‘So Bush is saying that even though elections are democracy and democracy is good and powerful, it has produced unacceptable results in this case, and so the resulting Hamas government will lack the legitimacy necessary to allow the United States to deal with it or go forward in any peace process.  

Bush's double standard is clear in his diction, since he was perfectly happy to deal with Israel's Likud Party, which is dedicated to the destruction of the budding Palestinian state, and which used the Israeli military and security services for its party platform in destroying the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority throughout the early years of this century. 

As Orwell reminded us in "Animal Farm," some are more equal than others.’ 

How Do You Like Your Democracy Now, Mr. Bush?

‘The fact that Hamas does not, and will not, recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel does not mean that Hamas is not capable of negotiating a peace deal that would end the bloodshed. Hamas is prepared to negotiate a settlement based on the concept of a hudnah (truce). As far as Hamas is concerned - and that is the position of the majority of Palestinians inside as well as outside Palestine - Israel has been built on land stolen from the Palestinian people. The creation of the state was a solution to a European problem and the Palestinians are under no obligation to be the scapegoats for Europe's failure to recognise the Jews as human beings entitled to inalienable rights. Hamas, like all Palestinians, refuses to be made to pay for the criminals who perpetrated the Holocaust. However, Israel is a reality and that is why Hamas is willing to deal with that reality in a manner that is compatible with its principles.

Contrary to the claims of alarmists who see the Hamas election victory as a threat to peace, new opportunities for making peace could now emerge. The peacemaking episodes of the past were based on assumptions absolutely unacceptable to the majority of Palestinians and those who support the justice of their cause. From Oslo to the road map it was always assumed that Israel was the victim that needed to live in peace and security and that the key to this was the end of Palestinian terrorism. The new peace process that Hamas may indeed be willing to be part of should be based on the fact that the Palestinians are the victims and have been victims since Israel was created on their soil. It is not Palestinian terrorism that is the problem, but Israeli aggression.’ 

Hamas Will Make A Deal

From the new York Times

Hurt by Hamas, Americans Sue Banks in U.S.

Published: April 15, 2006
Not one but two Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up on a Jerusalem boulevard where an American college student, Jason Kirschenbaum, was strolling one night in December 2001. The blast shattered his left arm and hammered chunks of metal into his leg. But at least, he says, it left him alive.

Five months later, a suicide bomb blast hurled Gloria Kushner, a nurse, against a stand in an outdoor market, wrenching her spine. On a crowded bus, another bomber's shrapnel carved a hole in the shoulder of Sarri Singer, a youth group volunteer. Eugene Goldstein has a bullet lodged near his heart from an ambush. He does not have his son, who was killed at his side.

They are Americans who went to Israel and came home with enduring wounds after they were caught in attacks claimed by Hamas, the militant Islamic organization that took over the Palestinian government last month.

These victims of terrorism in a foreign land seek more than healing; they want justice, but lack a clear remedy. So they are trying a novel strategy: going after banks they say helped to finance Palestinian terrorism.

They are among some 50 Americans — either survivors or relatives of people killed in attacks — who have filed multimillion dollar suits in federal court in Brooklyn against three prominent international banks, Arab Bank, NatWest and Crédit Lyonnais. The suits charge that the banks helped to channel funds to Hamas, which the United States designated as a terrorist organization in 1997. Some of the suits claim that Arab Bank transferred millions of dollars in life insurance payments from a Saudi charity to families of suicide bombers, providing Hamas with a recruiting tool

Read more at the new York Times

From the BBC
Gaza under intense bombardment
By Matthew Price
BBC Jerusalem

Since the start of April, Israeli forces say they have fired more than 2,000 artillery shells into the northern Gaza Strip. [imagine: That is more than 134 shells per day, more than six an hour]

The Israeli military says this in retaliation for a growing number of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.

On a ridge just outside the Gaza Strip the dark green camouflaged weapons of the Israeli army are firing round after round. Loud booms echo across the dusty fields.

A few miles away, inside the Gaza Strip, there are tractors ploughing the fields.

Then an Israeli artillery shell whistles overhead.

There is a loud explosion as the shell hits the ground. A cloud of dust is thrown up.

The shell lands just a few metres away from a farmer. He emerges from the dust, and gets back to his work.

Israel is targeting the open areas used by Palestinian militants, but even one of the world's most modern armies makes mistakes.

Home hit

I was in Beit Lahiya a few days ago just after the latest accident.

An artillery round had crashed through the roof of a house.

Israel said Palestinian militants had fired a rocket from the area two hours earlier. Its artillery had struck back.

One boy wept as he told me the rocket had injured members of his extended family.

"About 10 were injured", he said.

Has anyone died, I asked.

"A girl, about eight years old."

read more at the BBC

__________________

Gus would like to point out that revenge is not a mistake no matter where its targetted... even as so called retaliation.

Shooting willy-nilly will solve the terrorism problem...? wow!

---------------------------

From Al Jazeera

Israeli troops kill Palestinian woman

Tuesday 02 May 2006, 10:21 Makka Time, 7:21 GMT

A Palestinian woman killed by Israeli forces inside her West Bank house was buried late on Monday in her home town.

Israeli occupation forces killed Itaf Yusuf, 45, a mother of five in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarim early on Monday, a Palestinian security source said.

Her two daughters, aged 22 and 20, were also present when the troops opened fire as they surrounded a house in pursuit of a "wanted" resistance fighter.

The soldiers had converged on the house in about 20 Jeeps, witnesses said.

Ahmad Zalat, husband of the dead woman, said: "We were sitting on the floor in our sitting room. Suddenly we heard heavy gun shots, we were terrified and moved to take shelter.

"Amid the chaos, my daughter was hit by a bullet in the leg and my wife was shot dead in the head."

Read more at Al Jazeera

-------------------
If killing innocent people is the way to peace... then the Israeli army is doing a fab job. But then the Hamas bombers are killing innocent people on their way to war... So things do not add up.
Either way, it won't solve much...

The only hope that something could be done in the middle east rested mostly with an Australian, now American, living in New York. James Wolfenson was the envoy of the quartet (the US, the UN, the Russians and the Europeans) specially deployed to solve the Palestinian problem.

The election of Hamas made his position untenable. Yet it's no so much the hard line that makes his position difficult but the determination by the quartet not to negotiate with the Hamas government and cut the supply of funds to the Palestinians... His last parting shot was a leveled report that recommended that funds would not be cut...

It is possible that Wolfenson saw that he had not been listen too and there was nothing more for him to do.

--------------------------
This from nearly a year ago when Wolfenson met Putin:

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: I would like to begin by wishing you a warm welcome to St Petersburg.

As we had discussed, after you completed your work at the World Bank you have continued to work actively, in a different but very important area for us all.

I want to say that everything you did during the years when you headed the World Bank has not been in vain. The Russian economy has felt a positive effect from cooperation with the Bank and the conditions are now in place for this cooperation to continue in the future.

We are very glad that as respected a person as yourself, who knows well the situation in the world and has done a great deal to overcome poverty in the world, has been chosen to contribute to the development of the Palestinian territories and improve the situation in the Middle East in general.

I recently visited Israel and the Middle East. I was in Cairo and in Ramallah. I must say that your appointment has been positively received everywhere. Our Palestinian colleagues were very positive about the news of your appointment. They really hope that you will use all your experience and political influence to improve the situation in the Palestinian territories.

As an active participant in the “Quartet” of mediators for achieving a settlement, Russia will provide you with the most direct assistance.

JAMES WOLFENSON (translated from Russian): Thank you for meeting with me once again. The last ten years of working with Russia have been a wonderful experience for me, especially working with you as President.

I am looking forward to when we begin work together again on the Middle East. It is a great honour for me to represent you in the “Quartet” of mediators. We were also very pleased that one of the Russian representatives was with us in Jerusalem.

I hope that we will soon be able to exchange views on the future of the Palestinian territories and that we will be able to discuss the latest events in the light of your recent visit to the Middle East.

Russia plays a very important role. This is true of this year and also next year, when you will be heading the G-8. I am therefore very much looking forward to exchanging views on these issues.
----------------------
That avenue seems so dead...

If we heard about the internal politics of the tiny patch of the globe currently occupied by Israel & Palestine, in proportion to their size, that would be an advance. If Wolfensohn hasn't been euchred by Condi Rice to score a hit for Bush, and is about to start a new career to help starving Africans, that would be good, too. 

But, at the present, all roads lead to Jerusalem. So, policy wonks who 'forget' to factor in the political complexities of that city should be asked to have another look at their calculations. 

Yes T.G. (see comments above)... That part of the world takes far more importance in the the news that its own size but then in some minds it does not at all, as long as the MP3 or the Blaster are blasting the music...

From the Independent

Six out of 10 young Americans cannot find Iraq on a map
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 03 May 2006
The US may be the world's only true superpower but global domination does not equal global knowledge. A new survey shows young Americans have what can only be described as shoddy geography skills, with six out of 10 unable to locate Iraq on a map and almost half incapable of pointing to the state of Mississippi.

Traditionally, the US has bowed to the idea of isolationism, hoping that geography in the form of vast oceans can help act as a protection from other nations. But the survey suggests that such an attitude- both culturally and in terms of interest in overseas travel - is having a woeful impact on Americans' ability to learn about the wider world...

read more at the Independent...

From the BBC

Dozens dead in new Iraq violence

At least 38 people have been killed in fresh violence in Baghdad, police say.
The bullet-riddled bodies of 14 men were recovered together in the Shaab district of the Iraqi capital.
Four Shia students were pulled from a vehicle and shot dead late on Tuesday, and about 20 bodies were found after a number of other attacks.
In nearby Falluja, at least five people were killed when a suicide bomber struck on Wednesday morning as crowds of men gathered to join the police.
Sectarian violence has soared since the bombing of a revered Shia shrine in February. The US military estimates attacks on civilians have doubled.
The identities and sectarian affiliations of the 14 bodies discovered in Shaab are as yet unknown.
But they were young men aged between 20 and 30, they were blindfolded, bound and showed signs of torture - the hallmarks, according to the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad, of a sectarian attack.

Cycle of killings

Our correspondent says that many of the victims of massacres of this type have been Sunnis, some of them picked up by death squads which the Shia-controlled interior ministry is accused of allowing to operate under its cover

read more at the BBC...

------------------------

Little Bush should hang his head in shame for the bloody mess he's unleashed... If Saddam was the butcher of Baghdad, our Dubya Bonsaiola has taken over the slaughter house with his little war and then opened the doors to anyone to come in and and help slaughter some more... Vile.

And this lot of killings did not include the attempt on one of the governors of Iraq of which 3 security guards died...

Read this spirited piece by Jaun Cole, in which he rips into Christopher Hitchens:

Cole analyses Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Persian phrasing from which the war-mongers derive "wipe Israel from the map".

Christopher Hitchens is a very busy right-wing US "journo"— in fact an opinionator like we've got here... We mention them from time to time... Christopher Hitchens does radio, print, whatever... Lotsacrap of course... Spreading the good word about our glorious president... glorifying the slaughterhouse...

Tragically on the money Gus .....

‘On one of the days when multiple car bombs drained the
blood and souls of scores in Baghdad, my closest friend wrote from there:
"Dahr, This is a very sad letter I'm writing you as a friend. My tears are
coming down due to the humiliation, suffering, frustration, thwarting defeat
and discomfiture we the Iraqi are living in. Please let people know some of the
news of what is happening to my country, my people and my religion." 

Death lurks everywhere in Iraq
today. Keeping up with the numbers of dead is impossible. A doctor working at
one of the larger hospitals in Baghdad recently called it a "camp"
because the courtyard of the hospital is constantly filled with members of the
Shia Badr militia, who continue to carry out their death squad activities of killing
Sunnis and rival Shia. "The Badr are all over the hospital, looking for
people," said the doctor. "The injured brought here sometimes die
before even reaching the ward, because the Badr are being obstacles for us. One
of the men running our morgue was killed by the Badr. My friends are warning me
to be careful, to keep my mouth shut." 

The numbers are being hidden …
and the Badr, operating out of the Ministry of Interior, which is funded by the
US, are making sure the numbers remain shrouded.’ 

"Reason for Their
Death Is Known"

’How long is a sane man expected to sit on his hands while
his enemy slaps him in the face? The Palestinian people have endured a
prolonged aggression by a pariah state, and yet the world not only expects them
to sit on their hands, the world blames them for it.’

Why
Are The Palestinians Expected To Take The Blame?