CINA

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Very bad and sad news for all 'lovers' of Farfur, the Palestinian Mickey Mouse clone, who fought 'every day and night' against the 'Jewish occupation' of the 'Palestinian homeland' (from the Lebanese border to the Red Sea, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranian!!), for the 'true Muslim belief', etc..
    Last Friday "Farfur was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter in Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV. He was killed "by the killers of the children," she added.
   But as all maryred mujahedeen he will depart directly to Paradise, according to the Muslim religion. And here (in Paradise) as a male martyr who fought the Jihad - once again according to Islam - he will get his 72 virgins.
    But here, for my understanding, the big problem begins: WTFH the 72 virgins will do with Farfur (please remember he's a MOUSE/an animal)? I guess that even in paradise sexual "perversions" (like sex with animals..) are totally forbidden - simply said (during the time Muslims have to spend on earth such kind of sexual activities are punished by death sentence: stoning to death or "alternatively" chop into small pieces, etc.. , with a one-way ticket to HELL)..
☞ Hamas TV kills off Mickey Mouse double (Ynet/AP)

Meanwhile the "radical left", especially in the West is nearly complete quiet about the latest developments in Gaza, the "liberation from the Fatah occupation" (Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV). Except few political idiots (eeh~ sorry, but that's just the f.. reality!!). For example some Trotskyist groups like in UK the "Socialist" Worker: "The stunning military victory by the Palestinian Hamas movement.. was a strike against imperialism.."

☞ Hamas’s victory in Gaza is a blow to Bush’s plans

Or some hard-core "Stalinists" (eeh~ I know that's a struggle term of the class enemy^^!!) like the Anti-Imperialist Camp: "Gaza: popular vote implemented/Seizure of power by Hamas a step forward for the resistance.. We welcome the coming into power of Hamas.."

☞ Gaza: popular vote implemented

The Palestinian (former) "left" organisations, such as PFLP, DFLP until now published complete nothing about the recent developments in Gaza.

And in the last weeks, again and again, high ranking Hamas officials said that the "liberation of Gaza" is just the beginning for the liberation of the "entire occupied Palestine" (i.e. incl. the "zionist entity, the so-called Israel"). The final goal, according to him, is the creation of the "Unified Muslim Homeland Palestine".


Related articles etc, published in the last weeks:

☞ Interview With Hamas Co-funder Mahmoud Zahar (Der Spiegel, 6.22)
☞ 'Christians must accept Islamic rule' (Yedioth Ahronoth, 6.19)
☞ The death of the two-state solution (A. Times, 6.20)
☞ A Visit to Fatah's Torture Chamber (Der Spiegel, 6.21)
☞ The rise and rise of Hamas (A. Times, 6.30)

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SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!

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Last night Hamas declared its victory (*) in the "Battle About Gaza" (as I mentioned y'day - some hard-liners are calling it "just the first victory on the way to liberate entire Palestine").

☞ 'Only the gunmen are walking the streets'

☞ Gaza War Diary

☞ How war was turned into a brand (comment by Naomi Klein)

☞ Shin Beth&Fatah coordinate terror against Hamas.. (PIC)

Update (6.17):

☞ How Hamas turned on Palestine's 'traitors' (Observer, UK)

☞ Those who denied poll result were the real coup plotters

Today's latest developments:

Hamas calls emergency gov't illegal

The Hamas organization announced on Sunday that the Palestinian emergency government set up by President Mahmoud Abbas is illegal. (Ynet)

Abbas outlaws Hamas movement and its militias
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday outlawed the Islamic militant Hamas movement, his office said. A formal announcement was to be released shortly, said aides in Abbas' office. (AP)

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First of all: Sorry for to much stuff about Palestine, but I have been living there for a while.. And so I'm really sad/upset about the recent development there (even I'm not surprised, what's going on right now - not really..).

After Hamas' today's "victories" - they took over Gaza City, Khan Yunis, Rafah - it seems that tomorrow - possibly - the battle about the Gaza Strip will be over and, according to the propaganda of Hamas, a new Islamic State (eeh, Gaza more Islamic than before???) is born. According to informations I got just few hours ago Hamas activists are publishing leaflets like that: "That's just the beginning of the liberation of our home-land! Soon we will liberate the entire occupied Palestine! From Gaza to Ramallah, from the Red Sea to el-Quds (Jerusalem), from el-Quds to Haifa and Buhairet Tabariyya (Sea of Galilee/Yam Kinerreth).."
So if it goes after the ideas of Hamas, what we saw in the last days.. it's just the beginning (eeh, possibly they forgot to expect the IDF??!!).

Anyway.. here the latest developments:

Short before Hamas captured today in the morning Fatah's Preventive Security headquarters they announced: "We'll execute Fatah leaders" (Ynet)..

Hamas seizes intelligence service building in Gaza City (Haaretz/IL)
 
Hamas fighters captured the second of four major Fatah command centers in Gaza City on Thursday, bringing the militant group closer to their goal of complete conquest of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas gunmen planted the Islamic group's green flag on the roof of the intelligence services building shortly after taking control over the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Earlier in the day, Hamas overran the Preventive Security building, and witnesses, a doctor and Fatah officials said several Fatah fighters were shot in the head.

 
Witnesses said Hamas gunmen dragged Fatah militants from the building and shot them in the head.

The Islamist group later called on Fatah fighters to surrender another key security installation in Gaza City within the hour. The call to give up the National Security compound was broadcast on Hamas radio.

"We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not return," Islam Shahawan, a spokesman for Hamas' militia, told Hamas radio. "The era of justice and Islamic rule has arrived."

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, heralded what he called Gaza's second liberation, after Israel's 2005 evacuation of the coastal strip.

"This time it was liberated from the herds of the collaborators," he said of Fatah, which has pursued peace negotiations with Israel. "Last time, it was liberated from the herds of the settlers."

Hamas gunmen broke through Fatah defenses at the compound in Gaza City on Thursday morning. They fired rocket-propelled grenades at the compound, provoking return fire from Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' presidential guard.

The rival factions have been engaged in bloody battles since Sunday, resulting in the deaths of at least 70 people. By noon Thursday, at least eight people had been killed. Al-Jazeera TV reported early Thursday afternoon that the death toll had climbed to at least 16.

Fatah officials said seven of their fighters were shot dead in the street outside Preventive Security building. A witness, Jihad Abu Ayad, said the men were being killed before their wives and children.

"They are executing them one by one," Abu Ayad said. "They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting."

Some of the Hamas fighters kneeled down outside the building, touching their foreheads to the ground in prayer. Others led Fatah fighters out of the building, some of them shirtless or in their underwear, holding their arms in the air. Several of the Fatah men flinched as the crack of gunfire split the air.

Abbas gives Fatah order to fight back

An aide to Abbas said earlier Thursday that the Fatah leader had issued the first orders to his elite guard to strike back against Hamas fighters.

Fatah forces had previously lashed out at Abbas, saying he left them with no directions and no support in the fight. Abbas' strongman in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, had been in Cairo for medical treatment. He returned to the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday afternoon.

Numerically superior Fatah forces have been crumbling fast under the onslaught by the better-armed and better-disciplined Hamas fighters.

"There will be no dialogue with Fatah, only the sword and the rifle," Nezar Rayyan, a senior Hamas official, told Hamas radio Thursday. "God willing, we will lead the Friday prayer in the president's office, and transform the [Gaza City] security complex into a big mosque."

Before dawn Thursday, Fatah fighters abandoned positions in central Gaza, then blew them up rather than turn them over as Hamas forces advanced.

Gaza hospitals were operating without water, electricity or blood units. Even holed up inside their homes, Gazans weren't able to escape fighting that turned so many apartment buildings into battlefields.

Angered by the rout of their comrades in the Gaza fighting, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank allied to Abbas have arrested at least three dozen Hamas gunmen.

Fatah gunmen shot and wounded three Hamas activists after kidnapping them. One of the wounded was identified as a Hamas member of Ramallah's municipal council and a second as a Hamas preacher from a nearby village.

Fatah leaders said a decision was made by security commanders to crack down on Hamas in the West Bank, to prevent it from taking any positions in that territory, a Fatah stronghold.

Abbas met Thursday with the decision-making bodies of the organization and the PLO, and was to make an important announcement later, aides said.

One aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because no decision had been made, said Abbas was considering dissolving the governing coalition with Hamas.

Earlier in the week, Fatah ministers suspended their activities in the government due to the Gaza violence, but stopped short of dismantling the partnership.

The unity government was formed in March in a bid to stem a previous round of violence, and in the hopes of easing the international boycott imposed in the wake of the Hamas election victory in January 2006. Neither aim was achieved.

The fighting continued despite an agreement Wednesday night by Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas of the need to bring an end to the fighting between their respective parties.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/870763.html

Related articles/news:

☞ Fatah forces crumble in Gaza (Guardian/UK)

☞ Hamas tightens control in Gaza (al-Jazeera)

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For last Saturday the Palestinian community in Berlin organised a demonstration to mark the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation (of the "67-territories"). Usually in occasions like that several thousand of Palestinians were taking the streets of downtown Berlin. But last Sat. only a handfull people, mainly German peaceniks, some political idiots and few neo-nazis fallowed the call for the demo..
Because of the increasing hostility (*) between the "resistance" organisations in the PA territories (Gaza/West Bank) the animosity between the Palestinians in Berlin is also increasing. So it's simply impossible for them to demonstrate (for "peace in Palestine" or alternatively death missions/suicide attacks..) together anymore!

And what's new on the battle field?

First of all al-Jazeera reported today in the morning(CET): "Fatah says it is suspending participation in the three-month old unity government

until street battles in Gaza end." (GOVERNMENT? WHAT GOVERNMENT??)

Meanwhile in Gaza, according to informations, I got today, at least 60 people - mainly Fatah fighters, but ("of course") also not involved civilians - were killed in the last 72 hours, so hospital sources in Jabalia said.

And while the fighters of the "resistance" organisations Hamas and Fatah are trying to decimate the population in Gaza the militants of Islamic Jihad are continuing the rocket attacks against communities in Israel. Today in the morning they attacked a school and yesterday a factory, usually exporting goods to Gaza (one worker there: "We send them groceries and they send us rockets..")

Following some of the latest from today:

Palestinians committing war crimes, says Human Rights Watch (Ynet, IL)

American human rights organization says feuding Gaza factions violating international humanitarian law by executing captives, shooting unarmed civilians and endangering journalists

American human rights organization, Human Rights Watch accused both Hamas and Fatah of committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip in a report published Wednesday morning.

Palestinian gunmen turn hospital hallways and roofs to sniper posts, endangering patients and staff; clashes also prevent doctors, nurses, ambulances from geting to hospitals
Full Story
 
 
“These attacks by both Hamas and Fatah constitute brutal assaults on the most fundamental humanitarian principles,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch.

 
“The murder of civilians not engaged in hostilities and the willful killing of captives are war crimes, pure and simple.”

The report covered incidents involving both organizations in which innocents have been killed over the past three days, including the capture and execution of men not involved in hostilities, the storming of individuals' homes and battles in and around two Gaza hospitals, that amounted in the killing of patients, one reportedly shot at close range.

According to Human Rights Watch, all parties engaged in armed conflict are subject to international humanitarian law, which forbids deliberate harming of civilians and those who are not engaged in armed hostilities at the time.

Under international humanitarian law, all medical personnel and facilities are granted special protection, and military and civilian hospitals and medical units must be protected and respected in all circumstances.

 
The report also addressed the June 9 incident, in which four gunmen, from the al-Quds Brigades - the military wing of Islamic Jihad - and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - Fatah's military wing, used a vehicle marked with "TV" insignia to break through Israel's border fortifications around Gaza in a possible attempt to kidnap an Israeli soldier.

“Using a vehicle with press markings to carry out a military attack is a serious violation of the laws of war, and it also puts journalists at risk,” said Whitson.

 
The Palestinian Journalists Union on Sunday criticized the use by armed factions of press insignia in a statement: “The use of vehicles that carry ‘Press,’ ‘TV’ or other signs ... exposes journalists’ lives to danger, gives the Israeli occupation a pretext to target and kill journalists and restricts their ability to perform their professional and national duties. … We demand all parties stop using these methods.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3412052,00.html

Possibly the fighters have their "fun"..

..but what about the children??

Related articles, reports, etc:

☞ Gaza clashes spread from streets to hospitals (Yedioth Ahronoth, IL)

☞ Hamas on the verge of a complete conquest of the Gaza Strip (Haaretz, IL)

☞ Hamas issues Gaza arms ultimatum (al-Jazeera)

☞ Hamas Seizes Fatah Security Headquarters (AP)

☞ Gaza Sinks Into Chaos (TV-Report/video, CNN)

☞ Violence Rages in Gaza (Pictures, CNN)

Not the result of IAF!

It's just home-made (street in Rafah after the first battles)

Also a kind of related:

☞ Secret UN report condemns US for Middle East failures (Guardian)

* Samih al-Madhoun, a senior figure in the Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said after his house was attacked: "If they've burnt my house, I have burnt 20 Hamas houses last night." "A house for a house and blood for blood ... I swear to God that I will kill every member of Hamas, be they civilian or military. I will kill them all," he told a Fatah radio station.

The very latest from the battle field:

15:00 (CET)
Gaza: 2 UN workers killed in clashes
Infighting in PA continues, two United Nations employees killed in crossfire.

Hamas bombs kill 22 Fatah members (Reuters)
15:20 (CET)
12 Hamas members kidnapped in Nablus
Armed operatives of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing kidnapped 12 Hamas members, including seniors of the organization. (Ynet)

16:00 (CET)
Palestinian security forces surrender to Egypt
The al-Jazeera network has reported that dozens of members of the Palestinian Security have escaped the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Crossing and turned themselves in to Egyptian security forces.

16:50 (CET)

Hamas says southern Strip in its control
Hamas’ armed wing, Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said its members have taken control over the area along the Gaza-Egypt border. (Ynet)

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Today in the early morning (CET) a comrade called me from Jabalia (refugee camp/Gaza) and told me that the all-out (civil) war "at least now is beginning". She informed me that "the leadership of Fatah (one part in the Palestinian 'Unity Gov't') is calling all members to attack and kill Hamas (the other part of the Palestinian 'Unity Gov't') militants and politicians.."

Haniyeh's(*) kitchen after Fatah's grenade attack in the morning

About 6 hours later Hamas told the Fatah "fighters" to leave all their positiones immediately. And just one hour ago Hamas "fighters" captured several positions from Fatah threatened to step up the offensive (according to some M.E. media)..

A kind of summary of the latest developments there you can read here:

Hamas attacks Fatah security compound in

northern Gaza (Haaretz, IL)
  
Hamas, stepping up a rapidly expanding power struggle in the Gaza Strip, launched an attack Tuesday on the headquarters of the Fatah-allied security forces in northern Gaza, a key prize in the bloody conflict between the two sides.

About 200 Hamas fighters surrounded the compound, where some 500 Fatah gunmen were holed up. Hamas fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the building.

"They are attacking from all sides," said one of the officers, Khaled Awad.

Hours earlier, Hamas demanded that security forces allied to the rival Fatah movement abandon their positions, threatening to attack those who remained in their posts.

Hamas-linked radio stations said Hamas fighters had already taken control of security installations in northern and central Gaza, as well as the southern town of Khan Yunis. The claim could not be verified independently.

Also Tuesday, Hamas gunmen seized control of the hospital in Khan Yunis, making it the third medical center to come under Hamas control in two days. Gunmen traded fire at the institution.

Hamas then warned over a mosque loudspeaker that it would attack the headquarters of the Preventive Security Service in Gaza City, which is loyal to Fatah.

"The warning which we have given you to surrender has ended, and we will attack this position of Zionist collaborators, the warning said."

On Monday, the Islamist movement took over Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and another in Beit Hanun, both in the northern Strip. The move was triggered by the killing of Hamas gunmen who had arrived at the hospitals for treatment. Both hospitals saw bloody fighting on Monday.

Israel Radio reported that exchanges of fire had resumed at Shifa Hospital on Tuesday.

The factional violence in Gaza continued unabated Tuesday, as the death toll climbed to 17 in 24 hours, with an attack on the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

Hamas branded the Tuesday strike with a rocket-propelled grenade an assassination attempt. Haniyeh and his family were in the house, but unhurt, in the second attack on his home in as many days.

In Khan Yunis, Hamas controlled the roof of the European Hospital and Fatah-allied security forces took up positions nearby. The two sides traded fire. About 15 children attending a kindergarten in the compound were rushed into the main building, hospital officials said.

On Monday, gun battles also raged at a hospital in northern Gaza and the
strip's main health facility, Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Hamas sources said the organization sent armed men to the hospital for fear that fatah gunmen would try to attack Hamas wounded under treatment there.

* Attack on Haniyeh's house

Describing the attack on Haniyeh's home, his son, Abdel Salam, said an RPG hit the side of the house in the Shati refugee camp, damaging it, while the family was inside. No one was hurt, he said.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused rival Fatah of targeting Palestinian institutions to bring down Hamas. "They crossed all the red lines," he said of Fatah.

Also Tuesday, Hamas said Fatah gunmen kidnapped a member of the Hamas military wing and executed him in the street. The dead man was identified as a cousin of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader assassinated by Israel in 2004.

Earlier in the day, three women and a child were killed when Hamas militants attacked the home of a senior Fatah security official with mortars and grenades, security officials said.

The gunmen seized Hassan Abu Rabi and killed his 14-year-old son and three women in the house, hospital officials said. Also, Fatah gunmen stormed the house of a Hamas lawmaker and burned it to the ground.

The simmering violence, which exploded into bloody clashes Monday morning, turned hospitals into battle grounds and streets into arenas of public execution.

Both Hamas and Fatah, on Web sites and in text messages to activists, called for the execution of the other side's military and political leaders. Both sides described the fighting, which is turning more brutal with each day, as all-out civil war.

The fighting disrupted final exams for university and high school students. The three universities called off final exams set for Tuesday.
High schools were trying to move test centers to areas out of the range of fire, said Mohammed Abu Shkeir, the deputy minister of education.

Fatah official slain in hail of bullets

On Monday night, gunmen thought believed to be from Hamas laid siege to the house of Jamal Abu al-Jediyan, the most senior Fatah official in northern Gaza, then dragged him outside and killed him, security officials said. Medics said he was hit with 45 bullets.

Al-Jediyan was a top aide to Gaza Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan. His brother was also killed, execution-style, by two shots from close range, hospital officials said. Fatah spokesman Maher Mikdad harshly denounced the killing. "What is this, if not a war," he said, pledging revenge.

Two others were killed in battles late Monday in northern Gaza, security and hospital officials said.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, said no end was in sight. "You can see for yourself there's no taste for a cease-fire right now," he told The Associated Press by telephone, blaming Hamas.

The frustrated head of the Egyptian security delegation, Major General Burhan Hamad, who has been trying to negotiate a truce, told Palestinian TV he would call the people out onto the streets to protest if the two groups do not agree to stand down.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/870095.html

Related reports/news:
☞ Haneyya survives assassination attempt.. (PIC, Hamas "news")

☞ Abbas responsible for bloodshed in Gaza

☞ Hamas captures key Gaza positions (Guardian/UK)

☞ Hamas fighters in death ultimatum (CNN)

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..40 years of failure (Guardian/UK, 6.05)

The world was gripped by Israel's swift triumph in 1967. But today the bitter conflict with the Palestinians seems more intractable than ever

It was Moshe Dayan, the hero of Israel's 1967 victory, who set the tone for what was to follow: "We are waiting for a telephone call," the one-eyed general said disdainfully as the frontline Arab states - Egypt, Jordan and Syria - reeled from their crushing defeat. Of the Palestinians - the newly conquered population of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip - little was said at the time. But the six-day war put them back at centre stage in their conflict with Israel. They have stayed there ever since.
"Rarely has so short and localised a conflict had such prolonged, global consequences," commented the historian Michael Oren. "Seldom has the world's attention been gripped, and remained seized, by a single event and its ramifications." Israel's triumph, someone else observed wisely, was "a cursed blessing".

Perceptions have changed so much in 40 years that it is hard now to recapture the sympathy that was felt for Israel as Egypt mobilised, and residents of Tel Aviv filled sandbags. If the country's leaders talked emotively about the vulnerable "Auschwitz borders" left after their 1948 war of independence, blood-curdling Arab rhetoric bolstered the image of Israel as the underdog.

But little David, just 19 that May, was rapidly to become a lumbering Goliath. As euphoric Israelis thronged across Jordanian lines to Jerusalem's Old City and marvelled at its Jewish and Muslim holy places, a little-known guerrilla commander named Yasser Arafat fled Ramallah and Palestinians adjusted to a new reality of curfews, informers and military occupation.

And it is that occupation, now as then, that stands at the heart of the conflict between two peoples engaged in a vicious, primordial - and utterly unequal - struggle over one small land. It has taken a terrible toll.

For Palestinians, 1967 was an extension of what began in Ottoman times, before they were a nation in the modern sense, when - half a century before the Nazi Holocaust - Zionists called for "solving" the Jewish problem in "a land without a people for a people without a land". If 1948 was their first nakba (catastrophe), the June war was the next devastating instalment.

It will long be debated whether Israel missed an early opportunity for peace. But the war reignited the dormant debate about the territorial limits of Zionism, fatefully fusing religion, nationalism and security. It produced no strategy for turning military supremacy into a tool to change relations with the Arab world.

"The truth of the matter was that when the Arabs finally called, Israel's line was either busy or there was no one on the Israeli side to pick up the phone," the Israeli scholar Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote later of Dayan's laconic quip.

Israel seemed to care less about peace than territory. It insisted that what it simultaneously called the "administered territories" and "Judea and Samaria" (the Hebrew names for the West Bank) were up for negotiation. (Unlike East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights, they were never annexed.) But the creation of "facts on the ground" gradually erased the old green line border, and nowhere more completely than around Jerusalem. The result - which some call apartheid - is 450,000 Jews living with full democratic rights in 125 settlements amidst 2.5 million Arabs under illegal occupation.

The wars of 1973 and 1982 and the return of Sinai to Egypt changed nothing on that central Palestinian front. Israel's "liberal occupation" - a flattering self-image that won wide international acceptance - did not outlive the 20th anniversary of the six-day war. The first intifada - the largely peaceful "war of stones" that erupted in 1987 - did more for the Palestinians than two decades of "terrorism" or "armed struggle," reminding the world, and growing numbers of Israelis, that a settlement had to address their demands.

Yitzhak Rabin's recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) at Oslo was a historic turning-point. But Rabin and Arafat could not translate their "peace of the brave" into a workable final deal. The Islamist movement Hamas, which rejected the legitimacy of Israel even in its pre-67 borders, pioneered suicide bombings and got the Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu elected. The militarised second intifada was the disastrous result.

Netanyahu was right about one thing: the Middle East is a "tough neighbourhood," as he famously remarked. It has got a lot tougher. Today there is a generation of Palestinians who have known nothing but occupation and a generation of Israelis who have experienced only dominance and repression of the Palestinians. As the Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz pointed out, justice and occupation are not compatible. Both societies have been traumatised and brutalised.

Israel has its "separation wall," built to keep bombers away from its restaurants and shopping malls but perceived as another land grab. Palestinian workers have been replaced by Chinese and Filipinos. But its military superiority has not created the security and normality it craves. Gaza - unilaterally abandoned by Ariel Sharon - has become a vast prison, a global byword for misery, desperation and anarchy, a cruel parody of the freedom the Palestinians yearn for.

Pessimists believe too much water and blood have flown down the Jordan in these 40 years, that these changes are irreversible, that this is a land that can now be neither shared peacefully nor divided.

Optimists point out that time has not stood still. Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel, with realism if not joy. Syria (and Lebanon) will follow suit if Israel returns the Golan. March's summit in Saudi Arabia confirmed peace as the "strategic choice" of the entire Arab League, a far cry from the three noes - to peace, to recognition and to negotiation - of the Khartoum conference in September 1967. Mayhem in Iraq, jihadist fanaticism and Iranian ambitions are all part of the new geostrategic equation.

Still, the Palestinians remain at centre stage. A solution for the refugees is vital; so are the interlinked questions of Jerusalem, borders and a viable, independent state. Even Hamas claims it will settle for the pre-1967 lines, as it fires rockets - legitimate "resistance," it insists - across them. Much depends on whether it will learn to act pragmatically like the PLO before it: engagement is more likely to encourage that than isolation. Israel's acceptance as part of the Middle East is at stake.

Majorities on both sides say they want peace but few believe it is attainable. It has all been discussed countless times in the last four decades. It all still looks impossibly hard to achieve.

A kind of collection of articles/reports, incl. contributions by Olmert (Israel), Haniyeh (Palestine/Hamas), pictures and some interactive stuff you can check out here:

☞ ..six-day war, 40 years on (Guardian, incl. a lot of stuff..)

☞ Israel's Phyrric Victory (Der Spiegel/D)

☞ Yedioth Ahronoth Special (Israeli bourgeois propaganda)

☞ Haaretz Special (Israeli "left-liberal"..)

☞ Abbas sees Palestinians on brink of civil war (IHT)

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When you read following article, published in yesterday's Observer (UK), you simply can come to the conclusion that the Lebanese Army is preparing for a massacre/blood bath in Nahr el-Bared refugee camp. And meanwhile, since last night, the clashes spread to a second refugee camp, Ain el-Hilweh(*).

Ain el-Hilweh this morning,

attacked by the Lebanese Army

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Following interesting (because it's a kind of objective, in my opinion..) article about the latest developments in Venezuela was published yesterday in the German bourgeois ("To fight your enemy you must study him/her", Lenin!!^^) magazine Der Spiegel:

REMOTE CONTROL "SOCIALISM"
Chavez on Every Channel

For Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, television is the ultimate instrument of power. Now, despite every protest, he has let the license expire for RCTV, a private station that has long been critical of the government. The country's last remaining opposition channel must now fear for its future, too.

Using water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets, the police used brute force against the close to 5,000 protesters. They had gathered on Monday to protest the shutdown of private TV channel Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), which had been critical of the government. Afterwards, small groups of demonstrators engaged in skirmishes with the police in several locations in the Venezuelan capital. At least three demonstrators and one policeman were injured.

"'Socialism' of the 21st Century" in action
5.29, Caracas: Riot cops - or simply death squats(??) - against protestors

Protests also occurred in the university town of Valencia on Monday. Four students were injured. At the protest rally in Caracas, RCTV anchorman Miguel Angel Rodriguez called out: "They will not silence us!" But the new public TV channel Tves was already broadcasting on RCTV's former frequency by then.

Venezuela's new public television channel Tves went on the air at 01:50 a.m. with a weighty historical movie: "Bolivar eterno" ("Eternal Bolivar") was the title of the mammoth work on South America's liberator. The show was produced last year by the Villa del Cine foundation, created by President Hugo Chavez in order to battle the "dictatorship of Hollywood." The show was followed by a morning workout program (07:00 a.m.), a documentary film on an expedition to Greenland (09:36 a.m.) and a brief seven-minute portrait of a cattle breeder (10:30 a.m.).

Though ratings haven't been released, it seems likely fewer people tuned in than had watched the soap operas on the private RCTV channel, which previously broadcasted on Tves's frequency. Its license expired on Sunday night. The channel's stars and starlets sang the national hymn with tears in their eyes during the final minutes before closing down. Then a giant "Fin" ("The End") flickered across the screen before it went black. Shortly thereafter, Tves began broadcasting.

The Inter American Press Association (SIP) criticized the Venezuelan government's refusal to extend RCTV's license as a blow against freedom of the press. The European Union also criticized the muzzle placed on the private channel, noted for its criticism of the government.

The action taken against RCTV represents yet another step in Venezuela's shift towards authoritarianism. When Chavez was first elected in 1999, the government controlled only one TV channel and two radio stations. Today it controls four government-owned TV channels, including the international news channel Telesur, and seven radio stations.

Chavez cherishes television as an instrument of rule, and he's on the air almost daily with his own program "Aló Presidente." The "socialism of the 21st century" he wants to implement works by remote control: Zap through the channels in Caracas and you'll always see the president's face somewhere. Each of the state leader's public appearances is broadcast live on the state channels. Those who miss out on his golden words can make up for the lapse by tuning in to one of the numerous rebroadcasts.

Private Channels as Propaganda Weapons

But the private channels aren't exactly bastions of independent journalism either. The two largest channels RCTV and Globovisión are abused by their owners as political and propaganda weapons against the government. Those in Venezuela who want to inform themselves about the political situation have to tune in to CNN en Español or the BBC over the Internet. No channel that is independent and critical of both sides exists in the country. Indeed, the media are as divided as Venezuela itself: Either you're for the president or you're against him.

Chavez has settled an old score by with the blow dealt to RCTV. The channel supported a putsch against him five years ago. The tradition-rich channel, whose earnings came mainly from its telenovelas, sided with the businessmen and military officers who had planned the coup d'etat.

When Chavez returned triumphantly into the presidential palace 48 hours later, the channel's days were already numbered. While Chavez chose not to close RCTV down, he never minced his words about his decision not to renew the channel's license beyond 2007. RCTV refused to be intimidated by the threats: On the orders of Marcel Granier, the channel's director and now self-styled frontline fighter for freedom of the press, RCTV's journalists engaged in vitriolic attacks against the president every day.

Cooperation with Capitalist Media Moguls

Generally speaking, Chavez doesn't really have a problem with capitalist media moguls -- that is, as long as they're not hostile to him. Chavez has reached a kind of silent handshake agreement with discrete tycoon Gustavo Cisneros, owner of a giant media empire and one of the wealthiest men in Latin America. As part of it, Cisnero's TV channel Venevisión, the largest and most important private network in the country, spares the president from critical reporting. Millionaire friends like whiskey importer Arturo Sarmiento have also had licenses for new private channels arranged for them by Chavez. "Politics has no business on TV," says Sarmiento.

Now the opposition has only one channel left with which to wage its political battles -- the private network Globovisión. Its journalists valiantly continue their attacks on the president. They like to refer to Chavez's dark skin and lower-class origins. Class and race hatred are part of the Venezuelan propaganda war.

Globovisión's license expires in 2014. Experts doubt the license will be extended -- assuming Chavez is still in power then.

In fact the government asked the public prosecutors office on Monday to investigate the channel because it allegedly called for attempts on Chavez's life. The supposed proof consisted of images, aired by Globovisión as part of a feature, of the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, to which the song "Have faith, this doesn't end here" could be heard. "They incite the assassination of Venezuela's president," Venezuelen Information Minister William Lara said.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,485461,00.html

☞ Protest in Venezuela - pictures

☞ SOBRE LA NO CONCESIÓN A RCTV

본문

Following story about the latest development in Berlin-Kreuzberg - the city district (similar like a "gu", such as for example Mapo-gu, Jongno-gu etc in Seoul) where I'm living since 20 years (except my years in Seoul^^) - was published some days ago in the German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel:

MCDONALD'S IN ALTERNATIVE BERLIN
The French Fries are Coming - to Falafeltown!

In Berlin, of all places, a stronghold of the doner kebab, a bitter battle is raging over food culture -- a veritable clash of cuisines. The city's alternative Kreuzberg is gearing up to fight what would be the neighborhood's first McDonald's restaurant.

If anyone has the right to be worried these days in Kreuzberg, an alternative Berlin neighborhood, it's Hakan Sever. Sever, a man in his mid-30s, runs an establishment called Bistro Baghdad at the Schlesisches Tor subway station.

A doner kebab made of "pure lamb and veal" goes for €2.50 at his little restaurant, a mere two-minute walk from a small construction site that has been the cause of great controversy all across Berlin's many neighborhoods.

There isn't much to the site yet: a wooden fence surrounding an empty lot, graffiti-covered walls of abandoned buildings, a few wooden stakes in the ground and a sign, barely visible from the street, that sums it all up: McDonald's is building here.

But Sever is relaxed, almost maddeningly so. "It isn't a problem for us," he says, manning the rotating kebab maker in the Turkish fast food bistro his uncle started 24 years ago. He smiles and adds, self-confidently: "First they'd have to have our quality."

But the kebab seller seems to be the only denizen of Berlin's most alternative neighborhood who feels this laid-back about the issue. Kreuzberg enjoys a reputation for something it shares with practically only North Korea and Nepal nowadays: It's a McDonald's-free zone.

A Grassroots Movement against McDonald's

If a community group formed expressly to keep out the fast-food chain has its way, Kreuzberg will stay that way. And judging by the 100 or so local residents who attended its first meeting roughly two weeks ago, the group is already turning into a true grassroots movement -- an anti-burger movement, so to speak. The planned restaurant has become such a hot-button issue that everyone seems to be talking about it to the media. Franz Schulz, the district's mayor, is upset with the postal service, which sold the lot to McDonald's practically overnight -- and in violation of its own commitment to the city. Martin Stern, the head of the local school district, is worried about all the garbage and about the damaging effect the restaurant could have on the company that currently leases his cafeteria.

The movement opposing the new McDonald's even has its own Web site, KeinMcDoofinKreuzberg.de (NoMcStupidinKreuzberg.de), an e-mail mailing list and a high-profile political supporter, Hans-Christian Ströbele, a Green Party member of the German parliament, or Bundestag, who notes: "This is very unhealthy food."

"NO" to McDirt!!

"No McDonald's!" graffiti has already begun appearing on building walls in the neighborhood, while a MySpace page takes the anti-burger sentiment a few, more drastic steps further. It depicts a demolished restaurant with broken windowpanes and even issues a dark threat to the company's clown-like mascot, Ronald McDonald: "Look out, Ronald! Something's burning here." The tabloid Bild, sounding alarmed or alarmist, depending on one's point of view, interprets the clip as a potential terror threat.

But the clip and other voices opposed to the planned fast food restaurant are in fact sounding the alarm against a burgers-and-fries offensive in a neighborhood where culinary tastes are decidedly more Middle East than Mid-America. The battle over cuisine brewing in the neighborhood is especially ironic given Berlin's reputation as a bastion of greasy spoon fast food like the doner kebab. For the dreadlocked adolescents who while away their time sitting around Kreuzberg's Görlitz Park, and whose idea of a "Happy Meal" more likely includes humus and a water pipe, there is only one politically correct position: to resist the onslaught of the burger imperialists.

And how does the anti-burger crowd respond to the argument that Western fast food is no less healthy than the local Middle Eastern fare? Isn't falafel fried? A doner kebab delivers about 550 calories, compared to "only" 505 in a Big Mac. And wasn't there some report on the news about spoiled meat being used in doner kebabs? Who cares, they say. Super size Kreuzberg? Over our dead bodies!

The company's original plans call for the construction of one of its trademark rectangular boxes -- enough space for 100 guests and a drive-in window nestled under the familiar golden arches -- on Skalitzer Strasse, across the street from a high-school and not far from two other schools. The US-based company purchased the site from the German postal service five years ago, and local authorities have already issued a building permit. Construction could start tomorrow -- theoretically.

Heirs to the Legendary Kreuzberg Protest Culture

The anti-McDonald's community group met a second time last Wednesday evening to plan its next steps. The members of the fast food opposition movement are noticeably young. They are the heirs of the legendary Kreuzberg protest culture that was once behind the hoisting of a red flag -- absent the golden arches, of course -- on the nearby Georg von Rauch building. It was a movement that marched to the tune of a song by the band Ton-Steine-Scherben (Clay-Stones-Shards) titled "Macht Kaputt was euch kaputt macht" ("Smash the Things that are Smashing Your Life"). The band used to jam just around the corner from the current McDonald's construction site.

There is also some measure of tradition behind the clash of cuisines. In the past, protestors would toss fecal matter and plastic bags filled with paint into expensive restaurants, a practice that became far more deadly when someone decided to use a hand grenade instead in the early 1990s. But there is one big difference between the protestors then and now: While the bourgeoisie was once the target of their animosity, today's loathing of McDonald's has heavy political overtones -- especially in a neighborhood where overly zealous police activity (more...) leading up to the G-8 summit already has tensions running high.

For the Kreuzberg protestors, McDonald's is the prototype of the soulless, profit-maximizing, globalized giant corporation that exploits its workers, produces downtown trash in the form of food wrappers and containers and, by clearing rainforests and buying up the beef from vast, methane-farting herds of cattle, accelerates climate change -- not to mention the deleterious effects of fast food on an increasingly overweight German population. There is, or at least once was, some truth to all of these accusations.

But not everyone is as worried about McDonald's impact on the big picture. One couple that lives near the site is more concerned about the potential increase in traffic and the stench from the fast food joint's deep fryers.

The people at McDonald's are taking the signals from Kreuzberg seriously. Indeed, they are no strangers to opposition to their restaurants. When McDonald's first announced plans to move into the Chinese and Italian markets, local food aficionados predicted the demise of their own gastronomic cultures. Now it's Kreuzberg's turn.

For years the company has been providing consumers with detailed information about calories, ingredients and the origins of every pickle slice on its burgers. The company's main US Web site includes "testimonials" from Americans of African and Hispanic origin. Perhaps they'll add one soon about Kreuzberg's alternative culture. It wouldn't exactly be a first. McDonald's has already injected a dose of health consciousness into its menu by offering salads and yoghurt, and in England it even sells "halal" burgers -- the meat comes from animals slaughtered according to Islamic dietary rules. Capitalism is flexible.

According to Alexander Schramm, the company's German spokesman, who seeks to downplay the controversy and displays a willingness to engage in discourse, "we are interesting in talking to Mr. Ströbele and the community group." All controversy aside, McDonald's has apparently -- and wisely -- chosen to delay construction until at least after the G-8 summit.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,484170,00.html