From January 2011 to the present, processions, demonstrations, and sit-in strikes have been held every Friday throughout Jordan, demanding political reforms in the country. The protests, inspired by the wave of popular uprisings and revolutions that have swept through the Arab world over recent months, have been organized and led primarily by the Islamic Movement. Leftist organizations, trade unions, and recently established youth movements, among others, have taken part in the protests.
Protestors in Jordan called for the implementation of political and economic reforms and for the restoration of the Jordanian constitution to its original version ratified in 1952 – in other words, the revocation of some 30 amendments made since then to expand the authority of the king and government at the parliament's expense. They also called for the disbanding of the current parliament, for a new modern elections law, for the formation of government via majority vote in the parliament, rather than by royal appointment, and for the prosecution of politicians implicated in corruption.
Only Sigmund Freud could probably account for why strains of “Suicide is Painless” (the M*A*S*H theme song – in both the 1970 movie and subsequent TV series) pulsated inside my cranium each time the anti-boycott bill was being rehashed on our airwaves.
Whatever the subconscious trigger, the lyrics (written by director Robert Altman’s 14-year-old son) evolved as they reverberated in my mind’s ear. The refrain “suicide is painless” soon morphed into “boycott is beautiful.”
Resorting to amateur psychoanalysis, I could vaguely work out what led me to regard boycotts as beautiful. I must have subliminally succumbed to all that high-minded leftist palaver about boycotts constituting a legitimate form of free speech. As such, boycotts become a positive expression of human rights.
My own appreciation was thoroughly grounded in historic precedent. The benefits of boycotts are undeniable.
A Muslim group in the United Kingdom has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls "Londonistan" – into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.
The Islamic Emirates Project, launched by the Muslims Against the Crusades group, names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.
The project, which uses the motto "The end of man-made law, and the start of Sharia law," was launched exactly six years after Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured 800 others in London. A July 7, 2011 announcement posted on the Muslims Against the Crusades website, states:
Lawmaker claims unmanned spy plane was gathering information about the plant.
A U.S. drone was shot down while flying over a nuclear facility in Iran, according to reports in the Iranian media.
Iran's Fars news agency reported that lawmaker Ali Aqazadeh Dafsari, a member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, had confirmed the unmanned spy plane was flying near the Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Qom province when it was brought down by Revolutionary Guard soldiers.
It did not say when the alleged incident happened.
Dafsari told Fars that the drone was trying to gather information about the nuclear facility for the CIA.
Fars also said Iranian military officials had claimed to have shot down "several enemy drones" in January.
"We have experienced similar incidents many times in the past and there have even been drones belonging to the occupying Zionist regime (Israel), the United States and Britain which have been shot down in the Persian Gulf during the past 7 years," Fars quoted a senior military official as saying at the time.
Other Iranian media reported the same story, including Hamsayeh.net.
By Warren Kozak
The Wall Street Journal
June 20, 2011
It is doubtful that there has ever been a more miserable human refuse than Jewish survivors after World War II. Starving, emaciated, stateless—they were not welcomed back by countries where they had lived for generations as assimilated and educated citizens. Germany was no place to return to and in Kielce, Poland, 40 Jews who survived the Holocaust were killed in a pogrom one year after the war ended. The European Jew, circa 1945, quickly went from victim to international refugee disaster.
Yet within a very brief time, this epic calamity disappeared, so much so that few people today even remember the period. How did this happen in an era when Palestinian refugees have continued to be stateless for generations?
In 1945, there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors living in DP Camps (displaced persons) across Europe. They were fed and clothed by Jewish and international relief organizations. Had the world's Jewish population played this situation as the Arabs and Palestinians have, everything would look very different today.
After crew of over a dozen pro-Palestinian activists refuses to divert course away from closed naval blockade of Gaza, IDF soldiers board, commandeer ship with no resistance.
Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz oversaw the operation from the navy’s underground command center at the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv. OC Navy V.-Adm. Eliezer Maron was at sea with the forces.
The Israel Navy intercepted and commandeered a French-flagged ship called Dignity on Tuesday after it tried breaking Israel’s seablockade over the Gaza Strip.
The ship, which set sail from Greece over the weekend – while declaring Egypt as its destination – was not carrying any humanitarian aid. There were 17 passengers aboard.
American talk show host says security concerns prompted move away from the Temple Mt.; suggests event may be held at Mt. of Olives.
Conservative radio host and former Fox News commentator Glenn Beck announced that he is moving a mass rally planned for August from the Southern Wall of Jerusalem’s Old City.
On his radio show Monday, Beck said that warnings from security officials led him to fear that the event could turn violent, and possibly result in the outbreak of “World War III.”
By David Harris, AJC Executive Director
The Jerusalem Post and The Huffington Post
July 18, 2011
Abba Eban, Israel's late and legendary statesman, famously said nearly 40 years ago that "the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
He was right.
Most recently, in 2000, the Palestinians, presented with a breakthrough two-state plan by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, joined by U.S. President Bill Clinton, spurned it. Rather than offer a counter-proposal, they simply walked away, triggering a deadly new intifada in the process.
As Clinton recounts in his book, My Life, he received congratulations from Arafat three days before the American leader left office. "You are a great man," Arafat told him. "I am not a great man," Clinton replied. "I am a failure. And you made me one."
Pro-, anti-Assad residents fight in Homs after bodies of 3 gov't supporters, kidnapped last week, returned to their relatives dismembered.
BEIRUT - At least 30 people were killed over the weekend in clashes between residents in Homs, a human rights group said, the first reported factional fighting since protests against Syrian President Bashar Assad erupted in March.
Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Monday that clashes between pro- and anti-Assad residents started on Saturday afternoon after the bodies of three government supporters, kidnapped last week, were returned to their relatives dismembered.
Forwarded by Gail Winston, Middle East Analyst & Commentator
No doubt millions of Arabs are upset about freedom deficit in Arab lands. But the fact is that economics has played a decisive role.
It was seven months ago that Mohammed Bouazizi, a vegetable peddler in Tunisia, set himself and the Arab world on fire. The 26- year-old staged his suicidal protest on the steps of the local city hall after a municipal inspector took away his unlicensed vegetable cart, thus denying him the ability to feed his family of eight.
Most depictions of the Arab revolutions that followed his act have cast them as struggles for freedom and good government. These depictions miss the main cause of these political upheavals. No doubt millions of Arabs are upset about the freedom deficit in Arab lands. But the fact is that economics has played a decisive role in all of them.
69-year-old Australian "Grannies for Gaza" were set to be deported, now demonstrating in Jerusalem.
The threat of mass demonstrations by foreigners descending on Ben-Gurion Airport was mostly deflected when more than 250 activists who arrived on the socalled “Flytilla” last Friday were deported over the past week.
A handful of activists, however, squeezed through security, and spent the week attending demonstrations in the West Bank and in Jerusalem.
Two 69-year-old women, nicknamed “Grannies for Gaza,” were among those pro-Palestinian activists who successfully entered the country.
More than 60 percent of Palestinians reject a two-state solution with Israel and support the Hamas charter's call for killing Jews, according to a new poll conducted in the West Bank and Gaza.
American pollster Stanley Greenberg surveyed more than 1,000 Palestinians in conjunction with the West Bank-based Palestinian Center For Public Opinion. The poll was sponsored by the Israel Project, a nonprofit research group advocating "people-to-people peace" between Arabs and Israelis. But If the poll (which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points) is any indication, most Palestinians have little interest in compromise or peace with their Israeli neighbors.
Palestinians were asked about President Obama's statement that "there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people." Those surveyed rejected Obama's formulation by a 61-34 margin.
We call them men of letters, peace activists, democracy’s champions and human rights campaigners.
We never, ever call them extremists. The word “fanatic” couldn’t be remotely considered in reference to the sensitive, caring and agonized denizens of Israel’s political Left.
Only reputed right-wingers are maligned as extremists, fanatics, fascists, rabble-rousing inciters, enemies of democracy, lawbreakers, wreckers of peace prospects, and/or demolishers of our way of life. In fact, Israel’s Left-dominated media even decides for us which baddies to brand right-wingers.
Death occurred during arrest raid in West Bank; IDF sources stress investigation does not mean shooting of Palestinian was breach of the operation's rules of engagement. Military Police will launch a criminal investigation into the death of a Palestinian killed during an IDF-arrest operation in the West Bank on Wednesday, in line with the Military Advocate General’s new policy which requires the immediate opening of a probe.
In April, Military Advocate- General (MAG) Maj.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit announced a new policy under which Military Police will immediately open criminal investigations into the deaths of Palestinians – who are unarmed, or not immediately identified as terrorists – as part of a bid to minimize criticism of IDF action in the West Bank. IDF sources stressed on Wednesday though that the opening of the investigation did not mean the shooting of the Palestinian was a breach of the operation’s rules of engagement, and that according to an initial inquiry, the soldiers acted appropriately by opening fire after the man jumped out of a window during an arrest raid and tried to flee.
Moments earlier, a bomb had been thrown at the troops as they entered a refugee camp near Nablus. Seven terror suspects were arrested during the operation. The new MAG policy went into effect several months ago and changed the guidelines that had been in place since 2000, under which Military Police investigations were only launched after operational probes conducted by field commanders uncovered alleged wrongdoing.
Zintan, Libya (CNN) -- Libyan rebels have looted and burned homes and abused civilians, a human rights group said Wednesday.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said that, in "four towns captured by rebels in the Nafusa Mountains over the past month, rebel fighters and supporters have damaged property, burned some homes, looted from hospitals, homes, and shops, and beaten some individuals alleged to have supported government forces."
The accusations came as rebel forces inside Libya managed to retake a village from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi 's forces, and rebel leaders were in Europe meeting with NATO officials and the European Commission.
US President Barack Obama is “the most anti-Israel president in the history of the state, without any question,” John Bolton, the former US envoy to the UN and a man considering entering the presidential race against Obama, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
“If you think that this is just a misunderstanding of where the green crayon went in 1949, then think again,” Bolton said of Obama. Bolton’s comments came during a meeting he had with the Post’s editorial board.
Bolton, who is currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Fox News commentator, said that Obama bought in to what he said was the “European line” that if you make progress between Israel and the Palestinians “sweetness and light” will break out in the region, and every other problem from Iran to terrorism will be easier to solve.
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organization specializing in the Middle East directed by Jay Bushinsky, founding
Bureau Chief of CNN Jerusalem. Topics from President Barak Obama, Binyamin
Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Hizbollah and more...
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From January 2011 to the present, processions, demonstrations, and sit-in strikes have been held every Friday throughout Jordan, demanding political reforms in the country. The protests, inspired by the wave of popular uprisings and revolutions that have swept through the Arab world over recent months, have been organized and led primarily by the Islamic Movement. Leftist organizations, trade unions, and recently established youth movements, among others, have taken part in the protests.
Only Sigmund Freud could probably account for why strains of “Suicide is Painless” (the M*A*S*H theme song – in both the 1970 movie and subsequent TV series) pulsated inside my cranium each time the anti-boycott bill was being rehashed on our airwaves.
69-year-old Australian "Grannies for Gaza" were set to be deported, now demonstrating in Jerusalem.
More than 60 percent of Palestinians reject a two-state solution with Israel and support the Hamas charter's call for killing Jews, according to a new poll conducted in the West Bank and Gaza.
We call them men of letters, peace activists, democracy’s champions and human rights campaigners.
Death occurred during arrest raid in West Bank; IDF sources stress investigation does not mean shooting of Palestinian was breach of the operation's rules of engagement. Military Police will launch a criminal investigation into the death of a Palestinian killed during an IDF-arrest operation in the West Bank on Wednesday, in line with the Military Advocate General’s new policy which requires the immediate opening of a probe.
Zintan, Libya (CNN) -- Libyan rebels have looted and burned homes and abused civilians, a human rights group said Wednesday.