There’s been much about Jeffrey Goldberg’s New York Times piece about how the powerful members of Zionist groups in America are being, er, more Catholic than the Pope (more Talmudic than the Rabbi?) in their inflexibility on the issue of West Bank settlements. Yes, it’s good that a prominent Jewish-American journalist and former IDF soldier [...]

From Electronic Intifada:
A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.

A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group [...]

The Guardian writes on the occasion of the London Palestine Film Festival:
Perhaps Palestinian cinema cannot help but be ironic, when the most widely known cinematic images of Palestine are those that close Otto Preminger’s 1960 film Exodus and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. In Exodus, youthful Israeli forces win a decisive battle against the old-world savagery [...]

From Hillary Clinton’s website, her position on the two-state solution:
Hillary Clinton believes that Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned.
The fact that the Clintons, after George W. Bush, are the worse thing that [...]

The latest Times Literary Supplement has a review piece on several books about al-Qaeda, notably its ideology. Here’s a passage worth highlighting from Jihadi studies:

“Although his discourse has evolved, there are some constants, one of which is Palestine. For some curious reason, there has emerged a perception – particularly in the US – [...]

In light of the recent news that Israel is yet again expanding West Bank settlements (by the way take a look at the wording of the headline and lead on that Post story), it’s worth highlighting an excellent article on the issue in the London Review of Books.
LRB · Henry Siegman: Grab more hills, expand [...]

Cheney issues strong defense of Israel.

On the recruitment of collaborators in pre-1948 Palestine:

In his groundbreaking book Army of Shadows, Hillel Cohen, a research fellow at Hebrew University’s Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, exposes this particularly nefarious side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cohen has spent years in numerous Israeli and British archives gathering information that many would [...]

This post is not about Ron Paul, since I am not a libertarian and do not agree with most of his views outside of foreign policy (specifically his argument for the end of American empire in the Middle East and major cuts in defense spending). But there is something deeply wrong with Congress when this [...]

I haven’t had time to read the explosive Vanity Fair article on the US-Fatah coup attempt against Hamas yet, but from what I hear about it, it would confirm many of the allegations made around the time of Gaza takeover and that has been published in the Arabic press and elsewhere, not to mention some [...]

Classy guys these Israelis:

Israeli leaders are warning of an imminent conflagration in Gaza after Palestinian militants aimed rockets at the southern city of Ashkelon.
The deputy defence minister said the stepped-up rocket fire would trigger what he called a “bigger holocaust” in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip.
Israeli air strikes have killed about 30 Palestinians, including six children [...]

Does anyone know how to get hold of this?

[Thanks, M]

Charming:

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt said on Thursday it would no longer tolerate Palestinians infiltrating the country from the Gaza Strip, and threatened to break the legs of anyone crossing the Rafah border illegally. “Anyone who breaches the border will have their legs broken,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit was quoted as saying by the [...]

Can you help me tell these gentlemen apart? One of them is Shimon Peres, the other is Skeletor, Evil Lord of Destruction.

Suicide bomber kills one in Dimona - Haaretz
And did he cross from Egypt?

US withdraws Mideast resolution:

UNITED NATIONS - Because of Israeli objections, the United States suddenly withdrew a U.N. resolution endorsing this week’s agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement — even though the measure had overwhelming Security Council support.
The U.S. about-face in less than 24 hours on Friday surprised [...]

Reading the New York Times’ editorials on Annapolis, full of praise for “moderates” and worrying about who shook whose hand, I am reminded of why I barely read that newspaper anymore. The reporting is occasionally good, such as the very nice long feature on radicalism in northern Morocco a few days ago, but when it [...]

Palestinian source: Wide gaps remain as summit nears - Haaretz:
A Palestinian source has told Haaretz that there is still too much of a gulf between the positions of Israel and the Palestinians, who are currently working on a joint document ahead of a peace conference set for next Tuesday in Annapolis, Maryland.
The sources says that [...]

Just got wind of this:
Fifty Israeli peace and human rights activists have approached Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, via the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, calling upon him to immediately open the Rafah Border Crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to free movement of persons and goods, and thus break the siege imposed at the [...]