Select a news topic from the list below, then select a news article to read.
The Iraqi death toll hit a record high in October, with more than 3,700 people losing their lives in the ongoing violence, according to a UN report.
The majority of the 3,709 people who died were killed in sectarian attacks – nearly 200 more than in the previous record month of July.
The brunt of the violence was borne in Baghdad, while the report also noted that women were increasingly victims.
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The last hope of halting Israel’s steady ghettoization of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and calculated destruction of the Palestinian economy is the imposition of sanctions against Israel, especially the revoking of the $9 billion in U.S. loan guarantees. If we allow Israel to complete its massive $2-billion project to ring Palestinians in militarized, pod-like encampments in Gaza and the West Bank with security barriers, walls and electric fences, we will condemn Israel and the Palestinians to endless cycles of violence that could ultimately, given the mounting rage and despair that grip the Middle East, doom the Jewish state.
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Tal: “What attracted you to the eviction of Palestinian Arabs during the War of Liberation?”
Morris: “Till then everyone in Israel spoke about Arabs who had just run away in 1948, but there existed no real historical research on it. There were two conflicting propaganda versions, one Arab and another Jewish. As one who received his education in Israel, I thought I knew that the Arabs had ‘run away.’ But I knew nothing else. The Jewish generations of 1948, however, knew the truth and deliberately misrepresented it. They knew there were plenty of mass deportations, massacres and rapes…The soldiers and the officials knew, but they suppressed what they knew and were deliberately disseminating lies.”
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Following its invasion of Lebanon this summer, Israel was said to have largely lost the PR battle to Hizbullah, but armed with a major web offensive, it's fighting back
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The UN General Assembly on Friday night overwhelmingly passed a resolution
condemning the errant shelling of a Beit Hanun house which killed some 20
Palestinians.
Representatives of 156 countries voted in favor of the resolution, seven
objected and six abstained.
Voting “no” were the United States, Israel, Australia, the Marshall Islands,
Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. Abstaining were Canada, Ivory Coast, Papua New
Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
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Israel has dismissed a Middle East peace plan put forward by Spain, France and Italy.
The plan calls for a ceasefire and increased international intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
An Israeli official said parts of the plan were being discussed, but it was not being taken seriously as it was not co-ordinated with the EU or Israel.
The Spanish prime minister proposed the plan, saying the situation required urgent action by the outside world.
“We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes,” Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.
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Norway is pushing for an international meeting on cluster bombs that it hopes will lead to a worldwide treaty restricting the use of the munitions.
The move follows the failure of a United Nations conference to agree any curbs on cluster weapons.
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Israel’s liberal intellectuals lament the malaise that grips their country – but refuse to face up to the ethnicide at the heart of it
The world can look forward to more of the same. According to Weizman, the chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces, Dan Halutz, confirms that the Israeli army sees the conflict as “unresolvable”. It has “geared itself to operate within an environment saturated with conflict and within a future of permanent violence … it sees itself acting just under the threshold of international sanctions … keeping the conflict on a flame low enough for Israeli society to be able to live and prosper within it.” So here’s another function for the separation wall Israel is building: to shield Israeli society from too close a knowledge of the brutal acts their army carries out in their name.
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Q: Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the role of the ‘Israel lobby.’ Can you say a little bit about how that impacted you as president? Has it changed over time?
A: Well, I think the Israel Lobby — so-called to use your phrase, that’s not my phrase — is much stronger now and much more effective now than it was when I was in office. I felt, for instance, that we should sell F-16 airplanes to Saudi Arabia so Saudis could defend themselves against threats from Iran, and Aipac and others were adamantly against it, but we finally prevailed. And I called within three months of when I went into office for a Palestinian homeland. And I worked for the Camp David accords, which called for Israel’s political and military withdrawal from the occupied territories, and so forth, and I think that that kind of independence was also exhibited by George Bush Sr., who condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank and even withheld funds from Israel, which I never did, by the way.… That’s almost an impossibility now in the present political environment of America.
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If the Democratic leadership is ALREADY condemning this book before it is was released mid November, then it MUST be worth reading!
” The overriding problem is that, for more than a quarter century, the actions of some Israeli leaders have been in direct conflict with the official policies of the United States, the international community, and their own negotiated agreements.Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements. (pp. 207-9)”
To Order
Powells.com (Portland’s own):
http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-0743285026-0
Amazon.com (via counterpunch’s link) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743285026/counterpunchmaga