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By Abraham H. Foxman
$24.95
By Michel Warschawski
$14.95
$23
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Yaakov Kirschen, The Jerusalem Post, Dry Bones —
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Shifa hospital in Gaza has struggled to keep pace with Israel’s punishing airstrikes. Bloomberg reports that the hospital’s morgue has three bodies crammed in each drawer, with dozens more lying on stretchers.
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AP photo / Hatem Moussa
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By Robert Fisk — We’ve got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don’t care anymore—providing we don’t offend the Israelis.
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Israeli Foreign Minister (and prime minister contender) Tzipi Livni responds to international criticism of the Gaza airstrikes that have killed hundreds: “The one who needs to be condemned by the international community is Hamas.”
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iffkv.cz
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By Sheerly Avni — With Gaza exploding in violence and the eyes of the world fixed once again on the Middle East, “Waltz With Bashir” may be the most important movie of the season. As an “animated documentary,” it’s also in a genre all its own.
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AP photo / Hatem Omar
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More than 150 people were killed and hundreds more wounded Saturday during Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, which were launched in retaliation for last week’s rocket attacks on Israel by the Palestinians, according to Israeli officials.
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It may seem misguidedly America-centric to link the immediate future of many parts of the Middle East to President-elect Barack Obama, but because the U.S. has inserted itself so strongly into the region, a good deal undoubtedly rides on the choices of the next American administration.
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guardian.co.uk
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Israel has discovered the holiday spirit and decided that its blockade of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip should be lifted, allowing trucks of medicine, food and other supplies to enter the occupied territory beginning Friday.
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state.gov
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Hamas agreed to temporarily stop fighting Israel for 24 hours on Monday, but the Palestinian organization said it would respond to any subsequent military action from Israeli forces with suicide attacks at the end of the cease-fire.
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Once again, the cease-fire is off between the Israelis and Palestinians, and even though the United Nations has again weighed in with Security Council Resolution 1850, which supports a two-state solution, the new measure is not likely to change things in the near future. Over to you, Mr. President-elect.
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AP photo / Khalil Hamra
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By Robert Fisk — No one in 1967 dreamed that the Israeli-Arab conflict would still be in ferocious progress 41 years later, but the wording in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 has something to do with this ongoing clash.
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Flickr / Photo Mojo
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By Eugene Robinson — It’s far-fetched to think Hillary Clinton’s performance as secretary of state would be influenced by foreign donations to her husband’s charitable foundation. But it is naive to think that the newly revealed list of donors won’t provoke suspicion and give rise to conspiracy theories.
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iphone.foxnews.com
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There was no doubt as to Israel’s take on recent comments about Israeli-Palestinian relations made by United Nations official Richard Falk when he arrived Sunday at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, only to be denied entry and sent immediately back to Zurich.
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AP photo / Hatem Moussa
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By Chris Hedges — Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It is meant to break Hamas, but will only breed future generations of militants.
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By William Pfaff — The steady expansion of nominally illegal colonies into the Palestinian territories has gone on to the point where the political parties are now incapable of disengaging from the settlement enterprise.
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AP file photo
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By Chris Hedges — The world is far more complex than our childish vision of good and evil. We as a nation and a culture have no monopoly on virtue. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when viewed from the receiving end, are state-sponsored acts of terrorism.
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USAF / Staff Sgt. Samuel Rogers
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By William Pfaff — Barack Obama has no choice but to accept responsibility for America’s foreign policy crises. But why should he accept them on the distorted and even hysterical terms by which the Bush administration has defined world affairs since 2001?
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By Amy Goodman — As President-elect Barack Obama focuses on the meltdown of the U.S. economy, another fire is burning: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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By William Pfaff — The cynical view of national sovereignty holds that it belongs only to those who can defend it. This was said recently at the Pentagon concerning American manned and unmanned attacks inside Pakistan.
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AP photo / Ariel Schalit
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If it looks heartless and sounds heartless, it probably is heartless. A direct quote from a Voice of America news piece: “Israel is ignoring pleas by the United Nations to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, standing firm on its blockade of the Palestinian territory.”
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One-hundred-and-four retired admirals and generals have signed a statement calling on the military to allow gay soldiers to serve openly. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has lost support since the Clinton administration originally negotiated the compromise, but Barack Obama will likely avoid resurrecting one of his predecessor’s biggest headaches.
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netanyahu.org.il
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It doesn’t take a media analyst (or knowledge of Hebrew) to detect the obvious similarities between the Web site for Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative candidate for prime minister in Israel, and that of America’s presidential sweepstakes winner Barack Obama.
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stopthewall.org
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It’s been only about a week since Israel closed the border into the Gaza Strip, denying the occupied territory humanitarian supplies and fuel and even blocking journalists, but the UK-based aid group Oxfam is already warning that Gaza “faces disaster” if the blockade is not immediately broken.
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AP photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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By Scott Ritter — Now that the presidential election has liberated Barack Obama from the need to play to the fickle whim of domestic politics, he should put away the saber and take a more enlightened approach to Iran.
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Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films is making the case that, as the title of its “Lieberman Must Go” video clip suggests, Sen. Joe Lieberman should be taken down a few big notches by the Democratic Party for his actions and assertions during the presidential campaign.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Fisk — How is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the U.S. itself?
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Which U.S. presidential candidate did Iranians hope would win? Do Palestinians think President-elect Barack Obama will understand the needs and challenges of their region better than President Bush has?
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By William Pfaff — The president-elect is a foreign policy novice and will find himself under great pressure to follow Middle Eastern and China and Russia policies inherited from George Bush, even though these are what Barack Obama was elected to change or terminate.
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AP photo / Khalil Hamra
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While many in the world are looking forward to change, an Israeli airstrike proved that some things never will. After a four-month cease-fire between Israeli and Palestinian fighters, Israel launched an attack into the Gaza Strip Tuesday evening, killing six in an allegedly pre-emptive strike.
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Antônio Milena / ABr
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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert isn’t exactly popular these days. Forced to resign in disgrace, it may have been with the weight of politics leaving his shoulders that he let loose during an interview with an Israeli newspaper. Among other revelations, Olmert said his country was stuck in a 1948 mind-set and must now give up virtually all contested territory—including Jerusalem and the West Bank.
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AP photo / Chip Somodevilla, pool
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By Bill Boyarsky — Was he too calm? Did he pull his punches in an effort to look presidential? Not really. The viewers got a clear choice: a reasoned and reasonable Obama versus an old-fashioned Cold Warrior who would keep us in Iraq endlessly and extend the boundaries we must defend to Georgia and Ukraine.
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White House / Eric Draper
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The Guardian is reporting that outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sought and was denied President Bush’s blessing for an airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Bush was reportedly concerned that Iran would retaliate against U.S. targets in the region and that the benefits of such an attack would be insufficient.
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Scan of the "Obsession" mailer obtained by Truthdig
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The blogosphere is alive with the sound of buzz—all about an inflammatory DVD on radical Islam being distributed to millions of households at the peak of election season. Critics are calling the DVD, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” anti-Muslim hate, or politicking, or both. The obvious question: Who is behind it?
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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Though it wasn’t immediately official, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won control of the country’s ruling Kadima party and, if she is successful in forming a governing coalition, will be the first woman prime minister in more than three decades. Livni is currently Israel’s lead negotiator with the Palestinians and, according to the newspaper Haaretz, was seen as likelier to reach a deal than her party rivals. Update
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msnbc.msn.com
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Just before the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, al-Qaida has released a lengthy videotape featuring the group’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, providing updates about how the holy war is faring around the globe and laying into Iran for “cooperating with the Americans” and with the American-approved governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his running mate sent a clear and unpleasant message to the Arab world, as did the absence of former President Jimmy Carter from the lineup of speakers at the Denver convention last week.
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By William Pfaff — The Bush administration has lived by a strategy of tension, and will go out of office bequeathing the wars it has started and the ill will it has created to its successors, to compromise those who come after.
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By William Pfaff — The West’s response to the situation in Georgia evades acknowledgement of the damage Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili has done to the United States and NATO, and to Georgia itself, which for the foreseeable future will now be a nation of limited sovereignty, and an awkward embarrassment to its Western allies.
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With Condoleezza Rice fast approaching on a peace mission, Israel offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a show of support on Monday by freeing 198 Palestinian prisoners. The group included Israel’s longest serving prisoner. Israel holds roughly 9,000 Palestinians.
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Right, so Vladimir Putin’s criticism about the Western media’s coverage of the ongoing clash between Russia and Georgia is certainly not completely unfounded, but media bias isn’t confined to the West. Consider this recent story from Russian news source Pravda.ru, headlined “Russia: Again Savior of Peace and Life.”
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What is it about the region that provokes intense sectarian passions, prompting seemingly endless vendettas? “Kingmakers,” by Karl Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, tells the story of British and American entanglement and how the modern Middle East was invented. It also offers an exemplary history of hubris.
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By Robert Fisk — Without a shot being fired, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ensured that anyone who wants anything in the Middle East has got to talk to Syria. He’s done nothing—and he’s won.
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nytimes.com
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As if the situation in the Middle East couldn’t get any worse, this week’s news that scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will resign has been seized upon by right-wing Israeli politicians, who believe the parliamentary chaos caused by Olmert’s departure will open the door for a return to hard-line, ultranationalist government.
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AP photo / Muhammed Muheisen
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By Bill Boyarsky — Sen. Barack Obama’s visit to Israel last week no doubt displeased the outspoken hawkish minority in the American Jewish community who want the Palestinians to be crushed. But it may have helped him with the more moderate majority of that community, where he must pick up support.
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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, beset by accusations of corruption and bribery, announced Wednesday that he will resign after an internal Kadima Party election to choose a new leader on Sept. 17.
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AP photo / Brennan Linsley
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By Scott Ritter — The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned.
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Mosaic producer Jamal Dajani warns that early enthusiasm for Barack Obama in the Middle East has been replaced with skepticism.
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AP photo / Jae C. Hong
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By Bill Boyarsky — The adoring media coverage of Barack Obama’s international tour is masking the reality that, whether he wins or loses, we’re almost certain to be stuck in Iraq for a long time, thanks to the legacy of George Bush.
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Before leaving Jordan for neighboring Israel, Barack Obama promised to pursue peace between Israelis and Palestinians “starting from the minute I’m sworn into office,” and to “be concerned and recognize the legitimate difficulties that the Palestinian people are experiencing right now.” His deference to impartiality comes a month after the candidate seemed to cede the city of Jerusalem, whether accidentally or not, to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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