This morning on Democracy Now Ido Aharoni, consul general of Israel in New York, refused to deny Israel’s role in sabotage against the boats in the flotilla, which includes the U.S. boat.

ADAM SHAPIRO, adamsop at gmail.com

HUWAIDA ARRAF, huwaida.arraf at gmail.com

An organizer with the Free Gaza Movement, Shapiro said today: “The blockade against Gaza now apparently extends to Greece.” Arraf is chair of the Free Gaza Movement and member of the Freedom Flotilla Steering Committee.

The following are among those currently on The Audacity of Hope as it attempts to go from Greece to Gaza:

Full Story Here: Institute for Public Accuracy.

The emails were published to torrent file sharing website The Pirate Bay, along with usernames and passwords. Members also claimed they had taken control of the government’s servers.

In a chat with Raw Story, members of Anonymous on the #OpIran server said they were leading the charge because they want Iranians to know they’re not alone in their struggle against the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Full Story Here: Anonymous claims control of Iranian gov’t servers | The Raw Story.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on the US military on Sunday to avoid operations that kill civilians, saying it was his “last warning” to Washington after 14 people allegedly died in an air strike.

Reacting to the alleged deaths of 10 children, two women and two men in an air strike on Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, Karzai said such incidents were “murdering of Afghanistan’s children and women.”

“The president called this incident a great mistake and the murdering of Afghanistan’s children and women, and on behalf of the Afghan people gives his last warning to the US troops and US officials in this regard,” his office said, adding that he “strongly condemned” the killings.

Full Story Here: Karzai Gives US ‘Last Warning’ Over Civilian Deaths | Common Dreams.

Last week, in a speech on the Middle East, President Obama reiterated long-standing US policy that there should be a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is based roughly on the pre-1967 borders and mutually agreed land swaps.

Despite the fact that Obama’s declaration was nothing new, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the idea of pre-1967 borders, even using a news conference with Obama to call the proposal “indefensible.” His chief political rival, Kadima’s Tzipi Livni, disagreed, noting that the pre-1967 borders is already American policy.

Now, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is announcing that he plans to introduce a resolution condemning Obama’s advocacy for pre-1967 borders. Hatch sensationally claiming that Obama is “rewarding those who threaten Israel’s very right to exist“:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » As Congress And Netanyahu Line Up Against 1967 Borders, Most Israelis And Palestinians Support Them.

Eighty-one Royal Navy sailors turned over the task of patrolling waters off the southern port city of Umm Qasr on the Persian Gulf to Iraq’s fledgling navy. It was the last hands-on mission that British troops had in Iraq since combat forces pulled out of the southern city of Basra in July 2009.

Brig. Gen. Max Marriner, commander of British forces in Iraq, cited dramatic security gains across the country, and particularly in the south, that he said British troops helped make happen.

Full Story Here: Britain Ends Iraq Mission, Withdraws Military Forces.

A U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks said financial support estimated at $100 million a year was making its way from those Gulf Arab states to a jihadist recruitment network in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Dawn newspaper reported.

The November 2008 dispatch by Bryan Hunt, the then principal officer at the U.S. consulate in Lahore, was based on discussions with local government and non-governmental sources during trips to Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province.

Full Story Here: Saudi Arabia, UAE funded jihadi networks in Pakistan: Wikileaks cable | The Raw Story.

The 1973 War Powers Act (WPA) — the statute President Obama invoked when he launched forces in March — requires presidents to secure congressional approval for military operations within 60 days, or withdraw forces within the next 30.

Congress did not authorize the mission — which includes a no-fly zone, bombing raids, a sea blockade and civilian-protection operations — but the deadline has stirred little sense of urgency on Capitol Hill.

Full Story Here: Lawmakers largely silent on war powers authority in Libya – TheHill.com.

The United Arab Emirates has secretly signed a $529 million contract with Erik Prince’s new company to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign mercenaries.

AMY GOODMAN: The United Arab Emirates has confirmed hiring a company headed by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater. According to the New York Times, the UAE secretly signed a $529 million contract with Prince’s new company, Reflex Responses, or R2, to put together an 800-member battalion of mercenaries.

Documents show the force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from attacks, and put down internal revolts. The troops could be deployed if foreign guest workers stage revolts in labor camps, or if the UAE regime were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world. One contract document describes, quote, “crowd-control operations” where the crowd “is not armed with firearms but does pose a risk using improvised weapons (clubs and stones).”

The UAE is a close ally with the United States, and it appears the deal has received the Obama administration’s support. One U.S. official told the Times, quote, “The gulf countries, and the U.A.E. in particular, don’t have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help. They might want to show that they are not to be messed with.”

Full Story Here: Jeremy Scahill: Blackwater Founder Creating Private Army of ‘Christian Crusaders’ in the Persian Gulf | | AlterNet.

Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

Full Story Here: Blackwater Founder Forms Secret Army for Arab State – NYTimes.com.

Even with a satellite hovering overhead and the use of infrared cameras, agents couldn’t pin down who the strange figure was, or why he never left the compound and the mission was ultimately called a failure.

With Osama now allegedly dead, his widow has admitted to reporters that they stayed in the home every day for over five years, which might help explain why he was so difficult to locate for so long.

This video was broadcast by ABC News on Friday, May 6, 2011.

Full Story Here: Revealed: CIA agents lived next door to Osama bin Laden | Raw Replay.

The French and British Prime Ministers both gave interviews Thursday morning that indicated their willingness to recognize a Palestinian state if peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians result in failure. The statements came in the midst of a diplomatic visit to both countries by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told Netanyahu that unless Israel engages in a real and meaningful peace process with the Palestinians, Britain would consider backing the declaration of a Palestinian state that the Palestinian President plans to make at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Nicholas Sarkozy, the French Prime Minister, spoke to reporters with the French weekly L’Express in advance of a meeting with the Israeli leader. Sarkozy told the reporters that he hoped the peace process would resume over the summer, but added that, “If, conversely, the peace process remains stalled in September, France will take responsibility on the central question of recognizing a Palestinian state.”

Full Story Here: Both France and England may recognize Palestinian state – International Middle East Media Center.

By Michael Sfard

Israel’s cautious foreign policy on legal matters over the past 44 years is likely to collapse in September. The mechanisms of legal defense that it built since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to combat the “danger” of international jurisdiction about its conduct toward millions of people who are under its control, are likely to turn into dust at the stroke of the diplomatic moves.

If indeed the international community recognizes a Palestinian state, the question whether officers in the Israel Defense Forces who are involved in assassinations, shooting at unarmed demonstrators and using phosphorus bombs will be interrogated and brought to trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and the question of whether international human rights treaties ‏(and other treaties‏) will obligate Israel during action in the territories, will no longer be decided in the government offices in Jerusalem but rather in the corridors of the Muqataa in Ramallah.

Full Story Here: Haaretz.Com.

The Obama administration has begun seeking a country, most likely in Africa, that might be willing to provide shelter to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi if he were forced out of Libya, even as a new wave of intelligence reports suggest that no rebel leader has emerged as a credible successor to the Libyan dictator.

The intense search for a country to accept Colonel Qaddafi has been conducted quietly by the United States and its allies, even though the Libyan leader has shown defiance in recent days, declaring that he has no intention of yielding to demands that he leave his country, and intensifying his bombardment of the rebel city of Misurata.

The effort is complicated by the likelihood that he would be indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988, and atrocities inside Libya.

Full Story Here: U.S. and Allies Seek a Refuge for Qaddafi – NYTimes.com.

Libyan rebels regained control of the eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya on Saturday after international airstrikes crippled Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, in the first major turnaround for an uprising that once appeared on the verge of defeat. In a western city the opposition lost to Gadhafi, a resident said security agents had lists of rebel sympathizers and were dragging them from their homes.

Drivers honked in celebration and flew the tricolor rebel flag. Others in the city fired their guns into the air and danced on burned-out tanks that littered the road. Inside a building that had served as makeshift barracks for pro-Gadhafi forces, hastily discarded uniforms were piled on the floor.

“Without the planes we couldn’t have done this. Gadhafi’s weapons are at a different level than ours,” said Ahmed Faraj, 38, a rebel fighter from Ajdabiya. “With the help of the planes we are going to push onward to Tripoli, God willing.”

Full Story Here: Libyan Rebels Regain Key City After Airstrikes.

OPS: “U.S., ALLIES CONSIDER ARMING REBELS”  you mean like Reagan  did with bin Laden?

• Iraqi told lies to try to bring down Saddam Hussein regime

• Fabrications used by US as justification for invasion

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” he said. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”

Full Story Here: Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war | World news | The Guardian.

It’s over. Given the shocking nature, extent and detail of these ghastly revelations from behind the closed doors of the Middle East peace process, the seemingly endless and ugly game is now, finally, over. Not one of the villains on the Palestinian side can survive it. With any luck the sheer horror of this account of how the US and Britain covertly facilitated and even implemented Israeli military expansion – while creating an oligarchy to manage it – might overcome the entrenched interests and venality that have kept the peace process going. A small group of men who have polluted the Palestinian public sphere with their private activities are now exposed.

For us Palestinians, these detailed accounts of the secretly negotiated surrender of every one of our core rights under international law (of return for millions of Palestinian refugees, on annexing Arab Jerusalem, on settlements) are not a surprise. It is something that we all knew – in spite of official protests to the contrary – because we feel their destructive effects every day. The same is true of the outrageous role of the US and Britain in creating a security bantustan, and the ruin of our civic and political space. We already knew, because we feel its fatal effects.

For the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, official Palestinian policy over these past decades has been the antithesis of a legitimate, or representative, or even coherent strategy to obtain our long-denied freedom. But this sober appreciation of our current state of affairs, accompanied by the mass protests and civil society campaigns by Palestinian citizens, has been insufficient, until now, to rid us of it.

Full Story Here: This seemingly endless and ugly game of the peace process is now finally over | Karma Nabulsi | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Today, Al Jazeera and the Guardian released the first of more than 1,600 documents related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The document dump comes just hours after The Associated Press reported that Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is drafting plans for a provisional Palestine. Palestinian leaders have rejected the notion as a “publicity stunt.”

Full Story Here: Palestine Papers: Al Jazeera, Guardian Release Documents On Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Speaking after talks with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, Biden said: “We’re not leaving if you (Afghans) don’t want us to leave”.

But he also emphasised that the planned handover of responsibility for security from international troops to Afghan forces in four years, agreed at a NATO summit in November, was on track.

Full Story Here: US military’s presence in Afghanistan may extend after 2014, Biden says | Raw Story.

In the nine months he worked as senior adviser to the chief of the Border Police, John Brewer relied on a local translator to navigate Afghan culture. Yet the Canadian Mountie spent as much time trying to interpret the actions of foreign forces to equally puzzled Afghans.

Why, they asked him, did Germany provide their training base with drug-sniffing police dogs but not dog food or kennels? Why would the Americans build a brand new border police headquarters on land with no water? And what should be done with the thousands of donated European radios that do not operate on the same frequency as the Afghan ones?

His polite response was to suggest that Afghans speak up for themselves and that NATO officers listen to them more. Still, the plain-spoken Superintendent Brewer will admit to some frustration with the waste of time and money through miscommunication. “A lesser man,” he says, “would say it’s pissing in the wind.”

Canada is pulling out combat troops from Afghanistan by July of this year, but announced in November that it would provide 750 trainers and 200 support staff who would stay in Afghanistan to assist the NATO mission. Mr. Brewer’s experience poses the question of whether the effort will accomplish its goal of creating a self-sustaining and effective Afghan security force.

Full Story Here: A gloomy observation on Afghan training – The Globe and Mail.

Mr. Maliki spoke with The Wall Street Journal in a two-hour interview, his first since Iraq ended nine months of stalemate and seated a new government after an inconclusive election, allowing Mr. Maliki to begin a second term as premier.

A majority of Iraqis—and some Iraqi and U.S. officials—have assumed the U.S. troop presence would eventually be extended, especially after the long government limbo. But Mr. Maliki was eager to draw a line in his most definitive remarks on the subject. “The last American soldier will leave Iraq” as agreed, he said, speaking at his office in a leafy section of Baghdad’s protected Green Zone. “This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed.”

Full Story Here: Iraqi Prime Minister Says U.S. Forces Must Leave On Time – WSJ.com.

More than a quarter of Afghans see insurgent attacks against American troops as justified, according to a poll released Monday, an increase that comes as the U.S.-led NATO coalition pushes to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Twenty-seven percent of Afghans polled said the attacks can be justified. Last year, the number was just 8 percent, as former NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal issued strict guidelines limiting the use of force in an effort to reduce civilian casualties.

This year’s sharp increase brings the number back to levels seen earlier in the nine-year war.

Full Story Here: Poll: More Afghans support attacks on American troops – Afghanistan – Salon.com.

– Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned he may dissolve his self-rule government and ask Israel to resume full control of the West Bank if troubled peace talks fail.

Dismantling the Palestinian Authority would be a last resort, Abbas told Palestine TV in an interview broadcast late Friday. However, his comments marked the most explicit warning yet that he’s considering a step that could crush lingering hopes for a Mideast peace deal.

If Abbas were to take such a step, Israel, as a military occupier, would have to assume full responsibility again for 2.2 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel was relieved of that financial burden with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, as part of interim peace deals.

Full Story: Abbas: Last resort — I’ll ask Israel to take over – Yahoo! News.

Citing unnamed Iraqi government officials, current and former members of the Awakening and insurgents, the newspaper said that although there were no firm figures, hundreds of fighters appear to have rejoined Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia in recent months.

Many of them would have gained extensive knowledge about the US military, it said.

Full Story: Members abandoning Iraqi Awakening Councils, joining Al Qaeda: report | Raw Story.

Jewish settlers on Tuesday gave new copies of the Koran to Palestinians in a West Bank village whose mosque was burnt in an attack blamed by Palestinians on militants in the settler movement.

Several copies of Islam’s holy book were scorched in the arson attack and threats in Hebrew were scrawled on the wall of the mosque of Beit Fajjar early on Monday.

The village sits on the edge of the sprawling Jewish settlement bloc of Gush Etzion.

Suspicion immediately fell on settler militants opposed to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, in which some settlements would be turned over to a Palestinian state.

Full Story: Jewish settlers replace Korans burnt in West Bank | Stuff.co.nz.

The Palestinian president has left the door open to continuing peace negotiations with Israel even if it resumes settlement construction in the West Bank, offering a glimmer of hope that a compromise will be reached in a key dispute that has threatened to torpedo the newly relaunched talks.

But in a reminder of the fragile negotiating climate, a private Israeli security guard shot and killed a Palestinian man in a volatile east Jerusalem neighborhood early Wednesday, sparking clashes between stone-hurling youths and Israeli forces.

During the man’s funeral, a mob of protesters set tires on fire, smashed the windows of several buses and screamed for revenge. “We will defend you with our blood and souls, martyr.”

Full Story: Palestinian President Hints At Settlement Deal, AP Reports.

He predicts thousands of deaths — not only Iranians but also many Israelis and probably Americans. Oil prices would skyrocket, Jews in the diaspora would come under attack, the United States would be embroiled in the worst Middle East crisis ever, and Israel would become the “leper of nations.”

Pretty horrible.

In January, James Phillips, Senior Fellow for Middle East Affairs at the very hawkish and right-wing Heritage Foundation, produced a strong report which, among other things, describes what an Iranian retaliation to an Israeli attack would look like. Here are the “highlights.”

Full Story: Pro-Attack On Iran? Anti-Israel! | Political Correction.

Afghanistan’s embattled president Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that U.S. taxpayers were indirectly funding “mafia-like groups” and terrorist activities with the American government’s support of private contractors inside his country.

In a rare U.S. media appearance, Karzai continued to press for the removal of the vast majority of U.S. private contractors by the end of this year. He argued that their continued presence inside Afghanistan was “an obstruction and impediment” to the country’s growth, a massive waste of money, and a catalyst for corruption among Afghan officials.

“The more we wait the more we lose,” Karzai said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “Therefore we have decided as an Afghan government to bring an end to the presence of these security companies… who are not only causing corruption in this country but who are looting and stealing from the Afghan people.

Full Story: Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity.

With just over 10 weeks before nationwide elections that could define the remainder of Obama’s first term, only 38 percent say they support his expanded war effort in Afghanistan — a drop from 46 percent in March. Just 19 percent expect the situation to improve during the next year, while 29 percent think it will get worse. Some 49 percent think it will remain the same.

The numbers could be ominous for the president and his Democratic Party, already feeling the heat for high unemployment, a slow economic recovery and a $1.3 trillion federal deficit. Strong dissent — 58 percent oppose the war — could depress Democratic turnout when the party desperately needs to energize its supporters for midterm congressional elections.

Full Story: Poll: Nearly 6 in 10 oppose war in Afghanistan.

The discovery of the basin between northern Balkh and Shiberghan provinces was made after a survey conducted by Afghan and international geologists, said Jawad Omar, a spokesman for the ministry of mines.

“I do not know its price in the market. But the initial survey says there are 1.8 billion barrels of oil and I think there will be more than what it is estimated,” he told Reuters.

Full Story: Afghanistan says finds 1.8 billion barrel oilfield | World | Reuters.

OPS: Don’t you wonder how long ago this was actually identified?  The timing of this ‘news’ is interesting.  Now we will never leave.

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/palestinians-denied-access-to-wate…

It explained how Israel exploits Palestinian water resources, using most of it, forcing them to find ways to get by. Water, of course, is essential to life, rights to it natural and usufructuary. Belonging to everyone as part of the commons, it must be used, not owned or abused, an essential truth Israel corrupts.

On August 5, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) published the latest in its “Narratives Under Siege” series, titled “There’s Something in the Water: The Poisoning of Life in the Gaza Strip.”

“THIS BEACH IS POLLUTED” signs dot Gaza City beaches, posing serious health hazards because of daily raw sewage dumped into the Mediterranean Sea through 16 discharge sites along the coast. Yet thousands fill them despite the dangers, including children, taking advantage of one of their few sources of respite – available, convenient, and free, but not safe.

For Gazans, the sea is part of their lives – to fish, gather with family, swim, and for children, play in the sun on hot days, a joy this writer recalls growing up on America’s Atlantic coast. Summers were always the best time. The memories remain.

Full Story: Gaza’s Poisoned Water | War Is A Crime .org.

Taliban militants were responsible for about 68 percent of the 1,325 deaths while Afghan and NATO troops were to blame for 23 percent, Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission said.

Violent but “unknown factors” killed the rest, it said.

The new toll shows a five percent increase over the same period last year, the group said, citing a nationwide count of civilian casualties by its regional offices, senior commissioner Nader Nadery told reporters.

Full Story: AFP: Afghan war ‘kills 1,325 civilians this year’.

The video has the potential to undermine Netanyahu’s credibility in the US and internationally but there’s another aspect to the story that could undermine Bibi Netanyahu’s credibility with Jews in Israel and internationally – Netanyahu’s key, close ally in undermining peace negotiations, Christians United For Israel founder and head John Hagee, has a ugly history of distributing, on a global scale, vile anti-Jewish propaganda including Adolf Hitler’s favorite conspiracy theory, the canard that Jewish bankers rule the world.

While the newly released Netanyahu video footage leaves little doubt of Prime Mininster Netanyahu’s complicity in blocking peace efforts, there’s additional compelling evidence bolstering the case, as Talk To Action contributor Rachel Tabachnick outlined in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and John Hagee Share Stage as Biden Arrives in Israel, and Netanyahu and Hagee, Serial Obstructionists, Benjamin Netanyahu and Christian Zionist leader John Hagee have twice appeared together, while US presidents were mounting high-profile efforts to jump start the peace process, at highly public events during which the two men demonstrated blatant contempt for and hostility towards peace efforts.

Full Story: Talk To Action | Netanyahu Admits To Blocking Peace Process. Meet His Anti-Semitic American Ally.

A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.

Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was “way down the list” of options. But he tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that such action now “seems inexorable.”

He predicts Iran will build its program to the point where it’s just below having an actual weapon. Hayden says that would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing.

Full Story: U.S. Military Strike On Iran Likely, Ex-CIA Chief Says.

MASSIVE SEARCH UNDERWAY FOR MISSING US TROOPS

U.S. and NATO officials confirmed that two American Navy personnel went missing Friday in the eastern province of Logar, after an armored sports utility vehicle was seen driving into a Taliban-held area.

The two left their compound in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in a vehicle Friday afternoon, but never returned, NATO said in a statement. Vehicles and helicopters were dispatched to search for the two, who may have been killed or captured by the Taliban after getting lost in Charkh district of southern Logar province, said district chief Samer Gul.

In a telephone interview Sunday with the Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the pair drove into an area under insurgent control, prompting a brief gunfight in which one of the Americans was killed and the other was captured. He said both were taken to a “safe area” and “are in the hands of the Taliban.” The Taliban offered to exchange the body of the U.S. Navy sailor they said was killed in exchange for insurgent prisoners.

Full Story: US Troops Captured In Afghanistan: Report.

A summary of the findings:

1. 56% of Americans agree with the claim that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza;

2. 43% of Americans agree with the claim that people in Gaza are starving;

3. 34% of Americans support the Israeli operation against the Flotilla;

4. 20% of Americans “felt support” for Israel following announcement of easing of Gaza closure.

Full Story: Think Progress » Leaked Luntz Poll: Majority of Americans don’t support Israeli flotilla raid..

Ban’s warning came as the IDF concludes a massive training exercise in the north, where soldiers are preparing for war.

“Amidst allegations of continued arms transfers to Hizbullah… a perceptible increase in tension between the parties was recorded,” Ban reportedly wrote in his report, a copy of which was obtained by the French news agency AFP,. The report comes four years after the beginning of the Second Lebanon War, which ended with U.N. ceasefire resolution 1701 that Israel says has not stopped continued stockpiling of arms by Hizbullah.

“This raised the specter of a miscalculation by either party leading to a resumption of hostilities, with potentially devastating consequences for Lebanon and the region.” Ban noted.

The U.N. leader continued to deny there is any evidence of Hizbullah’s smuggling weapons in southern Lebanon despite foreign media and Israeli intelligence reports pointing to Syria’s freely transferring weapons into Lebanon.

Full Story: UN Warns of New War in North; Claims on Gas May Be Trigger – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News.

Protest Movements

Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that have long battled Israel with violent tactics, have begun to embrace civil disobedience, protest marches, lawsuits and boycotts—tactics they once dismissed.

For decades, Palestinian statehood aspirations seemed to lurch between negotiations and armed resistance against Israel. But a small cadre of Palestinian activists has long argued that nonviolence, in the tradition of the American civil rights movement, would be far more effective.

Officials from Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, point to the recent Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, in which Israeli troops killed nine activists, as evidence there is more to gain by getting Israel to draw international condemnation through its own use of force, rather than by attacking the country.

Full Story: Foes of Israel Adopt New Protest Measures – WSJ.com.

Israel on Monday dropped its long-standing restrictions on allowing consumer goods into the Gaza Strip but retained tight limits on desperately needed construction materials, redefining the rules of its heavily criticized Gaza embargo on the eve of the Israeli prime minister’s trip to the White House.

The new rules, which come in response to an international outcry following a deadly Israeli raid on a blockade-busting flotilla, should bring some relief to Gaza’s 1.5 million people.

The decision ends the use of a narrow and often arbitrary list of permitted items. In a boost to the moribund Gaza economy, officials also said raw materials would soon be allowed to flow to Gaza’s shuttered factories.

Full Story: Israel Eases Gaza Blockade Restrictions, Releasing List Of Allowed Items.

Fareed Zakaria criticized the Afghanistan war in unusually harsh terms on his CNN program Sunday, saying that “the whole enterprise in Afghanistan feels disproportionate, a very expensive solution to what is turning out to be a small but real problem.”

His comments followed CIA director Leon Panetta’s admission last week that the number of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan may be down to just 50 to 100 members, or even fewer.

“If Al Qaeda is down to 100 men there at the most,” Zakaria asked, “why are we fighting a major war?”

Full Story: Fareed Zakaria Criticizes ‘Disproportionate’ Afghanistan War On CNN (VIDEO).

The public rift between Israel and Turkey may be closing somewhat.

Persistent reports in the Turkish press indicate that Israel will formally apologize and pay compensation for the deaths on the Mavi Marmara.

The Mavi Marmara was the blockade-busting ship manned by Turkish citizens on which nine actvists were killed in unclear circumstances by Israeli naval commandos.

Turkish newspaper of record Hürriyet indicates that discussions of apology and compensation took place at a secret meeting between Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Benjamin Ben-Eliezer on Wednesday. According to Hürriyet’s source:

Full Story: Reports: Israel to apologize for flotilla raid – Neal Ungerleider – Falafel Mafia – True/Slant.

The House Democrat who oversees funding for Afghanistan’s redevelopment and reconstruction said on Monday that she is stripping money from her foreign aid bill in reaction to pervasive corruption. Dave Obey, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, supports the move made by subcommittee chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), according to an Obey spokesman.

Lowey cited pervasive corruption in Afghanistan as the cause for her decision to pull the funding from the appropriations bill working its way through her State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee.

“I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords and terrorists,” said Lowey.

Full Story: House Dems, Citing Corruption, Block Reconstruction Funds For Afghanistan.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Sunday there may be less than 50 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan, with “no question” that most of the terrorist network is operating from the western tribal region of Pakistan.

Panetta’s remarks came as President Barack Obama builds up U.S. forces in Afghanistan to prop up the government and, in his words, “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda.” About U.S. 98,000 troops will be in Afghanistan by fall.

Asked by ABC’s Jake Tapper to estimate the number of al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, Panetta said, “I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda is actually relatively small. At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity.”

via Leon Panetta: There May Be Less Than 50 Al Qaeda Fighters In Afghanistan.

Here’s some free advice: Never buy shares in a gold mine from a guy operating out of a house trailer.

Likewise, never buy a story from the Pentagon about an incredible discovery of gold in Afghanistan. From out of nowhere, a recent news report excitedly tells us that a Pentagon task force has discovered an astonishing trillion dollars worth of untapped mineral deposits in that war-ravaged, impoverished country. Gold! Copper! Iron! And more! “An economic boon is seen,” declares a newspaper headline. “There is stunning potential here,” exclaimed General David Petraeus, the top commander of America’s war effort.

Hmmm… not so fast, slick. Isn’t it at least curious that this “discovery” comes when the war is going so badly for us and both the public and Congress are questioning why we’re there? Suddenly, the Pentagon gives us a trillion reasons to keep spending American lives and tax dollars. There’s money in them thar hills!

Full Story: Jim Hightower | A GOLDEN WAY OUT OF AFGHANISTAN.

Israel’s government decided Sunday to draw up a list of items banned from Gaza limited to weapons and materials deemed to have military uses and said the easing of the three-year-old blockade of the Palestinian territory would be implemented immediately.

The list of banned goods replaces an old list of allowed items that permitted only basic humanitarian supplies for the 1.5 million Gazans. Under the new system, the government said practically all non-military items can enter Gaza freely.

“From now on, there is a green light of approval for all goods to enter Gaza except for military items and materials that can strengthen Hamas’ military machine,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

Full Story: Israel Eases Gaza Blockade, Will Allow In All Goods Except For Weapons.

Fafo poll conducted in West Bank and Gaza finds that 89% Palestinians support PA legislative elections this year, 84 % believe Fatah will win.
The majority of Palestinians support a peace agreement with Israel and believe that the Palestinian Authority should use non-violent means to achieve their political goals, a new Fafo poll revealed.

Fafo, a Norwegian based international multidisciplinary research foundation, found that 73 percent of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza were in favor of peace negotiations with Israel, but stressed that a settlement freeze should be a precondition to talks.

Full Story: Poll: Most Palestinians want peace with Israel – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Karzai made his proclamation during a five-day visit to Japan. Over that same time period, news reports surfaced that Afghanistan and Pakistan planned to negotiate with U.S.-NATO enemies, the U.N. reported that insurgent violence is surging, and Reuters tried to parse the Pentagon’s mixed messages over U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

During an appearance at Japan Institute for International Affairs, Karzai focused on his country’s mineral deposits. He Pointed to Japan’s status as Afghanistan’s second-biggest donor, and reasoned that Japan should enjoy special access to Afghan resources with estimated values that range from $1-3 trillion dollars.

Full Story: Japan Has ‘Priority’ On Rights To Mine Afghanistan Mineral Deposits, Says Hamid Karzai.

OPS: even for an idiot conservative (DLC, Blue Dog or Republican -  take your pick) this has to be a wake-up call. WE are getting OUR kids killed and maimed,  and going bankrupt as a nation, so Japan, China and others can grab the loot. WTF are WE doing there?

The White House welcomed the announcement on Thursday as a “step in the right direction.” U.S. President Barack Obama a few weeks called the three-year embargo unsustainable, and urged Israel to scale it back dramatically.

The new product list approved by Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday includes all food items, toys, stationery, kitchen utensils, mattresses and towels.

Israel will also allow in more construction materials to repair damage from the December 2008-January 2009 war in the Gaza Strip, provided they are used for civilian projects carried out under international supervision, government and military officials said.

Full Story: Obama welcomes ease of Gaza blockade, urges Israel to expand goods inflow – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Robert Scheer

It was an act of international terrorism, pure and simple. There can be no valid claims of self-defense on the part of Israeli commandos who attacked a ship of protesters in international waters, killing nine civilians and kidnapping more than 600 others—including 15 international reporters who were prevented from filing their stories by a nation that claims to be the beacon of democracy in the Mideast.

Trust me, I do not come to this viewpoint lightly. This is an issue I have written about with anguish ever since I visited Gaza and the West Bank immediately after the Six-Day War 43 years ago, and the fact that those apartheid zones still stand in oppressive isolation from the norms of human rights is a sad commentary on our profession. There is no subject on which American journalists so disgrace themselves by embracing a double standard or about which our politicians are permitted the kind of hypocritical cop-out once again demonstrated by the tepid response of the Obama administration.

If nothing else, this assault on decency by the Israeli government was clearly intended to derail the peace talks that President Barack Obama has encouraged. But instead of calling Israel on its savagery, the U.S. is virtually alone in the world in its embarrassingly mild

Full Story: Robert Scheer: Treat Palestinians Like Jews – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig.

in Britain, for the most part, ordinary people don’t care about the complicated story of the Middle East. They don’t buy the line that Israel stands on the front line of the war against terror.

Last week I wrote a comment piece for the Guardian comparing the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid ships to the British assault on the Exodus in 1947. The comparison between the two events is far from exact, but both involved the running of a naval blockade as a public relations stunt, and both succeeded in dramatically winning over world opinion. In each case a more complex narrative told by the other side went unheard. Israel has failed to convince the public in Europe that those on board included terrorists smuggling arms to Hamas, and that they attacked the Israeli commandos first. As in 1947, rightly or wrongly, the sympathy was with those whose vessels were boarded, not those doing the boarding.

Full Story: Liberal Diaspora Jewry afraid to talk, afraid to be silent – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

In the days since an Israeli naval takeover of a flotilla trying to break the siege turned deadly, that consensus has taken on added urgency, with world powers, anti-Hamas Palestinians in Gaza and some senior Israeli officials advocating a shift.

In its three years in power, Hamas has taken control not only of security, education and the justice system but also the economy, by regulating and taxing an extensive smuggling tunnel system from Egypt. In the process, the traditional and largely pro-Western business community has been sidelined.

This may be about to change.

Full Story: New Approach Sought as Pressure Grows to End Gaza Embargo – NYTimes.com.

It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces.

In little more than two years, Mr. Matiullah, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, has grown stronger than the government of Oruzgan Province, not only supplanting its role in providing security but usurping its other functions, his rivals say, like appointing public employees and doling out government largess. His fighters run missions with American Special Forces officers, and when Afghan officials have confronted him, he has either rebuffed them or had them removed.

Full Story: Rule of the Gun – With U.S. Aid, Warlord Builds Afghan Empire – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Your tax dollars at work

Robert Fisk:

I have, of course, been outraged at armed men boarding ships in international waters, killing passengers on board who attempt to resist and then forcing their ship to the hijackers’ home port. I am, of course, talking about the Somali pirates who are preying on Western ships in the Indian Ocean. How dare those terrorists dare to touch our unarmed vessels on the high seas? And how right we are to have our warships there to prevent such terrorist acts.

But whoops! At least the Israelis have not demanded ransom. They just want to get journalists to win the propaganda war for them. Scarcely had the week begun when Israel’s warrior “commandos” stormed a Turkish boat bringing aid to Gaza and shot nine of the passengers dead. Yet by week’s end, the protesters had become “armed peace activists”, vicious anti-Semites “professing pacifism, seething with hate, pounding away at another human being with a metal pole”. I liked the last bit. The fact that the person being beaten was apparently shooting another human being with a rifle didn’t quite get into this weird version of reality.

Turkish family protests that their sons wanted to be martyrs – something which most Turkish family members might say if their relatives had been shot by the Israelis – had been transformed into confirmation that they had been jihadis. “On that aid ship,” a Sri Lankan texted me this week, “I had my niece, nephew and his wife on board. Unfortunately Ahmed (20-year-old nephew) got shot in the leg and now treated (sic) under military custody. I will keep you posted.” He did indeed. Within hours, the press was at his family’s home in Australia, demanding to know if Ahmed was a jihadi – or even a potential suicide bomber. Propaganda works, you see. We haven’t seen a frame of film from the protesters because the Israelis have stolen the lot. No one has told us – if the Turkish ship was carrying such ruthless men – how their terrible plots to help the “terrorists” of Gaza were not uncovered in the long voyage from Turkey, even when it called at other ports. But Professor Gil Troy of McGill University in Montreal – in the rabid Canadian National Post, of course – was able to spout all that gunk about “armed peace activists” on Thursday.

Full Story: Robert Fisk: The truth behind the Israeli propaganda – Robert Fisk, Commentators – The Independent.

Exclusive: Nine Turkish men on board Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times, autopsy results reveal

Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.

Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.

The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.

Full Story: Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range | World news | The Guardian.

In a damage control effort, Israeli officials and their right-wing American supporters are now trying to deflect blame onto the activists, saying that there was no reason for them to be trying to breach the blockade to deliver supplies because there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza:

ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN: “There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. … The flotilla is an attempt at violent propaganda against Israel, and Israel will not allow the violation of its sovereignty at sea, in the air, or on land.”

MICHAEL OREN, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: “Over one hundred trucks, every day, laden with food and medicine go into Gaza. There’s no shortage of food. There is no shortage of medicine.”

NEWT GINGRICH: “There was no humanitarian crisis; this was a deliberate political effort on the part of people who want to try to undermine the survival of Israel.”

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. No one is starving in Gaza.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Israeli Officials And American Conservatives Claim ‘There Is No Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza’.

Gaza Flotilla ATTACKED: Israel Storms Aid Ship, At Least 10 Dead

Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least 10 passengers in a predawn raid that set off worldwide condemnation and a diplomatic crisis.

Israel said its commandos were attacked by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter to board one of the vessels.

Dozens of activists and at least 10 Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody confrontation in international waters.

Full Story: Gaza Flotilla ATTACKED: Israel Storms Aid Ship, At Least 10 Dead.

The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.

The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.

The flotilla’s commander, identified only as “Colonel O”, told an Israeli newspaper: “We are an underwater assault force. We’re operating deep and far, very far, from our borders.”

Full Story: Israel stations nuclear missile subs off Iran – Times Online.

According to Israel’s private channel 10 television, Israeli marine commandos had opened fire after being attacked with axes and knives by a number of the passengers on board the aid ships, the television said, without giving the source of its information.

The station did not say whether the dead and injured were passengers or members of the Israeli navy.

Full Story: ‘At least 10 dead’ as Israel storms aid convoy: Israeli TV | Raw Story.

BREAKING NEWS: Ten people have reportedly been killed and more than 30 injured after Israeli forces attacked a flotilla seeking to break through a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Contact with Herald journalist Paul McGeough, who is on board one of the flotilla vessels, has been lost.

This is what McGeough filed earlier before contact with the flotilla was lost …

Video at link

Full Story: Protesters bound for Gaza.

Lawmakers voted to give Israel $205 million for its production of the short-range rocket defense system by a 410-4 margin.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted in favor of President Barack Obama’s plans to help Israel fund the deployment of the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system.

Lawmakers, by a 410-4 margin, backed Obama’s plan to give Israel 205 million dollars for its production of a short-range rocket defense system.

The Iron Dome missile defense system aced a test run in January, and event that convinced senior defense officials that the defense system was on its way to becoming operational and that it will be able to effectively protect against short-range missiles, such as Katyushas and Qassams, which often hit Israeli towns.

The project’s first phase, which included development, test runs and the manufacture of two batteries, required a budget of NIS 800 million. The Israel Air Force has also trained a special new unit to operate the defense system.

However, the plan was not allotted an adequate budget. The Israel Defense Forces ducked away from funding the project with its budget, explaining that offensive readiness was a higher priority, and the Defense Ministry has been looking for other budgetary avenues.

Full Story: U.S. Congress approves Obama funding for Iron Dome defense system in Israel — Signs of the Times News.

Qatar had proposed a major thawing of relations between the two countries in which Israel would have been allowed to reopen its official interests office, shut down on the orders of the emirate during the military onslaught on Gaza in January 2009.

But in return it wanted an easing of the three-year blockade of Gaza to allow a major increase in imports of cement and construction materials to start rebuilding war-ravaged sectors of the besieged territory.

Full Story: Qatar’s offer to help rebuild Gaza is snubbed by Netanyahu – Middle East, World – The Independent.

US President Barack Obama wants Congress to pay Israel more than $200 million to fund a new missile system, the White House spokesman says.

Obama has asked Congress to approve the aid so that Israel could deploy a controversial missile system called the “Iron Dome.”

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said on Thursday that Washington recognizes the need for Israel to have such a system.

Israel has completed tests in January on the short-range anti-missile system which is designed to intercept rockets and artillery shells.

“As the president has repeatedly said, our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakable and our defense relationship is stronger than ever,” said Vietor.

Full Story: Obama to fund Israel’s missile system.

Israel’s secretive nuclear activities may undergo unprecedented scrutiny next month, with a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency tentatively set to focus on the topic for the first time, according to documents shared Friday with The Associated Press.

A copy of the restricted provisional agenda of the IAEA’s June 7 board meeting lists Israeli nuclear capabilities as the eighth item – the first time that that the agency’s decision-making body is being asked to deal with the issue in its 52 years of existence.

The agenda can still undergo changes in the month before the start of the meeting and a senior diplomat from a board member nation said the item, included on Arab request, could be struck if the U.S. and other Israeli allies mount strong opposition. He asked for anonymity for discussing a confidential matter.

Full Story: Report: IAEA to discuss Israel’s nuclear activities for first time – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Israel is ready to negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood, although it wants its security concerns addressed in the initial stages of indirect talks, the Israeli president said Friday after meeting with the U.S. Mideast envoy.

George Mitchell, who is President Barack Obama’s special representative for Mideast peace, is in the region for the start of four months of indirect talks between the Israelis and Palestinians that aim to bridge vast differences between the sides on the contours of a future Palestinian state.

The Palestinians want the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem – territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War – for their state, but have said they are willing to make some minor land exchanges.

Full Story: Israel Ready For Deal On Palestinian State, Peres Says.

JCall, which describes itself as “the European J Street” and is to be officially launched Sunday with the presentation of the letter, has raised a storm with its call to stop construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem.

The letter is signed by some 3,000 Jewish intellectuals, among them philosophers Bernard Henri-Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, considered some of Israel's strongest defenders among French intellectuals. Signatories also include Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the student protests in the 1960s and now a member of the European Parliament, as well as other Jewish members of the European Parliament.

Full Story: 3,000 European Jewish intellectuals urge end to Israeli settlements – Haaretz – Israel News.

A spokesman for foreign forces in Afghanistan said Western and Afghan troops had raided a house in the area and shot dead an armed man but was not able to comment on whether the house belonged to a member of parliament.

Night-time raids by Western troops and civilian casualties are among the most incendiary issues in Afghanistan, and the targeting of a female parliamentarian would raise the political temperature at a time when NATO is preparing a large offensive.

Full Story: Afghan MP says U.S. troops raid home, kill relative – thestar.com.

When President Obama approved a plan to withdraw combat forces from Iraq this summer, it was based on the assumption that a newly elected government would be in place by the time Americans headed home. Fourteen months later, that assumption is exploding but the plan remains the same.

The delay and messy aftermath of the Iraqi election mean it may be months before the next government is formed, even as tens of thousands of American troops pack to leave. Yet Mr. Obama has not had a meeting on Iraq with his full national security team in months, and the White House insists that it has no plans to revisit the withdrawal timetable.

The situation presents a test for Mr. Obama’s vow to end the war, perhaps the most defining promise he made when he ran for president. While Mr. Obama has proved flexible about other campaign promises and deadlines, his plan to pull out combat forces by August and the remaining 50,000 trainers and advisers by December 2011 has been the most inviolate of policies.

Full Story: News Analysis – Obama Sticks to a Deadline in Iraq – NYTimes.com.

Small bands of elite American Special Operations forces have been operating with increased intensity for several weeks in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan’s largest city, picking up or picking off insurgent leaders to weaken the Taliban in advance of major operations, senior administration and military officials say.

The looming battle for the spiritual home of the Taliban is shaping up as the pivotal test of President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy, including how much the United States can count on the country’s leaders and military for support, and whether a possible increase in civilian casualties from heavy fighting will compromise a strategy that depends on winning over the Afghan people.

It will follow a first offensive, into the hamlet of Marja, that is showing mixed results. And it will require the United States and its Afghan partners to navigate a battleground that is not only much bigger than Marja but also militarily, politically and culturally more complex.

Full Story: Elite U.S. Units Step Up Drive in Kandahar Before Attack – NYTimes.com.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal. The war in Afghanistan has claimed more than one thousand American lives and in the last two years alone the lives of more than four thousand Afghan civilians. It's costing American taxpayers over three-and-a-half billion dollars every month—a total of some $264 billion so far. But for all that, in the words of one policy analyst quoted by the New York Times this week, “there are no better angels about to descend on Afghanistan.”

The news from that torturous battleground continues to dismay, discourage and enrage. America's designated driver there, Hamid Karzai, is proving increasingly unstable behind the wheel. The United States put Karzai in power and our soldiers have been fighting and dying on his behalf ever since. Despite widespread corrupton in his government. Now he's making threats against the western coalition that is shedding blood and treasure on his behalf.

Even more disturbing,for the moment, are the civilian deaths from nighttime raids andaerial bombings by American and other NATO troops. Just this week, we learned of an apparent cover-up following a Special Forces raid in February that killed five civilians, including three women, two of whom were pregnant. It's believed bullets were gouged from the women's bodies to conceal evidence of American involvement.

Full Story: Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS.

Josh Stieber was deployed to Iraq in February 2007 as part of the “surge” overseen by George W. Bush. An enthusiastic supporter of the war when he enlisted, Stieber served with Bravo Company 2-16, the same unit now depicted in the chilling video released last week by WikiLeaks.org, which shows American troops massacre 12 Iraqi civilians from an Apache helicopter, including two Reuters employees, photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver, Saeed Chmagh. Also killed was Saleh Mutashar, the father of two young children who were themselves injured on the scene, when their father attempted to pick up the wounded Saeed to take him to the hospital, only to get shot by U.S. troops.

Josh Stieber was not on the mission over Baghdad that day. By then he had already begun questioning the actions he was being asked to carry out in Iraq; he had refused an order from his commanding officers a few days earlier — “a command that I didn’t feel right in following,” as he told Glenn Greenwald on Friday — and he was kept behind. Otherwise, he said, “I would have been in that video.”

Full Story: Iraq Vet From WikiLeaks Video Unit: “This Is What War Looks Like” | World | AlterNet.

Henry Kissinger once observed that it was more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.

The latest example: the U.S.-installed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who is in serious hot water with his really angry patrons in Washington.

The Obama administration is blaming the largely powerless Karzai, a former CIA “asset,” for America’s failure to defeat the Taliban. Washington accused Karzai of rigging last year’s elections. True enough, but the U.S. pre-rigged the Afghan elections by excluding all parties opposed to western occupation.

Full Story: U.S. puppet cuts his strings | Eric Margolis | Columnists | Comment | Toronto Sun.

Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor will take Netanyahu’s place in the nuclear summit.

Obama has invited more than 40 countries to the summit, which will deal with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorist groups.
Full Story: Netanyahu cancels trip to U.S. nuclear summit – Haaretz – Israel News.

Avigdor Lieberman also made harsh comments about Turkey, Israel’s increasingly alienated ally, saying the Turkish prime minister was coming to resemble Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

Lieberman, who heads an ultranationalist party, has become known for a belligerent tone that has earned him critics abroad and inside Israel.

Full Story: Israel Warns Palestine Not To Declare State.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has slammed Western backers for the second time in a week, accusing the United States of interference, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

In a private meeting with up to 70 Afghan lawmakers Saturday, Karzai also warned that the Taliban insurgency could become a legitimate resistance movement if foreign meddling in Afghan affairs continues, the Journal said, citing participants in the talks.

During the talks, Karzai, whose government is supported by billions of dollars of Western aid and 126,000 foreign troops fighting the Taliban, said he would be compelled to join the insurgency himself if the parliament does not back his bid to take over Afghanistan's electoral watchdog.

Full Story: No joke: Karzai threatens to join the Taliban | Raw Story.

On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded, and then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager) who sought to help the victims. The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were “insurgents” or terrorists, (b) the bodies of the three women had been found by U.S. forces bound and gagged inside the home, and (c) suggested that the women had already been killed by the time the U.S. had arrived, likely the victim of “honor killings” by the Taliban militants killed in the attack.

Although numerous witnesses on the scene as well as local investigators vehemently disputed the Pentagon’s version, and insisted that all of the dead (including the women) were civilians and were killed by U.S. forces, the American media largely adopted the Pentagon’s version, often without any questions. But enough evidence has now emerged disproving those claims such that the Pentagon was forced yesterday to admit that their original version was totally false and that it was U.S. troops who killed the women:

Full Story: How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Anat Kam, 23, who used to work for the Israeli news site Walla, was arrested last December for allegedly copying secret Israeli Defense Force (IDF) documents during her compulsory military service.

These documents outlined how Israeli assassination squads would plan the killing of Palestinian political leaders and fighters months beforehand and then pass their deaths off as “mishaps” during “failed” attempts to arrest them.

Uri Blau, a reporter from the daily Ha’aretz, then wrote a piece on the copied documents and is refusing to return to Israel from Britain fearing that Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, will arrest him if he does.

Full Story: Israel Gags News on Extrajudicial Killings by Mel Frykberg — Antiwar.com.

Three suicide bombers detonated car bombs near foreign missions in central Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 168.

The blasts near the Iranian, Egyptian and German embassies followed mortar attacks on the Iraqi capital’s Green Zone, home to government buildings, official residences and foreign embassies. They came two days after gunmen slaughtered 24 people in a Sunni village south of Baghdad.

Iraqi authorities had warned of a possible escalation of violence because of rising tension after a March 7 parliamentary election that produced no clear winner.

Full Story: Triple blasts in Baghdad embassies kill dozens – Telegraph.

Ramping up the rhetoric of war in a volatile region can lead to a misstep and once the dogs of war are off their leash, it will be hard to bring them to heel.

When Israeli Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled said recently that a war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah was “just a matter of time” and that such a conflict would include Syria, most observers dismissed the comment as little more than posturing by a right-wing former general. But Peled’s threat has been backed by Israeli military maneuvers near the Lebanese border, violations of Lebanese airspace, and the deployment of an anti- missile system on Israel’s northern border.

The Lebanese are certainly not treating it as Likud bombast.

“We hear a lot of Israeli threats day in and day out, and not only threats,” Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri told the BBC. “We see what is happening on the ground and in our airspace.during the past two months-every day we have Israeli airplanes entering Lebanese airspace.” Hariri added that he considered the situation “really dangerous.”

The increasing tension was behind the recent visit to Beirut by Senator Philippe Marini, French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s special envoy to Lebanon. After Marini met with Hariri, Christian Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, and Hezbollah leaders, the envoy said that he feared a Hezbollah-Israel rematch could easily become a regional war.

Full Story: Is Israel About to Trigger a New Middle East War? | World | AlterNet.

Israeli planes have carried out 13 air strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources have told the BBC.

Four of the strikes took place near the town of Khan Younis, where two Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes with Palestinian fighters last week.

Israel says the operation was targeting four weapons factories. Reports say three children were injured.

The latest violence is the most serious since the end of Israel’s assault on Gaza in January 2009.

Palestinians and rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans died in the conflict, while Israel puts the figure at 1,166. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed.

Full Story: BBC News – Thirteen Israeli air strikes hit Gaza Strip.

Israeli soldiers moved around 500 meters (yards) inside Gaza on Sunday in several armored vehicles including bulldozers.

Witnesses said the troops were predominantly targeting olive groves and almond fields in the Abasan al-Jadida area east of Khan Yunis.

They dug large trenches and fired warning shots to keep farmers away, but there were no reports of casualties.

Sunday’s incursion was close to the site where Israeli tanks, bulldozers and jeeps, backed by helicopters, carried out a strike late Friday damaging two houses and killing a Palestinian. Seven people were also wounded in the attack.

Full Story: Israeli armor moves into Gaza, digging trenches.

Witnesses in Gaza said tanks and bulldozers moved towards the southern town of Khan Younis before withdrawing.

They also said there had been firing from the Israeli navy along the Gaza coastline.

It is the first time Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since Israel’s 22-day offensive there more than a year ago.

Reports say at least two Palestinians have also been killed.

Israel says the fighting started when its troops crossed into Gaza after spotting militants planting explosives along the border.

Reports from inside Gaza say the militants then tried to capture an Israeli soldier.

Full Story: BBC News – Israeli tanks ‘enter Gaza’ after deadly clashes.

The aircraft attacked a tunnel on the Rafah sector on the border with Egypt, but no one was injured, said witnesses.

A military spokesman confirmed the raid, saying they had hit a tunnel used for arms smuggling and in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian side.

One rocket was fired into southern Israel late Sunday from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip though it landed without causing any injuries or damage, the Israeli army said earlier.

Full Story: Israeli warplanes bomb Gaza: officials – Yahoo! News.

The Israeli Prime Minister says his nation’s security is his top priority. Too bad he’s undermining it.

In international relations, whenever you hear the term “confidence-building measures,” you can be sure that someone is trying to kick a can down the road. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has now promised to offer such measures to the Palestinians. He has also urged that everyone “calm down” about the diplomatic row between his government and the United States.

But this crisis hasn’t been caused by just one event—the announcement, while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel, to approve new Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem. It caps a year of increasingly strained relations between Washington and Tel Aviv. And while he’s apologized for the ill-timed announcement, Netanyahu remains unyielding. In fact, the Israeli press has reported plans to build not merely the 1,600 units announced last week, but 50,000. “We will act according to the vital interests of the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said last week.

Full Story: Zakaria: Bibi Is Undermining Israel’s Security – Newsweek.com.

Minutes of Secret Meeting Between Russian Veterans and Gen. Stanley McChrystal Also Say ‘More Troops Won’t Make A Difference’

Two Russian veterans of the Soviet Afghan war privately warned Gen. Stanley McChrystal last summer that the key to winning the war would be to pay off the Taliban. The official who wrote up a summary of two meetings between the Russians and U.S. military commanders also wrote that one of the “key take-aways” from the meetings was that extra troops were not the key to victory.

ABCNews.com has obtained a document summarizing the discussions between two veterans of the Soviet Union’s failed Afghan war and McChrystal, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, during an August 2009 video teleconference. The document also summarizes a private in-person meeting in Moscow between the two Russians and American Brig. Gen. Henry Nowak

Full Story: Afghanistan: Russians Tell U.S. Generals to Bribe the Taliban – ABC News.

Hoping to defuse a fight between friends, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed Thursday to meet next week in Washington to confront an embarrassing dispute over Israeli land claims.

The Obama administration’s special envoy for Mideast peace, George Mitchell, prepared to return to the region for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Netanyahu called Clinton on Thursday. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley declined to provide details of the conversation, which he described as the Israeli prime minister’s response to Clinton’s call last week in which she harshly criticized Israel’s announcement of additional Jewish settlement housing in east Jerusalem.

Full Story: Netanyahu, Clinton Talk: Israeli Leader Plans Meeting In US Next Week.

The cancellation of the visit by American envoy George Mitchell, who has been delegated to renew the diplomatic negotiations, embodies the slippery slope facing Israel during the past week. Even before completing the first year of his second term in office, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to foment crises in two key strategic areas: the peace process with the Palestinians and relations with the United States.

The affair of the building plans for Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, which cast a pall on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visited, pushed back the two-state solution. At the same time, the unnecessary snub of a friendly guest became a deep rift in the dialogue between the Israeli government and the White House.

In order to rescue the proximity talks and resolve the crisis in relations with the United States, the Obama administration has made three demands of Netanyahu: cancelling the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee’s decision to approve for presentation building plans for Ramat Shlomo, a “significant” gesture to the Palestinians and a public statement that the indirect talks will deal with all the core issues, including Jerusalem.

Full Story: It’s time for Netanyahu to say yes to Obama – Haaretz – Israel News.

The Israeli government, its brutal war crimes in Gaza exposed in detail in the U.N. report by Justice Richard Goldstone, has implemented a series of draconian measures to silence and discredit dissidents, leading intellectuals and human rights organizations inside and outside Israel that are accused—often falsely—of assisting Goldstone’s U.N. investigators. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to shut down Israel’s premier human rights organizations, including B’Tselem, the New Israel Fund (NIF) and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. It is busy expelling or excluding peace activists and foreign nationals from the Palestinian territories. The campaign, if left unchecked, will be as catastrophic for Palestinians as it will be for Israel.

The Goldstone report, which is over 500 pages, investigated Israel’s 22-day air and ground assault on Gaza that took place from Dec. 27, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009. The United Nations and the European Parliament have endorsed the report. The report found that Israel used disproportionate military force against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip while failing to take adequate precautions to protect the civilian population against the military assault. The Israeli attack killed 1,434 people, including 960 civilians, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. More than 6,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, leaving behind some $3 billion in destruction in one of the poorest areas on Earth. No Israelis were killed by Hamas rockets fired into Israel during the assault. The report did not limit itself to the 22-day attack; rather, it went on to indict the occupation itself. It examines the beginning of the occupation and condemns Israel for the border closures, the blockade and for the wall or security barrier in the West Bank. It has two references to the right of return, investigates Israeli torture and criticizes the willful destruction of the Palestinian economy.

Full Story: Chris Hedges: Israel Crackdown Puts Liberal Jews on the Spot – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Outside the walled Old City, where the Al Aqsa mosque is situated, and in several West Bank villages, clashes were reported between Palestinian protestors, their Israeli and international supporters, and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), leaving at least 20 Palestinians wounded.

Following a security assessment Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak ordered security forces to stop tens of thousands of Palestinians from entering Jerusalem.

Full Story: MIDEAST: Israel Lands in Public Relations Nightmare – IPS ipsnews.net.

Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewelry, or to pay off enormous casino debts.

Some suspects also tried to conceal foreign bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, the investigators said, while in other cases, cash was simply found stacked in home safes.

Full Story: New Fraud Cases Point to Lapses in Iraq Projects – NYTimes.com.

EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton: We may use trade ties as leverage.

The European Union might use its trade ties with Israel as leverage to pressure it into renewing peace talks with the Palestinians, Catherine Ashton, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the EU said on Saturday.

Ashton was speaking at an EU foreign minister conference held in Finland. Swedish Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt, said that Israel’s announcement on building in east Jerusalem during United States Vice President Joe Biden’s visit last week was intentional and not coincidental.

Bildt said there were “no guarantees” that Israel was committed to peace.

Ashton is on the verge of a Middle East tour where she will visit Egypt, Israel, Syria and Lebanon.

Full Story: ‘EU may push Israel into peace talks’.

The following is an excerpt from A Wall in Palestine by Rene Backmann (Picador, 2010).

Who invented the wall? Who came up with the idea for it? “Maybe it was me,” Dany Tirza says half-jokingly as he weaves his car through Gilo morning traffic. Adjacent to the southern neighborhoods of Jerusalem, this truly “new” city of thirty-seven thousand people, which dominates the nearby Palestinian enclaves of Bethlehem and Beit Jala, is considered by the Israelis to be a natural extension of the Holy City. In fact, Gilo was built on the outskirts of “Greater Jerusalem,” as it was redefined by Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War, on approximately seven thousand acres of annexed Palestinian land. But Gilo is on the Palestinian side of the “Green Line,” which, since 1949, separates the State of Israel from the present- day West Bank. Thus, it is a settlement, one of twelve built by Israel since 1967 at the periphery of Greater Jerusalem.

Full Story: Sealing in the Palestinians: The Story of the Most Controversial Border Wall in the World | World | AlterNet.

The murder of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in his room at the Al Bustan Rotana, a 275-room five-star luxury hotel, in Dubai on January 19 has been widely perceived to be a Mossad operation involving, by the most recent count, 27 suspects traveling on fraudulently obtained and falsified European or Australian passports. In late February and early March, the plot thickened suddenly and significantly when major US media outlet reports connected the crime and many of those involved in it to the USA and to corporations based in the USA and Israel and revealed that some of the suspected assassins, apparently members of a Mossad kidon team, had entered the USA after leaving Dubai.

ABC News reported on February 24 that Dubai police had identified 15 new suspects as part of a ring that killed Al Mabhouh.

Full Story: Dubai Investigation Exposes Israeli Ops in USA | Dissident Voice.

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and Israeli Transport and Road Safety Minister Israel Katz today announced a new agreement to enhance information sharing about civil aviation security incidents and ensure efficient and effective coordination in response to potential acts of terrorism and other aviation-related public safety emergencies.

“The real-time exchange of information with our international partners is critical to our efforts to enhance overall global aviation security,” said Secretary Napolitano. “This agreement will allow the United States and Israel to better coordinate on and respond to potential aviation security incidents to strengthen our mutual safety.”

“MOU implementation will further improve the effectiveness of the cooperation between the respective civil aviation security authorities,” said Minister Katz. “Such International collaboration is of particular importance to ensure effective response to the evolving threat to international aviation.”

Full Story: DHS: United States and Israel Announce Agreement to Enhance Joint Aviation Security.

British statesman Leopold Amery’s plea to prime minister Neville Chamberlain – “For God’s sake, go” – has undergone many incarnations, and I’m surprised at my colleague Nahum Barnea, who made do with a simple “Go” in reference to Avigdor Lieberman. The suspicion that Lieberman received documents relating to the investigation against him from our ambassador in Belarus is now being checked by the police. It doesn’t smell good – not to mention that the stench of the foreign minister’s behavior justifies speeding up the distribution of gas masks.

But the problem is not Avigdor, it’s the person who appointed him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is gradually going back to being the Bibi of his first term. Never since the founding of the state has its image, prestige, reputation and moral and ethical weight been at such a nadir. The commander of the Dubai police is sitting comfortably in his armchair and enumerating one by one the mistakes he claims were made by the Mossad – for example, dressing one of its fattest agents in a tennis outfit. He is also issuing international arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

And in a public courtroom in Barcelona, Israel is being portrayed as a country that tramples basic human rights, while Hamas is being “acquitted” of being a terror organization.

Full Story: If Netanyahu wants peace, he knows what to do – Haaretz – Israel News.

Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.

The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents.

Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.

The US military says it is not aware of any official reports showing an increase in birth defects in the area.

BBC world affairs editor John Simpson visited a new, US-funded hospital in Fallujah where paediatrician Samira al-Ani told him that she was seeing as many as two or three cases a day, mainly cardiac defects.

Full Story: BBC News – Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects.

Dubai’s police chief said on Monday that travelers suspected of being Israeli will not be allowed into the United Arab Emirates even if they arrive with alternative passports.

Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim says the move comes after the killing of a Hamas operative in Dubai, blamed by the Emirates authorities on Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Tamim said a 26-member team used European and Australian passports to enter the country in January and kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

“We will not allow those who hold Israeli passports into the UAE no matter what other passport they have,” Tamim said.

Full Story: ‘Israelis no longer allowed in Dubai after Hamas hit’ – Haaretz – Israel News.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will address the Israeli public directly next week during a speech he is scheduled to deliver at Tel Aviv University, focusing on American commitment to Israel’s security, Iran’s nuclear program and the peace process.

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Monday in Jerusalem that Biden is seeking to ensure that Israel and the United States are in alignment on the issue of preventing the Iranian nuclear threat.

Kerry, who is privy to the details of efforts to impose sanctions on Iran, hinted Monday at a press conference in Jerusalem after a meeting with the prime minister that Biden’s visit to Israel, and that of other senior administration officials, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, aims at restraining Israel against the possibility of unilaterally attacking Iran.
Full Story: Biden to speak directly to Israelis from Tel Aviv – Haaretz – Israel News.

Barak Simultaneously Insists Iran No Threat to Attack Israel

At his visit to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an AIPAC founded think tank, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak reiterated his calls for Western nations to keep “all options” open in moving against Iran. But more importantly, he suggested Israel might attack Iran even beyond American objections.

“I don’t think that there is a need to coordinate in this regard,” Barak insisted, adding later in the speech that Israel has always “felt very proud that we never asked the Americans to come and fight for us.”

US officials have repeatedly expressed opposition to a unilateral Israeli attack, noting that it would be perceived internationally as an attack by the United States, which has provided Israel with enormous military aid over the years.

Full Story: Israeli DM: No Need to Coordinate With US on Attacking Iran — News from Antiwar.com.

The UN and other humanitarian organizations have repeatedly called on Israel to immediately open all border crossings not only for basic necessities, which it allows in limited amounts, but for the reconstruction material needed to rebuild the scores of buildings destroyed by the offensive, which Israel says it launched to halt rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Full Story Scoop: Israel Tightens Vice on Gaza Strip, UN Reports.

Israel should heed the friendly warning it received from the Obama administration, which opposes a preemptive Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned in Tel Aviv on Sunday of the unexpected consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran, just as he did during the days of the Bush administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Qatar that Iran’s neighbors, who are worried about its nuclear plans, must rely on the American defense umbrella. And next week, Vice President Joseph Biden will visit Israel to pass on a similar message.

Both Israeli and Iranian leaders have escalated the threats they have been exchanging over the past few weeks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Auschwitz about a new Amalek. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad that if Israel goes to war, “we need to put an end to the Zionist regime once and for all.” And last week, on the anniversary of the Iranian revolution, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran will enrich uranium to 20 percent and declared that his country is capable of building an atomic bomb

Full Story Israel should heed Obama’s warning not to strike Iran – Haaretz – Israel News.

Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, also urged President Barack Obama’s Mideast envoy to visit the Hamas-ruled territory to get a firsthand look at the destruction caused by Israeli’s military offensive last year.

The Obama administration, like its predecessor, shuns Hamas because the Islamic militant group refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence.

Israel and Egypt have restricted access to Gaza since Hamas’ victory in parliament elections in 2006 and tightened the blockade after Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007.

Israel allows humanitarian supplies and food into Gaza, but has kept out cement and other building supplies needed for reconstruction. Israel argues such materials could be diverted by Hamas for military use.

Full Story U.S. congressman: U.S. should break Israel`s blockade of Gaza – Haaretz – Israel News.