Mahmoud Abbas, the beleaguered head of the Palestinian Authority, has finally but belatedly admitted that the so-called Peace process with Israel has completely failed and that the Palestinian people will have to seek an alternative to it.

In a speech in Ramallah Thursday evening, Abbas rightly blamed Israel for the collapse of the political process, saying that the PA had carried out "all our commitments and obligations" while Israel continued to steal Palestinian land and build Jewish settlements.

Awatef Al-Assar filled bags of sand to hold down the sides of the tent in a failed attempt to stabilise it. Her children still remember how hard she tried to hold on to the pole of the tent that was sheltering her and her family last winter as the winds blew hard to uproot it. Meanwhile, trying to help, her husband was shaking with cold and fear from the thunder outside. Rainwater swamped the tent as their efforts failed and the tent collapsed on the heads of the children. The entire family was forced to seek refuge at a nearby house.

Israel on Friday rejected a United Nations General Assembly resolution urging an investigation into a report saying war crimes were committed in Gaza, and condemned the world body vote as "completely detached from realities".

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said in response to Thursday's vote that Israel "maintains the right to self-defense", and would "continue to act to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of international terrorism".

The ADL hailed the passage of the unconstitutional "Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which according to the ADL, "provide for expanded federal involvement in investigating and prosecuting hate violence in America." The bill is unconstitutional because it violates the 10th Amendment by granting the Federal Government authority over local and state government in prosecuting hate crimes. It violates the 14th Amendment by granting certain groups special protected status, as well the double jeopardy clause of the 5th amendment. This Bill does not provide equal protection to all Americans, instead it grants special rights to certain groups while making the rest of us 2nd class citizens.

Imprisoned American citizen and Michigan resident Ahlam Mohsen to be deported to the US after being arrested in a Palestinian home taken over by Israeli settlers in Occupied East Jerusalem.

The section begins with the observation: "The terrorists came not, as later in the twentieth century, from Palestinian or Islamist groups but from the Zionist extremists of the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang..."

Andrew adds: "In March 1946, B3a [of MI5] received information from a 'reliable' source in Palestine, in 'direct contact' with the Stern Gang', that 'terrorists are now training their members for the purpose of proceeding to England to assasinate members of His Majesty's Government'.

Israeli tanks have shelled a house in the east of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, leaving at least two people wounded.

Israel dismally fails the requirements of a tolerant pluralistic society, according to a new report from the U.S. State Department.

Despite boasting religious freedom and protection of all holy sites, Israel falls short in tolerance toward minorities, equal treatment of ethnic groups, openness toward various streams within society, and respect for holy and other sites.

"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell
you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." --
US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring and its connections to 9-11.

What is good for Israel isn't always good for the US. Active duty military who try to make their own foreign policy are not just total morons but are in violation of a number of laws. They are technically at war with the United States of America. If it is necessary for veterans to take up weapons to fight against members of our military who are part of an insurrection run by a foreign power, tell me where to sign up.

Last week I was disinvited from my second Jewish conference in two months for poems I’d written in solidarity with Palestinians, poems that make an unapologetic call for justice. Subsequently, I and the poet I was to read with at the J Street conference, wrote a response to being censored. People from all over the country wrote to us supporting free speech, supporting art as a tool for change, supporting real talk about the degradation of Palestinians, and people wrote to let us know they disagreed. Some more thoughtfully than others.

A 575-page blistering report by Justice Richard Goldstone detailing war crimes in Gaza last December is refusing to die despite an aggressive Israeli smear campaign to kill it.

The report, which was favorably voted by the 47-member Human Rights Council in Geneva last month, received overwhelming support Thursday in the 192-member General Assembly.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has said that Israel is not bluffing in its threats to take military action against Iran's contentious nuclear program, in remarks broadcast Friday on Sky News.

"The one who's bluffing is Iran, which is trying to play with cards they don't have," Ayalon told the British station. "All the bravado that we see and the testing and the very dangerous and harsh rhetoric is hiding a lot of weaknesses."

In his landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, on June 4, President Obama vowed to adopt a fair approach toward the Arab-Israel conflict. He criticized the Israeli policy of settlement expansion and repression against Palestinians, and promised to get Israel to freeze all settlement activities in the West Bank and Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) in order to facilitate the resumption of a more genuine peace process.

However, six months later, the Obama Administration’s approach toward the enduring Palestinian crisis seems more or less a mere re-cloning of George Bush’s policies.

Israel’s national paranoia that the international community is bent on holding Israel to a higher standard than the rest of the world has provided an environment where Israel acts with impunity in full view of the entire global community.

This reflexive attitude that Israel can do no wrong is morally bankrupt and exceedingly unhelpful in resolving, in a just manner, the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

Dennis Kucinich had it right when he denounced the House majority for going along with this. His statement is so powerful that I’m excerpting it at length here.

“Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt,” he said on the House floor on Tuesday. “Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.

U.N. inspectors found "nothing to be worried about" in a first look at a previously secret uranium enrichment site in Iran last month, the International Atomic Energy chief said in remarks published Thursday.

The United States on Wednesday openly eschewed a United Nations General Assembly debate on a resolution that would call on Israel and the Palestinians to investigate charges of war crimes during the Gaza war detailed in the Goldstone Commission's report.

Every few weeks you have to sow fear, every few months you need to make threats, and once every year or two you have to have another little war. Blind cooperation between the defense establishment and the media holds the promise of another round of fighting. In that way, it's possible to escape some of the blame from the Goldstone report and wallow in the conditions we love best: being the victim, feeling threatened and uniting in the face of the great external danger allegedly in the offing.

New York Mets called on to cancel settlement fundraiser

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, spoke at the opening of a UN General Assembly debate on a report accusing Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza, saying that the report was "conceived in hate and executed in sin."

Perhaps more important than what the speakers said—which rarely strayed from the anti-Goldstone, pro-Iran-sanctions line—was who the right-wing, pro-Israel organizers succeeded in attracting to their six hour conference. The speakers list alone was a statement of the group’s continued political muscle in Washington.

Rejecting the call for accountability also harms the US government's ability to push for justice in other parts of the world, such as the Congo and Darfur. When Washington turns a blind eye on violations by Israel, it gives abusive governments and their supporters a way to deflect criticisms of their unlawful conduct. It also dilutes President Obama's message in Cairo that the United States will take a more principled stance in the Middle East.

This approach and this resolution will not help Israel or the region. Instead of denouncing the report, members of Congress should urge Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations, bring those responsible to justice and halt the unlawful attacks on civilians that for too long has fueled hatred and hindered efforts at peace.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the ship carrying hundreds of tons of weapons believed to have originated in Iran and meant for Hezbollah, which Israel intercepted early Wednesday, constituted a war crime that should be reviewed by United Nations bodies.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Steven J. Rosen will be allowed to move ahead with his civil defamation lawsuit against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosen and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman were indicted under the 1917 Espionage Act in 2005 along with Department of Defense Employee Col. Lawrence Franklin for passing classified national defense informaiton. Franklin pled guilty, but Rosen and Weissman’s case never went to trial — US attorneys gave up (PDF) after the presiding judge made a successful prosecution unlikely.

It was further emphasized that "Iran is challenging the UN Security Council and poses a strategic threat to the stability and peace of the world."

As a former company commander with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam, and a graduate of the National Security Course, National Defense University, Washington, DC and as a retired brigadier general who served active army duty in the Middle East, I ask you to break away from the strangling Israeli lobby, AIPAC, and do the right thing for peace in the Middle East. This Israeli lobby has been corrupting our politicians far too long and has resulted in more violence than ever between the Israelis and the Palestinians with no sign of any improvement in years ahead. In addition, the Israelis have nearly wiped Gaza and south Lebanon off the map with their disproportionate attacks.

The General Assembly today began its debate on the report of the United Nations probe which found that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants were guilty of serious human rights violations during the Gaza conflict earlier this year.

The report is the result of a three-month investigation, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, a former prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.

The report accused Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group, which has de facto control of Gaza, of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January.

But most of its criticism was directed towards Israel's conduct during the offensive, in which human rights organisations say about 1,400 Palestinians - many of them women and children - were killed.

Palestinians may have to abandon the goal of an independent state if Israel continues to expand Jewish settlements and the United States does not stop it, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Wednesday.

Israel's ambassador to Turkey was forced to cancel a university visit in the country's Black Sea region on Wednesday after a group of students pelted his car with eggs.

Ambassador Gabby Levy was scheduled to visit Karadeniz Teknik University in the port city of Trabzon where he was met by students protesting Israel's military operation in Gaza earlier this year.

The latest visit by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to Occupied Palestine seems to have effectively terminated whatever hopes the Palestinians and other Arabs may have pinned on the Obama administration to adopt an evenhanded approach toward the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Yesterday and while politicians fret over terms like “slow-down” or “restraint” on illegal settlement activities, the Israeli authorities demolished more homes and evicted some 30 people in Jerusalem.

ADL director to Goldstone: As a good Jew, repudiate report

Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, stated Tuesday that he believes a new war in Gaza is nearing, and that the army is readying to target Qassam launching pads, located in densely populating areas in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the Hamas movement in Gaza said that the Israeli statements regarding Hamas’ successful tests on news "missiles’ clearly prove that Israel is trying to divert world attention from the Goldstone report.

The Movement of Hamas categorically denied an Israeli allegation that it conducted successful experiments on a missile with a range of 60 km that may reach Tel Al-Rabi (Tel Aviv).

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said this allegation is a proactive step taken by Israel to influence the world opinion prior to the discussion of the Goldstone report in the UN general assembly.

An Iranian ship was attacked in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea by the Israeli navy early on Wednesday morning, while apparently on its way to Lebanon.

Newly released British documents contain a claim by an unnamed contact that the Shin Bet security service collaborated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to hijack the June 1976 flight from Israel that was diverted to Entebbe, Uganda, the BBC reported Friday.

Israel's rescue of the dozens of hostages taken in the hijacking of the Air France plane, popularly known as the Entebbe raid, is considered one of the most daring and successful operations in Israeli history. Elite Israel Defense Forces troops stormed the airport where the hostages, many of them Israeli, were held and overpowered the hijackers and Ugandan soldiers.

The Obama administration has concluded that an early resumption of high-level negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians over a Palestinian state is unlikely in the near future -- an acknowledgment that it has fallen short, for now, on one of its major initial foreign policy goals.

Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, director of Military Intelligence, announced Tuesday that Hamas launched a rocket some 60 kilometers into the sea, apparently as an experiment. Such a rocket, if fired from the northernmost point of the Gaza Strip, could strike the southern cities of the Gush Dan area - including Rishon Letzion, Holon and Bat Yam - and possibly reach as far as Tel Aviv itself.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the U.S stance toward Israeli settlement building to worried Arab allies on Wednesday, saying Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praises military for successful operation that led to seizure of arms ship meant for Hezbollah. Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin says incident 'reminder of constant struggle against terror – which UN debate on Goldstone Report makes difficult'

The Israeli Navy detained a ship loaded with weapons that was traveling about 100 miles west of the country's coast and headed to Syria, Israeli officials said Wednesday.

Back in 2007, we wrote that AIPAC has an "almost
unchallenged hold on Congress." Little has happened since then to alter that conclusion, and
we will probably get another demonstration of Congressional spinelessness this
week. On Tuesday, the House is scheduled to vote on H.R. 867, an AIPAC-sponsored resolution denouncing the recent
Goldstone Report on possible war crimes by Hamas and Israel during the Gaza War
last year. You can read the

Rioting settlers forced a Palestinian family from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah out of their home on Tuesday, after the district court denied the residents' appeal to remain on the premises.

Shortly after the verdict was passed dozens of settlers stormed into the house with hired security guards, and demanded that the family vacate immediately.

Whereas such actions on the part of the Secretary of State, and/or the US Ambassador would be unfortunate, our concern is that even if by some chance the Goldstone Report does reach the UN Security Council, the US will use its veto to prevent the Security Council from referring the report to the International Criminal Court, thereby preventing the initiation of an investigation into the allegations made in the report, as required by article 53 of the Rome Statute.

Strategically, Israel is obviously a huge burden for the US, making relations with Muslim or Arab nations much harder, and undermining any attempt to portray American intervention in, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, as beneficent rather than predatory. It’s a big drain on the Treasury, as Israel consumes a vast amount of military and non-military aid.

Anyone listening to Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas these days would think the man is a paragon of democracy and liberty. Abbas, who has remained at the helm of the PA despite the expiration of his term in office, has been exhorting Palestinians to prepare for “presidential and legislative elections” which he called a “constitutional imperative.”

However, a deeper look into Abbas’s behaviors at home shows that the PA Chairman is not really interested in holding true, free and honest elections. After all, actions speak louder than words.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, sought to deflect the anger and disappointment of pro-western Arab states today after backing Israel's position that it did not need to freeze settlement activity as a prelude to resuming peace talks with the Palestinians.

Jews took over another house in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday in what Palestinians say is a systematic campaign to drive them out and strengthen Israel's hold on all of Jerusalem.

The house, built 10 years ago by the al-Kurd family, is the seventh this year to be awarded to Jewish settlers following legal battles in the Israeli courts, where the Palestinians say a fair hearing is impossible to obtain.

We enjoyed summer weather in Jerusalem until about a week ago. The days were hot, the evenings were cool…. but not cold. There wasn’t a sign of rain. This literally changed overnight as cold winds and rain turned the clock into winter mode.

That’s when the Israeli authorities decided to destroy the tent that an evicted family was living in.

So let's decide: Who was the victim of Operation Cast Lead, them or us?

No question - us. We Israelis were the victims and we still are. In fact, our victimhood is getting worse by the day. The Goldstone report was the real war crime. The Goldstone report, the UN debates, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, B'Tselem, the traitorous soldiers of Breaking the Silence and the Rabin Academy - those were the true crimes against humanity. This is what's meant by "war is hell."

It is we who've been going through hell from the war in Gaza. It is we who've been suffering.

Gazans? Suffering? What's everybody talking about?

We let them eat, don't we?

That the Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen to conduct an international campaign against Justice Goldstone and his report need not surprise us. Israel refused to cooperate with the UN investigation; long before its conclusions were published, Netanyahu had set in motion a campaign to deny and denigrate them. More dispiriting, and of greater political consequence, is the pitiful and humiliating response of the Obama Administration. The "fierce urgency of now" apparently required that Washington join Tel Aviv in discrediting the Goldstone Report, and with it the UN inquiry.

Teitel is also charged with planting several explosive devices in 2006 and 2007 directed at Arabs, Christians and police; sending a bomb hidden in a Purim gift basket to a messianic Jewish family that left a 15-year-old boy seriously injured; and planting a pipe bomb in 2008 near the Jerusalem home of Zeev Sternhell, a prominent left-wing academic.

Some Israeli commentators suggested that had Teitel limited his attacks to Palestinians, Israeli authorities would have left the investigations into the attacks on Palestinians grow cold.

“Teitel’s fatal error was turning on other Jews,” Ha’aretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote Monday. “Had he been satisfied with acts of murder against the Palestinian population, he would never have been caught.”

The Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) reports that nearly 80 truckloads of goods entered Gaza from Israel yesterday through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

The majority of the trucks contained fruit, cooking oil, dairy products, flour, frozen meat, tea and coffee.

A series of controversial Israeli films are provoking outrage and plaudits in equal measure at the London Film Festival.

The best documentary award has gone to one of the year's most controversial films.

Defamation is a polemic by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. In his expose of America's Anti-Defamation League (ADL), he claims anti-Semitism is being exaggerated for political purposes. He argues that American Jewish leaders travel around the world exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel.

However, 'sauce for the goose' etc. and I have decided that from here on out, I will identify all defenders of Israel's actions in Palestine and all those who are fighting to block the bringing of war crimes charges against Israel for Operation CAST LEAD as "Goldstone Deniers".

I feel that this is perfectly appropriate because the "Holocaust Denier" label is used to claim that the denier is trying to conceal NAZI Germany's atrocities. Therefore, those who are trying to conceal Israel's atrocities should be accorded the same treatment. After all, they are indeed trying to deny the atrocities which took place inside Palestine.

Netanyahu mentioned the steps taken by his government to this end: "We did things that have not been done by any prior government. We removed hundreds of road blocks and checkpoints. We have taken steps to ease their lives and the Palestinian economy. The result of this is unprecedented prosperity in the Palestinian Authority."

We have recently witnessed a number of Government Ministers cancel trips abroad for fear they would be prosecuted as war criminals. This is the reality of the State of Israel, it is a state that is under the control of criminals. Just what are they expected to do?

Netanyahu Scores Victory as US Abandons All Settlement Demands
Peace Process Likely Dead After Clinton Touts Israel’s Commitment

mary rizzo
Mary Rizzo will be interviewed by Lauren Booth again
on Press TV’s show about Palestine (seasonal viruses permitting!)
There are some great guests, including the absolutely wonderful
Brenda Heard of Friends of Lebanon with Hussein, a child victim of a
toy-shaped cluster bomb.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s acceptance of an Israeli position that fell short of a total settlement freeze moved the U.S. closer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance, while leaving Palestinians unimpressed and unwilling to resume peace talks.

Following a landmark referendum, students at the UK's Sussex University in Brighton this week voted to boycott Israeli goods.