'Searching for the Truth About the USS Liberty'

'Believe It or Not in the Middle East'

'London sees biggest ever Palestine protest'

'DePaul denies tenure for controversial professor'

"Islamic militants are hardly alone in seeking to rationalize innocent deaths, says John O. Voll, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University. “Whether you are talking about leftist radicals here in the 1960s, or the apologies for civilian collateral damage in Iraq that you get from the Pentagon, the argument is that if the action is just, the collateral damage is justifiable,” he says."

"A British businessman standing by the window overlooking Hyde Park, drinks in the decadent scene, not sure if he has landed in heaven or in hell. "It was my first party with the Saudis, in the early Nineties, and it was a bit of an eye-opener," he recalls. "We'd been to the casino and I watched the princes gamble like there was no tomorrow. The money they threw around was staggering. Then we went upstairs for the party. It was shocking but fascinating." One woman told him she was paid hundreds to attend and would earn much more by sleeping with one, or more, of the visitors. "She said she would get £2,000 for spending the night with a prince," he says. "The Saudis had their favourites and liked to think they were their girlfriends in London. They don't like to admit they are paying for sex.""

"The head of the Syrian Reform Party is expected to arrive in Israel to try and dissuade officials from entering peace negotiations with Syrian President Bashar Assad."

" A video showing Lebanese soldiers cordially offering Israeli troops glasses of tea during the military offensive earlier this month has hit Israeli and Hezbollah airwaves."

anyone remember this?

'JEWISH CRITICISM OF ZIONISM'

"Over the preceding 15 years, the number of Palestinians who had left the West Bank for the east had reached 200,000. Moreover, approximately 100,000 Palestinians had left Jordan altogether. Hussein’s effort to integrate Palestinians was “a positive phenomenon from Israel’s point of view,” concluded the final position paper that emerged from that winter’s discussions. Hussein was acting to eradicate the Palestinian question, and this was an excellent reason not to take the West Bank away from him."

"UNHCR estimates there are some 1.9 million Iraqis displaced internally, and up to 2 million in neighbouring states, particularly Syria and Jordan. Many were displaced prior to 2003, but an increasing number are fleeing now. Egypt hosts an estimated Iraqi population of more than 100,000, and in 2006 Iraqis had become the leading nationality seeking asylum in Europe."

Amira Hass: Israeli occupation united the Palestinians

Also, I find it amusing that the Lebanese Army did not fire a single shot (aside from "rogue" elements that found it impossible to not defend the homeland) against the Israeli military, but did not hesitate to display and fire their "advanced" weaponry at refugee camps. "Serve tea to the occupiers, shell the camps." It seems as though they've learned from the Israelis, as have other Arab countries.

The "Fatah al-Islam" really is the Lebanese al-Qaeda. Fundamentalist movement (one of the many Sunni radical groups) that was perhaps funded by Saudi/Lebanese elements in an attempt to re-shape the sectarian scape and re-invigorate and mobilize armed footmen in the secrtarian "struggle". This is a product of Lebanese inner-conflict. I cannot help but think that, due to the group's firepower, that it is/has been backed by governmental forces, because, there is no way that Palestinian factions would supply such a group and risk to the possibility of throwing off the power balance within the camp...impossible. Also, as we have learned from recent reports (and which should have been known all along), the majority of the members are not even Palestinian. Rather, they are Lebanese (mostly), Saudi, Yemeni, Tunisian, etc. I believe that since the refugee camps have been so isolated from everything, that fundamentalist indocrination and arming of such elements by Saudi and Lebanese (and all else who conspire) has not penetrated the camps, rather, it is possible that foreign elements arrive and burrow in the camps in order to dodge certain authority/intelligence apparatuses. Nonetheless, Fatah al-Islam is by no means a legitimate Palestinian nationalist movement. I mean, they have not mentioned one word about Palestine. Doesn't anyone find this strange? And do you really think that secular or leftist elements within the camps would allow them to freely operate and arm had they not power-backing? Highly doubtful. It truly is a by-product of Lebanese sectarianism, which never abstained from dabbling into fundamentalist ideology (particularly against Hezbollah).

"A UK government file on the crisis, released from the National Archives, contains a claim that Israel itself was behind the hijacking. An unnamed contact told a British diplomat in Paris that the Israeli Secret Service, the Shin Beit, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) collaborated to seize the plane. The flight was seized shortly after it took off from Athens and was flown to Entebbe, where 98 people were held hostage, many of them Israeli citizens....He adds: "My contact said the PFLP had attracted all sorts of wild elements, some of whom had been planted by the Israelis.""

"All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings."

"Talabani and Livni spent several minutes discussing the peace process while they participated in a panel on the topic. In discussion with Talabani, Livni described the situation faced by residents of Sderot in Israel's south, who are terrorized daily by Qassam rockets fired from the nearby Gaza Strip."

I had finals, and went on vacation for three weeks, this is why I was MIA.