Dahlan, o Dahlan

According to Dahlan media, Dahlan armed gangs are received with "sweets and flowers" by the Palestinian people. (thanks Electronic Ali)

It is big news when an Israeli does anything, according to the New York Times

And this Israeli player misses "Israeli" food. "“Hummus,” Casspi said, with a hard h and a long u, stressing the first syllable in a way that conveyed utter seriousness. “You don’t have that here, though.”" (thanks Mick)

Misogyny in James Bond's movies

"According to a research conducted by The Times for the 40th anniversary of the publication of Goldfinger, which featured one of the most outlandish deaths - suffocation by gold paint - bedding agent 007 is proving fatal for the sultry Bond girls. Sixteen of the 51 Bond lovers have met with a deadly end, kicked off by the murder of Jill Masterson, played by Shirley Eaton in 1964's third Bond film 'Goldfinger'. Out of all the actors, who portrayed the British superspy in the James Bond franchise, Daniel Craig has been the most toxic." (thanks Julie)

It just happens

"On 30 March this year, Sulim Yamadayev was shot dead in the car park of his Dubai apartment. A week later the Dubai police issued an international arrest warrant for a man named Adam Delemkhanov. It just happens that Mr Delemkhanov is Ramzan Kadyrov's right-hand man. In April when I went to the Grand Mosque in Grozny for Friday prayers, there he was kneeling down right beside Chechnya's president." (thanks Ibrahim)

Al-Arabiyya propaganda

The pro-Moroccan King propaganda on the TV station of the brother-in-law of King Fahd (Al-Arabiyya TV) continues. One reports claimed that the king is dubbed the "king of the poor." The title apparently is bestowed on the royal family for embezzling the wealth of the nation.

Land theft

"The West Jerusalem municipality ordered Palestinian Ali Ibrahim Salah out of his home and off his lands Thursday following a court decision that found the land belonged to the Jewish Agency." And Angry Arab Agency found that the entire land of Palestine (minus less than 10%) belongs to the Palestinian people.

Alice Walker on Gaza

"And so I have been, once again, struggling to speak about an atrocity: This time in Gaza, this time against the Palestinian people. Like most people on the planet I have been aware of the Palestinian –Israeli conflict almost my whole life. I was four years old in 1948 when, after being subjected to unspeakable cruelty by the Germans, after a “holocaust” so many future disasters would resemble; thousands of European Jews were resettled in Palestine. They settled in a land that belonged to people already living there, which did not seem to bother the British who, as in India, had occupied the land and then, on leaving it, decided they could simply put in place a partitioning of the land that would work fine for the people, strangers, Palestinians and European Jews, now forced to live together. When we witness the misery and brutality still a daily reality for millions of people in Pakistan and India, we are looking at the failure, and heartlessness, of this plan…..Houses, hospitals, factories, police stations, parliament buildings, ministries, apartment buildings, schools, went up in dust. The sight of one family in which five young daughters had been killed was seared into my consciousness. "

American Zionist Hoodlums to the rescue

"One day after an Israeli group released a 112-page booklet of soldier testimonies alleging the military had a lax open-fire policy during Israel’s 22-day January offensive in Gaza, soldiers organized by an American non-profit have recorded their own testimonies insisting the IDF did the best it could to reduce collateral damage."

Israeli standards of repression

"Member of Knesset Ahmad Tibi expressed his wonder and satisfaction at the fact that the police has yet to kill any protestor during the haredi riots in Jerusalem. This, he said "despite the fact that protestors have hurt policemen and disrupted life in the capital". He also added, "this is the restraint expected of the police"."

Saudi royal reforms that impressed Rice

"Saudi Arabia's only film festival has been cancelled, dealing a blow to hopes of an easing of clerical control over culture in a country where cinemas had been banned for almost three decades. Mamdouh Salem, one of the organisers of the Jeddah Film Festival, said yesterday: "Late last night, the governorate of Jeddah notified us of the festival's cancellation, after it received instructions from official parties. We were not told why.""

Zionist lies

"The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers. Officials encouraging the booklet's distribution include senior officers, such as Lt. Col. Tamir Shalom, the commander of the Nahshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade." (thanks Electronic Ali)

Private Palestinian lands

"Attorney General Menahem Mazuz has told police to investigate workers from the World Zionist Organization's settlement division on suspicion of knowingly allocating private Palestinian land for construction in the settlement of Ofra, Channel 2 reported on Friday." Investigations in Israel are as credible as investigation in Lebanon. Notice that no matter what Israeli politicians do (theft, embezzlement, bribery, rape, etc), they never serve time in jail.

Why the New York Times opposes Aziz in Mauritania

"Mr. Aziz has cultivated the small Islamist base, shutting down the Israeli Embassy". As if shutting down the embassy of the usurping entity was only the demand of the Islamist base when in reality the anti-normalization camp in Mauritania is led by secular Arab nationalists.

Financial Backing for NYT's favorite Coup

"Financial backing for the coup is identified by some as coming from the pharmaceutical industry, which fears Mr Zelaya's plans to produce generic drugs and distribute them cheaply to the impoverished majority in Honduras, who lack all but the most primitive health facilities. Others point to big companies in the telecommunications industry opposed to Hondutel, Honduras's state-owned provider. Parallels are being made with ITT, the US telecommunications company that offered the Nixon government funds for the successful overthrow of President Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973." (thanks Raed)

Why Zionism-is-Racism

"Legislation that Israel's Arab citizens fear could limit their freedom of speech came a step closer on Sunday to becoming law. The bill, proposed by a legislator from the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, would withhold government money from any state-supported institutions that fund activity deemed detrimental to the state. Such activity includes "rejecting Israel's existence as the state of the Jewish people" and supporting "armed struggle or terrorist acts" against Israel." (thanks Olivia)

The real Rafsanjani: the symbol of the corruption of the Iranian Revolution

Elaine Sciolino is right here: "Still, it would be wrong to say that Mr. Rafsanjani has suddenly become a proponent of justice, human rights and freedom. In the summer of 1999, after all, when the government crushed student demonstrations at Tehran University, he delivered a harsh sermon in the same place as he did on Friday. Back then, he blamed “enemies of the revolution” and “sources outside the country” for the unrest. He praised the use of force by the state. During much of his earlier eight-year presidency, many Iranians were executed, including political dissidents, drug offenders, Communists, Kurds, Bahais, even clerics. Politically, Mr. Rafsanjani was humiliated twice: in 2000 when he ran for Parliament and came in 30th and last place in Tehran (amid charges of ballot fraud in his favor), and again in 2005, when he performed dismally in his bid to regain the presidency."

I don't buy this story

"Another official, speaking not for attribution, said last month that the 85-year-old Saudi monarch had launched a tirade during Obama's long meeting in Riyadh, and that other Saudi officials had later apologized to the U.S. president for the king's behavior. The official seemed to imply that the tirade was related to Israel, and that the king may be showing his age." He may be senile but it is likely that he shows his senility by praising the US and Israel, not the reverse. (thanks FLC)

Amy Goodman corrects Howard Dean (who was championing Colonial Feminism)

"AMY GOODMAN: We just interviewed an Afghan parliamentarian, Dr. Wardak. She said the opposite. She said, yes, she agrees with you on the way women are treated, but that this is worsening the treatment, that the increased number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the huge number of troops that are coming in right now, are alienating the Afghan population." (thanks Linda)

How to decect Israeli intelligence sources in US media

In fact it is quite obvious. When you read a suspicious-sounding story on the Middle East in the US media, always look for the transliteration and corruption (often extreme) of Arabic words in the story. When you read the letter "kh" inserted where it does not belong, you can bet that an Israeli intelligence propagandist is the source of the story. Look at this one here in the Washington Post: "The three primary groups -- Asaib al-Haq, Khataib Hezbollah and the Promised Day Brigades -- emerged from the "special groups" of the Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) militia of radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr..." Now notice the word Khataib: it should be of course Kata'ib but the letter "kh" was wongly inserted thereby revealing the source of the story. (thanks Marlin)

Prince Sultan's Health

I am asked about Prince Sultan's health. I thought that you knew. The man is resting dead in his palace in Morocco surrounded by his sons and Prince Salman. Just bury the man and get it over with.

Dahlan, O Dahlan

Flash. The Abu Mazen collaborationist regime has just rescinded its decision to close down Al-Jazeera's offices in Ramallah. One-zero for AlJazeera.

Asma Al-Asad likes $800 shoes

Asma Al-Asad hearts $800 shoes. (thanks Sarah)

PS I am told by people who know that those shoes may even be more expensive.

Ayman Nur

I never really liked Ayman Nur, the Egyptian dissident (and victim of the Mubarak dictatorship). Here, he tells Al-Masri Al-Yawm that he would cancel his trip to the US if it "clashed" with the visit to the US by Husni Mubarak.

Saudi Law

This week, the Saudi government passed a law against trafficking in women. Prior to this week, it was legal for Saudis to traffic in women, and royal princes took full advantage of that permission.

Free to...beg

"Beggars have become as visible as blast walls and checkpoints in Iraqi cities. Government ministries don’t have reliable statistics, partly because those who beg fear official crackdowns on their only livelihood. It’s a problem the government has yet to tackle."

Colonial Feminism

"Afghanistan is in deplorable condition. There's no disputing that." No, there is no disputing that. In fact, Afghanistan's conditions became more deplorable due to the lousy colonialist role played by the Feminist Majority and other colonial feminist organizations which believe that war and occupation are the best way to liberate "their women."

Different

"Whether true or not, the idea that Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who died rather mysteriously in 2004, had been deliberately poisoned continues to fascinate people. It's one of those stories that just won't go away – like the "murder" of Princess Diana and the various Kennedy assassination plots." Setting aside what Qaddumi said, I don't think that the theory of Arafat's murder are as kooky as theories about Diana and Kennedy. It is a different matter altogether. (thanks Olivia)

Walid Khalidi on partition

I learned a lot from Walid Khalidi as an undergraduate at AUB. I remember when once a Husayni member of the class cited the repugnant Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Walid stopped the class and lectured to us about the protocols as a forgery and that we should never ever invoke them in a discussion of the Palestinian question. That stayed with me. His knowledge of the birth of the Palestinian question is umatched: this while I was fiercely opposed to his political orientastions at the time. He was tasked by Arafat to engage in secret negotiations with the right-wing camp in the Lebanese civil war, while we in the Left were advocating "isolating the Phalanges" as our slogan. I remember I clashed with him once (and he yelled at me although he probably does not remember that) when discussing with him my paper on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman. But what I like about Khalidi (and about Edward Said) is that they became less moderate with age. We should all become less moderate with age. Albert Hourani would always urge Walid to sit down and write a definitive history of the birth of the Palestinian problem. I really hope that he manages to do that. All this introduction is to recommend that you read this study of the Partition Plan by Walid Khalidi.

This is Zionism

"A group of Arab summer camp children were banned from entering Temple Mount in Jerusalem while wearing their camp t-shirts. When the children arrived at Temple Mount wearing their orange summer camp shirt, which read ''Al-Quds – Arab Culture Capital,' police officers told them that if they wish to enter, the shirts must come off." (thanks Layali)

The King of Pistachios and the Iran Protest Movement

The New York Times correspondent in Beirut continued to cover the Iran story from...Beirut. But there is a new twist to the NYT coverage: notice that a correspondent from London was added to the mix: "Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London, Nazila Fathi from Toronto, and independent observers from Tehran." Wow. That what I would call an extensive coverage. I mean the coverage of CNN and the New York Times have been from the start comical and offensive at the same time (by the way, why do people who appear as guests on mainstream US media feel obliged to defend the coverage of those media no matter how lousy they are in their coverage?). But this got my attention today: "Until Friday, the opposition had been mostly quiet for weeks." I mean, I read that statement and I felt dizzy. You can't even believe what they are telling you anymore. For the last few weeks, the New York Times (through its network of correspondents and its "independent observers from Tehran") has been telling us that "thousands" of demonstrators have been protesting daily against the regime. Every day there is an article, but I feel that they slipped today when they referred to Iran as being "mostly quiet for weeks". So which is which, o New York Times? Which version of the story do I believe? The New York Times of today, or the New York Times over the last few weeks--daily? Give us a final version of the truth so that we can stick to it. Yesterday, I actually watched part of the speech by the King of Pistachio and symbol of the corruption of the Islamic Revolution (and the new symbol of "reform" and "opposition" in Iran according to CNN and the New York Times, not to mention the Saudi network of King Fahd's brother-in-law, Al-Arabiyya which relies on the rejects of the Shah's regime to regale us with coverage of Iran). What struck me is the political foundations of the speech by Mr. Pistachio: he said that he had known Khomayni longer than anyone and that he alone knows what Khumayni wants. So here I ascertain that I can't ever lend my voice or hands or toes to a movement guided by the teachings of Khumayni. But here is the tricky part: I oppose the Iranian regime but I also oppose the opposition movement led by the King of Pistachio. Does that mean that I am castigating every Iranian protestor as being a tool of Rafsanjani? Not necessarily but anyone who supports or who does not speak out aginst the Rafsanjani-Mousavi clique is then complicit in the lousy movement of opposition which shares with the regime adherence to the teachings of Khumayni. I was thinking yesterday that the Iran situation is similar to the protest movement in Lebanon in the wake of Hariri's assassination: here was a genuinely popular mass movement that stood against a lousy regime. But it did not deserve support simply because it stood against a lousy regime: I stood against the Lebanese protest movement from day one because I knew its orientations from its leadership and slogans. Similarly, I have been known as an emotional supporter of the Palestinian movement but i have been opposed from the day I became alert to the Palestinian cause in my early teens to the Fath movement: which has been the biggest mass movement among the Palestinian people. Supporting a cause is one thing and supporting a mass movement within that cause is another thing. There are some mass movement that are mirror images of regimes that they oppose: does one admire the reactionary and pathetically pro-Reagan, pro-Pope mass movements of Eastern Europe that overthrew the Shah? Of course, not, at least not by my standards and the Western media were as festive and distorting (and as subservient to the US government) as they are today. What Karl Marx said about the peasants in 18th Brumaire applies to masses in many movements. Yes, there are leftists in the protests in Iran but it is important that they separate themselves from the King of Pistachio and Mousavi before they get swept away by an anti-Leftist movement, just was happened with the Tudeh party when it aligned with Khumayni or with the fake leftists of Lebanon in the March 14th movement. And did people notice that the lousy Ahmadinajad yesterday appointed a "friend of Israel" as his deputy? That did not get much publicity in the Western press.

"The Painted Lady"

"A Palestinian flag is painted on the face of a girl during a protest in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah, on July 17, 2009 against Israel's controversial separation barrier. The barrier is made up of 400 kilometres (260 miles) of concrete walls, fences and closed roads, with 87 percent located inside the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, according to UN figures. AFP PHOTO/ABBAS MOMANI (Photo credit should read ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)" (thanks Julie)

Islamists of Jordan

Of course, I am no fan of Islamists movements. But the Islamists of Jordan are more offensive and more annoying than other Islamists. And I hate it the most when the Islamists of Jordan feign adherence to strict standards of opposition to Israel. So the Islamists of Jordan has just called for the ban on the entry to Jordan on anybody who ever conspired against the Palestinian people. They made that statement while paying tributes to the Hashemite King of Jordan, whose dynasty had begun conspiring agianst Palestine and the Palestinians long before Muhammad Dahlan was born. They think that we would not notice their subservience to the Hashemite king while mouthing off their emptry rhetoric.

Descendant of the Prophet

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "Descendant of the Prophet: (And Backer of Israel)"

Look at the headline in the NYT: it says "Afghans Say" which means not as credible as when the White Man Says

"At least five Afghan civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when a United States patrol was attacked on Wednesday night and called in air support, villagers and local officials said Thursday."

Lebanese (In)Justice System

"A Lebanese court found Shaaban guilty in 1994 of shooting the diplomat while he sat in his car in front of the Jordanian Embassy in January of that year. But in 2002, a court in Jordan found that other people were responsible for the slaying and convicted them. It took seven more years for Lebanon to issue a presidential pardon required for Shaaban's release. A statement Friday from the president's office did not say why it took so long."

Mistake

"At least one pro-Israel group in the U.S. deems it a mistake to absorb the Palestinian Iraqis, who were welcomed by Saddam Hussein and regarded as loyal supporters of his regime. "We don't think that Washington should be bringing in a group of people who we know were publicly and consistently hostile to the United States and its closest ally, Israel," said Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America."

"Bush in his time was hit with a shoe"

On a comedy show on New TV, they have a new song which sounds funny in Arabic: it says that "Bush in his time was hit with a shoe"
بوش بزمانه انضرب بصرماية"

PS Can somebody send me a clip of the song from New TV? Oh, and I want that NOW.

345 Palestinian children

"There are 345 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons where physical and psychological torture are both practiced. Since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 some 7,800 boys and girls have been arrested. The number since the occupation of 1967 is in the tens of thousands."

The Iran story in the New York Times

The New York Times continues to cover the Iran story. Just look at the extensive effort: "Robert F. Worth reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto. Independent observers contributed reporting from Tehran."

PS Hamid Dabashi thinks it is a sign of a "colonized mind" to criticize the Middle East coverage of the New York Times. Beware.

Hamid Dabashi's attack on my person

Hamid Dabashi is criticizing me here. He seems focused (but very selectively and unrepresentative) on what I have been writing on my website on Iran, and manages to misunderstand what I say, or manages to distort what I say. I wrote a long article on Iran for Al-Akhbar and if Dabashi can read Arabic, I would recommend that he read it. He then said: "Ten years I spent watching every single Palestinian film I could lay my hands on before I opened my mouth and uttered a word about Palestinian cinema." Well, good for you, Hamid. Do you want a blender for watching "every single Palestinian film"? Would you like the Palestinian people to bow down in awe for that movie effort of yours? He then said: "But he has such a deeply colonised mind that he thinks nothing of us, of our will to fight imperial intervention, colonial occupation of our homelands, and domestic tyranny at one and the same time." Come on. I expect better from you, but maybe I shouldn't. And what is this with "nothing of us"? Who are "us"? It seems to me that you can't from exile pretend to be one with the Iranian masses under tyranny just as I can't from exile pretend to be one with the Arab masses under tyranny. Let us be aware of our privileges and locations and let us remember that famous dictum by Marx in the German Ideology. Are you trying for purposes of political sympathy to erase class and geographical boundaries? I can say more about the Dabashi piece but Dabashi always makes an effort to sound sophisticated and trendy (intellectually speaking). It was apparently difficult for Dabashi to understand my position: to say that the US, Saudi and other reactionary forces were involved in a conspiracy in Iran is in no way to deny the existence of a genuine and sincere movement in Iran against the oppressive regime there. In fact, I made that very argument in my long article on the subject in Al-Akhbar which Dabashi should bother to read before he makes all those generalizations about my stance on Iran. On the blog in English, of course I am more concerned with Western media representation and yet you even managed to misunderstand those, or seem hurt by my criticisms of the New York Times' and CNN's coverage of Iran, and on that we disagree. And no, I am no fan of Soroush by the way. Does that make me colonized in my mind further? Please diagnose me, o expert on leftist maladies. I deliberately wanted to address the Iran situation in Arabic to Arab audiences and part of my task was to dismiss the fashionable conspiracy theories among some Arab nationalist and Arab leftist circles that dismiss the indigenous sources of the protest movement of Iran, and many Arab leftists and Arab nationalists wrote to me in disagreement with that. Maybe if Dabashi takes some time off from watching Palestinian movies and spend more time reading what Arabs say in Arabic, he would be better informed. I don't pose as Iran expert but I comment on matters of international affairs. But I really believe that Dabashi has serious comprehension problems because he quotes me as saying: "I do believe that the majority of Iranian protesters were motivated by domestic issues and legitimate grievances against an oppressive government."" And yet he then (a few sentences later) claims that I have dismissed all the Iranian protesters as tools in the hands of an American-Saudi conspiracy. Let me try to explain it again to Dabashi in more simple terms: the two don't contradict one another. To say that there is an American plot in Iran is not to say that all the protesters in Iran are tools of a Western plot. He laments that I love to hate CNN and the New York Times and I believe that it is an obligation for a leftist (since he has appointed himself as the world authority on Leftism, Arab and otherwise) to oppose and deconstruct the media of the US corporate powers. In fact, the extensive coverage of CNN and the New York Times was actually criminal because it distorted the pictures of what is happening in Iran, and it gave a false sense of the stance of Western governments to the Iranian peoples, and some of whom who were under the false impression that the West really cares about their plight. He then again misunderstands what I had to say about Honduras which leads me to believe that Dabashi has his most difficulty when dealing with more than one variable at a time. He then said: "One simply must have dug oneself deeply and darkly, mummified inside a forgotten and hollowed grave on another planet not to have seen..." This is not related to me but there is really no need for such effort in artificially trying to construct a complex sentence when in reality it is not. Just some advice. Dabashi then cites this section that I wrote: "In his most recent posting, AbuKhalil has this to say about Iran: "For the most reliable coverage of the Iran story, I strongly recommend the New York Times. I mean, they have Michael Slackman in Cairo and Nazila Fathi in Toronto, and they have 'independent observers' in Tehran. What else do you want? If you want more, the station of King Fahd's brother-in-law (Al-Arabiya) has a correspondent in Dubai to cover Iran. And according to a report that just aired, Mousavi received 91 per cent of the vote in 'an elite neighborhood'. I kid you not. They just said that." The Iranians have no reporters, no journalists, no analysts, no pollsters, no economists, no sociologists, no political scientist, no newspaper editorials, no magazines, no blogs, and no websites? If AbuKhalil ipso facto deprives an entire nation of their defiance against tyranny, their agency in changing their own destiny?" You just don't get it. That was the point I was making: that one should not rely on those silly New York Times articles but should rely on the Iranian peoples themselves. Get it? It is difficult for me to debate him but he so easily misunderstands and he will inevitably misunderstand those words. Dabashi then ends his article by a string of cliches, but then again, that is what he does: stringing leftist sounding cliches. "A colonized mind is a colonized mind whether it is occupied by the European right or by the cliché-ridden left: it is an occupied territory, devoid of detail, devoid of substance, devoid of love, devoid of a caring intellect. It smells of aging mothballs, and it is nauseating." But here is the problem with Dabashi: he claims to be responding to Arab leftists on Iran but he has only read one piece by Azmi Bisharah (and missed what he had to say in Arabic on the subject), and he cites a few of my blog posts on the subject. Al-Akhbar is a leftist publication and has published me and others on Iran, and he has missed all of that. Also, I understand being emotional on the subject as I am on issues of political injustice but emotions don't replace arguments, even if they pose (falsely) arguments, as they do in this piece by Dabashi. (thanks Raed and twenty others)

Ablaze?

"Settlers threatened on Friday to set the West Bank city of Hebron on fire if Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak carries out a recent decision to open a street into the Jabber neighborhood."

This is Zionism

"A senior commander who briefs his subordinates upon entering Gaza and tells them they must “bring back 2,000 terrorists,” instead of defining the rules of engagement, should not be a commander in our army. The same is true for a commander who warns that “we’re going to kick their ass, to rape them, and to screw them” or for a commander who tells his soldiers “not to be bothered by moral questions; you’ll deal with that later.”" (thanks Olivia)

Mr. Barenboim: take your piano and go away

"Unlike the cancellation of Leonard Cohen's concert in Ramallah, which got a lot of press, the cancellation of conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim's visit to the West Bank city has been kept almost secret."

The lies of "Bruno"

"Abu Aita is no terrorist on the run. He's a 39-year-old father of four and a local political leader with the pro-Western Fatah Party. His Christian family owns two markets that sell groceries and alcohol in Beit Sahour, a small West Bank town next to Bethlehem." (But notice the language used in this article: it sounds as if he can't be a terrorist because his family is Christian and because he is active in the gangs of Fath). (thanks Asa)

Ilene Prusher of the Christian Science Monitor: on AlJazeera

Notice how Ilene Prusher of the Christian Science Monitor reports this: "The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Wednesday banned Al Jazeera television from operating in its territory and threatened to take legal action against the Qatar-based Arabic satellite channel because of allegations it made against President Mahmoud Abbas." Notice that the Christian Science Monitor makes it sound as if AlJazeera itself made the allegations, while in reality AlJazeera merely reported on the allegations made by Faruq Qaddumi. I remember years ago when Christian Science Monitor was a good paper. But that was long time ago. (thanks Bruce)