I won’t be posting a report on today’s Kefaya pro-resistance demo, as I couldn’t go. But you can check some demo pix here.
Jano Charbel of dpa who attended the protest told me he was punched and beaten by batton-wielding CSF, who took his bag, and returned it later without his mobile phone nor the money [...]

As with every single posting Baheyya writes, this is a must read…

Not a single conversation thesedays about US policy in the region, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and what have you–that does not end with the question, where are the Arab Americans, and why aren’t they as organized as the pro-Israel lobby. Issandr has blogged several postings about this subject before.
Anyways, Zazou posted some critical comments on Darell [...]

Funny YouTube parody of an English-language Al Jazeera, where every other sentence is “Death to America!” Quite relevant since the real Al Jazeera International should be launched quite soon. A lot of people on the YouTube comments thread found it racist, but I think it’s rather a clever play on perceptions of Al Jazeera.

The Actor’s Guild and the Artists’ Syndicate have called for a sit-in at the UN office in Cairo, today Monday, to protest the Qana massacre.
The actors and artists will assemble in front of the Guild, located in el-Bahr el-A3zam Street in Giza, at noon, and will move in buses and cars to Garden City, where [...]

I’m watching Al-Jazeera now. The channel has just announced that the US State Department said Israel agreed to suspend aerial operations for 48 hours, and will investigate what happened in Qana.
UPDATE: Now Al-Jazeera is saying that “Israel’s temporary suspension of aerial bombardments does not cover missile launch batteries.”

HRW issued a statement denouncing Israel’s massacre in Qana today…
Israel/Lebanon: Israel Responsible for Qana Attack
Indiscriminate Bombing in Lebanon a War Crime
(Beirut, July 30, 2006) – Responsibility for the Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 54 civilians sheltering in a home in the Lebanese village of Qana rests squarely with the Israeli military, Human Rights Watch [...]

I uploaded pix of today’s protests here.
Will be posting a report soon…
UPDATE: Here’s the report….
I arrived in Talaat Harb Sq. few minutes after 7pm, and there were only 20 leftist activists standing in the square, with Palestinian and Lebanese flags, and no security presence.
Earlier in the day, there had been confusion about the protest’s location.
There [...]

An opinion piece by William M. Arkin on the Washington Post blog…

Sickening events in Seattle, where a Muslim-American man killed one woman and wounded five other people, because he was “angry at Israel.” The Arab-Israel conflict is not a Muslim-Jewish conflict, and it should not be turned into one.

Hanady Salman, an editor at as-Safir newspaper, writes about today’s massacre in Qana:
Qana – Sunday July 30th , 2006
Only to let you know that these are 55 civilians, all killed , 20 of them are kids betwween 7 months and 12 years old.
Only to let you know that a number of these children are handicapped, [...]

The following comment came from one of the blog’s readers on the posting I put earlier on the Israeli psy-ops:
To all.
I would like to inform you that your message board has been hijacked by giyus.org. This is a Zionist internet computer system designed by the Israeli government to attack any criticism to Israel and its [...]

More than a 100 (independent and opposition) Members of Parliament marched in the streets today to protest the Israeli military operations in Lebanon, and demanded the expulsion of the Israeli and US ambassadors to Egypt. The MPs left the parliament shortly after noon, chanting “We are all with the resistance,” and marched towards the US [...]

You can find photos of the July 28 NYC solidarity protest here…
UPDATE: I also received this from Arabist reader and friend Shehab in NYC
Yesterday, Jul.29th about 300 Pro Lebanese demonstrators crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Here are some photos.

Once more, Israel shows its “civilized” face in Qana..
Al-Jazeera is reporting 55 civilians dead, mostly women and children, in an Israeli bombardment of a three-story building that was hosting refugees, around 1am. The building contained 63 members of two families, according to Al-Jazeera.
The same town had witnessed Shimon Peres’ 1996 massacring of civilians who took [...]

Eleven Egyptian civil society organizations issued a statement on Saturday, denouncing Israel’s war on Lebanon.

A report by AP on the Israeli pullout…

Here is a rather amusing article by Ralp Peters, a former US Lt. Colonel and a raving pro-Zionist, calling for redrawing the boundaries in the Middle East.

It seems the democratization domino effect Bush expected following the War on Iraq is working the other way around. The US is increasingly inspired by its Arab “allies.” Bush’s proposed detainee bill is a worrying development for anyone who cares about civil liberties. It sounds a bit like the Egyptian emergency law…
Bush submits new terror [...]

Click to download PDF version.

It means “The Free One” — free to stack its guest roster with Republicans, members of the intellectual wing of the Israel lobby and under-represent the Arab world, Democrats and Arab-Americans. Read all about it at Abu Aardvark.

Al-Masri Al-Youm reports that the NDP is about to discipline two of its MPs, who challenged Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif’s speech in parliament.

Depressing…

Arabist reader and friend Ryan O’Kane sent me the following piece he wrote:
An Eye for a Thousand Eyes
The Political Morality of Supporting Israel
Israel’s carefully managed escalation game is sucking the world into political chaos. But its success depends on the world’s moral confusion and paralysis. If we are to act in time to end this [...]

I’m watching Al-Jazeera now. The Channel has run a Reuters report, quoting an Israeli military official, saying Israel will not ask for the “immediate disarmament” of Hizbollah.

Ryan sent me this analysis piece by a Tel Aviv University professor…

Can’t remember if Issandr posted something before or not about this, but when you get the time try following this blog, Arabist reader Chaymaa sent me. It posts good updates, maps and illustrations on the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.
Chaymaa also sent another blog by a French-Lebanese teacher, War on Lebanon, July 2006, which also tries [...]

Shatta Theatre Troop would like to invite you to:
“El Gaw Gameel”
“الجو جميل”
Based on
Louis Calaferte’s “Un Riche, Trois Pauvres”
Directed by Nada Sabet
An absurd play, composed of split second disjointed scenes that bring out the circus in the streets and the street in the circus. The performance is the result of improvisation based on the original [...]

Four Kefaya activists have been detained by State Security Police in the northern city of Port Said last night, Kefaya’s website reported. The four were picked up after they took part in a march to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the nationalization of the Suez Canal.
The detainees are: Youth for Change coordinator Mohamed Hegazi, Fathi [...]

Eih dah?! Give me a break!
Mideast conflict studied for links to Bible

The Guardian ran a good story on the Lebanese resistance fighters…

More on the growing regional support for Hizbollah…

July 28, 2006
Changing Reaction
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 — At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a [...]

One of Israel’s main justifications behind its aggressive bombing of civilian targets in Lebanon has been the claim that Hizbollah is “hiding among civilians.” The Israelis’ lies, as noted before, resembles the the US army’s rubbish about “VC communities” during the Vietnam War–rubbish that was used to justify bombing entire villages back to the stone [...]

A good article from Haaretz on Lebanese support for Hizbollah…
28/07/2006
Analysis / The alternative to Hezbollah may be occupation
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz Correspondent
“So, you don’t want peace? You want war all the time?” asked a young Lebanese participant in a fascinating televised discussion Thursday night on Lebanon’s LBC station. She was addressing a group of young [...]

Time magazine runs written answers sent by Hosni Mubarak to their questions. Nothing fascinating, but look at the language: if Hosni actually wrote or dictated those answer, then George Bush was born and raised in Menoufiya. Makes you wonder who wrote them, using American vernacular (”from day one,” “to say the least,” “a bit too [...]

Via the always excellent Moroccan blogger Larbi.

Another clear example of why things need to change in Washington in the NYT article on Arab and Israeli lobbies’ efforts to gain influence in Congress:
Although people in both diasporas are glued to their television screens, the parallel ends there. While the American Arab and Muslim groups say they are better organized than ever before, [...]

Is there a more disgusting public intellectual anywhere in the world than Bernard Henry-Levy? Disgusting not because of his political views, but because of his smarmy prose, his idées préconçues, his affection for brutal regimes such as Algeria’s or Israel’s? There is a two-page article by him, reporting from Israel, in which you he writes [...]

“I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect — maybe not in intent — the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages.”
“Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the [...]

The Muslim minorities of Europe are a problem. It’s a problem of integration, culture shock, social policy and radicalization of small but vocal groups of Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as political mismanagement. This kind of analysis, though, is just pure racism. It posits a world where all Muslims are radical, none want to integrate, [...]