Video: Rare pics from Nakba
Sabbah’s blog

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Public Statement of the National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba at 60
Ma’an News
To the People of Palestine, Whether you live within the ‘Green Line’, in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, or in exile; you shall return, there is no doubt that you shall return. Today the skies will echo as you state with one united voice: “There can be no alternative to our return.” All sounds will melt away as your voice rises to say “There can be no peace without our return to our original lands and homes.” You who shall return, raise your voices and say “This is our land, this sky is our sky, this rock, tree, moon, and sea are our country, it will always be our Palestine. You who shall return, 60 years ago on this day was our Nakba, and today after sixty years we confirm, that we have never let the banner of return fall to the ground, and that the hour of return to our original homes and lands has come. Today we do not commemorate so we can weep over what was lost, we come together to march forward; to march home….

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Gaza Strip Fear a New Tsunami – Sewage Treatment Blocked by the Israelis…
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
A preliminary report indicate that a possible new *Tsunami is approaching within days, perhaps hours, to take place in the bedouin village of “Um El-Naser”, in northern Gaza Strip,as a result of the stop of generators pumps, caused by a lack of fuel and spare parts. In 2007, 14 months ago, a *spewing river of sewage and mud erupted after an earth embankment around a cesspool collapsed.Ten people died and more then 60 people were injured, the disaster forced the residents in the beduin village to flee.*Years of insufficient sanitation conditions during the Israeli settlement occupation of Gaza Strip, and the absence of sewage conveyance systems are serious threats to public health and are the major causes of a environmental degradation on Gaza Strip…

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Arabs feel trapped in Erbil
Phil Sands and Nizar Latif
On a side street near Erbil’s citadel, Abu Tashen sells tea from a small trolley stall to passers-by. It is a way of scraping out a meagre living for himself and his family, Iraqi Arabs living as refugees in the country’s Kurdish northern region. A former estate agent, the 60-year-old fled the violence of Baghdad after his office was taken over by a militia group. He was a Sunni, living in a Shiite part of town. Although now safe in the administrative capital of Kurdish Iraq, Abu Tashen said he is treated like a second-class citizen; because he is an Arab, not a Kurd, he has become a stranger in his own country…Back near Erbil’s citadel, Abu Tashen served tea to a Kurdish man, who overhead him saying that his own life had been better under Saddam Hussein. The man, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Peshmerga, the Kurdish armed forces, shouted angrily: “You’d say such things to a foreigner? I will never consider myself to be an Iraqi. I would rather be an Israeli than an Arab. I’m not Iraqi, I’m Kurdish, and you should be careful about what you say up here.”…

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 20/2008 (08 – 14 May 2008)
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law continued in the OPT, especially in the Gaza Strip, during the reporting period (8 – 14 May 2008): Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF killed 13 Palestinians, including 2 civilians, in the Gaza Strip. Two Palestinian children died of previous injuries in the Gaza Strip, and a Palestinian civilian was shot dead by the guards of a settlement in the West Bank. In addition, IOF wounded 27 Palestinians, including 4 children, an elderly woman, 2 journalists, and an Israeli human rights defender….

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Bush backs Israel as Palestinians mark 60 years of exile and oppression
Jean Shaoul, WSWS
US President George Bush addressed the Israeli Knesset Thursday, centering his remarks on Washington’s alliance with the Zionist state in the “fight against terror and extremism” and declaring Israel a “homeland for the chosen people.” The American president, on a three-day visit coinciding with Israel’s 60th anniversary, made only one fleeting reference to the Palestinian people, envisioning a Palestinian state—60 years from now…Three Arab-Israeli lawmakers were hustled out of the chamber at the beginning of Bush’s speech after they unfurled a banner reading, “We shall overcome” and held up pictures of slain Palestinian and Iraqi children…

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IOF troops shoot at Palestinian protesters at Biet Hanon
Palestinian Information Center
At least nine Palestinian children and a woman were wounded on Thursday after IOF troops stationed at the Beit Hanon (Erez) crossing point north of Gaza Strip opened their fire at thousands of Palestinian citizens demonstrating near the crossing to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba and protest against the Israeli economic siege on the Strip. Hamas Movement called for the rally to mark the occasion, challenge the Israeli occupation, and in a clear demonstration of an exemplary Palestinian steadfastness and determination to get rid of the occupation…

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Original sin – al Nakba at 60
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
…. On CNN right now, for example, you not only won’t find anything about the ongoing commemoration of Nakba day in Palestine on the front page, you won’t find anything even if you drill down to the Middle East page. And actually it’s even worse than just omission. Consider this AP piece published today which appears several places, including MSNBC online and the New York Times (online, don’t know about print): Palestinians marked the 60th anniversary of their uprooting with rallies, sirens and black balloons Thursday…Thursday’s events commemorated the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven out of their homes during the 1948 war over Israel’s creation. Palestinians call it their “nakba,” Arabic for catastrophe. So they mentioned what’s happening, and even used the word “nakba.” What they didn’t say is that this wasn’t just a “commemoration” of being forced out of their homes, but a demand to return to those homes – the “right of return.” Those words, or even the word “return,” are nowhere to be found. The uninformed reader might get the idea that the Palestinians are celebrating being kicked out of their homes, and have no interest at all in returning….

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Sadr fighters lay down their weapons
UPI
Forces loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr laid down their weapons Thursday as reports emerged from Iraq of relative calm in the Baghdad district of Sadr City. Eyewitness reports said there were minor skirmishes in the area Thursday morning but noted many gunmen could be seen dismantling bombs scattered in the district. Other reports indicated most of the armed militias vanished from the streets as the terms of the cease-fire brokered between Sadr loyalists and the Iraqi government during the weekend took hold….

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Resisting the Nakba
Joseph Massad
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? I will suggest to you that there is much at stake in all of this, in rendering the Nakba an event of the past, a fact on the ground that one cannot but accept, admit, and finally transcend; indeed that in order to move forward, one must leave the Nakba behind…

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LET’S CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE
Malcom Lagauche
My last article consisted of a national British newspaper actually telling the truth. While discussing the current slaughtering of artists and singers in Iraq by the “thought police” of fundamentalist Muslims of both Shia and Sunni heritage, The Observer stated: “Culture was encouraged during Saddam Hussein’s regime, but no longer.” This was a groundbreaking statement because of its attempting to portray the truth about Iraq’s history. Plus, it did not carry the obligatory words that normally precede or follow Saddam Hussein’s name in the Western press: brutal, bloodthirsty, sadistic, savage, murderous, despot, and others. Shortly after the article was published, I received a message from Hussein Al-alak of the Iraq Solidarity Campaign. I had commended him on writing an article that mentioned the pulling of the Observer article from the website of Indymedia…

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Hamas to Bush: Hamas will not be defeated and occupation will not last long
Palestinian Information Center
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, said on Thursday that Hamas will not be defeated as all attempts to break or weaken the movement have failed. These comments were made in a press release in response to US president George Bush’s speech on Thursday at the Knesset. Hamas added that the Israeli occupation will certainly not last another 60 years as Bush predicted. Hamas also said in the statement that Bush tried to beautify the image of the Israeli occupation by describing it as one of the best democracies in the world ignoring all the atrocities committed by the occupation against the Palestinian people. The Movement also regarded Bush and the US administration as “essential partners in the Israeli occupation crimes against the Palestinian people, and not the honest peace brokers they try to portray themselves as.”….

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Beyond Madness…
Layla Anwar, Uncensored Arabwomanblues
There is in old church in this city. A very old church, considered to be the oldest… Every now and then I go and light a candle and say a few prayers to the Mother. I am not a Christian, I am a Muslim. Sometimes, I don’t know what I am. But it doesn’t matter because Mother understands. She belongs to the Religion with no name, of which am a fervent adherent…Tonight, I am declaring a holy war against the madness of men. I am declaring a holy spiritual, sacred war against the futility of a senseless death….

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Gates urges more nongovernment contacts with Iran
U.S. Daily
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on Wednesday for more unofficial contacts with Iran, saying this might eventually open a pathway to more substantive dialogue between the governments. The United States, which cut diplomatic ties with Iran after its 1979 Islamic revolution..

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Occupation Forces Kill Two and Arrest Six Others
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
15 May 2008, Thursday morning American occupation forces raided Mahaziyah region in Abu Ghraib area killing two innocent civilians and arresting six others. According to the eyewitnesses the victims car was naturally traveling when the occupation forces cut off the road. Rarely at this situation people were returning back, however these forces ordered them to get off, then shot them. After the brutal crime occupation forces burned the car in front of the residents of the area. Witnesses confirmed that members of this force thrown the bodies of two deceased to their homes, which lies 150 meters from the crime scene. The barbarian forces also raided homes of one person using police dogs harshly attacking to a child and terrorizing women and children inside the houses…

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Narratives Under Siege (10): Remembering the Nakhba
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
“I am not sure what year I was born. But it was around 78 years ago, in Palestine.” Handuma Rashid Najja Wishah sits on the patio overlooking her large garden, recalling the turbulent story of her long life. “I am a Palestinian from the village of Beit Affa” she says, tucking her long white scarf under her chin. “It was a beautiful village and we had a good life there. There was a small Jewish settlement nearby, called Negba, and we had a good relationship with the Jews…Beit Affa was a village of around 500 people, in southern Palestine, 29 kilometers north east of the Gaza Strip. Most of the villagers were farmers, but even those who did not solely earn their living from farming had, says Handuma, “an intimate relationship with the land.” Like many of the local women, Handuma married young and stayed in her village. But in 1948, after the end of the British Mandate in Palestine and the declaration of the new State of Israel on Palestinian land, mass violence erupted. “The Zionists refused the division of the land into two states, and the massacres started” she says. “The first massacre was in Deir Yasin, where they slaughtered more than a hundred people.” …

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US House rejects war funding bill
BBC News
The Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives has rejected more funding to pay for another year of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would have provided the Pentagon with $162.5bn (£83.5bn) to keep the two wars going but included add-ons wanted by the Democrats. Republicans withheld their votes in protest, allowing the war funding bill to be defeated by 149-141…

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May 15, 2008: 26 Iraqis Killed, 50 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 26 Iraqis were killed and 50 were wounded in the latest attacks. The numbers rose from yesterday’s suicide bombing near Baghdad, while more attacks occurred in the capital itself. No Coalition deaths were reported. The death toll from yesterday’s suicide bombing at a funeral in Abu Minasir rose by three dead and eight wounded to 25 killed and 48 wounded. One witness described the bomber as a crying teenager and noted that the boy’s suicide vest appeared to have detonated by remote control, suggesting he was an unwilling accomplice…

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Iraq Orphans Neglected, Abused
Afif Sarhan, IOL Correspondent
Fadel Mohammad Ra’ad, 10, is one of thousands of children who have lost their parents to the endless violence that has been gripping Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. “My parents were killed in an explosion at the center of Baghdad last year, leaving me and my sister to no one,” the kid told IslamOnline.net in a Baghdad orphanage.”I have relatives but all of them have refused to take us in,” he added choking at the memory. “We were forced to work to survive.” Children, like many other civilians, are the silent victims of violence in war-torn Iraq. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimate that around 4,5 million children are orphans. Nearly 70 percent of them lost their parents since the invasion and the ensuing violence…Abdel-Sattar was taken to a local orphanage weeks after his mother was killed but run away after constant aggressions from the local employees. “They hate us. They treat us like animals and the food was bad,” he remembers. “Everything was dirty and I couldn’t see my sister being hurt anymore. I decided to take her and search for a place to stay. The streets are much better than that hell.” Ra’ad and his sister, who were recently moved to one orphanage in Baghdad, confirms the same pattern…

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Nakba ongoing
Jonathan Cook
…Several thousand Palestinians, waving flags and chanting Palestinian songs, marched across fields on the outskirts of Nazareth towards the forest planted on Saffuriya’s farming lands. Many old people who could still remember fleeing their villages in 1948 attended, joined by young families to share in the communal act of remembrance. Several dozen sympathetic Israeli Jews marched alongside them. There were early signs of the trouble to come. As the marchers headed towards Saffuriya’s spring, sealed off by the authorities with a metal fence a few years ago to stop the villagers collecting water, they were greeted with a small counter- demonstration staged by right-wing Israeli Jews. They had taken over the fields on the other side of the main road at the entrance to what was once Saffuriya and is now a Jewish farming community called Zippori. They waved Israeli flags and sang nationalist Hebrew songs, as armed riot police lined the edge of the road that separated the two demonstrations…

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Israel’s twilight years
Khaled Amayreh
Palestinians are increasingly rejecting the crumbs of a two-state solution in favour of justice for all in a single state, Palestine, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah. As Israel ostentatiously celebrates the passage of 60 years since its creation in Palestine in 1948, more than nine million Palestinians at home and in exile are commemorating the Nakba, the violent seizure of their ancestral homeland by Zionist Jews and the dispossession, expulsion and dispersion of the bulk of Palestinians to the four corners of the globe. This year, activities are taking place in many parts of the world where Palestinian refugees and expatriates reside, dreaming of and awaiting a return to their homeland that appears nowhere on the horizon of political reality…

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Towards a modern state
Galal Nassar, Al-Ahram Weekly
On the 60th anniversary of the occupation of Palestine, and with sectarian strife rearing its head in Lebanon, Iraq and Sudan, the model of the modern civil state with its attendant features of strong civil institutions and good governance is a faded dream. We once called the loss of Palestine a catastrophe. Now we face more catastrophes, from the Islamic revival and the Shia-Sunni divide to the strife between groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine…

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60 Years of Denial
Ramzy Baroud
‘Don’t ask for what you never had,’ is the underlying message made by supporters of Israel when they claim Palestine was never a state to begin with. The contention is, of course, easily refutable. Following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, colonial powers plotted to divide the spoils. When Britain and France signed the secretive Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, which divided the spheres of influence in west Asia, there were hardly any ‘nation-states’ in the region which would fit contemporary definitions of the term….

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US and Iraq Regime Holding 51,000 Iraqi Behind Closed Bars, Most Illegally
Sherwood Ross
The U.S. is holding more Iraqis in prison than ever before---24,700---and is expanding its facilities to accommodate another 10,000, according to a new report. In addition to those detained by the U.S., its Iraqi government partner is holding 26,000 Iraqis in jail, bringing the combined number of Iraqi prisoners to almost 51,000. Given previous reports of torture and murder of inmates both in U.S. and Iraqi custody, it comes as no surprise the report descirbes conditions in the prisons as grim…

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Mosul a ghost city as troops press ahead with offensive
Slaem Areef, Azzaman
The northern city of Mosul, home to nearly three million people, is now a city of ghosts. As Iraqi troops, assisted by U.S. marines, intensify their attacks, severe shortages of clean water, health services and essential foods have already emerged. The attack to regain Mosul started five days ago with the expressed aim to flush out what the government describes as ‘remnants of al-Qaeda’. But the tight curfew the troops have imposed on the city has turned residents into prisoners of their homes…

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US army detains 500 minors in Iraq: report
AFP
Around 500 minors are currently detained by the US army in
Iraq, as well as nearly a dozen juveniles in Afghanistan, a US civil liberties group revealed on Wednesday. “Since 2002, the United States has held approximately 2,500 individuals under the age of 18 at the time of their capture … in Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan,” said a US government report for the UN children’s agency, made public by the American Civil Liberties Union…

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IRAQ: Child labor, a forgotten childhood under poverty
Voices of Iraq
12-year-old Waad was not the only child selling cloth rugs for drivers at a traffic light in the Shiite sacred city of Karbala. Scores of boys and girls his age stand near traffic lights areas all over Iraq to do same. No sooner had the traffic policeman stopped the traffic movement than Waad rushed to offer drivers his goods for sale. “My father died in an explosion a year ago, and I was forced to go out for work to earn living for my five-member-family,” Waad told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI). The boy who knew no entertainment bitterly adds, “I come out everyday in the early morning and will not be able to return home before I earn money enough to keep our life rolling.”…

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ACLU obtains new Defense Department docs on prison deaths in Iraq.”
Think Progress
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU “has obtained previously withheld documents” from the Defense Department that “shed light on the deaths of detainees in Iraq.” One of the documents is a list of “at least four prisoner deaths” that were investigated by the Navy, including one detainee at Abu Ghraib who died after “his head was beaten with a stove”: The NCIS document contains new information about the deaths of some of these prisoners, including details about Farhad Mohamed, who had contusions under his eyes and the bottom of his chin, a swollen nose, cuts and large bumps on his forehead when he died in Mosul in 2004. The document also includes details about Naem Sadoon Hatab, a 52-year-old Iraqi man who was strangled to death at the Whitehorse detainment facility in Nasiriyah in June 2003…

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IRAQ: Nature Adds to Occupation Blows
Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*
Farmers in the Diyala province in Iraq have been hit by just about every crisis possible. First the security disaster dried up supplies and markets, then lack of electricity cut irrigation, and now comes a drying up of water resources. Nothing now seems more difficult in Iraq than the business of farming. “The shortage of water is the biggest threat that Iraqi agriculture has ever faced,” an employee in the directorate-general of irrigation for Diyala province, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “It threatens not only food but also employment in this city (Baquba, capital of the province)….

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ACTION ALERT: ask the European Parliament to conduct an enquiry into the human cost of the war in Iraq
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
Dear friends, After my e-mail exchange with Graham Watson MEP – Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament – Mr. Watson replied again today: Dear Mr Zamparini, I write further to my Caseworker James Sully’s holding reply of 8 May regarding events in Iraq.I have written to the European Parliament’s Chairman of the Foreign Affairs, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski MEP asking for the Committee to conduct an enquiry into the human cost of the war in Iraq. Yours sincerely, Graham Watson MEP, Member of the European Parliament for South West England and Gibraltar and Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament I’m really grateful to Graham Watson for pursuing this important matter and I think we should keep some pressure on our representatives at the European Parliament now…

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Iraqi forces hunt door-to-door for Mosul militants
Associated Press
Iraqi troops are going house-to-house in Mosul today, searching for al-Qaida in Iraq militants. The searches are part of a major security operation to clean out cells of the terror network from Iraq’s third largest city. The U.S. military describes Mosul as the last major urban base of al-Qaida in Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is in Mosul to take charge of the operation by U.S.-backed forces….

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“Challenging Authority” : The Role of Social Movements
Review of Frances Fox Piven’s book
Stephen Lendman
Frances Fox Piven is a Canadian-born Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Her career is long and distinguished. She’s the recipient of numerous awards, has combined scholarship with activism, and is the author of many important books. Most notable is her 1971 classic “Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare.” It’s a landmark historical and theoretical analysis of how welfare policy is used to control the poor and working class. A more recent book is her 2006-published “Challenging Authority” and subject of this review. It’s about how social movements can be pivotal forces for change because ordinary people in enough numbers have enormous political clout. Abolitionists, labor movements and civil rights activists proved it. Piven examines their collective actions plus one other in the four examples she chose – the American Revolution…

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When we returned back to Palestine
Salim Nazzal, Palestine Think Tank
While as a nation moving towards commemorating the Nakba day each Palestinian has a story about that day. Among the Palestinians in Lebanon in the sixties the tradition was to raise black flags to commemorate the 15th of May and people stay at home to tell new generations what happened to them in 1948. On the 14th of May teachers used to devote the last two hours to tell pupils about the events of that period and how they lived it. We the pupils of that period would hear many stories of how Zionist terror organizations attacked their villages and pushed them to move on foot until they reach the Lebanese borders. Teachers told us stories about the resistance which the villagers with their limited resources showed to the invading Zionist terror organizations, and also about the tragedy which occurred in various places in Palestine…

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Nakba at 60
George Bisharat, IMEU
Sixty years ago, with Israel’s establishment, Palestinians entered a nightmare from which they have never awoken. By joining Israel’s celebration of its sixtieth anniversary, President Bush neglects this crucial reality, and underscores our government’s insensitivity to Palestinian rights. Israel’s founders didn’t simply plant flags in an empty country. Instead, they coveted a state where close to a million Palestinians outnumbered Jews two to one and where Jews owned only 6% of the land. A Jewish state could not be established in this milieu. Exploiting Palestinian opposition to the United Nations partition plan, Zionist militias, and later Israeli troops, forcibly exiled about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and homeland, or terrorized them into flight. Israeli historian Benny Morris documented twenty four massacres of unarmed Palestinian civilians in this period…

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There is no alternative to the right of return
Statement, National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba at 60
Whether you live within the “Green Line,” in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, or in exile, you shall return, there is no doubt that you shall return. Today the skies will echo as you state with one united voice: “There can be no alternative to our return,” all sounds will melt away as your voice rises to say “There can be no peace without our return to our original lands and homes.” You who shall return, raise your voices and say “This is our land, this sky is our sky, this rock, tree, moon, and sea are our country, it will always be our Palestine.”…

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Zionist Ideology and Propaganda: In Israel, America, and Germany
Kenneth Lewan
The distinguishing feature of Zionist ideology and its dogmas is fear and insecurity. They give distorted pictures of reality. Like some other ideologies its employment has brought the promoters a great deal of success but also tragedy for the Palestinians and other Arabs and suffering for many Jews, too. The dogmas are: 1. Jews can only be secure when they live in a Jewish state, because anti-Semitism is anchored in the minds/souls of all other nations and will never end. 2. Dishonesty, fickleness and dangerousness are characteristics of the Arabs. 3. Israel merely defends itself, it is fighting for its existence. Israel´s security is the crucial issue in the Middle East conflict. 4. Criticism of Israel is proof of anti-Semitism…

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Indymedia Respond
Hussein Al-alak, The Iraq Solidarity Campaign
A member of Indymedia UK has kindly responded to the article Indymedia Censors Attacks on Iraqi Artists, which is about the removal of an article from their website and is relating to attacks against Iraqs artistic community, by sectarian death squad militias. The statement by Indymedia was left on the comments section of Iraqi Solidarity News (Al-Thawra), and even though Indymedia did take down the Observer article “Iraqi artists and singers flee amid crackdown on forbidden culture”, by Afif Sarhan in Baghdad and Caroline Davies, the Iraq Solidarity Campaign has allowed the Indymedia statement to remain on our website as the only articles removed, are ones which are factually innaccurate, abusive or are seeking to incite violence, sectarianism and hatred….

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Palestinian prisoner held in occupation jails for 10 years without trial
Palestinian Information Center
Mahmoud Azzam has been held in Israeli occupation jails for more than ten years without trial or charge after Jordan refused to allow him into its territory, legal sources said on Thursday. The lawyer of the Nafha society defending Palestinian prisoners’ rights recalled that Azzam was arrested from his home on 29/10/1997 and was held in Jalama detention center for interrogation. He added that the detainee was tortured during the 50 days of interrogation rounds and was denied access to his lawyer for three weeks.

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Snipers In Iraq
Killing By The Numbers
Mark Benjamin and Christopher Weaver, Salon
Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an Iraqi vegetable farmer, walked down to the ramshackle pump house along the banks of the Euphrates. Each day at midmorning, he would start the seven-horsepower pump to water his crops. Khudair passed through the tall grass and palm trees of his farm in Jurf as Sakhr, a predominantly Sunni area 30 miles south of Baghdad dominated by sprawling patches of farmland, irrigation canals and regular eruptions of lethal violence. Daytime temperatures had lately been over 115 degrees, and it was already sweltering as he crossed the 500 meters for the last time…

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