With economic siege comes malnutrition
Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
“Can you imagine that when a child of mine asks me for one shekel [USD 0.30], I can’t afford to give it to him? That’s why I hide from my children from early in the morning until evening.” Naser al-Batran is a 41-year-old father of five children living in the central Gaza Strip. He used to work for a weaving factory inside Israel but found himself jobless after Israel’s total closure of Gaza’s travel and commercial crossings in June 2007, worsening an already difficult economic situation since Israel began shutting out Palestinian laborers years ago. “Life has become miserable, extremely miserable,” he said. The crippling economic blockade of the Gaza Strip colors all aspects of life there. According to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, 70 percent of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents suffer from anemia, including 44 percent of pregnant women. Malnutrition among Palestinian children has also increased over the past 11 months…

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Reflections on the 1967-war anniversary
Comment by Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Today marks the passage of 41 years since the outbreak of the 1967 war, or the Six-day war, as it is known in the Israeli political phraseology. However, despite overwhelming Israeli military and political advantages, mainly due to Zionist influence and predominance in the West, particularly the United States, it is amply clear that the Palestinian people are keeping up the struggle for freedom and justice and self-determination. This struggle, everyone must understand, will never come to an end, until racism and oppression come to an end. In this somewhat lengthy article, I will present some of my personal recollections in relation to life under the sinister Israeli occupation. Interestingly, the nightmares of the occupation have only become more ghoulish. Now Israel’s Nazi face is exposed to all and Sundry…

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Arabs Decry Iraq Discrimination
Afif Sarhan, IOL Correspondent
Arabs in Iraq have been enduring various forms of discrimination since the 2003 invasion of the country. “I received a letter from militants in my home saying that I had a week to move away and return to my country,” Ahmed Yacoub, 43, an Egyptian resident of Baghdad for more than 32 years, told IslamOnline.net. “They were accusing me of supporting insurgents and I never even knew one of them,” he added. “Being an Arab in Iraq has become an enough reason for police officers and militants to believe we could be possible Sunni fighters,” Yacoub lamented. “During Saddam Hussein’s regime, we were respected and our children were able to go to schools and universities. Today, we aren’t welcomed and all benefits gained under Saddam regime have been taken away.” Millions of Arabs from different nationalities lived for years in Iraq….

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Marine acquitted in Haditha deaths
Dan Whitcomb, Reuters
A U.S. Marine officer was acquitted by a military jury on Wednesday on charges he tried to cover up the shooting deaths of two dozen unarmed Iraqi men, women and children at Haditha in 2005. In the first court-martial verdict from the high-profile case, Lt. Andrew Grayson was cleared at Camp Pendleton, California, after a five-day trial and less than half a day of deliberations by the jury…

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Iraqis arrest five men over 721 sectarian murders in shrine city
AFP
Iraqi police in the Shia shrine city of Karbala have arrested five men wanted in connection with 721 murders committed over a period of 18months, a senior officer saidyesterday. Major General Raed Shaker Jawdat, head of police in the central city, said the men were suspected of leading a gang of about 150 people. When questioned about the sectarian murders, they had told police the victims were loyalists of the Baath party of former president Saddam Hussein, he said. “When we searched the background (of the victim), we found only 11 of the 721 were in fact Baathists,” General Jawdat said. Investigators have found mass graves containing the victims of the wave of killings, some of them women and children….

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War and Occupation, American-style
Tom Engelhardt & Chris Hedges
…Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleaguered troops, merge into one entity. These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops in Iraq nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate. They are dismissed as less than human. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing — the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm — to murder — the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you….

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War and Occupation, American-style
Tom Engelhardt & Chris Hedges
…Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleaguered troops, merge into one entity. These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops in Iraq nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate. They are dismissed as less than human. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing — the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm — to murder — the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you….

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Israeli Parliament advances a bill to make Jerusalem capital of Israel and all the Jews
IMEMC
The Israeli Parliament passed in preliminary reading a bill on Wednesday to ocndsider the city of Jerusalem as capital of Israel all the Jews world wide. The bill was submitted by the right wing Israeli National Religious party to amend the Basic law which considers Jerusalem as capital of Israel. The bill passed in the ruling coalition with a majority of 58 to 12. In an interview with the Israeli online Haaretz Avhsalom Vilan, an Israeli MP who voted against the law change deemed the bill as “nonsense” adding that he is worried that this law will lead the collapse of the entire peace process….

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Freedom Rider: Slow Death in Gaza
By BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Each American claim to moral authority becomes a foul excretion in light of U.S. complicity in Israel’s barbaric and illegal treatment of the Palestinians. Washington deploys its superpower apparatus to smother dissent against its Middle East policy in Europe and elsewhere, leaving former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu as lonely defenders of Palestinian human rights. No change in American policy is on the horizon, as “the rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel.” The “abomination,” as Desmond Tutu describes it, against 1.6 million people in Palestine shows the hypocrisy of American and Israeli pretenses to civilization…

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Sistani conditionally approved the security agreement
Roads to Iraq
One thing need to be mentioned, According to alkhaleej newspaper, Arab League spokesman denied reports of sending Arab forces to Iraq, no further details about who reported this, but few days ago Haikal said that in a period of two years Arab countries will send their military forces to Iraq, so I don’t if this is what the spokesman meant. There are reports (quoting Al-Hakim) say that Sistani rejected the U.S. – Iraq security agreement [see Elaph link below], this is very misleading, the reality is Sistani (quoted by al-Hakim) refers to four point conditional approval of the agreement, as you see on Buratha website it says: “Sistani put four points conditions”…

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Hamas welcomes calls for national reconciliation dialogue
Palestinian Information Center
Hamas said that it welcomes any Arab or Palestinian initiative for national reconciliation to serve the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people’s interests. Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar told PIC correspondent in a telephone contact on Wednesday evening that Hamas welcomes any Arab or Palestinian initiative calling for inter-Palestinian dialogue without preconditions and on the basis of serving the Palestinian people’s interests. Zahhar, who was responding to a call made by PA president Mahmoud Abbas for comprehensive national dialogue, called for setting up a preliminary committee to insure success of such dialogue…

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June 4, 2008: 3 US Soldiers, 70 Iraqis Killed; 124 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 70 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 124 more were injured in the latest violence. The deadliest bombing in months bombing occurred in the capital, while two mass graves were found. Also, gunmen killed three American soldiers during an attack in Hawija today. In Baghdad, a truck carrying weapons was detonated, perhaps accidentally, near the home of police general in a northern neighborhood; at least 18 were killed and 75 were wounded. A roadside bomb in Karradah killed seven and wounded 11 more…

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Heart of Darkness
ERIC WALBERG
News from Afghanistan makes no sense. On the one hand there are up-beat stories like the recent Canadian Operation Rolling Thunder in Pashmul, Kandahar. “I started the operation on a hospital operating table and I’m ending it with everybody coming back safely. I couldn’t be happier,” beamed Major Grubb, leading the 2nd Battalion of the bizarrely named Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry Company. The few locals still living in Pashmul, the scene of this “liberation” campaign by the kuffar Canadians, either fled by foot or cowered in their dugouts before the fighting started. Most are poor farmers. Scores of locals, the “enemy”, were killed by the brave Canucks, who, just to clinch their “success”, called on US military air support to drop several bombs, including Hellfire missiles. Several dozen “enemy” were destroyed….

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GAZA: FACTS OF GROSS INHUMANITY
The Palestinian Return Center
As Israel steps up its human rights violations and SYSTEMATIC breaches of international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip ALL the basic functions of civilian life have come to a near standstill, including drinking water delivery, sewage water disposal, and garbage collection. Access to food, water and medicine is now beginning to hit unborn children and newborn babies. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza records confirms the birth of 9,000 to 10,000 babies in the Gaza Strip every month. Of every 1,000 born, 28 die from malnutrition, anemia and other poverty-related causes. The Ministry has no figures of babies surviving after suffering from malnutrition…

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INTERNATIONAL CALL TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE IRAQI DETAINEES AND PRISONERS OF WAR IN IRAQ
A group of 120 politicians, academicians and Journalists from several countries issued an urgent appeal to protect the rights of the Iraqi detainees and prisoners of war in the American jails in Iraq . The Group also announced the formation of International Solidarity Committee with them and demanded that their treatment conforms with the Geneva Protocol vis-à-vis the detainees and prisoners of war…

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UNBREAKABLE TODAY, UNBREAKABLE TOMORROW, UNBREAKABLE FOREVER
Malcom Lagauche
During the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign, many people of the left supported Bill Clinton. The catch-phrase of the day was: “We know he’s not ideal, but when he gets in office, he will change things. He has to be moderate to get elected.” Then came the disappointment. Throughout the Arab world, Clinton’s election was heralded. Those who opposed the Iraqi embargo said that Clinton would represent a fresh look at the sanctions. It soon became evident that it was business as usual. Under the Clinton administration, more Iraqis died than in the two military actions by a couple of Bushes. Here we go again. Barack Obama is the posterperson of the left and of those who want to see the Arab world get a fair shake in dealing with Israel. The same statements abound: “He’ll change when he’s in office;” “We know he’s not ideal, but he represents a new look in politics.” Many Arab-Americans are putting Obama on a pedestal. Unfortunately, that pedestal has already begun to crumble…

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Rate of Violence Skyrocketing in Afghanistan
Brandon Friedman
… In terms of enemy fire, May 2008 was the second deadliest month of the war since hostilities began in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11. This also marked the end of the deadliest 12-month period for U.S. troops in combat in Afghanistan since the war began nearly seven years ago…

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The Missionary Activities are systematic policy of the US Administration
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) in its statement said that the missionary activities of the occupation forces in Iraq affirm beyond any this is a systematic policy of the U.S. administration in the dissemination of the Zionist-Christian. In its statement AMSI said that religious crusade has taken root in the minds of a large number of employees of these (occupation) forces officers and soldiers and the classes are motivated to use their military might to serve this trend….

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Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
Patrick Cockburn, The Independent
A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November. The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country….

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Vanunu’s Letter, He Needs Our Help Before July 8
Mordechai Vanunu, thepeoplesvoice,
…I am Mordechai Vanunu, the man who told the truth about Israel’s Nuclear Weapons. Program in 1986 and paid with 18 years of my life in isreal Prison . I was released in April 2004, but Israel denied me, my human rights of free speech and freedom movement.not allowed to leave since 1986,until now 2008. On July 8, 2008, I will return to court. to appeal a new 6 months prison sentence for speaking to foriegn Media,since my release 2004, I am asking the Media to report on my case and on the efforts of Norwegian Lawyers and citizens to grant me asylum….

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Popular committee: The per capita income in Gaza is two dollars per day
Palestinian Information Center
The popular committee against the siege reported that the daily average per capita income in the Gaza Strip is estimated at two US dollars, pointing out that as a result of the Israeli siege the unemployment rate reached 70 percent while the poverty rate rose to 80 percent. The committee underlined that more than one million Palestinians in Gaza live on the modest assistance provided by the UNRWA and FAO in addition to other Arab and Islamic charitable organizations…

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Three US soldiers killed in Iraq
AFP
Three American soldiers were killed by small arms fire near the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on Wednesday, the US military said. The attack took place in the mainly Sunni Arab town of Hawijah west of Kirkuk, the military said. “The names of the deceased are being withheld pending next of kin notification and release by the (US) department of defence,” a statement said…

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Obama pledges support for Israel
Aljazeera.net
Barack Obama, the US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee, has pledged to safeguard Israel’s security if elected president in November. Obama also described the US bond with Israel as “unbreakable today, unbreakable tomorrow, unbreakable for ever” and said he spoke as a “true friend” of Israel. Hours after securing his party’s nomination, Obama told the influential annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (Aipac) on Wednesday that rumours and suggestions he is unfriendly to Israel and to Jewish interests are unfounded. Obama, the first African-American projected to win the presidential nomination for a major US political party, said that Jerusalem must remain the “undivided” capital of Israel…

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Mass graves discovered in and south of Baghdad
SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer
Iraqi villagers and soldiers unearthed at least 13 bodies from a shallow, dusty grave in farmland south of Baghdad, and the U.S. military said Wednesday it found another 10 bodies in a sewer shaft east of the capital. Associated Press Television News footage showed Iraqi troops and civilians digging in dusty soil in a deserted agricultural area on the outskirts of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. At least three severely decomposed bodies could be seen unearthed from side-by-side graves. One had a turban or bandage tied crudely around his head…

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‘Give ‘em a state!’
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst
When George Bush, the US president, responds to Palestinian complaints of Israel’s siege, refusal to negotiate over Jerusalem and the refugees, and settlement expansion by saying ‘Give ‘em a state’, I am reminded of Marie Antoinette’s response to starving French peasants: Let them eat cake. And so it will be when Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, meets Bush for what may be his last visit to the US as Israeli premier. The two leaders are expected to advocate negotiations over a ‘framework agreement’ that foresees a “Palestinian state” but foregoes dismantling the settlements, withdrawing to the 1967 borders including in Jerusalem, or finding a just resolution to the 3.7 million Palestinian refugees and displaced…

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Choice in November – Nader v. Twiddle Dee or Twiddle Dum
Stephen Lendman
…Obama preaches change but supports the status quo. He’s beholden to power as a stealth DLC member that’s essential for any Democrat aspirant. It makes him gallingly disingenuous, deceitful to voters, and “safe” for corporate supporters who back him. He says individual donors supply most of his funding, that he gets none of it from lobbyists, and that they won’t crowd out working Americans if he’s elected. In fact, big money owns him. He raises over $1 million a day. Wall Street lords love him. So do corporate law firms; other finance, insurance and real estate interests; the health industry; communications and electronics firms; various other businesses; and the Center for Responsive Politics reports that his top five donors are corporate lobbyists – the same ones he claims to take no money from…

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Between oppression and empowerment
Nimer Sultany, The Electronic Intifada
Defining the status of the Palestinian citizens of Israel has always been a puzzle for many scholars. One called the Palestinian citizens “semi-citizens” with accidental citizenship. Another distinguished between “liberal citizenship” granted to the Arabs and “republican citizenship” granted to the Jews. A third distinguished between “incidental citizenship” granted to the Arabs and “substantive citizenship” granted to the Jews. I have contributed to this discussion by claiming that the Palestinians are “citizens without citizenship.” The “citizen without citizenship” is the citizen who is excluded from the political community, from the dominant public sphere and from the common public good. This citizen has rights within the state but does not have rights over the state, to use the terms used by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon…

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Israel’s Shin Bet Intimidates Top Human Rights Medical Director and His Family
BBSNews
While many in the United States have been focused on the upcoming general election in November, business as usual is occurring across the world in the Middle East in Israel, with the intimidating interrogation of Physicians for Human Rights Clinics Director Haj Yehya. The deteriorating conditions in Gaza, particularly the serious medical complications arising from the US sanctioned Israeli blockade and collective punishment of Gaza civilians that yet continues even as Barack Obama becomes the presumptive Democratic nominee heading into the US November elections; it all will fall into the lap of the next US administration….

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Adm. William Fallon’s first interview
CNN
…I don’t believe for a second president bush wants a war with Iran. The situation with Iran is very complex. People sometimes portray it or try to portray it in very simplistic terms we’re against Iran, we want to go to war with Iran, we want to be close to them, the reality is in international politics that many aspects to many of these situations and I believe in our relationship with Iran we need to be strong and firm and convey the principles on which this country stands and upon which our policies are based. At the same time demonstrate a willingness and openness to engage in dialogue because there are things we can find in common…

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Anti-siege committee: Israel seeks to spread diseases and epidemics in Gaza
Palestinian Information Center
The popular committee against the siege warned that Israel is seeking to spread deadly diseases and epidemics in the Gaza Strip through tightening its siege on one and a half million Palestinian people, adding that hundreds of Palestinians would die if an environmental catastrophe happened in the Strip. MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the committee, explained that the Israeli restrictions on the entry of fuel supplies to Gaza led to the stop of sanitary facilities and equipment which run on electricity…

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Bush has plans to turn Iraq over to the corporations and their mercenary armies
Andrew Tilghman
Could the U.S. ultimately end up privatizing its entire mission in Iraq? That’s what the latest round of contracts the U.S. government plans to let out in the coming months might suggest. As Walter Pincus reports in today’s Washington Post, the new contracts underscore the non-military involvement the U.S. is undertaking as public pressure mounts to reduce troop numbers…

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Human rights group charges: US continues “renditions” and operates a floating gulag
David Walsh
In a new report, the human rights organization Reprieve (UK) alleges that the US government has continued its program of “rendition” and secret imprisonment — despite a claim by George W. Bush in 2006 that the illegal practices had been stopped — and also that it holds an unknown number of “ghost” detainees aboard US navy vessels. The report has not been issued, but Reprieve made a press release available Monday and the Guardian in Britain carried a story the same day providing some of the study’s details…

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June 3, 2008: 1 US Soldier, 18 Iraqis Killed; 34 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 18 Iraqis were killed and 34 more were wounded in the latest violence. One U.S. soldier died from non-combat-related causes this morning. Also, Iran resumed shelling suspected Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) rebel locations northeast of Arbil. In Baghdad, three dumped bodies were discovered. Six people were injured when a roadside bomb was detonated on Palestine Street. Also, mortars fell on Muthanna Airport, but no casualties were reported….

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