Mid East

News from the Hotbed of Religious Stupidity

Bush: 'absolutely committed' to deal for Palestinian state (AP)

AP - President Bush, trying to reassure Palestinians wary of his dedication to their side in the Mideast peace dispute, said Saturday that he is "absolutely committed" to getting an Israeli-Palestinian accord by the end of the year.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Iraq (AP)

AP - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a top Democratic critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, expressed confidence during a visit to Iraq on Saturday that expected provincial elections will promote national reconciliation.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Lebanese leaders aim to end political crisis (AP)

AP - Leaders of Lebanon's U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition met behind closed doors in Qatar on Saturday for the highest-level talks so far in the country's 18-month-long political crisis, which turned violent a week ago.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Israeli army arrests 10 in Gaza raid

Israeli forces arrested 10 Palestinians during a raid carried out in southeast Gaza Stripafter midnight, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said on Saturday. The witnesses said that at least seven tanks and four bulldozers ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Iraq Veterans Describe Atrocities to Lawmakers

Excerpt: Antiwar veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took their case to Capitol Hill Thursday, baring their souls with stories of killings of innocent civilians, torture and wrongful detentions.

Read more [AntiWar]

On Independence Day, Israeli Arabs Reminded of Their Place

Excerpt: It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties. Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country's forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue....

Read more [AntiWar]

World's Deadliest Weapon

Excerpt: On the 60th anniversary of the establishment, within the Mandate for Palestine, of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state, President Bush told Israel's legislature, that "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations."

Read more [AntiWar]

Soldier Refuses Iraq Tour, Citing 'Stomach-Churning Horrors'

Excerpt: A US Army soldier who served as a military journalist in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Philippines announced Thursday his intent to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.

Read more [AntiWar]

Saturday: 14 Iraqis Killed, 22 Wounded

Excerpt: At least 14 Iraqis were killed and 22 more were wounded during light violence. A female suicide bomber attacked a Sunni checkpoint in Baquba, while eight bodies were unearthed near Basra. No Coalition deaths were reported.

Read more [AntiWar]

Lebanese rival leaders open crisis talks in Qatar

Lebanon's rival leaders opened their Arab-brokered talks in Doha on Friday, seeking to end a long-running feud to avoid a new civil war, said reports reaching here from the Qatari capital. Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Th ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Iraq' PM offers amnesty for gunmen in Mosul

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki offered members of armed groups in Mosul an amnesty in exchange for weapons, his office said in a statement on Friday. It said that the gunmen have only ten days to show up and hand over their hea ...
Read more [People's Daily]

U.S. supports Lebanon talks in Qatar

The United States said Friday it supports the Arab League-brokered talks in Qatar that is aimed at ending Lebanon's political crisis. "We are pleased that there is now a process, that the fighting in the streets have stopped," said ...
Read more [People's Daily]

UK: Iraqi bombs not accident damaged plane in 2007 (AP)

AP - The British military acknowledged Friday that one of its planes carrying more than 60 people in Iraq was damaged by insurgent fire more than a year after it said there was no immediate indication of hostile action.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Video: McCain’s hypocrisy about the Hamas

May 16: Washington editor of The Nation, Chris Hayes, talks about Sen. John McCain’s previous support of U.S. diplomacy with both Hamas and Syria. Is this another McCain flip-flop? (Countdown)

US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,079 (AP)

AP - As of Friday, May 16, 2008, at least 4,079 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Read more [Yahoo World News]

Saudis reject Bush oil price appeal

Bush's arrival in Israel coincides with release of message, purportedly from al-Qaida, condemning West's support of Israel
Read more [Guardian America]

Frustration for Bush as pledge to Saudis fails to win oil concession

Bush's arrival in Israel coincides with release of message, purportedly from al-Qaida, condemning West's support of Israel
Read more [Guardian Unlimited World]

Treaty for cluster bombs expected during upcoming conference

Support for a ban on cluster weapons has risen sharply since 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, when, according to United Nations estimates, Israeli troops fired some four million Vietnam War-era submunitions, of which a quarter failed to explode.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

Pelosi visits Israel for 60th anniversary events (AP)

AP - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Israel Friday to mark the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Bin Laden says Palestinian cause at heart of jihad (AP)

AP - Osama bin Laden vowed Friday to fight Israel for the liberation of the Palestinians, claiming their cause is at the heart of al-Qaida's holy war with the West.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Lebanese government, opposition head for talks (AP)

AP - Leaders of Lebanon's U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition went to Qatar Friday for the highest-level talks since the country's political crisis began 18 months ago.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Resisting the Nakba

One of the most difficult things to grasp in the modern history of Palestine and the Palestinians is the meaning of the Nakba. Is the Nakba to be seen as a discrete event that took place and ended in 1948, or is it something else? What are the political stakes in reifying the Nakba as a past event, in commemorating it annually, in bowing before its awesome symbolism? What are the effects of making the Nakba a finite historical episode that one bemoans but must ultimately accept as a fact of history? Joseph Massad comments.

Read more [Electronic Intifada]

The Nakba march

Israel's Palestinian minority staged an alternative act of commemoration: a procession to one of more than 400 Palestinian villages erased by Israel in a monumental act of state vandalism after the fighting. In a sign of how far Israel still is from coming to terms with the circumstances of its birth, EI contributor Jonathan Cook reports that this year's march was forcibly broken up by the Israeli police who clubbed unarmed demonstrators with batons and fired tear gas and stun grenades into crowds of families that included young children.
Read more [Electronic Intifada]

Film review: "Shadow of Absence"

"Born in Palestine. Died in Lebanon." "Born in Palestine. Died in Syria." "Born in Palestine. Died in Jordan." The camera pans across an endless row of white tombstones. Shadow of Absence takes death as its subject yet in doing so presents a powerful statement about Palestinian life. Isabelle Humphries reviews director Nasri Hajjaj's new documentary for EI.
Read more [Electronic Intifada]

Spokesman: Gunfire hits Iranian convoy in Baghdad (AP)

AP - An Iranian Embassy convoy came under fire in Baghdad, wounding two Iranian diplomats and two other staff, a spokesman said Friday. Tehran accused the United States of encouraging attacks against Iranian interests in Iraq.

Read more [Yahoo World News]

Zimbabwe journalists urged to safeguard sovereignty

Zimbabwean journalists should safeguard the country's sovereignty and heritage, Palestinian ambassador to Zimbabwe Hashem Dajani has said. Addressing trainee journalists at Harare Polytechnic Press club on Thursday, Dajani urged jo ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Spokesman: Israel, U.S. see need of "tangible action" on Iran nukes

The United States and Israel agreed on the need of "tangible action" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, an Israeli government spokesman said on Friday. "We both see the threat ... and we both understand that tangible a ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Osama bin Laden says Al Qaeda will continue its fight

Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, said in a new audio message released Friday that the terrorist organization will continue its holy war against Israel and its allies until Palestine is liberated.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

Bin Laden vows to continue fighting against Israel, its western allies

The leader of al-Qaida Osama bin Laden has vowed to keep fighting against the Jewish state and its Western allies on the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary in an audio released on an Islamist website Friday. "We will continue the ...
Read more [People's Daily]

Rivals in Lebanon agree to talk to end impasse

The deal was a victory for the Hezbollah-led opposition, which won concessions from the governing coalition on how to end the 18-month political stalemate here.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

In Qatar, Muslim, Jewish clerics meet (AP)

AP - More than a dozen rabbis, including two from Israel, were in attendance this week as this conservative Muslim sheikdom opened one of the Gulf's first scholarly centers dedicated to interfaith dialogue.
Read more [Yahoo World News]

McCain sees U.S. troops leaving Iraq by 2013

John McCain's declaration in a speech was a striking change from his refusal so far to set a date for withdrawal.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

Deal reached on truce in Sadr City

Shiite leaders in Parliament and in the Sadrist movement agreed to a truce that would end more than a month of bloody fighting in the Baghdad ghetto.
Read more [International Herald Tribune]

'Bin Laden' message condemns Israeli anniversary

Internet audio message purportedly from Osama bin Laden vows to continue the fight against the country and its allies
Read more [Guardian Unlimited World]

Jordan to set up joint border free zone with Iraq

Jordan is ready to establish a joint free zone at the Karama border with Iraq to facilitate increasing flows of goods on border, said an official of Jordan's free zones authorities after a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart. The fre ...
Read more [People's Daily]