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By Ryan Quinn
$14.99
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By Nick Turse (Editor)
$23
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AP photo / David Furst, pool
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By Chris Hedges — The Gilbert and Sullivan charade of statesmanship played out by George W. Bush and his enabler, Condoleezza Rice, as they wander the Middle East is a fitting end to seven years of misrule.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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President Bush has arrived in Israel, where he plans to do some legacy shopping and see if he can’t just solve this Mideast conflict everyone is always talking about. Everyday Israelis and Palestinians, however, remain skeptical that their leaders will find a solution before the end of 2008, as promised.
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White House photo / Tina Hager
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For the first time during his presidency, in the final year of his final term, George W. Bush is headed to Israel and the West Bank. Given that he’s even less popular in the Mideast than he is at home, massive security preparations are under way.
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AP photo / Sasa Kralj
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By Reese Erlich — In this excerpt from his new book, “The Iran Agenda,” veteran independent journalist and Truthdig contributor Reese Erlich challenges the conventional wisdom on Iran’s nuclear ambitions as he investigates the drive for war.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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If Israeli and Palestinian officials can’t find a way to establish a Palestinian state, the state of Israel won’t survive, according to Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. These words of warning came on the heels of Olmert’s meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and President Bush in Annapolis, Md., during which the three leaders laid out plans and set goals for formal peace talks.
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By Joe Conason — The ascension of George W., according to many Bush loyalists, was a return of mature and wise foreign policy. Tell that to the ailing Middle East, whose future is now being pondered in a U.S. meeting that seems destined to fail.
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AP photo / Murad Sezer
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By Scott Ritter — The former weapons inspector and military intelligence officer argues that Turkey, once dismissed as the “sick man of Europe,” will be ignored by the West at its own peril.
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By Will Durst — The rule is simple: The good guys get the nukes, the bad guys don’t. And who decides who’s naughty and who’s nice? Not Santa—it’s the Decider.
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By Joe Conason — The Pentagon has launched a preventive strike against a target that military chiefs presumably regard as one of the most active current threats to U.S. and world security—namely, the office of the vice president of the United States.
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Asked to what extent the State Department had covered up corruption in the government of Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the department’s top Mideast official told the House Oversight Committee that information that could “damage” the U.S. relationship with Iraq is considered “confidential.” That didn’t go over well with committee Chairman Henry Waxman, who then threw down the gauntlet.
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Remember that B-52 that accidentally took some nukes on a joyride? The whole episode doesn’t make much sense to Larry Johnson, a former employee of the CIA and the State Department’s counterterrorism office, who wonders if it’s more than a coincidence that the plane landed at Barksdale Air Force Base, which a former B-52 pilot friend tells him is “a jumping off point for Middle East operations.”
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AP Photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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By Chris Hedges — By all indications, the United States is about to attack Iran. Expect a regional catastrophe to follow, propelled by impotent diplomacy and inane media.
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AP Photo / Hatem Moussa
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Thousands of protesters clashed with Hamas security forces in Gaza on Friday. Rival groups, including the recently ousted Fatah, organized the demonstration, which centered on alleged civil liberty violations and the politicization of mosques.
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AP Photo / Hameed Rasheed
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By Chris Hedges — The Pulitzer Prize-winning Mideast observer warns that the situation in Iraq is about to get much, much worse, whether we stay or leave.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Holocaust survivors took to the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday to protest the Israeli government’s offer of a $20 monthly stipend. A survivor group director explained the situation this way: “They have cancer 14 times more than the regular population. They break their bones due to the malnutrition they had years ago. And now when they need the help, there is nobody to turn to.”
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news.bbc.co.uk
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According to the U.N., roughly 50,000 Iraqis flee their homeland each month, bringing the total of refugees so far to over 2 million—in addition to the 2 million displaced within Iraq. The United States, for its part, has welcomed just 133 Iraqi refugees over the last nine months.
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AP photo
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You wouldn’t think one of the world’s biggest oil producers would have gasoline shortages, but Iran simply lacks the refining capacity to meet demand. A new rationing system meant to keep costs down has sparked riots. Under the new rules, prices have soared to 38 cents a gallon.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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According to the Irish prime minister, Tony Blair has agreed to serve the quartet—the U.S., the U.N., the EU and Russia—as a special envoy to the Mideast. Earlier reports suggested that Blair bristled at the limited scope of the position, but an aide says the outgoing British prime minister was eager to take the job and continue to work on the world stage.
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motherjones.com
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Truthdig contributor Reese Erlich connects the blowback from American meddling in the Mideast to the recent violence in Lebanon, where a Palestinian militant group has been fighting with the Lebanese army.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has sworn in a new government that excludes Hamas, a move praised by both the U.S. and Israel. But the emergency government is likely to preside only over the West Bank because Hamas—which Israeli officials described as a “terrorist entity”—retains control of Gaza.
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Israel has come under rocket fire from Lebanon, but says it will show restraint. Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the attack, the first since the Israel-Lebanon war last year. Israel and Lebanon have blamed the Palestinians, but no group has claimed responsibility yet.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Hamas’ exiled political leader has recognized rival Mahmoud Abbas as the “legitimate” president of the Palestinian people, but the militant group, which now controls Gaza, has also called Abbas’ dissolution of the government illegal. Tensions remain high in the divided Palestinian territories, despite a pledge from Hamas to work with Abbas “for the sake of national interest.”
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On May 22, Sam Harris and Chris Hedges debated religion and politics in Los Angeles. Here is a condensed audio version of the event, broadcast on KPFK’s “Beneath the Surface” with Suzi Weissman.
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AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti
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By Chris Hedges — Israel captured and occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank 40 years ago this week. The victory was celebrated as a great triumph, at once tripling the size of the land under Israeli control, including East Jerusalem. It was, however, a Pyrrhic victory. As the occupation stretched over the decades, it transformed and deformed Israeli society.
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Truthdig / Todd Wilkinson
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By Chris Hedges — On Tuesday night, Chris Hedges and Sam Harris debated “Religion, Politics and the End of the World.” The following is Hedges’ opening statement, in which he argues that Harris and other critics of faith have mistakenly blamed religion for the ills of the world, when the true danger lies in the human heart and its capacity for evil.
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Al Jazeera takes its cameras inside the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli, where thousands of panicked residents have fled the fighting between a Palestinian militant group and the Lebanese army.
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Jeff Pflueger
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By Dahr Jamail — Israel’s 2006 military campaign in Lebanon was meant to injure and embarrass Hezbollah, but in the months since, the militant organization has only grown in popularity and prestige among many Lebanese.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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At least 40 people have been killed during a day of intense fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah Islam, a splinter Palestinian militant group in Lebanon.
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The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. has said his country’s actions in Gaza, including airstrikes, have been “very measured” in response to Palestinian rocket attacks and a devolving political situation, but that “other actions” may be necessary in the future. An anonymous Israeli official said that could include reoccupying Gaza, which he described as the least desirable scenario.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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BBC reporter Alan Johnston will spend his 45th birthday in captivity. He was kidnapped nine weeks ago in Gaza, where he had worked for three years. The BBC will mark his birthday with candlelight vigils in cities around the world.
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Washington and Tehran have agreed to temporarily set aside their differences and meet in Baghdad for limited talks on the security of Iraq. The surprise move comes amid rising tensions between the two nations, which have been publicly taunting each other in recent days.
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The Gulf nations of the Mideast have long been allies of the U.S. and Vice President Dick Cheney has been dispatched to make sure that doesn’t change, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also visiting the region in an attempt to win over disgruntled governments. Mustafa Alani, a regional analyst, sums up how the Gulf is handling all the attention: “We have a deep mistrust of both sides.”
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The Palestinian militant group Hamas has created its own version of Mickey Mouse, known as “Farfour,” to indoctrinate the next generation with such life lessons as “laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists.” TV show host Farfour has outraged Israel and rival faction Fatah, but the Walt Disney Co. has yet to comment.
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AP Photo / Ariel Schalit
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Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv on Thursday, calling for a new government. The protest was organized around the handling of the Lebanon war. A recent investigation blamed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for a “serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence.”
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bcm.bc.edu
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By Jon Wiener — Palestinian intellectual, political figure and former PLO official Sari Nusseibeh (above) talks with Jon Wiener, historian and contributor to The Nation, about Nusseibeh’s new memoir, future prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and the 2006 July War in Lebanon—a war, he says, that “both sides lost.”
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A senior State Department official has confirmed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Syrian counterpart at an ongoing conference in Egypt. The two were expected to discuss Iraq’s security. Iran, too, has expressed interest in such a meeting, but when asked about that possibility earlier this week President Bush said simply that his top diplomat would not be rude to Iran’s foreign minister.
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Despite fighting them “over there,” terrorism has grown more frequent and bloody. According to the State Department’s latest assessment of terrorist activity, Iraq contained nearly half of all attacks in 2006. The number of attacks worldwide went up 28.5 percent from the previous year, claiming 40.2 percent more lives.
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A number of Arab foreign ministers have appointed Egypt and Jordan to meet with Israel over a peace proposal that would normalize relations between the Jewish state and the Arab world in exchange for a long list of concessions, some very unlikely to be met.
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John Oliver delivers this hysterical report on the nation of Israel. At one point the “Daily Show” reporter gives the Israeli ambassador a chance to clear the air: “There is a nasty conspiracy theory going around that your country is run by Jews—a cabal of Jews who set the domestic agenda and run the media. Would you like to put that to rest now?”
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The White House has continued to criticize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria, while ignoring an earlier trip by a Republican congressional delegation. The speaker’s office maintains that it is worth meeting with “every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq.”
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latimes.com
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Responding to a Saudi peace proposal, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has invited all Arab heads of state to meet in Jerusalem for talks. Israel had rejected similar proposals, but Olmert now takes a different view, saying a multilateral meeting would be “worth the effort.”
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Left: CNN.com / Right: wikipedia.org
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Over the president’s objections, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to visit the president of Syria next weekend. Pelosi’s spokesman said the meeting was inspired by the Iraq Study Group, which recommended engaging regional players—a recommendation the Bush administration has so far ignored.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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One of Bush’s biggest buddies in the Mideast, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, described the Iraq war as an “illegitimate foreign occupation” while pleading for Arab unity. His remarks came during a summit of the Arab League, which plans to approach Israel with a renewed diplomatic effort.
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news.yahoo.com
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The Iranian foreign minister has said if Britain admits it made a mistake and violated Iran’s territorial waters, it would “facilitate” an end to the standoff over 15 captured British sailors and marines. Both countries say they have evidence to back up their conflicting claims. Update: A former British ambassador has challenged Britain’s data.
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washtimes.com
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The Senate narrowly defeated a Republican amendment Tuesday that would have removed a withdrawal plan from the emergency war spending bill. As the legislation stands, the U.S. will have to begin a troop withdrawal within four months after the law is enacted and complete the pullout by March 31, 2008.
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