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Protection of civilians weekly report 22 - 28 Oct 2008
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/ rwb.nsf/db900SID/EDIS-7KWMQK?
OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P
Weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory 23 - 29 Oct 2008
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/ rwb.nsf/db900SID/LSGZ-7KWJZF?
OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P
Hamas policeman killed while taking apart bomb
Explosive device goes at Gaza City police station while security men attempt to dismantle it. Hamas government's Interior Ministry spokesman says policeman died 'as a martyr'.
http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3615686,00.
html
Explosion at Gaza police station kills one -Hamas
A Hamas policeman was killed and three others were wounded when an explosive device went off in a police station in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a spokesman for the force said. Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan said the device was found earlier in the day in the Hamas-controlled territory and was taken to the police station to be dismantled.
http://www.alertnet.org/ thenews/newsdesk/LU109053.htm
Palestinian Fishing Boats Attacked by Israeli gunboats
At 10:00 am Cyprus time, three Israeli gunboats attacked Palestinian fishing boats in the territorial waters of Gaza. Eleven internationals have accompanied the fishermen on five of the boats.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
One boy injured as Israeli troops attack a peaceful protest near Bethlehem city
A seven year old boy was injured during the weekly protest organized at Al Ma`ssara village near the southren West Bank city of Bethelehem on friday midday.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57509
Four shot by rubber-coated bullets at Ni'lin anti-wall march
Four Palestinians were shot by Israeli forces at an anti-wall march in the village of Ni'lin, near Ramallah, on Friday. Ni'lin Mayor Ayman Nafe told Ma'an that the Israeli army attacked marchers on Friday, injuring 18-year-old Muhamad Imad Tantur, breaking his hand, and 28-year-old Khamis Umirah, who also was shot in his hand.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32917
Two Palestinians stabbed by Israelis near Jerusalem
Two Palestinian workers sustained moderate injuries after being stabbed in a bakery in the Talpiyot neighborhood near Jerusalem on Friday. Radio Israel reported that two Israelis stabbed the Palestinians, who were working in the bakery, claiming that "[the Palestinian workers] refused to give us bread." The two Palestinians were transferred to a hospital for treatment, according to Israeli press reports. Israeli police said units were investigating the incident.
http://www.maannews.net/en/ index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=
32913
Settler Violence: 30 Oct. '08: Olive harvest season begins in West Bank--B'Tselem
The harvest season began in the West Bank several weeks ago, and is expected to end in two weeks. In light of the rise in settler violence in the last year, the olive-picking is accompanied by fear of settlers attacking Palestinian farmers. In a grove belonging to Burin, for instance, near which the Yitzhar settlement has been built, settlers threw stones at farmers picking olives for over an hour, while soldiers stood by and did not intervene. One farmer was wounded in the head and hospitalized. In a grove by 'Azmut, near which the Elon Moreh settlement was built, settlers attacked a family who were picking olives. The settlers stole the family's sacks of olives, emptied the contents on the ground, and beat the father of the family.
http://www.btselem.org/ english/settler_violence/
20081030_olive_harvest.asp
Peace Now urges Barak to compensate Palestinians hurt by settlers
Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer said Friday that "Defense Minister Ehud Barak should make sure that the Palestinians, who pay the price and the settlers' riots and are badly hurt after any evacuation attempt, are compensated." Oppenheimer also demanded that the funds
be cut from the budget of the Kiryat Arba council, which he said encourages the
riots in Hebron.
http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3615738,00.
html
Masked settlers assault Palestinian photographers
Reuters - Masked Jewish settlers threw stones at Palestinian photographers Friday near the West Bank city of Hebron, injuring one, Reuters television footage showed.
http:// news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081031/
wl_nm/us_israel_settlers
AFP photographer injured by Jewish settlers in West Bank
A Palestinian photographer working for AFP suffered head injuries on Friday when settlers hurled rocks at journalists near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, witnesses said. Photographer Hazem Bader, 42, was taken to a Hebron hospital with his head bleeding. He was given eight stitches to the forehead and was to spend the night in the hospital.
http://afp.google.com/article/ ALeqM5gbtKCHQycRxb3LFj5yfwF8TL
LVhg
Settlers clash with police, Palestinians in Hebron
AP - Israeli settlers are clashing with Israeli police and Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron over the demolition of an unauthorized settler outpost.
http:// news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081031/ ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_
palestinians_settlers
Jewish settlers vow to hang tough in occupied land
Reuters - Being a Jewish settler in occupied territory is the only life Renana Cohen has known for most of her 25 years, and she couldn't imagine living anywhere else, including within Israel's borders.
http:// news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081031/
wl_nm/us_israel_settler
Israeli Settlers Continue Attacking Palestinians
Israeli Right-wing activists damaged Palestinian fields and houses Friday morning in response to the Thursday night clashes between Israeli settlers and Israeli occupation security forces who tore down an illegal building at a farm belonging to extreme rightist Noam Federman in the Israeli community of Kiryat Arba. The settlers also claimed to have rebuilt the structure destroyed by the occupation security forces.
http://almanar.com.lb/ NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=
62008&language=en
EU condemns settler violence
Following night of violent clashes near West Bank town of Hebron, Europe calls on Israeli government to put an end to settler violence; meanwhile, rabbi says 'expulsion' of Jews reminiscent of past events in Poland.
http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3615844,00.
html
Settlers rebuild Federman Farm outpost hours after evacuation
Right-wing activists on Friday rebuilt structures razed overnight by security forces at the Federman Farm outpost in the West bank.
Israeli security forces had overnight evacuated the illegal outpost, near the town of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank. This was the second evacuation of the settlement in less than a week.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/ spages/1033231.html
Israeli forces raid West Bank college campus, seize 15 students
This article was originally published by the Ma'an News Agency and is republished with permission. The Israeli military seized 15 students from the Palestine Technical College in the West Bank town of Al-Arrub, north of Hebron, after opening fire on the campus on Thursday morning, witnesses told Ma'an. The public relations officer of the college, Abed Al-Men'em Zahdah told Ma'an that "at least 15 students were arrested from the college and the agricultural school."
http://imeu.net/news/ article0014672.shtml
IOF Carries out Vast Operations in West Bank
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) arrested Thursday, five Palestinians, and carried out vast operations in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem, Jenin, Salfit and Hebron. IOF attacked Al-Ebayat village, east of Bethlehem and arrested a Palestinian young man after force-entering his family's house and searching it. Later on, an Israeli special unit kidnapped, using a private car, another Palestinian from a vital neighborhood in the city.
http://english.wafa.ps/? action=detail&id=12227
Israeli journalist on Gaza boat reported missing by activist group
An Israeli journalist was arrested for traveling to the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to the activist group that took him there. He was among the international solidarity activists organized for Gaza by the European Popular Committee for Breaking the Gaza Siege, the group reported. The journalist, Gideon Spiro, was arrested after departing for Israel via the Beit Hanoun crossing north of the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from the committee. "After crossing through the northern Gaza Strip we lost contact with him," the group said.
http://www.maannews.net/en/ index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=
32912
PA continues arrest campaign of Hamas supporters in West Bank
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemns the campaign of arrests being carried out by Palestinian security services against Hamas supporters in the West Bank. The Centre calls upon the governments in Ramallah and Gaza to immediately cease all forms of arbitrary arrests.
http://electronicintifada.net/ v2/article9926.shtml
PFLP: political prisoners must also be released in the West Bank
Member of the political bureau for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Khalida Jarar said on Friday that she welcomes Hamas' release of political figures in the Gaza Strip, and added that a similar gesture must be made in the West Bank.
In a statement Jarar called for a cessation to the political arrests issue, saying that it harmed Palestinian society and the atmosphere for negotiations. "We will work hard to achieve [the release of political prisoners in the West Bank]" Jarar stated, "to prepare a proper atmosphere for the Cairo dialogue."
http://www.maannews.net/en/ index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=
32916
Last Chance to End the Palestinian Rift
The Palestinians just can't get their act together. The latest Egyptian initiative to bring all Palestinian factions to Cairo early next month now seems threatened because the two largest groups, Fatah and Hamas, have failed to agree on a compromise. In contrast to positive comments made last week by Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mash'al, the two main groups are again taking swipes at each other.
http://palestinechronicle.com/ view_article_details.php?id=
14327
PPP: Leftists will pressure for conciliation; all must seize opportunity
The opportunity for dialogue provided by the Egyptian initiative must be seized to put an end to Palestinian division, said member of the Palestine People's Party (PPP) Waleed Al-A'wad, on Friday.
http://www.maannews.net/en/ index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=
32918
Maguire: UN is responsible for every death resulting from the siege on Gaza
Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who arrived in Gaza on SS Dignity a couple of days ago, held the United Nations responsible for deaths resulting from the siege on Gaza.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
Al Khodary slams closure of Gaza Crossings
Palestinian Legislator, head of the Popular Committee Against the Siege, Jamal Al Khodary, slammed on Thursday the Israeli decision to close the trade terminals in the Gaza Strip, and considered this step as part of the unjust siege enforced on Gaza since two years.
http://www.imemc.org/article/ 57503
False alarm causes closure of Gaza Crossings
Israeli Defense Officials ordered the closure of Gaza Crossings after an alarm system installed in the Western Negev sounded the sirens warning of a Qassam homemade shell fired from Gaza on Thursday morning. As a punishment, Israel sealed all crossings in the Gaza Strip while security officials said that they believe that the alarm was sounded due to a malfunction.
http://www.imemc.org/article/ 57501
Qassam report false; Gaza crossings sealed off without reason
Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered closure of Gaza Strip crossings following report of Qassam attack Thursday morning; later it turned out that report was false, alert system malfunction suspected.
http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3615569,00.
html
War-torn Gaza Devastated by Flooding
After a long drought during the summer months, prolonged heavy rains in Gaza Strip are severely damaging the poor infrastructure, causing landslides in many places threatened people's lives, flooding the streets, homes and property in the northern and southern parts. In Khan Younis many buildings and homes of the al Akhras family have collapsed and are flooded with water. 12 people are reported to be injured, three of them seriously, the injured are taken to al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
http://www.palestinechronicle. com/view_article_details.php?
id=14325
Blockade forces Gazans underground to survive
WITH 17 children and two wives to feed, Ahmed Abu Issam finds that smuggling groceries into Gaza is a better way to make a living than selling them over the counter. "I was a greengrocer," he says. "My business failed, so I started selling cigarettes. But
I failed at that, too, because I couldn't compete against black-market
cigarettes." Now the head of a syndicate of 30, Mr Abu Issam has decided to
sink the rest of his savings into a tunnel under Gaza's border with Egypt.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/blockade-forces-gazans-underground-to-survive-20081031-5fjf.html
1 Million Gazans urge UN to help lift Israeli siege
Leading Palestinian activists handed over on Thursday a petition signed by one million Gazans to the international agency, UNRWA, urging for lifting the siege on Gaza Strip.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1948915&Language=en
Flood ordeal for Palestinians stuck on Iraq-Syria border
UNHCR rushes assistance to hundreds of Palestinian refugees stuck in camps on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border after flooding caused chaos and misery.
http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/4909c9a04.html
Violence, abuse stalk women and children who fled Nahr al-Bared
Women and children who fled fighting at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp are at risk of violence and abuse from within their community, but United Nations agencies are failing to coordinate a response to the problem, a meeting heard on Thursday. The huge unemployment, poverty, and frustration caused.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&
categ_id=2&article_id=97281
The apprenticeship of Raleb Majadele
It was a rough summer for Raleb Majadele. Ensconced in his favorite cafe, on Tel Aviv's Jabotinsky Street, he asks for permission to vent. He is fed up with being humiliated. He has felt like a hunted man since he was appointed minister of science, culture and sports 18 months ago. "It's obvious to me that something has lurched out of control," he says quietly. "Since becoming a cabinet minister I have been constantly subjected to minor attacks, bits and pieces of racism, but lately something has changed, it's gotten all out of proportion. I feel that this is no longer my personal issue. It is something bigger."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1032976.html
Arab MK: Israel is practicing terrorism against its Arab residents
Arab member of Knesset, member of the United List for Change, Talab Al Sane', slammed the demolishing of Arab homes in the Negev, and considered the ongoing demolishing of Arab homes in the area as terrorism practiced by Israel against its Arab residents, especially during winter.
http://www.imemc.org/article/ 57502
Tactical voting
The upcoming Jerusalem elections and the widespread expectation of a continued Palestinian boycott, is yet another indication of the lazy thinking that continues to dominate the Palestinian political scene. Ever since Israel occupied the city in 1967, the Jerusalem municipality has held elections every 5 years to elect officials to seats on the City Council. Palestinians in the city, who are deemed by authorities to be residents rather than citizens, have continued to refuse participation in the elections, on the questionable belief that doing so is tacit to recognising Israel's sovereignty over the city. It is time to consider whether the boycott is hurting more than it is helping.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/31/
israelandthepalestinians- middleeast
An Underlying Societal Rift
The recent clashes in Acre between Israeli Jews and those of Palestinian origin brought to the surface a very thorny issue, the uncomfortable co-existence in Israeli society between the Palestinian minority and Jewish majority. The Palestinian minority in Israel constitutes roughly one-fifth of the population and represents the indigenous people that Israel did not kick out of Palestine in 1948, when 800,000 were forced to seek refuge in neighboring Arab states.
http://palestinechronicle.com/ view_article_details.php?id=
14326
For War Widows, Hamas Recruits Army of Husbands
The grooms were resplendent in white shirts while the brides all wore black. At a sports stadium one recent October evening, thousands of Palestinians — 300 newly married couples along with relatives and friends — gathered for a mass wedding celebration, the 10th here this year courtesy of Hamas. Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza, has been observing a truce with Israel since June, allowing its underground fighters to resurface but leaving them without much to do. At the same time, hundreds of the group's women have been recently widowed, their husbands having been killed either in confrontations with Israel or in the fighting last year between Hamas and its secular rival, Fatah.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/ 10/31/world/middleeast/31gaza.
html?em
Rabin killer: Sharon affected my decision
Yigal Amir tells Channel 10 warnings by military experts, including Ariel Sharon, prompted murder.
http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3615595,00.
html
TV interview with Rabin assassin shakes Israel
AFP - Israelis from across the political spectrum on Friday slammed a decision to air the first-ever television interview with the extremist Jew who assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
http:// news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081031/ wl_mideast_afp/
mideastisraelmediarabinassassi n
Israeli Brothels forbid prostitutes to use condoms to prevent evidence
Owners of "massage parlors" (a euphemism for brothels) forbid prostitutes working in them to use condoms because in a police raid they would be evidence that the establishment is for paid sex. A Health Ministry spokeswoman says that an increase in sexually transmitted diseases has been registered recently among prostitutes and their clients. "Massage parlors are nothing else but brothels, and pimps who operate them are denying the prostitutes basic protection for their lives and health," she says. Everyone knows this, yet the police refrain from closing these places down, she says.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1033043.html
Palestinian youth bring their politics online
Ask Saif Abukeshek when he became an online activist, and he'll give you the same answer as many of his Palestinian peers: after the second intifada erupted, in 2000. That explosion of violence in the occupied territories brought about a tough lockdown on Palestinian mobility by Israeli forces and produced the right conditions for a home-grown, grass-roots activism -- frustrated youth trapped inside all day with nothing but the TV and the internet to turn to. Don Duncan reports.
http://electronicintifada.net/ v2/article9927.shtml
Is Spain inside or outside the Nablus checkpoint?
The group of internationals I had traveled with to the northern West Bank city of Nablus had decided to park our car just behind the Huwwara checkpoint, where Israeli soldiers control Palestinian movement to and from the city. From the outset, I began taking pictures of an Israeli military outpost littered with heavy tanks and armored vehicles. Eddie Vassallo writes from the Balata refugee camp.
http://electronicintifada.net/ v2/article9928.shtml
Global day of action for Palestine called by International Federation of Journalists
The international federation of journalists demanded Friday the immediate release of all of the Palestinian political prisoners of journalists, which it called part of the political dispute among Palestinians. Secretary-General of the Federation Eden White said "journalists are being used as pawns in the continued dispute." Journalists are not, as Fatah and Hamas claim, 'security threats,' rather their arrests are being used as scare tactics, as a "means for intimidation and an excuse to control the media." White announced a global "day of action," on 5 November. He said journalists across the Middle East and North Africa will stand together in various solidarity activities calling for an end of government censorship and the use of journalists in political rivalries.
http://www.maannews.net/en/ index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=
32921
The Mystery of the Free Gaza Movement
For the second time now the Free Gaza Movement successfully challenged the siege of Gaza. A year ago, Israel officially declared the Gaza Strip to be an "enemy entity" with enemy people in it. The mantra of the evil terrorists and of Israel's "fears" has appeased the mainstream public to conclusions like: both parties must compromise. As if there were two parties. There is one of the most lethal and active armies in the world on the one hand and a native population without an army on the other. And the army/state has often found reasons for the collective punishment of the local population, especially since Plan Dalet in 1948 when Palestinians were forced out of their country to make way for new immigrants.
http://www.palestinechronicle. com/view_article_details.php?
id=14328
Twilight Zone / Young faces of death
If you happen to visit Jalazun, north of Ramallah, in the next few days and ask passersby where the shaheed (martyr) lived, they will ask you which shaheed you mean - the first or the second. Two weeks ago, the refugee camp buried two of its sons within 24 hours: Abdul Qader Badawi, 17, and Mohammed Ramahi, 21. Badawi was a senior in high school. Ramahi was the son of Jamal Ramahi, whose mother, Esther Yaakov Shihrur, was Jewish and who has an aunt in Haifa. Both young men were shot to death at a distance of several hundred meters and in less than 24 hours of each other; both were shot by snipers, whose bullets struck each victim in the heart.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/ spages/1032974.html
Palestinian Kristallnacht: The Executions at Kafr Qassem
In a conflict that has produced more than its share of suffering and tragedy, the name of Kafr Qassem lives on in infamy more than half a century after Israeli police gunned down 47 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in the village. This week Kafr Qassem's inhabitants, joined by a handful of Israeli Jewish sympathisers, commemorated the anniversary of the deaths 52 years ago by marching to the cemetery where the victims were laid to rest.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
cook10302008.html
Kawther Salam - Jewish Terrorist attacks Church of the Holy Sepulcher
In the night of Wednesday, October 29, an extremist orthodox Jew - chosen by God, invaded the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the old city of Jerusalem. The Jewish terrorist tried to harm three monks who were worshiping God in the church. The monks saw the terrorist Jew and escaped from his attack, but then the terrorist left the Church and went on to vandalize several Palestinian shops nearby the Church. He broke many wooden crosses before the Palestinians shop owners called the Israeli Police.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/10/31/jewish-terrorist-attacks-church-of-the-holy-
sepulcher/
Thursday: 1 American Civilian, 7 Iraqis Killed; 20 Iraqis Wounded
Oct. 30, 2008 As the northern commander of U.S. troops complained about the security situation in Mosul, attacks there continued. Overall, at least seven Iraqis were killed and another 20 were wounded across the country. No Coalition deaths were reported, but the remains of an American civilian missing three years were identified; other remains found are believed to belong to his Kurdish fiancee.
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=13695
Blast near Baghdad Market Kills Six
A roadside bomb killed six people and wounded 17 others when it exploded outside an ice cream shop in central Baghdad's Palestine Street on Wednesday, police said. Three policemen were amongst the wounded, although police said they thought civilians were the main target of the bomb. Violence in Iraq is at four-year lows but militants have still shown themselves capable of mounting lethal attacks. Last Thursday, a suicide car bomber targeting a convoy carrying Iraq's labor minister in morning traffic killed 11 people and wounded 22 in central Baghdad, police said.
http://almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=61957&language=en
Three children killed, 14 injured in al-Qaeda raid in Iraq
The deceased were all the children of Abdel Karim, a leader of the Awakening Council movement, which is a collection of Sunni units that collaborate with US forces in fighting militants from the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq.
http://www.monstersandcritics. com/news/middleeast/news/
article_1439841.php/
Militants blow up Baghdad drinking water main line
Militants blew up a section of a Baghdad water pipeline, shutting off drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people, the U.S. military said on Friday. The explosion on Thursday tore an 18-inch hole in a pipeline carrying drinking water to Baghdad's Adhamiyah, Rusafa and Karrada districts, a U.S. military said, adding that it expected the pipeline would be fixed by the end of Friday.
http://www.alertnet.org/
thenews/newsdesk/LV182324.htm
Iraq opposes any clause letting US stay after 2011
Baghdad wants to delete any reference in a security pact with Washington to the possibility of US troops staying in Iraq after 2011, an MP close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/ 20081030/wl_mideast_afp/
iraqusmilitary_081030112026
US pact must guard Iraq sovereignty: top Shiite cleric
Top Iraqi Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani insists that the security pact being negotiated with Washington must not harm Iraq's sovereignty, his office said on Wednesday.
http://afp.google.com/article/ ALeqM5gw2cRozfL-
fWuuihAcQxFiElbJTA
Senior Iraqi Leader Says Pact With U.S. Is Unlikely to Pass
The Bush administration has repeatedly said that the current draft of the agreement is the furthest that the United States is willing to go. "The bar to any revisions is very high," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
http://mobile.washingtonpost. com/detail.jsp?key=306424&rc=
po&p=1&all=1
Bush says he's confident U.S.-Iraq pact will pass
U.N. extension would shift issue to next president.
http://www.cleveland.com/iraq/ index.ssf/2008/10/bush_says_
hes_confident_usiraq.html
US's Syrian raid sets Iraq on fire
DAMASCUS - The United States raid on Syria on October 27, which led to the killing of eight civilians, sent shockwaves throughout Iraq, mainly enraging the Sunni community, former Ba'athists and tribal leaders who are pro-Syrian. It came as such a surprise to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that he was completely dumfounded at commenting. Here was the prime minister of Iraq, an ally of Iran and a former resident of Syria, watching Syria being attacked from his own territory - without his knowledge.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/
Middle_East/JK01Ak05.html
Syria decides to cut off ties with Iraq
Syria decided to cut off diplomatic ties with Iraq and suspend the work of the joint security committee as to draw down the number of Syrian troops deployed on common borders. The decision came following the US raid on Abu Kamal region near Iraqi borders, media sources reported. However, Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh denied in a statement reports about cutting off relations with Syria hoping it would not reach that point. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari reiterated in a phone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Walid Al Moallem Baghdad's rejection to the US military operation on Syrian territories.
http://www.albawaba.com/en/ countries/Iraq/237368
Iraq holding thousands in secret prisons: lawmaker
AP - An Iraqi opposition lawmaker claimed Thursday that thousands of his countrymen are being mistreated in detention centers outside the official prison system.
http:// news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081030/ ap_on_re_eu/un_un_iraq_secret_
prisons
Iraqi Detainees May Go From Frying Pan to Fire
Excerpt: An estimated 17,000 Iraqis detained in their own country by occupying US forces may soon face transfer into an Iraqi government detention system where reports of abuse and torture are commonplace, says a leading human rights advocacy group.
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/
gharib.php?articleid=13700
IRAQ: Market in ruins after bulldozers move in
The day started like every other in Hurriya, a working-class district in Baghdad. By 7 a.m., vendors had begun opening the stalls that line the sidewalks and offer makeup, books, toys, phones and just about anything else to shoppers browsing one of the neighborhood's informal outdoor markets.
http://latimesblogs.latimes. com/babylonbeyond/2008/10/
iraq-2.html
Iraqi hero forced to seek refuge in America
WASHINGTON — Two years ago, President Bush hailed Najim al Jabouri as a symbol of success in the battle to curb Iraq's sectarian violence. Today, Jabouri is a symbol of how uncertain that success is.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/ iraq/story/55041.html
An Iraqi Armenian teen shows the way to a new life
UNHCR A budding young hair stylist sets an example to other Iraqi Armenians who have sought shelter in the land of their ancestors after fleeing violence in Iraq.
http://www.alertnet.org/ thenews/newsdesk/UNHCR/
f2352e720630e334357022cb3a3290 9f.htm
Signs appear of more relaxed Baghdad
BAGHDAD - Engineering student Haifaa Salman has discarded the Islamic head cover she started wearing two years ago after militants threatened to "punish" her if she kept showing up at college with her hair uncovered.
http://www.boston.com/news/ world/articles/2008/10/30/
signs_appear_of_more_relaxed_ baghdad/
CIA allowed concealing torture documents
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the Washington D.C. Circuit Court declined to review torture allegations from men held in the CIA's prisons-because it could put the nation at risk of grave danger if allowed to be made public.
http://blog.wired.com/ 27bstroke6/2008/10/cia-can-
hide-to.html
Robert Fisk: Scandal of six held in Guantanamo even after Bush plot claim is dropped
In the dying days of the Bush administration, yet another presidential claim in the "war on terror" has been proved false by the withdrawal of the main charge against six Algerians held without trial for nearly seven years at Guantanamo prison camp.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-scandal-of-six-held-in-
guantanamo-even-after-bush-plot-claim-is-dropped-980264.html
Imagined community
Cover story At the end of a Presidential campaign that has seen "Arab" become a political slur, Arab-Americans remain at the margins of US politics.
http://www.thenational.ae/ article/20081031/REVIEW/
417597144/1043/rss
Healthy Arab-American turnout expected in US election despite fears, disappointments
Arab-Americans are expected to vote in large numbers this November, despite concerns over voter intimidation and weak outreach from the presidential candidates, representatives of major community organizations say. The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has set up a voter protection unit staffed by lawyers.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ article.asp?edition_id=10&
categ_id=2&article_id=97273
Obama, McCain are one to many Arabs
On the surface, it seems that if it was up to the vast majority of Arabs and rest of world, the results of the US presidential elections would have been announced long ago: a decisive victory for Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/
region/General/10255703.html
Poll: Nearly 1/4 of Texans think Obama is Muslim
Nearly one in four Texas voters erroneously believes Barack Obama is Muslim, according to a new poll.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ Poll_Nearly_14_of_Texans_
think_1030.html
Bush's booby traps for Obama
The Bush administration is leaving behind foreign policy tripwires that could blow up on the next president.
http://www.latimes.com/news/ opinion/sunday/la-oe-brooks30-
2008oct30,1,6321450.column
An 'Idiot Wind'
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the
dinner.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/article/2008/
10/30/AR2008103003244.html
This Is The Lowest McCain Has Sunk Yet.
The increasingly sleazy John McCain, who once promised to run a clean campaign, has now attacked my friend Rashid Khalidi and attempted to use him against Barack Obama. Khalidi is an American scholar of Palestinian heritage, born in New York and educated at Yale and Oxford, who now teaches at Columbia University. He directed the Middle East Center at the University of Chicago for some time, and he and his family came to know the Obamas at that time. Knowing someone and agreeing with him on everything are not the same thing. Scott Horton has a fine, informed and intelligent discussion of the issue. I know it may seem a novel idea to people like McCain and Palin, but it would be worthwhile actually reading Khalidi's book on the Palestinian struggle for statehood. (I urge bloggers interested in this issue to link to his book, which the American reading public should know).
http://www. informationclearinghouse.info/
article21119.htm
The New McCarthyism
The last weeks of every presidential campaign I can remember bring out the crazies. Candidates are reviled as "racists," "Nazis," "Communists," and the like. But this year the process has gotten nuttier and
more malicious than usual. Perhaps it is a sign of desperation, given that
polling does not suggest a close campaign, and a party now long entrenched
appears to be poised for a swift kick in the behind—for the second time
running.
http://harpers.org/archive/ 2008/10/hbc-90003779
McCain's Disgrace
The McCain campaign has been throwing around so much mud and smears in recent weeks that it's easy to miss just how ugly and shameful their character assassination of Rashid Khalidi is. This is an entirely respectable, highly respected scholar. To go further into making a case for him would only be to enable and indulge McCain's sordid appeal to racism. For McCain, personally, to compare Khalidi to a neo-nazi, it's just an offense McCain should never be forgiven for. It's right down in the gutter with Joe McCarthy and the worst of the worst. Khalidi is in this new McCain set piece for one reason -- as a generic Arab, to spur the idea that Obama is foreign, friendly with terrorists and possibly Muslim.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241253.php
Khalidi and the PLO
Starting in 1988, intermittently at first and then routinely from the launch of the Oslo talks in 1993, U.S. presidents have waived bans on contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization. President Bush continued to do so even as he isolated its leader Yasser Arafat; he expressly sought to marginalize Arafat so he could cultivate moderates in the organization and the movement.
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/ 2008/10/30/2643/khalidi-and-
the-plo/
And Lower...
Here we have the McCain campaign's execrable Michael Goldfarb slinging around accusations of anti-semitism--a favorite pastime, as
we've seen this year, among Jewish neoconservatives. I've never met Rashid
Khalidi, but he is (a) Palestinian and therefore (b) a semite, so the charge of
anti-semitism is fatuous. Khalidi is also a respected academic, the sort of
person who is involved in foundation work that John McCain, for one, was willing
to support financially. I'd say that if we have a bigot here, it's Mr. Goldfarb
who, if he's intent on calling people antisemitic--or any other epithet--should
be required to provide chapter and verse, which he does not do on CNN. (I'd also
like to know on what basis CNN's Rick Sanchez can stipulate that Khalidi is
antisemitic.)
http://swampland.blogs.time.
com/2008/10/30/and-lower/
Eric Alterman: McCain's attacks on Obama and Rashid Khalidi is modern-day McCarthyism
Is Barack Obama's appearance at a dinner with scholar Rashid Khalidi evidence he pals around with terrorists? Hardly.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/31/mccain-obama-rashid-khalidi
Palin Questions Obama's Support Of Israel
"We know some very derogatory things were said there about Israel and America's support for that great nation," Palin said. "And among other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism instead of the victim."
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/ 2008/10/29/politics/
fromtheroad/entry4556083.shtml
ANALYSIS / McCain would be as bad for Israel as Bush was
If nothing terribly dramatic happens in the next four days, then Martin Luther King Jr.'s great, famous dream is about to come true. "I have a dream," he said in that moving, sublime speech on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/ spages/1033037.html
http://www.reliefwe
Weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory 23 - 29 Oct 2008
http://www.reliefwe
Hamas policeman killed while taking apart bomb
Explosive device goes at Gaza City police station while security men attempt to dismantle it. Hamas government's Interior Ministry spokesman says policeman died 'as a martyr'.
http://www.ynetnews
Explosion at Gaza police station kills one -Hamas
A Hamas policeman was killed and three others were wounded when an explosive device went off in a police station in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a spokesman for the force said. Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan said the device was found earlier in the day in the Hamas-controlled territory and was taken to the police station to be dismantled.
http://www.alertnet
Palestinian Fishing Boats Attacked by Israeli gunboats
At 10:00 am Cyprus time, three Israeli gunboats attacked Palestinian fishing boats in the territorial waters of Gaza. Eleven internationals have accompanied the fishermen on five of the boats.
http://www.palestin
One boy injured as Israeli troops attack a peaceful protest near Bethlehem city
A seven year old boy was injured during the weekly protest organized at Al Ma`ssara village near the southren West Bank city of Bethelehem on friday midday.
http://www.imemc.
Four shot by rubber-coated bullets at Ni'lin anti-wall march
Four Palestinians were shot by Israeli forces at an anti-wall march in the village of Ni'lin, near Ramallah, on Friday. Ni'lin Mayor Ayman Nafe told Ma'an that the Israeli army attacked marchers on Friday, injuring 18-year-old Muhamad Imad Tantur, breaking his hand, and 28-year-old Khamis Umirah, who also was shot in his hand.
http://www.maannews
Two Palestinians stabbed by Israelis near Jerusalem
Two Palestinian workers sustained moderate injuries after being stabbed in a bakery in the Talpiyot neighborhood near Jerusalem on Friday. Radio Israel reported that two Israelis stabbed the Palestinians, who were working in the bakery, claiming that "[the Palestinian workers] refused to give us bread." The two Palestinians were transferred to a hospital for treatment, according to Israeli press reports. Israeli police said units were investigating the incident.
http://www.maannews
Settler Violence: 30 Oct. '08: Olive harvest season begins in West Bank--B'Tselem
The harvest season began in the West Bank several weeks ago, and is expected to end in two weeks. In light of the rise in settler violence in the last year, the olive-picking is accompanied by fear of settlers attacking Palestinian farmers. In a grove belonging to Burin, for instance, near which the Yitzhar settlement has been built, settlers threw stones at farmers picking olives for over an hour, while soldiers stood by and did not intervene. One farmer was wounded in the head and hospitalized. In a grove by 'Azmut, near which the Elon Moreh settlement was built, settlers attacked a family who were picking olives. The settlers stole the family's sacks of olives, emptied the contents on the ground, and beat the father of the family.
http://www.btselem.
Peace Now urges Barak to compensate Palestinians hurt by settlers
Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer said Friday that "Defense Minister Ehud Barak should make sure that the Palestinians, who pay the price and the settlers' riots and are badly hurt after any evacuation attempt, are compensated.
http://www.ynetnews
Masked settlers assault Palestinian photographers
Reuters - Masked Jewish settlers threw stones at Palestinian photographers Friday near the West Bank city of Hebron, injuring one, Reuters television footage showed.
http:// news.yahoo.com/
AFP photographer injured by Jewish settlers in West Bank
A Palestinian photographer working for AFP suffered head injuries on Friday when settlers hurled rocks at journalists near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, witnesses said. Photographer Hazem Bader, 42, was taken to a Hebron hospital with his head bleeding. He was given eight stitches to the forehead and was to spend the night in the hospital.
http://afp.google.
Settlers clash with police, Palestinians in Hebron
AP - Israeli settlers are clashing with Israeli police and Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron over the demolition of an unauthorized settler outpost.
http:// news.yahoo.com/
Jewish settlers vow to hang tough in occupied land
Reuters - Being a Jewish settler in occupied territory is the only life Renana Cohen has known for most of her 25 years, and she couldn't imagine living anywhere else, including within Israel's borders.
http:// news.yahoo.com/
Israeli Settlers Continue Attacking Palestinians
Israeli Right-wing activists damaged Palestinian fields and houses Friday morning in response to the Thursday night clashes between Israeli settlers and Israeli occupation security forces who tore down an illegal building at a farm belonging to extreme rightist Noam Federman in the Israeli community of Kiryat Arba. The settlers also claimed to have rebuilt the structure destroyed by the occupation security forces.
http://almanar.
EU condemns settler violence
Following night of violent clashes near West Bank town of Hebron, Europe calls on Israeli government to put an end to settler violence; meanwhile, rabbi says 'expulsion' of Jews reminiscent of past events in Poland.
http://www.ynetnews
Settlers rebuild Federman Farm outpost hours after evacuation
Right-wing activists on Friday rebuilt structures razed overnight by security forces at the Federman Farm outpost in the West bank.
Israeli security forces had overnight evacuated the illegal outpost, near the town of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank. This was the second evacuation of the settlement in less than a week.
http://www.haaretz.
Israeli forces raid West Bank college campus, seize 15 students
This article was originally published by the Ma'an News Agency and is republished with permission. The Israeli military seized 15 students from the Palestine Technical College in the West Bank town of Al-Arrub, north of Hebron, after opening fire on the campus on Thursday morning, witnesses told Ma'an. The public relations officer of the college, Abed Al-Men'em Zahdah told Ma'an that "at least 15 students were arrested from the college and the agricultural school."
http://imeu.
IOF Carries out Vast Operations in West Bank
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) arrested Thursday, five Palestinians, and carried out vast operations in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem, Jenin, Salfit and Hebron. IOF attacked Al-Ebayat village, east of Bethlehem and arrested a Palestinian young man after force-entering his family's house and searching it. Later on, an Israeli special unit kidnapped, using a private car, another Palestinian from a vital neighborhood in the city.
http://english.
Israeli journalist on Gaza boat reported missing by activist group
An Israeli journalist was arrested for traveling to the Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to the activist group that took him there. He was among the international solidarity activists organized for Gaza by the European Popular Committee for Breaking the Gaza Siege, the group reported. The journalist, Gideon Spiro, was arrested after departing for Israel via the Beit Hanoun crossing north of the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from the committee. "After crossing through the northern Gaza Strip we lost contact with him," the group said.
http://www.maannews
PA continues arrest campaign of Hamas supporters in West Bank
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights condemns the campaign of arrests being carried out by Palestinian security services against Hamas supporters in the West Bank. The Centre calls upon the governments in Ramallah and Gaza to immediately cease all forms of arbitrary arrests.
http://electronicin
PFLP: political prisoners must also be released in the West Bank
Member of the political bureau for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Khalida Jarar said on Friday that she welcomes Hamas' release of political figures in the Gaza Strip, and added that a similar gesture must be made in the West Bank.
In a statement Jarar called for a cessation to the political arrests issue, saying that it harmed Palestinian society and the atmosphere for negotiations. "We will work hard to achieve [the release of political prisoners in the West Bank]" Jarar stated, "to prepare a proper atmosphere for the Cairo dialogue."
http://www.maannews
Last Chance to End the Palestinian Rift
The Palestinians just can't get their act together. The latest Egyptian initiative to bring all Palestinian factions to Cairo early next month now seems threatened because the two largest groups, Fatah and Hamas, have failed to agree on a compromise. In contrast to positive comments made last week by Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mash'al, the two main groups are again taking swipes at each other.
http://palestinechr
PPP: Leftists will pressure for conciliation; all must seize opportunity
The opportunity for dialogue provided by the Egyptian initiative must be seized to put an end to Palestinian division, said member of the Palestine People's Party (PPP) Waleed Al-A'wad, on Friday.
http://www.maannews
Maguire: UN is responsible for every death resulting from the siege on Gaza
Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who arrived in Gaza on SS Dignity a couple of days ago, held the United Nations responsible for deaths resulting from the siege on Gaza.
http://www.palestin
Al Khodary slams closure of Gaza Crossings
Palestinian Legislator, head of the Popular Committee Against the Siege, Jamal Al Khodary, slammed on Thursday the Israeli decision to close the trade terminals in the Gaza Strip, and considered this step as part of the unjust siege enforced on Gaza since two years.
http://www.imemc.
False alarm causes closure of Gaza Crossings
Israeli Defense Officials ordered the closure of Gaza Crossings after an alarm system installed in the Western Negev sounded the sirens warning of a Qassam homemade shell fired from Gaza on Thursday morning. As a punishment, Israel sealed all crossings in the Gaza Strip while security officials said that they believe that the alarm was sounded due to a malfunction.
http://www.imemc.
Qassam report false; Gaza crossings sealed off without reason
Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered closure of Gaza Strip crossings following report of Qassam attack Thursday morning; later it turned out that report was false, alert system malfunction suspected.
http://www.ynetnews
War-torn Gaza Devastated by Flooding
After a long drought during the summer months, prolonged heavy rains in Gaza Strip are severely damaging the poor infrastructure, causing landslides in many places threatened people's lives, flooding the streets, homes and property in the northern and southern parts. In Khan Younis many buildings and homes of the al Akhras family have collapsed and are flooded with water. 12 people are reported to be injured, three of them seriously, the injured are taken to al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
http://www.palestin
Blockade forces Gazans underground to survive
WITH 17 children and two wives to feed, Ahmed Abu Issam finds that smuggling groceries into Gaza is a better way to make a living than selling them over the counter. "I was a greengrocer,
http://www.theage.
1 Million Gazans urge UN to help lift Israeli siege
Leading Palestinian activists handed over on Thursday a petition signed by one million Gazans to the international agency, UNRWA, urging for lifting the siege on Gaza Strip.
http://www.kuna.
Flood ordeal for Palestinians stuck on Iraq-Syria border
UNHCR rushes assistance to hundreds of Palestinian refugees stuck in camps on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border after flooding caused chaos and misery.
http://www.unhcr.
Violence, abuse stalk women and children who fled Nahr al-Bared
Women and children who fled fighting at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp are at risk of violence and abuse from within their community, but United Nations agencies are failing to coordinate a response to the problem, a meeting heard on Thursday. The huge unemployment, poverty, and frustration caused.
http://www.dailysta
The apprenticeship of Raleb Majadele
It was a rough summer for Raleb Majadele. Ensconced in his favorite cafe, on Tel Aviv's Jabotinsky Street, he asks for permission to vent. He is fed up with being humiliated. He has felt like a hunted man since he was appointed minister of science, culture and sports 18 months ago. "It's obvious to me that something has lurched out of control," he says quietly. "Since becoming a cabinet minister I have been constantly subjected to minor attacks, bits and pieces of racism, but lately something has changed, it's gotten all out of proportion. I feel that this is no longer my personal issue. It is something bigger."
http://www.haaretz.
Arab MK: Israel is practicing terrorism against its Arab residents
Arab member of Knesset, member of the United List for Change, Talab Al Sane', slammed the demolishing of Arab homes in the Negev, and considered the ongoing demolishing of Arab homes in the area as terrorism practiced by Israel against its Arab residents, especially during winter.
http://www.imemc.
Tactical voting
The upcoming Jerusalem elections and the widespread expectation of a continued Palestinian boycott, is yet another indication of the lazy thinking that continues to dominate the Palestinian political scene. Ever since Israel occupied the city in 1967, the Jerusalem municipality has held elections every 5 years to elect officials to seats on the City Council. Palestinians in the city, who are deemed by authorities to be residents rather than citizens, have continued to refuse participation in the elections, on the questionable belief that doing so is tacit to recognising Israel's sovereignty over the city. It is time to consider whether the boycott is hurting more than it is helping.
http://www.guardian
An Underlying Societal Rift
The recent clashes in Acre between Israeli Jews and those of Palestinian origin brought to the surface a very thorny issue, the uncomfortable co-existence in Israeli society between the Palestinian minority and Jewish majority. The Palestinian minority in Israel constitutes roughly one-fifth of the population and represents the indigenous people that Israel did not kick out of Palestine in 1948, when 800,000 were forced to seek refuge in neighboring Arab states.
http://palestinechr
For War Widows, Hamas Recruits Army of Husbands
The grooms were resplendent in white shirts while the brides all wore black. At a sports stadium one recent October evening, thousands of Palestinians — 300 newly married couples along with relatives and friends — gathered for a mass wedding celebration, the 10th here this year courtesy of Hamas. Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza, has been observing a truce with Israel since June, allowing its underground fighters to resurface but leaving them without much to do. At the same time, hundreds of the group's women have been recently widowed, their husbands having been killed either in confrontations with Israel or in the fighting last year between Hamas and its secular rival, Fatah.
http://www.nytimes.
Rabin killer: Sharon affected my decision
Yigal Amir tells Channel 10 warnings by military experts, including Ariel Sharon, prompted murder.
http://www.ynetnews
TV interview with Rabin assassin shakes Israel
AFP - Israelis from across the political spectrum on Friday slammed a decision to air the first-ever television interview with the extremist Jew who assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
http:// news.yahoo.com/
Israeli Brothels forbid prostitutes to use condoms to prevent evidence
Owners of "massage parlors" (a euphemism for brothels) forbid prostitutes working in them to use condoms because in a police raid they would be evidence that the establishment is for paid sex. A Health Ministry spokeswoman says that an increase in sexually transmitted diseases has been registered recently among prostitutes and their clients. "Massage parlors are nothing else but brothels, and pimps who operate them are denying the prostitutes basic protection for their lives and health," she says. Everyone knows this, yet the police refrain from closing these places down, she says.
http://www.haaretz.
Palestinian youth bring their politics online
Ask Saif Abukeshek when he became an online activist, and he'll give you the same answer as many of his Palestinian peers: after the second intifada erupted, in 2000. That explosion of violence in the occupied territories brought about a tough lockdown on Palestinian mobility by Israeli forces and produced the right conditions for a home-grown, grass-roots activism -- frustrated youth trapped inside all day with nothing but the TV and the internet to turn to. Don Duncan reports.
http://electronicin
Is Spain inside or outside the Nablus checkpoint?
The group of internationals I had traveled with to the northern West Bank city of Nablus had decided to park our car just behind the Huwwara checkpoint, where Israeli soldiers control Palestinian movement to and from the city. From the outset, I began taking pictures of an Israeli military outpost littered with heavy tanks and armored vehicles. Eddie Vassallo writes from the Balata refugee camp.
http://electronicin
Global day of action for Palestine called by International Federation of Journalists
The international federation of journalists demanded Friday the immediate release of all of the Palestinian political prisoners of journalists, which it called part of the political dispute among Palestinians. Secretary-General of the Federation Eden White said "journalists are being used as pawns in the continued dispute." Journalists are not, as Fatah and Hamas claim, 'security threats,' rather their arrests are being used as scare tactics, as a "means for intimidation and an excuse to control the media." White announced a global "day of action," on 5 November. He said journalists across the Middle East and North Africa will stand together in various solidarity activities calling for an end of government censorship and the use of journalists in political rivalries.
http://www.maannews
The Mystery of the Free Gaza Movement
For the second time now the Free Gaza Movement successfully challenged the siege of Gaza. A year ago, Israel officially declared the Gaza Strip to be an "enemy entity" with enemy people in it. The mantra of the evil terrorists and of Israel's "fears" has appeased the mainstream public to conclusions like: both parties must compromise. As if there were two parties. There is one of the most lethal and active armies in the world on the one hand and a native population without an army on the other. And the army/state has often found reasons for the collective punishment of the local population, especially since Plan Dalet in 1948 when Palestinians were forced out of their country to make way for new immigrants.
http://www.palestin
Twilight Zone / Young faces of death
If you happen to visit Jalazun, north of Ramallah, in the next few days and ask passersby where the shaheed (martyr) lived, they will ask you which shaheed you mean - the first or the second. Two weeks ago, the refugee camp buried two of its sons within 24 hours: Abdul Qader Badawi, 17, and Mohammed Ramahi, 21. Badawi was a senior in high school. Ramahi was the son of Jamal Ramahi, whose mother, Esther Yaakov Shihrur, was Jewish and who has an aunt in Haifa. Both young men were shot to death at a distance of several hundred meters and in less than 24 hours of each other; both were shot by snipers, whose bullets struck each victim in the heart.
http://www.haaretz.
Palestinian Kristallnacht: The Executions at Kafr Qassem
In a conflict that has produced more than its share of suffering and tragedy, the name of Kafr Qassem lives on in infamy more than half a century after Israeli police gunned down 47 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in the village. This week Kafr Qassem's inhabitants, joined by a handful of Israeli Jewish sympathisers, commemorated the anniversary of the deaths 52 years ago by marching to the cemetery where the victims were laid to rest.
http://www.counterp
Kawther Salam - Jewish Terrorist attacks Church of the Holy Sepulcher
In the night of Wednesday, October 29, an extremist orthodox Jew - chosen by God, invaded the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the old city of Jerusalem. The Jewish terrorist tried to harm three monks who were worshiping God in the church. The monks saw the terrorist Jew and escaped from his attack, but then the terrorist left the Church and went on to vandalize several Palestinian shops nearby the Church. He broke many wooden crosses before the Palestinians shop owners called the Israeli Police.
http://palestinethi
Thursday: 1 American Civilian, 7 Iraqis Killed; 20 Iraqis Wounded
Oct. 30, 2008 As the northern commander of U.S. troops complained about the security situation in Mosul, attacks there continued. Overall, at least seven Iraqis were killed and another 20 were wounded across the country. No Coalition deaths were reported, but the remains of an American civilian missing three years were identified; other remains found are believed to belong to his Kurdish fiancee.
http://www.antiwar.
Blast near Baghdad Market Kills Six
A roadside bomb killed six people and wounded 17 others when it exploded outside an ice cream shop in central Baghdad's Palestine Street on Wednesday, police said. Three policemen were amongst the wounded, although police said they thought civilians were the main target of the bomb. Violence in Iraq is at four-year lows but militants have still shown themselves capable of mounting lethal attacks. Last Thursday, a suicide car bomber targeting a convoy carrying Iraq's labor minister in morning traffic killed 11 people and wounded 22 in central Baghdad, police said.
http://almanar.
Three children killed, 14 injured in al-Qaeda raid in Iraq
The deceased were all the children of Abdel Karim, a leader of the Awakening Council movement, which is a collection of Sunni units that collaborate with US forces in fighting militants from the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq.
http://www.monsters
Militants blow up Baghdad drinking water main line
Militants blew up a section of a Baghdad water pipeline, shutting off drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people, the U.S. military said on Friday. The explosion on Thursday tore an 18-inch hole in a pipeline carrying drinking water to Baghdad's Adhamiyah, Rusafa and Karrada districts, a U.S. military said, adding that it expected the pipeline would be fixed by the end of Friday.
http://www.alertnet
Iraq opposes any clause letting US stay after 2011
Baghdad wants to delete any reference in a security pact with Washington to the possibility of US troops staying in Iraq after 2011, an MP close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday.
http://news.
US pact must guard Iraq sovereignty: top Shiite cleric
Top Iraqi Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani insists that the security pact being negotiated with Washington must not harm Iraq's sovereignty, his office said on Wednesday.
http://afp.google.
Senior Iraqi Leader Says Pact With U.S. Is Unlikely to Pass
The Bush administration has repeatedly said that the current draft of the agreement is the furthest that the United States is willing to go. "The bar to any revisions is very high," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
http://mobile.
Bush says he's confident U.S.-Iraq pact will pass
U.N. extension would shift issue to next president.
http://www.clevelan
US's Syrian raid sets Iraq on fire
DAMASCUS - The United States raid on Syria on October 27, which led to the killing of eight civilians, sent shockwaves throughout Iraq, mainly enraging the Sunni community, former Ba'athists and tribal leaders who are pro-Syrian. It came as such a surprise to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that he was completely dumfounded at commenting. Here was the prime minister of Iraq, an ally of Iran and a former resident of Syria, watching Syria being attacked from his own territory - without his knowledge.
http://www.atimes.
Syria decides to cut off ties with Iraq
Syria decided to cut off diplomatic ties with Iraq and suspend the work of the joint security committee as to draw down the number of Syrian troops deployed on common borders. The decision came following the US raid on Abu Kamal region near Iraqi borders, media sources reported. However, Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh denied in a statement reports about cutting off relations with Syria hoping it would not reach that point. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari reiterated in a phone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Walid Al Moallem Baghdad's rejection to the US military operation on Syrian territories.
http://www.albawaba
Iraq holding thousands in secret prisons: lawmaker
AP - An Iraqi opposition lawmaker claimed Thursday that thousands of his countrymen are being mistreated in detention centers outside the official prison system.
http:// news.yahoo.com/
Iraqi Detainees May Go From Frying Pan to Fire
Excerpt: An estimated 17,000 Iraqis detained in their own country by occupying US forces may soon face transfer into an Iraqi government detention system where reports of abuse and torture are commonplace, says a leading human rights advocacy group.
http://www.antiwar.
IRAQ: Market in ruins after bulldozers move in
The day started like every other in Hurriya, a working-class district in Baghdad. By 7 a.m., vendors had begun opening the stalls that line the sidewalks and offer makeup, books, toys, phones and just about anything else to shoppers browsing one of the neighborhood'
http://latimesblogs
Iraqi hero forced to seek refuge in America
WASHINGTON — Two years ago, President Bush hailed Najim al Jabouri as a symbol of success in the battle to curb Iraq's sectarian violence. Today, Jabouri is a symbol of how uncertain that success is.
http://www.mcclatch
An Iraqi Armenian teen shows the way to a new life
UNHCR A budding young hair stylist sets an example to other Iraqi Armenians who have sought shelter in the land of their ancestors after fleeing violence in Iraq.
http://www.alertnet
Signs appear of more relaxed Baghdad
BAGHDAD - Engineering student Haifaa Salman has discarded the Islamic head cover she started wearing two years ago after militants threatened to "punish" her if she kept showing up at college with her hair uncovered.
http://www.boston.
CIA allowed concealing torture documents
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the Washington D.C. Circuit Court declined to review torture allegations from men held in the CIA's prisons-because it could put the nation at risk of grave danger if allowed to be made public.
http://blog.
Robert Fisk: Scandal of six held in Guantanamo even after Bush plot claim is dropped
In the dying days of the Bush administration, yet another presidential claim in the "war on terror" has been proved false by the withdrawal of the main charge against six Algerians held without trial for nearly seven years at Guantanamo prison camp.
http://www.independ
guantanamo-even-
Imagined community
Cover story At the end of a Presidential campaign that has seen "Arab" become a political slur, Arab-Americans remain at the margins of US politics.
http://www.thenatio
Healthy Arab-American turnout expected in US election despite fears, disappointments
Arab-Americans are expected to vote in large numbers this November, despite concerns over voter intimidation and weak outreach from the presidential candidates, representatives of major community organizations say. The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has set up a voter protection unit staffed by lawyers.
http://www.dailysta
Obama, McCain are one to many Arabs
On the surface, it seems that if it was up to the vast majority of Arabs and rest of world, the results of the US presidential elections would have been announced long ago: a decisive victory for Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
http://archive.
Poll: Nearly 1/4 of Texans think Obama is Muslim
Nearly one in four Texas voters erroneously believes Barack Obama is Muslim, according to a new poll.
http://rawstory.
Bush's booby traps for Obama
The Bush administration is leaving behind foreign policy tripwires that could blow up on the next president.
http://www.latimes.
An 'Idiot Wind'
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-
http://www.washingt
This Is The Lowest McCain Has Sunk Yet.
The increasingly sleazy John McCain, who once promised to run a clean campaign, has now attacked my friend Rashid Khalidi and attempted to use him against Barack Obama. Khalidi is an American scholar of Palestinian heritage, born in New York and educated at Yale and Oxford, who now teaches at Columbia University. He directed the Middle East Center at the University of Chicago for some time, and he and his family came to know the Obamas at that time. Knowing someone and agreeing with him on everything are not the same thing. Scott Horton has a fine, informed and intelligent discussion of the issue. I know it may seem a novel idea to people like McCain and Palin, but it would be worthwhile actually reading Khalidi's book on the Palestinian struggle for statehood. (I urge bloggers interested in this issue to link to his book, which the American reading public should know).
http://www. informationclearing
The New McCarthyism
The last weeks of every presidential campaign I can remember bring out the crazies. Candidates are reviled as "racists," "Nazis," "Communists,
http://harpers.
McCain's Disgrace
The McCain campaign has been throwing around so much mud and smears in recent weeks that it's easy to miss just how ugly and shameful their character assassination of Rashid Khalidi is. This is an entirely respectable, highly respected scholar. To go further into making a case for him would only be to enable and indulge McCain's sordid appeal to racism. For McCain, personally, to compare Khalidi to a neo-nazi, it's just an offense McCain should never be forgiven for. It's right down in the gutter with Joe McCarthy and the worst of the worst. Khalidi is in this new McCain set piece for one reason -- as a generic Arab, to spur the idea that Obama is foreign, friendly with terrorists and possibly Muslim.
http://www.talkingp
Khalidi and the PLO
Starting in 1988, intermittently at first and then routinely from the launch of the Oslo talks in 1993, U.S. presidents have waived bans on contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization. President Bush continued to do so even as he isolated its leader Yasser Arafat; he expressly sought to marginalize Arafat so he could cultivate moderates in the organization and the movement.
http://blogs.
And Lower...
Here we have the McCain campaign's execrable Michael Goldfarb slinging around accusations of anti-semitism-
http://swampland.
Eric Alterman: McCain's attacks on Obama and Rashid Khalidi is modern-day McCarthyism
Is Barack Obama's appearance at a dinner with scholar Rashid Khalidi evidence he pals around with terrorists? Hardly.
http://www.guardian
Palin Questions Obama's Support Of Israel
"We know some very derogatory things were said there about Israel and America's support for that great nation," Palin said. "And among other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism instead of the victim."
http://www.cbsnews.
ANALYSIS / McCain would be as bad for Israel as Bush was
If nothing terribly dramatic happens in the next four days, then Martin Luther King Jr.'s great, famous dream is about to come true. "I have a dream," he said in that moving, sublime speech on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
http://www.haaretz.
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