"The army has also struggled to control civilian gunmen, some of whom claimed to belong to the Future Movement run by Saad al Hariri, who have also fired at the camp, at times shooting at Palestinian civilians and further inflaming tensions with the Palestinians."

It is hard to tell if Hamas is more foolish than Hizbullah or vice versa. It could be worse than foolishness, of course. Saudi media are full of hostile articles against Hamas and Hamas officials still praise "the wise Saudi leadership."

Killers, Murderers, traitors, fanatics, and usurpers. I watched a live transmission of Mahmoud Abbas' speech before the PLO's Central Council (is it not cute how the PA's puppet remember the PLO when it is convenient? They learned from the master, `Arafat). It was surreal. You really have to read the text or watch it. This weak and hesitant person, Abu Mazen--a man with no popular standing outside of Tel Aviv and Washington, DC--suddenly decided to sound strong and commanding. Did he not know that his master, Mr. Bush, is at his lowest point of his presidency, and that he has only few months to rule as president before the presidential competition marginalizes him further? I kid you not that he read from a speech that must have been written by an Israeli occupation official--and it probably was. With those puppets, it is a real possibility. He sounded like commanding generals in those famous Ba`thist military court trials: his enemies (Palestinian enemies) were consistently described as: killers, murderers, traitors, etc. This is from a man who once apologized for daring to refer to Israel as "the enemy." On what is he counting? On that "security plan" being prepared "by international authorities" which he made reference to in that speech? Don't you like those vague references when he thinks that he is fooling somebody? And he even talked about reforming mosques. That sounded like an Arab reform plan to me. Is democratic reform coming to Palestine now that it has established roots in Iraq and Somalia? And he talked about the fanaticism of the enemy: he who is supported by Mubarak and the rest of Arab kings and princes and that Sultan in Oman. He dares to criticize fanaticism? He did speak about the Israeli occupation but only referred to it as a footnote. A mere footnote to the narrative of Palestinian suffering. He faulted Hamas for not convening sessions of the Palestinian parliament-under-occupation forgetting that the speaker of parliament and some 40 members are sitting in Israeli jails. Hamas spokesersons are acting as they often do: foolishly and naively. A Hamas spokesperson wrote editorials in the Washington Post and the New York Times: thinking that if only we explain our case, they then would listen to us, and treat us fairly. Hamas operates from the same premise on which that lousy Palestinian leader, `Arafat, operated on. The notion that if we present our case well, the West will change its views. Let Hamas wait, and while they wait they will be going along the same path as `Arafat. I see it clearly. They will do the same: they will read from a faxed statement from the US government in which they condemn terrorism (as defined by Israel-always) and pledge respect and loyalty for Israel. Things are bleak? Yes, of course. But we are now more than 100 years after the convening of the Zionist congress in Switzerland in 1897 and the failure of Zionism is more clear than ever. In historical terms, it will be treated as a passing phenomenon in our region. People will be saying: Ben Gurion who?

A Palestinian in Saudi Arabia receives 400 lashes for "trying to establish relations with women". The article said that he used the Bluetooth technology in his attempts.

A Saudi journalist who published the story of a woman suffering from a sexist fatwawawa is now wanted by the Saudi authorities. (thanks Haytham)

"Israel has decided to reach out to young US men by publishing images of semi-clad female former soldiers in US men's magazine, Maxim. The pictures are part of a public relations drive to improve the image of the country within the US. Maxim said it was "pleased" with the result of its collaboration with the Israeli consulate in New York, which came up with the idea." (thanks Marc)

"Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the Lebanese army's month-long siege and shelling of the north Lebanon Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, as its battle against Islamist militants continues. But one 16 year-old Palestinian student told IRIN his worst ordeal began after he escaped the camp. About 10 men he identified as soldiers and police were standing at a junction leading to the village of Muhammara, above Nahr El-Bared. "They asked to see my identity card," said the boy, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. "As soon as they saw it was blue (for Palestinian), they said 'Take him'." "They tied me up with plastic ties, pushed me to the floor and beat me with rifle butts." The beating occurred there and then, he said, then they took him to a nearby military headquarters where the treatment continued. He held out his wrists, where scars are visible, and showed a long gash below his neck. He lost part of his ear and the blows bruised him all over. The boy, sitting with his uncle in a dark room in the nearby Badawi camp with bandages over his wounded ear and above his eye, said the beating started before any questions were asked. At the headquarters, his interrogators accused him of lying "like all Palestinians". "One took out a pistol and said 'you're Fatah Al-Islam, we're going to shoot you'. I said: 'I'm not Fatah Al-Islam, I'm not anything'." So beaten and bloodied was his appearance, he said, that men who appeared to be Lebanese plainclothes army intelligence officers made the soldiers sign a form confirming that they had delivered him in that state before accepting him for interrogation. He was released about seven hours after he was apprehended." (thanks Yasmine)

"President Bush has spoken to UK PM Tony Blair about him becoming a Mid-East envoy, a White House official says." He may start his mission in Gaza. He is quite beloved there. (thanks Ali)

Those who support the Palestinians, should not forget what the Shi`ite sectarian militias in Iraq--the devotees of an obscurantist Ayatullah--have done to the Palestinians in Iraq: "Nassem was among about 1,000 Palestinian refugees living in Baghdad's Baladiyat neighbourhood on the edge of Sadr City, now a radical Shiite stronghold. He decided to flee when a Shiite "death squad" threatened him last March. "They told me that as I was Sunni Palestinian who supported Saddam Hussein, that I should get out of Baghdad or they would kill me," Nassem recalled, sitting on a worn mattress on the floor. "I asked a man to arrange fake travel papers and crossed into Syria, got to Abu Dhabi and flew to India."" (thanks Kumar)

"Please rally whoever you can, call whoever you can, bring as much attention to this as you can. I have no doubt that the military will bury me and hide the whole situation if they can. I'm in big trouble. I'm in the middle of Iraq, surrounded by people who are not on my side. Please help me. Please contact whoever you can, and tell them who I am, so I don't ‘disappear.’”" (thanks D)

Internationalization of sexism and misogyny: this is globalization. "Hooters, a US restaurant chain famous for its scantly clad, large breasted waitresses, may open this year in Dubai as it expands to the Arabic peninsula for the first time, the company's local partner said yesterday. "I am trying to secure a location to open one restaurant this year. A year from now I will have two to three potential locations," Jamal Al-Shaheen, a Kuwaiti investor, who has the franchise rights for Hooters in Dubai, told Dow Jones Newswires." (thanks Ann)

Three years later: Lebanese police investigates whether a foreign domestic worker who committed suicide had been a victim of sexual abuse.

My article in Al-Akhbar: "In Defense of Conspiracy Theory."
(I was testing Al-Akhbar with this piece; and I was pleasantly surprised that they ran it in full.)

Did you see Akram Shuhayyib on LBC-TV? He has a picture of a pensive Walid Jumblat behind him. How romantic.

Zahir `Idu (son of the late Walid `Idu) said on LBC-TV: "May God preserve Sa`d Hariri for us."

"According to the Basic Law, Abbas has violated a whole stream of Articles as well as the spirit of its checks and balances, which were designed during the Arafat era partly to limit the power of the presidency. With full US and Israel support (if not their insistence), Abbas has baldly trashed numerous provisions of the Basic Law, including:..." (thanks Naseer)

You know what amuses me? (Here, you are supposed to say: What amuses you, o wise one?) It greatly amuses me that Zionists are still shedding tears over the invasion and occupation of Kuwait: "The Kuwaitis went through a terrible invasion and looting by Iraq in 1990-1991..." You almost get the impression that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait lasted longer than Zionist occupation of Palestine.

"The chief architect of Sony's PlayStation game console stepped down Tuesday" after fierce complaints and criticisms from the Jordanian King regarding the performance of PlayStation III. (thanks Ziad)

The Lebanese sectarian Christian, right-wing, anti-Palestinian (people), anti-Syrian (people) newspaper, An-Nahar, has this picture on its front page. Yes. So much to brag about. Such courage and such bravery. Look at the scene: this Lebanese soldier should be so proud of himself: raising that Hummus flag on the rubble of a refugee camp. This is the stuff of which the Lebanese "nation" is made. People in March 14th and March 8th movements should wave their flag too. They have much to brag about. Their gallant army is bombarding a Palestinian refugee camp.

Rabi`ah Az-Zayyat of NBN-TV has been a lone courageous voice in Lebanese media willing to discuss the plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon.

"Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh crossed over to the Palestinian side of the Erez Border Crossing in the dead of the night Sunday, in order to help Palestinians flee to Israel, Channel 10 reported Tuesday." Oh, yeah. This was purely a humanitarian gesture. He just wanted to help "Palestinians flee." What kindness. Some of you will now accuse this Israeli occupation official of helping thuggish Fath collaborators. But you are so cynical. What is wrong with you? (thanks Ali)

"A group of senior Fatah officials from the West Bank recently began promoting an initiative aimed at persuading Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to remove his national security adviser and associate, Mohammed Dahlan. Jailed former commander of Fatah's Tanzim force, Marwan Barghouti, is among those urging the change. The officials, all belonging to Fatah's Revolutionary Council, are demanding Dahlan's removal due to what they perceive as his failure to engage Hamas militarily in the Gaza Strip and prevent the organization from ousting Fatah from power there." (thanks Laleh)

Do you notice that the debate about Palestine in US newspapers this week has been taking place exclusively among Zionists from Israel and US? (Once or twice you will read a quote by Dahlan lobbiest, Ziyad Asali who wants the US to wage a propaganda campaign "for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people").

USA today explains Hamas to its readers: (It said: "The tiny, crowded Gaza (now informally dubbed Hamastan) risks becoming a terrorist center and incubator -- one more blot of extremism in a region increasingly spattered with them, from Iraq to Iran to Lebanon. Although Hamas is Shiite and linked to Iran, the al- Qaeda terror group, which is Sunni, is making gains among the impoverished Gaza youth. Both share a hatred of Israel and, by extension, the United States." Now, there is this correction added to the link: "A previous version of this editorial identified Hamas as a Shiite, not Sunni, Muslim organization." (thanks Yasser)

67% of all Palestinians in the refugee camp residents in Lebanon believe that Fath-Al-Islam had received aid and support from a "Lebanese party." Of those who answered, 41% identified Hariri (Future) camp as the culprit, according to a new poll of the refugee camps in Lebanon conducted by Ash-Sharikah Ad-Duwaliyyah.

This just in. New TV reports--I am not making this up--that "the [Lebanese] Army continues to advance in Nahr Al-Barid."

"At the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, Palestinians fleeing the Hamas takeover waited to be allowed to cross through Israel to the West Bank." These are not "Palestinians fleeing"...These are Dahlan gangsters fleeing. They remind me of Israel's humiliating withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000 when the torturers of South Lebanon Army fled to Israel as soon as Israeli tanks left the area. (NYT)

"The current wave of US party programs in the Middle East, however, largely follows a multiparty method in which all legally registered parties in a country are invited to participate. Two exceptions are in Lebanon and Palestine where due to US legal restrictions, US party programs do not include Hizbullah and Hamas. Where assistance is offered to an opposition coalition in the region, as with the NDI's work in Yemen, assistance is also offered to the ruling party." What is this article and what does the Carnegie dude want to say? And does the US also offers aid to, say, leftist organizations that are opposed to US political and economic interests? This article contains so many errors, but it does not surprise me that it found a space in the Daily Star.

"How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas....All over the Middle East, it is the same. We support Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, even though he keeps warlords and drug barons in his government (and, by the way, we really are sorry about all those innocent Afghan civilians we are killing in our "war on terror" in the wastelands of Helmand province). We love Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose torturers have not yet finished with the Muslim Brotherhood politicians recently arrested outside Cairo, whose presidency received the warm support of Mrs - yes Mrs - George W Bush - and whose succession will almost certainly pass to his son, Gamal. We adore Muammar Gaddafi, the crazed dictator of Libya whose werewolves have murdered his opponents abroad, whose plot to murder King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia preceded Tony Blair's recent visit to Tripoli - Colonel Gaddafi, it should be remembered, was called a "statesman" by Jack Straw for abandoning his non-existent nuclear ambitions - and whose "democracy" is perfectly acceptable to us because he is on our side in the "war on terror". Yes, and we love King Abdullah's unconstitutional monarchy in Jordan, and all the princes and emirs of the Gulf, especially those who are paid such vast bribes by our arms companies that even Scotland Yard has to close down its investigations on the orders of our prime minister - and yes, I can indeed see why he doesn't like The Independent's coverage of what he quaintly calls "the Middle East". If only the Arabs - and the Iranians - would support our kings and shahs and princes whose sons and daughters are educated at Oxford and Harvard, how much easier the "Middle East" would be to control." Fisk can't be read on Lebanon, but can still be read on Palestine.

Papal Fatwawawas for drivers: "38. Drivers on the road should be fully aware, without dreading such a situation, that an accident may occur at any time. Despite the generally high quality of today’s roads in developed countries, it is foolish to drive “thoughtlessly” as if such dangers did not exist. Our attitude when driving should be the same as if we were using dangerous tools, and therefore being very careful." (thanks G.)

Look at the kind of insights that Fouad Ajami writes about the Middle East (and the kind of "insights" that are welcomed in the US press): "Nablus in the West Bank is no more amenable to reason than is Gaza." Can you imagine of somebody writes that "Mexico is no more amenable to reason than Brazil"? Don't get me wrong. I am still eager to read Ajami, but only when he writes about his friend Scooter Libby. (thanks Nader and Molly)

"Yet the West Bank is not Gaza in reverse. Unlike in Gaza, Israel's West Bank presence is overwhelming and, unlike Hamas, Fatah has ceased to exist as an ideologically or organizationally coherent movement. Behind the brand name lie a multitude of offshoots, fiefdoms and personal interests. Most attacks against Israel since the elections were launched by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the unruly Fatah-affiliated militias, notwithstanding Abbas's repeated calls for them to stop....Since Hamas's election in early 2006, the United States and its allies have behaved as though isolating the Islamist movement could undo its victory and that supporting Fatah politically and militarily would hasten that outcome. The wreckage of that policy is clear."

"But in siding so firmly with Mr. Abbas, the Bush administration steered into new territory in its dealings with the Palestinians, as it essentially threw its support behind the dismantling of a democratically elected government. Mr. Abbas’s decision to strip Hamas of its representation in the National Security Council to form a new emergency government has already kindled a legal battle over whether he has overstepped boundaries laid out in the Palestinian constitution...But Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a former Israeli peace negotiator, said the American move to back Mr. Abbas “looks suspiciously like there’s an effort afoot to reimpose single party rule on the Palestinian body politic.”"

"President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday sought to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, calling him a moderate voice and the only true leader of the Palestinian people." Ugly is the time when the enemies of the Palestinians decide who the leaders of the Palestinians are.

"Iraq now ranks as the world's second most unstable country, ahead of war-ravaged or poverty-stricken nations such as Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Congo, Afghanistan, Haiti and North Korea, according to the 2007 Failed States Index, issued yesterday by the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine."

Lebanese love to rank. Well, Lebanon is very well ranked here. Oh, yeah. (Click to enlarge NOW).

"Rice, asked about the legality of Abbas's actions, said: "Our view, very strongly, is that what President Abbas has done is legitimate and it is responsible and we're going to support that action." Other U.S. officials, speaking privately, said they had little concern that legal niceties were being ignored, given Hamas's power grab. "How do I put this diplomatically? Who cares?" said Ghaith al-Omari, a former Abbas aide now at the New America Foundation. "It is the politics of survival now."" (thanks Ali)

Advice from Dennis Ross: ""...Our focus now must be on increasing the chances that Fatah will win the competition..Should we be pressing Israel to provide electricity to Gaza in an open-ended fashion if Hamas is going to fire rockets into Israel?..we need to forge a consensus with Arab leaders, especially the Saudis, on investing in the non-Hamas Palestinians." (thanks Regan)

"Dahlan stands for everything the Hamas extremists hate: He took part in the secret peace negotiations between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel. He has long maintained contacts with U.S. and Israeli intelligence, placing him at the top of Hamas' death list as a collaborator and traitor to the Palestinian cause. Early this year he was asked whether he was afraid. "Forget it," he answered, "not for a second." Dahlan insisted that he stood behind his men 100 percent. "We will do everything, I repeat, everything, to protect the Fatah activists," he said at the time. But when the Islamists in Hamas began the last stage of their fratricidal war against Fatah secularists last week, there was no trace of Dahlan. He had gone abroad weeks earlier, officially to undergo knee surgery, and seemed in no hurry to return. He was in Cairo when he learned of the first casualties within Fatah. Instead of hurrying back to the Gaza Strip to lead a counteroffensive, he went into hiding in the West Bank." (thanks Diana)

"Anti-Syrian Lebanese minister Ahmad Fatfat said Friday he sued a television news anchor after she made unwitting remarks on air that he could be the next politician to be killed." (thanks Amina)

"How did we get here? The institutions created in occupied Palestine in the 1990s were shaped to bring us to this very point of collapse. The Palestinian Authority, created through negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1993, was not meant to last more than five years - just until the institutions of an independent state were built. Instead, its capacities were frozen and it was co-opted into performing the role of a security agency for the Israelis, who were still occupying Palestine by military force, and serving as a disbursement agency for the US and EU's funding of that occupation. The PA had not attained a single one of the freedoms it was meant to provide, including the most important one, the political liberty of a self-determining sovereign body."

"Iraqis assure Bush progress being made" (thanks Jamal)

""You are the terrorists’ ally in the Knesset, and I hope Hamas will deal with you and the rest,” Yisrael Beitenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman said during a heated argument with Balad Knesset Member Wasil Taha on Monday. “Don’t worry, your day will come too,” Lieberman told the Arab MK." (thanks Yasmine)

"Ryan C. Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, bluntly told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a cable dated May 31 that the embassy in Baghdad -- the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy -- lacks enough well-qualified staff members and that its security rules are too restrictive for Foreign Service officers to do their jobs."

As somebody who is neither a fan of Fath nor of Hamas, I am quite shocked to read and see Fath supporters and `Arafat proteges in the Arabic media expressing outrage over Hamas' behavior in Gaza. What kind of charade is that? Fath has been engaged in killing and torturing Palestinians since Fath came into the PA and `Arafat set up his collaborationist regime in Gaza and West Bank. You read `Arafat intellectuals in the Arabic press talking about new taboos being broken in Gaza. Taboos? Those were broken by the Dahlan gangs in the mid-1990s when Israel assigned roles (with `Arafat approval) to the collaborationist gangs to punish (to kill and torture basically) all those Palestinians who were opposed to Oslo (and that included leftist Palestinians who were opposed to Oslo). For Dahlan gangs to complain about blood in Gaza is like Mr. Bush complaining about wars around the world. And to see Yasir `Abd Rabbush speak in the Saudi media: this is the man with the least integrity in the Palestinian national movement. The joke in Lebanon was that `Abd Rabbuh (and Bassam Abu Sharif in the PFLP) were more under the control of `Arafat than under their own organizations at the time. Both had a well-earned reputation for corruption. Can `Abd Rabbuh tell us how much "the fence" outside of his house in Ramallah cost Palestinian tax payers? Just as the thuggery and corruption of the warlords in Afghanistan led to the rise of Taliban, the thuggery and corruption of Fath led to the rise of Hamas. But the most ironic scene has been tho row of Fath officials appearing in Saudi media expressing their concern or their outrage over the religious ideology of Hamas: I am sure that the secular Saudi government will have deep sympathy for those Fath officials who wrote the playbook of exploiting religion in public life.