated from Israel suggests that a future war in Lebanon will most likely target Syria as well. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Israel actually intends on targeting either of these countries in the near future, it is certainly the type or language that often precedes Israeli military maneuvers.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15725
Interview: "We need a new, united strategy as one people"
The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), based in Nazareth, is one of the first human rights organizations in Israel, founded during the first Palestinian intifada by lawyers and community activists to monitor human rights violations. The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof recently interviewed Mohammad Zeidan, the general director of HRA.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11050.shtml?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+electronicIntifadaPalestine+%28Electronic+Intifada+%3A+Palestine+News%29
Discrimination
Israel Exiles A Detainee To Gaza, Aim At Expelling Nine To Jordan
Less than one month after detaining him in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, Israeli soldiers exiled a detainee, Baker al-Hafi, to the Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57865
Israel expels West Bank resident to Gaza
GAZA, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Israel deported a Palestinian from the West Bank to the isolated, Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Thursday, a Palestinian prisoners rights association said. The Palestinian Prisoner Club said in a statement that Baker al- Haffi has spent nearly one month in an Israeli detention center after he was arrested in Tulkarem city in the West Bank. According to the statement, al-Haffi's ID card indicates that he was originally from Gaza and that's why Israel has expelled him. Al-Haffi is married to a woman from the West Bank and had lived there for 10 years. He also has two children, a house and a farm in Tulkarem.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-02/04/c_13163965.htm
Astonishing Israeli travel ban on Palestinian East Jerusalem map expert for "security reasons"
Citing "security reasons" - the ubiquitous and unanswerable catch-all phrase against which it is almost impossible to mount any defense -- Israel's Ministry of the Interior has just issued a six-month travel ban on Palestinian map expert Khalik Toufakji. (His name is also spelled, in an alternative transliteration from Arabic into English, as Tafakji). Toufakji, like other East Jerusalem Palestinians, is a "Permanent Resident" of the State of Israel -- but is not an Israeli citizen.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/140125
War Criminals and Their Enablers
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister: Goldstone report to find its propoer place in dustbin of history
Ayalon stressed that all the civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip during the "Operation Cast Lead" resulted from Hamas' of residents of Gaza as human shields.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2059287&Language=en
U.S.: Easing Gaza siege would help counter Goldstone
The United States has suggested to Israel that easing the Gaza blockade would help counter the fallout from the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead a year ago.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147463.html
Judt: Obama joined Netanyahu’s campaign to denigrate & deny a brave Jew, Goldstone
We Jews should be very proud of Richard Goldstone. In an ancient tradition of Jewish self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling, the author of the recent report from the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict has braved personal vilification and institutional mendacity to describe the crimes committed by Israeli forces in the course of their invasion of Gaza in December 2008. To be sure, the Goldstone Report also itemizes the crimes of Hamas, notably in its campaign of rocket firing into Israel. But the scale of human rights abuses by Israel vastly outdoes anything Hamas could hope to have achieved: Israeli civilian victims of Hamas rocket attacks numbered less than ten. The attack on Gaza by the IDF resulted in at least 1,100 Palestinian civilian deaths. The major perpetrator of human rights abuses in this conflict is without question the State of Israel, and Justice Goldstone records as much.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/judt-obama-joined-netanyahus-campaign-to-denigrate-deny-a-brave-jew-goldstone.html
This Time We Went Too Far, Norman Finkelstein
"Better than any other book, This Time We Went Too Far shows how the massive destruction visited on Gaza was not an accidental byproduct of the Israeli invasion but its barely concealed objective."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amqp4NzMyrc&feature=player_embedded
Palestinian government in Gaza submits official response to Goldstone report
The Palestinian government in Gaza submitted its official response to the office of the high commissioner for human rights regarding the recommendations of Goldstone report.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7i0dJ3muLhJCvme5V7UMUStbC005zC4DWeRmj1PKt310VxO6o5sVN3yL4eX%2bZ9%2fdU7ETCr89PNQiu2PnWoClFyZvtaKerj7Y%2bgAIGsdye4Ws%3d
Political Developments/Diplomacy
Haniyeh: Gaza is open for all
Gaza – Ma'an – De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that reconciliation is a national necessity, speaking at a meeting with businessman Munib Al-Masri in Gaza City. Welcoming Fatah leader Nabil Sha'ath, who arrived the same afternoon, Haniyeh asserted that Gaza "is open for all."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=258920
Hamas denied entry to Dubai after killing
DUBAI AND RAMALLAH // Dubai’s chief of police, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, confirmed that a Hamas delegation would not be allowed to enter the UAE following the slaying of one of its senior operatives in the emirate. Mahmoud al Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room on January 20. Gen Tamim said: “We will not allow a Hamas delegation to enter the country, and we will only deal with the Palestinian Embassy and consulate, which are the official representatives in the country. We do not acknowledge the differences. For us, there is only one Palestine, not two.”
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100204/NATIONAL/702039836/1010
Abu Marzouk denies involvement of Arab countries in assassination of Mabhouh
Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk has denied Hebrew press reports that Arab countries were involved in the assassination of Qassam commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel.
http://www.ynetnews.com/Israel to raze 200 Palestinian homes in E Jerusalem
Israeli authorities plan to seal 200 Palestinians homes in East Jerusalem Al-Quds to counter what they call "discriminatory enforcement" against Israeli settlers. The East Jerusalem Al-Quds Mayor Nir Barkat announced the decision after the State Prosecutor Moshe Lador criticized the municipality's refusal to carry out a Supreme Court order to seal the Jewish-owned Beit Yehonatan building in East Jerusalem Al-Quds. The building, which houses Israeli settlers, was illegally built in the city's neighborhood of Silwan in 2004. In a letter written to the prosecutor on Wednesday, Barkat agreed to implement the sealing order but added that he would also act to tear down 200 "illegal" Palestinian homes in the area.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.
The Israeli Military Invades Areas Near Gaza City & Destroys Farm Lands
Israeli tanks and bulldozers invaded residential areas and farm lands, east of Gaza City on Wednesday afternoon. Witnesses said that ten Israeli tanks and a number of bulldozers stormed eastern areas of Gaza City close to the boarders with Israel. As tanks opened fire at nearby resident’s homes, bulldozers destroyed farm lands, the witnesses added. Earlier on Wednesday morning Israeli jet fighters shelled a number of areas in the Gaza Strip. The shelling left one Palestinian dead and two injured.
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Raze Illegal Buildings — Unless They Are Jewish
SILWAN, East Jerusalem — Backed by armed security men, the municipal inspectors race their jeeps through the narrow alleyways and up a hillside crowded with buildings. Some of the homes are well-faced with stone; the naked concrete of others gives off something of a temporary air
http://original.antiwar.com/
New checkpoint targets Tulkarem farmers
Tulkarem - Ma'an - Israeli military personnel completed the installation of a partial checkpoint and search station Wednesday for farmers in the Tulkarem area who pass through Gate 753 on their way to lands cut off by the separation wall.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Settlers Occupy a Palestinian Mountain In Nablus
A group of right-wing, armed, Israeli settlers occupied a 500-Dunam Palestinian mountain south of Nablus city, in the northern part of the West Bank.
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Activism/Solidarity/Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment
Israeli Apartheid Week--coming to a city near you!
Check out this video for Israeli Apartheid Week 2010 in Toronto, and then get resources for organizing Israeli Apartheid Week events in your area by clicking here.
http://endtheoccupationblog.
Scattered Palestinian protests reflect a fractured struggle
NABI SALEH, West Bank — The villagers prepared for battle, piling up rocks in the streets, erecting barricades out of rubbish bins, and wrapping their faces in trademark Palestinian chequered scarves. But only a few dozen people gathered in front of a line of Israeli troops to chant against the takeover of nearby land by Jewish settlers, and they soon scattered before a deafening salvo of tear gas and sound grenades.
http://www.google.com/
Why are Israelis Demonstrating in Sheikh Jarrah?
Every Friday over the last few weeks, a coalition of Israeli organizations and many private citizens have come to a park on the outskirts of the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah to protest against the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes and the entry of Israeli-Jewish settlers into these homes. The Jerusalem Police has taken a hard-line against the demonstrators, denying them permits and arresting dozens of them. These actions brought Sheikh Jarrah into the headlines, although much of the resulting public discussion in Isarel revolves around issues such as freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate in a democratic state.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Pro-Apartheid
Canadian organization attacking Palestinian rights groups
The Board of Directors of Rights & Democracy, a not-for-profit organization created by Canada's parliament in 1988 to encourage and support human rights around the world, recently voted, with substantial objection, to repudiate grants given to Al-Haq and Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, two well-known Palestinian human rights organizations located respectively in the West Bank and in Gaza.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Pro-Israel lobbies target Europe
BRUSSELS (IPS) - Defenders of Israel's aggressive stance have for many years been recognized as a powerful force shaping United States foreign policy. A less well-known fact is that the pro-Israel lobby has been making a concerted effort to strengthen its presence in Europe. The lobby's determination to make an impression on European Union (EU) policy-makers was exemplified by a new booklet published on 28 January.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Violence and Aggressio and Siege Related Deaths
Gaza Patient Dies Of Kidney Failure
Palestinian medical sources reported on Thursday that a 22-year-old Palestinian patient from Gaza, who was wounded in an Israeli offensive in 2003, died of health complications and kidney failure.
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Israeli Army Breaks Into The Home Of Hebron Legislator
Palestinian sources reported that Israeli soldiers, on Wednesday at dawn, broke into the home of Palestinian Legislator of, Hatem Qafisha, in Wad al-Harya area, south of Hebron in the southern part of the West Bank. The soldiers searched the home and sabotaged its property before breaking into the homes of Sobhi, the brother of Hatem, who was recently released from a Palestinian prison.
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Detainees
Army Kidnaps 29 Palestinians in the West Bank
Israeli soldiers detained, on Thursday at dawn, 29 Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank. Army sources claimed that those detained are on their “wanted-list” by the Israeli security
http://www.imemc.org/index.
The Israeli military detained 12 Palestinian civilians from the West Bank
Twelve Palestinian civilians were detained, on Wednesday, by Israeli troops during pre-dawn invasions targeting a number of West Bank communities.
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Palestinian ex-detainee dies of mistreatment while in occupation jails
Liberated prisoner Mohammed Al-Emle, 26, was pronounced dead on Wednesday in one of Al-Khalil hospitals of kidney failure after he was given wrong medication while in Israeli custody.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
More Detainees Seeking Higher Education
The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) reported that more Palestinian detainees, imprisoned at the Ramon Israeli prison, are joining the Hebrew Open University. The detainees are also holding seminars and educational sessions. The PPS stated that nearly 100 detainees are currently studying at the open university while three detainees managed to obtain masters degrees despite harsh conditions and ongoing violations by the army.
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Hasan Ghafry marks 21 years in Israeli prison Thursday
Gaza – Ma'an – Palestinian detainee Hasan Ghafry marks today his 21st year in Israeli prison on Thursday, having spent more than half of his life incarcerated, detainees affairs experts announced.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Human Rights/Humanitarian Issues/Siege
Gaza underground wall enters final stage of construction
North Sinai -- The steel barrier Egypt is erecting along its border with the Gaza Strip has reportedly reached the final stage of construction, with eyewitnesses saying that 45 trucks bearing reinforced steel sheets had arrived at the site within the last two days. Sections of the barrier in the north and south of the divided border city of Rafah have already been completed. The last stage, now under construction, runs through the heavily populated Salah Eddin corridor, where the majority of alleged Palestinian smuggling tunnels--used to supply the besieged enclave with badly needed food and medicine--are located.
http://www.almasryalyoum.com/
Gaza's water supply near collapse
The Gaza Strip's underground water supply is in danger of collapse due to overuse and contamination, exacerbated by Israel's offensive in December. Billions of dollars could be needed over the next 20 years to restore Gaza's aquifer. Meanwhile, Palestinians have taken the onus of re-developing their water system before matters get any worse Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Adjusting to life one year after Israel's war on Gaza
Hala Shunar's life was on track until her dreams were derailed by Israel's 22-day war on Gaza. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Chicken farmer restarts his business after Gaza war
Hundreds of businesses were wiped out during Israel's war on Gaza last year, inclduing Abdul Shadi who raised chickens for a living. He lost 10 commercial chicken farms inthe war and went bankrupt. Abdul Shadi is back at work but along much more modest lines. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports from the impverished Gaza strip where he joins Abdul Shadi on his first trip back to the market.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Nightmares continue to plague Gaza children
OCCUPIED GAZA STRIP (IRIN) - Mona al-Samouni, 12, is depressed and has nightmares about the day -- just more than a year ago -- when she witnessed her parents and a number of relatives being shot by Israeli soldiers in their home in Zeitoun, southeast of Gaza City. Like a number of other children who witnessed horrific events during last year's 23-day Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, Mona has become increasingly withdrawn and silent -- common ways of coping with tragedies, doctors say.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Beware the Iron Wall, the Coming War, Ramzy Baroud
The Israeli military may be much less effective in winning wars than it was in the past, thanks to the stiffness of Arab resistance. But its military strategists are as shrewd and unpredictable as ever. The recent rhetoric that has escalated from Israel suggests that a future war in Lebanon will most likely target Syria as well. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Israel actually intends on targeting either of these countries in the near future, it is certainly the type or language that often precedes Israeli military maneuvers.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Interview: "We need a new, united strategy as one people"
The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), based in Nazareth, is one of the first human rights organizations in Israel, founded during the first Palestinian intifada by lawyers and community activists to monitor human rights violations. The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof recently interviewed Mohammad Zeidan, the general director of HRA.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Discrimination
Israel Exiles A Detainee To Gaza, Aim At Expelling Nine To Jordan
Less than one month after detaining him in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, Israeli soldiers exiled a detainee, Baker al-Hafi, to the Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Israel expels West Bank resident to Gaza
GAZA, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- Israel deported a Palestinian from the West Bank to the isolated, Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Thursday, a Palestinian prisoners rights association said. The Palestinian Prisoner Club said in a statement that Baker al- Haffi has spent nearly one month in an Israeli detention center after he was arrested in Tulkarem city in the West Bank. According to the statement, al-Haffi's ID card indicates that he was originally from Gaza and that's why Israel has expelled him. Al-Haffi is married to a woman from the West Bank and had lived there for 10 years. He also has two children, a house and a farm in Tulkarem.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Astonishing Israeli travel ban on Palestinian East Jerusalem map expert for "security reasons"
Citing "security reasons" - the ubiquitous and unanswerable catch-all phrase against which it is almost impossible to mount any defense -- Israel's Ministry of the Interior has just issued a six-month travel ban on Palestinian map expert Khalik Toufakji. (His name is also spelled, in an alternative transliteration from Arabic into English, as Tafakji). Toufakji, like other East Jerusalem Palestinians, is a "Permanent Resident" of the State of Israel -- but is not an Israeli citizen.
http://www.americanchronicle.
War Criminals and Their Enablers
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister: Goldstone report to find its propoer place in dustbin of history
Ayalon stressed that all the civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip during the "Operation Cast Lead" resulted from Hamas' of residents of Gaza as human shields.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/
U.S.: Easing Gaza siege would help counter Goldstone
The United States has suggested to Israel that easing the Gaza blockade would help counter the fallout from the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead a year ago.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Judt: Obama joined Netanyahu’s campaign to denigrate & deny a brave Jew, Goldstone
We Jews should be very proud of Richard Goldstone. In an ancient tradition of Jewish self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling, the author of the recent report from the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict has braved personal vilification and institutional mendacity to describe the crimes committed by Israeli forces in the course of their invasion of Gaza in December 2008. To be sure, the Goldstone Report also itemizes the crimes of Hamas, notably in its campaign of rocket firing into Israel. But the scale of human rights abuses by Israel vastly outdoes anything Hamas could hope to have achieved: Israeli civilian victims of Hamas rocket attacks numbered less than ten. The attack on Gaza by the IDF resulted in at least 1,100 Palestinian civilian deaths. The major perpetrator of human rights abuses in this conflict is without question the State of Israel, and Justice Goldstone records as much.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/
This Time We Went Too Far, Norman Finkelstein
"Better than any other book, This Time We Went Too Far shows how the massive destruction visited on Gaza was not an accidental byproduct of the Israeli invasion but its barely concealed objective."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Palestinian government in Gaza submits official response to Goldstone report
The Palestinian government in Gaza submitted its official response to the office of the high commissioner for human rights regarding the recommendations of Goldstone report.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Political Developments/Diplomacy
Haniyeh: Gaza is open for all
Gaza – Ma'an – De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that reconciliation is a national necessity, speaking at a meeting with businessman Munib Al-Masri in Gaza City. Welcoming Fatah leader Nabil Sha'ath, who arrived the same afternoon, Haniyeh asserted that Gaza "is open for all."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Hamas denied entry to Dubai after killing
DUBAI AND RAMALLAH // Dubai’s chief of police, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, confirmed that a Hamas delegation would not be allowed to enter the UAE following the slaying of one of its senior operatives in the emirate. Mahmoud al Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room on January 20. Gen Tamim said: “We will not allow a Hamas delegation to enter the country, and we will only deal with the Palestinian Embassy and consulate, which are the official representatives in the country. We do not acknowledge the differences. For us, there is only one Palestine, not two.”
http://www.thenational.ae/
Abu Marzouk denies involvement of Arab countries in assassination of Mabhouh
Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk has denied Hebrew press reports that Arab countries were involved in the assassination of Qassam commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7Fz7RrbHEB2rjkcafr6oog71nOZAiTDCsoJ84CyITwSsioBzQMGbCYsT4uR1G22u6%2fkG%2bOJMA%2byw1WyBafvEE3hpgDr2LpE1p6tpVIy63m5A%3d
Fatah official visits Hamas-ruled Gaza for 1st time since '07 coup
For the first time since Hamas ousted President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction from rule in the Gaza Strip in 2007, an official from the Fatah government in the West Bank visited the coastal enclave on Wednesday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147289.html
Hamas hosts Fatah leader for unity talks (Reuters)
Reuters - A leader of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group traveled to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip Wednesday for rare talks with the Islamist rival faction on an Egyptian-proposed reconciliation deal.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100203/wl_nm/us_palestinians_egypt_reconciliation
Hamas wants talks with US, Europe: Haniya
GAZA CITY — Hamas is ready for dialogue with the international community, including the United States and European Union, the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Ismail Haniya told AFP. "Hamas is ready to dialogue with the world, international community, the US, the (Middle East) Quartet and the Europeans," Haniya said Wednesday. The Islamist movement, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since June 2007 after a week of vicious street battles with Fatah loyalists, remains a pariah of the international community.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g-PSElwhMssxPj6W6mn80wA27wNA
Meshal to visit Russia next week on Mideast peace
Hamas leader Khaled Meshal will visit Russia next week for talks on ending a Palestinian split and bringing about a resumption of peace talks with Israel, the Russian government said on Thursday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147594.html
Erekat says Palestinians should consider declaring Oslo Accords 'null and void'
Israel, February 4, 2010 (Pal Telegraph; reprinted from The Jerusalem Post, by Khaled Abu Toameh) - A paper prepared by chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat on the status of the peace talks with Israel recommends that the Palestinians consider the possibility of abandoning the two-state solution in favor of a one-state solution if the peace process does not move forward.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/west-bank/4011-erekat-says-palestinians-should-consider-declaring-oslo-accords-null-and-void
Syria: If Israelis declare war, we'll hit their cities
Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem accuses Jewish state of 'playing the role of villain in the region'.
Fatah official visits Hamas-ruled Gaza for 1st time since '07 coup
For the first time since Hamas ousted President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction from rule in the Gaza Strip in 2007, an official from the Fatah government in the West Bank visited the coastal enclave on Wednesday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Hamas hosts Fatah leader for unity talks (Reuters)
Reuters - A leader of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group traveled to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip Wednesday for rare talks with the Islamist rival faction on an Egyptian-proposed reconciliation deal.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Hamas wants talks with US, Europe: Haniya
GAZA CITY — Hamas is ready for dialogue with the international community, including the United States and European Union, the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Ismail Haniya told AFP. "Hamas is ready to dialogue with the world, international community, the US, the (Middle East) Quartet and the Europeans," Haniya said Wednesday. The Islamist movement, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since June 2007 after a week of vicious street battles with Fatah loyalists, remains a pariah of the international community.
http://www.google.com/
Meshal to visit Russia next week on Mideast peace
Hamas leader Khaled Meshal will visit Russia next week for talks on ending a Palestinian split and bringing about a resumption of peace talks with Israel, the Russian government said on Thursday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Erekat says Palestinians should consider declaring Oslo Accords 'null and void'
Israel, February 4, 2010 (Pal Telegraph; reprinted from The Jerusalem Post, by Khaled Abu Toameh) - A paper prepared by chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat on the status of the peace talks with Israel recommends that the Palestinians consider the possibility of abandoning the two-state solution in favor of a one-state solution if the peace process does not move forward.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/
Syria: If Israelis declare war, we'll hit their cities
Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem accuses Jewish state of 'playing the role of villain in the region'.
Assad: Israel leading the Middle East to war
Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Wednesday that Israel is not serious about its intentions to make peace with Damascus as evidenced by "its conduct which is leading the region to war." The Syrian leader made those statements during a meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos in Damascus on Wednesday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Italian Prime Minister Evasive During Bethlehem Press Conference
During the press conference Prime Minister Berlusconi was questioned by a journalist regarding his thoughts on the separation wall that annexes parts of the West Bank to Israel, and his feelings towards the approximately 1,400 Palistinians that died during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. In response to the wall, Berlosconi claimed that he had not seen it, as he had been focusing on his notes for the conference. It should be noted that Prime Minister Berlusconi had to pass through the 9 meter high wall to enter Bethlehem. With regards to those killed in Gaza, Berlusconi stated, “As it is right to cry for the victims of the Holocaust, it is right to express sorrow for the Palestinian victims."
http://www.imemc.org/index.
Ministry Of Mixed Messages
The circus named Berlusconi has left town. During his whistle stop tour of Israel and the West Bank the world's most flamboyant head of state was at his crowd pleasing best. Crying with Netanyahou during a speech to the Knesset, delivering a set of priceless Da Vinci sketches to a local gallery and describing Arabs as “brothers and friends” while snuggling up to Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem. Despite the charm offensive, feathers will have been ruffled both sides of the wall by some of his statements on key issues.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
Inside Story - Hope for Middle East talks?
Inside Story discusses why Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has suddenly lowered his ceiling of demands for resuming peace talks with Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Other News
Report: Israel stole $2 billion from Palestinian workers
Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than $2 billion by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists have revealed. A new report, "State Robbery," to be published later this month, says the "theft" continued even after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994. Jonathan Cook reports.
http://electronicintifada.net/
'U.S. Jews concerned over state of pluralism in Israel'
"I'm not one of those squares yelling out 'you must support Israel, right or wrong,' but I'm leaving a question mark on the whole J Street issue," the Likud minister said, adding that if "J Street can't represent every government in Israel, they can call themselves something else than a lobby. Then, we'll speak to them."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Analysis/Op-ed/Human Interest
Rage at Bronner, and at the Times, Philip Weiss
Toward the end of Ethan Bronner’s appearance at Vassar tonight, a woman in the aisle melted down yelling at him. "What I’m hearing from you is only one side. Your son is in the IDF. You are Jewish… The way you talk is totally pro-Israel." Then Fanny Prizant of Woodstock demanded, What is it about the New York Times? Can’t they get someone else to put across the other side of the story?
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/
54 congresspeople who penned brave Gaza letter may be only 53 now, Philip Weiss
Israel lobbyists are calling the 54 brave congresspeople who signed the letter to Obama against the Gaza blockade "the gang of 54," and trying to light a fire under em. One of them has cold feet.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/
Israel's dual reality, Aluf Benn
Israelis believe in peace, yet the Palestinian issue is met with apathy – except by our leaders, who see it just as a PR problem.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Zionism Laid Bare, KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
The essential point of M. Shahid Alam’s book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece. From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, “You have the light, but you have no humanity. Seek humanity, for that is the goal.” Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston and a CounterPunch contributor, follows this with an explicit statement of his aims in the first paragraph of the preface. Asking and answering the obvious question, “Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism?” he says that he “could have written a book about the economics of Zionism, the Israeli economy, or the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, but how would any of that have helped me to understand the cold logic and the deep passions that have driven Zionism?”
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison02032010.html
Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010
The deliberations in the Knesset yesterday (February 3 2010) breathed new life into Joseph McCarthy’s legacy. After a week of incitement against the New Israel Fund (NIF) and its human rights grantees, the nonsense reached parliament. And as if carefully reading the instructions for would-be new McCarthys (“McCarthysm is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence”), here’s how Israel’s parliament deliberated with the upmost seriousness the “Data transfer for the Goldstone Report by the NIF and lefty organizations”. The discussion did not only demonstrate utter disregard to facts, it actually defied common sense. Here’s an eclectic tasting-menu from yet another day in the ongoing project of dismantling Israel’s democracy.
http://coteret.com/2010/02/04/israeli-mccarthyism-circa-2010/
Iraq
Wednesday: 38 Iraqis Killed, 179 Wounded
from Antiwar.com Original by Margaret GriffisUpdated at 8:58 p.m. EST, Feb. 3, 2009 Despite heightened security, two bombs exploded in or near the holy city of Karbala, where the blasts killed or wounded scores of Shi'ite pilgrims. Overall, at least 38 Iraqis were killed and 179 more were wounded across the country. Meanwhile, an Iraqi appeals court struck down a controversial election ban that prohibited hundreds of candidates from running in March elections. Also, the nation's first female African-American POW has written a book describing her war experiences.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2010/02/03/wednesday-37-iraqis-killed-178-wounded/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+antiwar-original+%28Antiwar.com+Original+Articles%29
Hezbollah Vehemently Condemns Iraq's Suicide Bombings
03/02/2010 Hezbollah vehemently condemned on Wednesday the suicide bombings that targeted crowds of visitors of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) on the outskirts of Karbala, 110 kilometers south of Baghdad, and that caused the martyrdom of tens of them. On Wednesday, a suicide attacker driving a minibus killed 23 Muslim Shiite visitors, including women and children, who were travelling on foot to Karbala, a holy shrine city in central Iraq. The attack came less than 48 hours on another suicide bombing that targeted visitors in Baghdad killing 41 people and injuring about 106 others.
http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=122736&language=en
Iraq govt says decision to unban candidates "illegal"
BAGHDAD, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Iraq's government spokesman said on Thursday that a decision by an appeals panel to delay barring candidates with alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party until after a March election was illegal. "Postponing implementing the law of the Justice and Accountability Commission to after the election is illegal and not constitutional," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement on his website.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6130ZN.htm
New Iraqi media rules raise specter of muzzled past (Reuters)
Reuters - Battling what it says are broadcasts that incite sectarian violence, Iraq wants to impose new restrictions on the media that critics say could bring back draconian censorship last seen under Saddam Hussein.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100204/wl_nm/us_iraq_media
Zebari: Iraq hands over Kuwaitis remains
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari announced that Iraq handed over the remains of 300 Kuwaitis and a large part of the archive by virtue of the Security Council Resolution and Chapter VII provisions. There remains a lot to be returned, he added.
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-44312-Zebari%3A-Iraq-hands-over-Kuwaitis-remains.html
Iraq: Dec '09/Jan '10
IWPR report prompts education ministry to amend its new religious education curriculum. By Abeer Mohammed in Baghdad.
http://www.iwpr.net/EN-icr-f-359893
Lebanon
Lebanon files UN complaint against Israel over abduction
Lebanon filed a complaint against Israel to the UN Security Council Tuesday, protesting the abduction and torture of a shepherd from south Lebanon, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry source said. Israel snatched Rabih Zahra Sunday from an area along Lebanon's border with Israel.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=111430
U.S. and Other World News
Howard Zinn: Myths of the Good Wars Three ‘Holy’ Wars
Video Historian, Author, Playwright: Howard Zinn Sponsored by Cape Codders for Peace and Justice Filmed by Paul Hubbard at the Wellfleet Public Library on 9-13-09.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-d23ma3qz8&feature=player_embedded
Direct Quotes: Bashar Assad, Seymour M. Hersh
I spoke to Bashar Assad, the president of Syria, this winter in Damascus. Assad assumed the presidency after his father’s death, in 2000, when he was thirty-four years old, and he expressed some empathy for President Barack Obama, who, like Assad, was confronted with a steep learning curve. One note: a transcript of our talk, provided by Assad’s office, was generally accurate but it did not include an exchange we had about intelligence. A senior Syrian official had told me that, last year, Syria, which is on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, had renewed its sharing of intelligence on terrorism with the C.I.A. and with Britain’s MI6, after a request from Obama that was relayed by George Mitchell, the President’s envoy for the Middle East. (The White House declined to comment.) Assad said that he had agreed to do so, and then added that he also has warned Mitchell “that if nothing happens from the other side”—in terms of political progress—“we will stop it.”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/02/direct-quotes-bashar-assad.html#ixzz0ea3HIVMt
US court rules Pakistani woman guilty of attempted murder
A Pakistani female neuroscientist has been convicted of trying to kill US soldiers and FBI agents while she was being detained at a police station in Afghanistan. Prosecutors accuse Aafia Siddiqui of firing at her interrogators but her lawyers say there was no forensic evidence that the shooting took place. US authorities have linked Siddiqui to al-Qaeda but she was not charged with any terrorism related activities. Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from New York.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ExxAVSb5-0&feature=youtube_gdata
The lessons of Iraq have been ignored. The target is now Iran | Seumas Milne
The US military buildup in the Gulf and Blair's promotion of war against Tehran are a warning of yet another catastrophe. We were supposed to have learned the lessons of the Iraq war. That's what Britain's Chilcot inquiry is meant to be all about. But the signs from the Middle East are that it could be happening all over again. The US is escalating the military build-up in the Gulf, officials revealed this week, boosting its naval presence and supplying tens of billions of dollars' worth of new weapons systems to allied Arab states.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/03/iraq-inquiry-blair-missile-shield-iran
Saudi activists call for probe of rights violations
* Saudi civil rights group calls for probe of violations
* Lack of reforms, rights violations feed violence, it says
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6111FN.htm
The essential point of M. Shahid Alam’s book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece. From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, “You have the light, but you have no humanity. Seek humanity, for that is the goal.” Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston and a CounterPunch contributor, follows this with an explicit statement of his aims in the first paragraph of the preface. Asking and answering the obvious question, “Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism?” he says that he “could have written a book about the economics of Zionism, the Israeli economy, or the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, but how would any of that have helped me to understand the cold logic and the deep passions that have driven Zionism?”
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Israeli McCarthyism, circa 2010
The deliberations in the Knesset yesterday (February 3 2010) breathed new life into Joseph McCarthy’s legacy. After a week of incitement against the New Israel Fund (NIF) and its human rights grantees, the nonsense reached parliament. And as if carefully reading the instructions for would-be new McCarthys (“McCarthysm is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence”), here’s how Israel’s parliament deliberated with the upmost seriousness the “Data transfer for the Goldstone Report by the NIF and lefty organizations”. The discussion did not only demonstrate utter disregard to facts, it actually defied common sense. Here’s an eclectic tasting-menu from yet another day in the ongoing project of dismantling Israel’s democracy.
http://coteret.com/2010/02/04/
Iraq
Wednesday: 38 Iraqis Killed, 179 Wounded
from Antiwar.com Original by Margaret GriffisUpdated at 8:58 p.m. EST, Feb. 3, 2009 Despite heightened security, two bombs exploded in or near the holy city of Karbala, where the blasts killed or wounded scores of Shi'ite pilgrims. Overall, at least 38 Iraqis were killed and 179 more were wounded across the country. Meanwhile, an Iraqi appeals court struck down a controversial election ban that prohibited hundreds of candidates from running in March elections. Also, the nation's first female African-American POW has written a book describing her war experiences.
http://original.antiwar.com/
Hezbollah Vehemently Condemns Iraq's Suicide Bombings
03/02/2010 Hezbollah vehemently condemned on Wednesday the suicide bombings that targeted crowds of visitors of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) on the outskirts of Karbala, 110 kilometers south of Baghdad, and that caused the martyrdom of tens of them. On Wednesday, a suicide attacker driving a minibus killed 23 Muslim Shiite visitors, including women and children, who were travelling on foot to Karbala, a holy shrine city in central Iraq. The attack came less than 48 hours on another suicide bombing that targeted visitors in Baghdad killing 41 people and injuring about 106 others.
http://www.almanar.com.lb/
Iraq govt says decision to unban candidates "illegal"
BAGHDAD, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Iraq's government spokesman said on Thursday that a decision by an appeals panel to delay barring candidates with alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party until after a March election was illegal. "Postponing implementing the law of the Justice and Accountability Commission to after the election is illegal and not constitutional," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement on his website.
http://www.alertnet.org/
New Iraqi media rules raise specter of muzzled past (Reuters)
Reuters - Battling what it says are broadcasts that incite sectarian violence, Iraq wants to impose new restrictions on the media that critics say could bring back draconian censorship last seen under Saddam Hussein.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/
Zebari: Iraq hands over Kuwaitis remains
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari announced that Iraq handed over the remains of 300 Kuwaitis and a large part of the archive by virtue of the Security Council Resolution and Chapter VII provisions. There remains a lot to be returned, he added.
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/
Iraq: Dec '09/Jan '10
IWPR report prompts education ministry to amend its new religious education curriculum. By Abeer Mohammed in Baghdad.
http://www.iwpr.net/EN-icr-f-
Lebanon
Lebanon files UN complaint against Israel over abduction
Lebanon filed a complaint against Israel to the UN Security Council Tuesday, protesting the abduction and torture of a shepherd from south Lebanon, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry source said. Israel snatched Rabih Zahra Sunday from an area along Lebanon's border with Israel.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
U.S. and Other World News
Howard Zinn: Myths of the Good Wars Three ‘Holy’ Wars
Video Historian, Author, Playwright: Howard Zinn Sponsored by Cape Codders for Peace and Justice Filmed by Paul Hubbard at the Wellfleet Public Library on 9-13-09.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Direct Quotes: Bashar Assad, Seymour M. Hersh
I spoke to Bashar Assad, the president of Syria, this winter in Damascus. Assad assumed the presidency after his father’s death, in 2000, when he was thirty-four years old, and he expressed some empathy for President Barack Obama, who, like Assad, was confronted with a steep learning curve. One note: a transcript of our talk, provided by Assad’s office, was generally accurate but it did not include an exchange we had about intelligence. A senior Syrian official had told me that, last year, Syria, which is on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, had renewed its sharing of intelligence on terrorism with the C.I.A. and with Britain’s MI6, after a request from Obama that was relayed by George Mitchell, the President’s envoy for the Middle East. (The White House declined to comment.) Assad said that he had agreed to do so, and then added that he also has warned Mitchell “that if nothing happens from the other side”—in terms of political progress—“we will stop it.”
http://www.newyorker.com/
US court rules Pakistani woman guilty of attempted murder
A Pakistani female neuroscientist has been convicted of trying to kill US soldiers and FBI agents while she was being detained at a police station in Afghanistan. Prosecutors accuse Aafia Siddiqui of firing at her interrogators but her lawyers say there was no forensic evidence that the shooting took place. US authorities have linked Siddiqui to al-Qaeda but she was not charged with any terrorism related activities. Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from New York.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
The lessons of Iraq have been ignored. The target is now Iran | Seumas Milne
The US military buildup in the Gulf and Blair's promotion of war against Tehran are a warning of yet another catastrophe. We were supposed to have learned the lessons of the Iraq war. That's what Britain's Chilcot inquiry is meant to be all about. But the signs from the Middle East are that it could be happening all over again. The US is escalating the military build-up in the Gulf, officials revealed this week, boosting its naval presence and supplying tens of billions of dollars' worth of new weapons systems to allied Arab states.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Saudi activists call for probe of rights violations
* Saudi civil rights group calls for probe of violations
* Lack of reforms, rights violations feed violence, it says
http://www.alertnet.org/
www.TheHeadlines.org
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